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American Dreamz
''American Dreamz'' is a 2006 American comedy film directed by Paul Weitz. It satirizes both popular entertainment and American politics during the second Bush administration, called a "cultural satire" by Weitz. Reviews were mixed and the film grossed just $16 million on a budget of $17 million. Plot On the morning after his re-election, US President Joseph Staton decides to read the newspaper for the first time in four years. This starts him down a slippery slope. He begins reading obsessively, reexamining his "black-and-white" view of the world in a more "gray-seeming" way, and holing up in his bedroom in his pajamas. Frightened by the President's apparent nervous breakdown, his Chief of Staff pushes him back into the spotlight, booking him as a guest judge on the television ratings juggernaut (and the President's wife's personal favorite) talent show ''American Dreamz''. America cannot seem to get enough of ''American Dreamz'', hosted by self-aggrandizing, self-loathing ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Paul Weitz (filmmaker)
Paul John Weitz (born November 19, 1965) is an American filmmaker, playwright, and actor. He is the older brother of filmmaker Chris Weitz. Together they worked on the comedy films ''American Pie (film), American Pie'' and ''About a Boy (film), About a Boy''; for the latter, they were both nominated for the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay. Weitz is also a writer, executive producer, and director of the Amazon Prime Video web series ''Mozart in the Jungle''. Early life Weitz was born in New York City, the son of actress Susan Kohner and Berlin-born novelist/menswear designer John Weitz. His brother is filmmaker Chris Weitz. Weitz is the grandson of Czech people, Czech-born agent and producer Paul Kohner and actress Lupita Tovar on his maternal side. Tovar, who was from Oaxaca, Oaxaca, Oaxaca, Mexico, starred in ''Santa (1932 film), Santa'', Mexico's first talkie, in 1932, as well as a Mexican version of ''Dracula (1931 Spanish-language film), Drácula''. Weitz' paternal ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Politics
Politics (from , ) is the set of activities that are associated with making decisions in groups, or other forms of power relations among individuals, such as the distribution of resources or status. The branch of social science that studies politics and government is referred to as political science. It may be used positively in the context of a "political solution" which is compromising and nonviolent, or descriptively as "the art or science of government", but also often carries a negative connotation.. The concept has been defined in various ways, and different approaches have fundamentally differing views on whether it should be used extensively or limitedly, empirically or normatively, and on whether conflict or co-operation is more essential to it. A variety of methods are deployed in politics, which include promoting one's own political views among people, negotiation with other political subjects, making laws, and exercising internal and external force, including wa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Judy Greer
Judith Therese Evans (born July 20, 1975), known professionally as Judy Greer, is an American actress. She is primarily known as a character actress, who has appeared in a wide variety of films. She first rose to prominence in a variety of supporting roles in the films '' Jawbreaker'' (1999), ''What Women Want'' (2000), '' 13 Going on 30'' (2004), '' Elizabethtown'' (2005), ''27 Dresses'' (2008), and ''Love & Other Drugs'' (2010). Greer also expanded into other genres as a character actress with roles in such films as ''Adaptation'' (2002), '' The Village'' (2004), ''The Descendants'' (2011), ''Jeff, Who Lives at Home'' (2011), ''Carrie'' (2013), '' Men, Women & Children'' (2014), ''Grandma'' (2015), ''Lemon'' (2017), ''Where'd You Go, Bernadette'' (2019), '' Uncle Frank'' (2020) and ''Hollywood Stargirl'' (2022). She's also appeared in blockbusters such as the ''Planet of the Apes'' reboot series (2014–2017), ''Jurassic World'' (2015), the 2018 and 2021 ''Halloween'' films a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Seth Meyers
Seth Adam Meyers (born December 28, 1973) is an American comedian, writer, producer, actor, and television host. He hosts ''Late Night with Seth Meyers'', a late-night talk show on NBC. Prior to that, he was a cast member and head writer for NBC's ''Saturday Night Live'' (2001–2014) and hosted the show's news parody segment, ''Weekend Update''. Early life and education Meyers was born in Evanston, Illinois, and was raised in Okemos, Michigan, from four to ten years of age, and Bedford, New Hampshire, after that. Meyers's mother, Hilary Claire ( Olson), was a French teacher, and his father, Laurence Meyers Jr., worked in finance. His younger brother, Josh Meyers, is an actor. His paternal grandfather was an Ashkenazi Jewish emigrant from Kalvarija near Marijampolė in modern-day Lithuania.Stated on ''Finding Your Roots'', February 19, 2019 The rest of his ancestry is Czech, Austrian, Croatian (from his paternal grandmother), Swedish (from his maternal grandfather), English ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sam Golzari
Sam Golzari ( fa, سام گلزاری; born 12 July 1979) is a British actor of Iranian descent active in the United States. He is known for his debut role in ''American Dreamz.'' Golzari was born in Hammersmith, London, England, to parents of Persian origin. He received his BA from UCLA in 2003, where he worked in the Conservatory Acting Program. Golzari got his start at the age of four as a Michael Jackson impersonator. Besides his work at UCLA, Golzari has also been a lab member of the Latino Theater Company under Jose Luis Valenzuela. Golzari's plans were to stay in the theater, but while at college he started working on student films. It was there that he began to find a love for the craft of filmmaking. His short film ''The Break'' won an award for the "best ensemble cast" at the Method Fest film festival. After this, he got his TV debut when the Showtime network aired his film ''The Invisible Man'', directed by UCLA film student Angela Mrema. After college graduation, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Grease (musical)
''Grease'' is a musical with music, lyrics, and a book by Jim Jacobs and Warren Casey. Named after the 1950s United States working-class youth subculture known as greasers, the musical is set in 1959 at fictional Rydell High School (based on Taft High School in Chicago, Illinois and named after rock singer Bobby Rydell) and follows ten working-class teenagers as they navigate the complexities of peer pressure, politics, personal core values, and love.Woulfe, Molly" 'Grease' has deep, dark Chicago roots"''NW Times'', January 2, 2009, retrieved January 10, 2017 The score borrows heavily from the sounds of early rock and roll. In its original production in Chicago, ''Grease'' was a raunchy, raw, aggressive, vulgar show. Subsequent productions toned down the more risqué content. The show mentions social issues such as teenage pregnancy, peer pressure, and gang violence; its themes include love, friendship, teenage rebellion, sexual exploration during adolescence, and, to some ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Suicide Attack
A suicide attack is any violent Strike (attack), attack, usually entailing the attacker detonating an explosive, where the attacker has suicide, accepted their own death as a direct result of the attacking method used. Suicide attacks have occurred throughout history, often as part of a military campaign (as with the Japanese ''kamikaze'' pilots of 1944–1945 during World War II), and more recently as part of terrorism, terrorist campaigns (such as the September 11 attacks in 2001). While few, if any, successful suicide attacks took place anywhere in the world from 1945 until 1980, between 1981 and September 2015 a total of 4,814 suicide attacks occurred in over 40 countries, killing over 45,000 people. During this time the global rate of such attacks grew from an average of three a year in the 1980s to about one a month in the 1990s to almost one a week from 2001 to 2003 to approximately one a day from 2003 to 2015. Suicide attacks tend to be more deadly and destructive t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Effeminacy
Effeminacy is the embodiment of traits and/or expressions in those who are not of the female sex (e.g. boys and men) that are often associated with what is generally perceived to be feminine behaviours, mannerisms, styles, or gender roles, rather than with traditionally masculine behaviours, mannerisms, styles or roles. Effeminacy and other gender expressions are independent of a person's sexuality or sexual identity and are displayed by people of all sexualities and none. However, effeminacy is seen in some societies as something embodied by some in the homosexual male community. The embodiment of effeminacy by people in some societies has resulted in prejudice, discrimination, antagonism and insults towards those who display it. History Terminology ''Effeminate'' comes from Latin '' effeminātus'', from the factitive prefix ''ex-'' (from ''ex'' 'out') and ''femina'' 'woman'; it means 'made feminine, emasculated, weakened'. Another Latin term is ''mollities'', meaning 'soft ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Southern California
Southern California (commonly shortened to SoCal) is a geographic and Cultural area, cultural region that generally comprises the southern portion of the U.S. state of California. It includes the Los Angeles metropolitan area, the second most populous urban agglomeration in the United States. The region generally contains ten of California's 58 counties: Imperial County, California, Imperial, Kern County, California, Kern, Los Angeles County, California, Los Angeles, Orange County, California, Orange, Riverside County, California, Riverside, San Bernardino County, California, San Bernardino, San Diego County, California, San Diego, Santa Barbara County, California, Santa Barbara, San Luis Obispo County, California, San Luis Obispo and Ventura County, California, Ventura counties. The Colorado Desert and the Colorado River are located on Southern California's eastern border with Arizona, and San Bernardino County shares a border with Nevada to the northeast. Southern California's ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jihadist
Jihadism is a neologism which is used in reference to "militant Islamic movements that are perceived as existentially threatening to the West" and "rooted in political Islam."Compare: Appearing earlier in the Pakistani and Indian media, Western journalists adopted the term in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks The September 11 attacks, commonly known as 9/11, were four coordinated suicide terrorist attacks carried out by al-Qaeda against the United States on Tuesday, September 11, 2001. That morning, nineteen terrorists hijacked four commercia ... of 2001. Since then, it has been applied to various insurgent Islamic extremism, Islamic extremist, militant Islamism, Islamist, and Islamic terrorism, terrorist individuals and organizations whose ideologies are based on the Islamic notion of ''jihad''. It has also been applied to various Islamic empires in history, such as the Arab Umayyad Caliphate and the Ottoman empire, who extensively campaigned against non- ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Talent Show
A talent show is an event in which participants perform the arts of singing, dancing, lip-syncing, acting, martial arts, playing an instrument, poetry, comedy or other activities to showcase skills. Many talent shows are performances rather than contests, but some are actual contests. In the instance of a contest, participants may be motivated to perform for a reward, trophy, or prize of some kind. For example, a high school might not have many students with any interest in performing in front of the student body for the sole purpose of performing alone and may offer different prizes as an incentive for these students to participate in the contest. Media Since the late 1940s, talent shows have become a notable genre of reality television, such as ''Doorway to Fame'' (1947), ''The Original Amateur Hour'' (1948), ''Hollywood Screen Test'' (1948), '' Opportunity Knocks'' (1949), '' Chance of a Lifetime'' (1952), ''NHK Nodo Jiman'' (1953), ''New Faces'' (1963), ''Notun Kuri'' ( ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
