American Graffiti
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American Graffiti
''American Graffiti'' is a 1973 American coming-of-age comedy-drama film directed by George Lucas, produced by Francis Ford Coppola, written by Willard Huyck, Gloria Katz and Lucas, and starring Richard Dreyfuss, Ron Howard (billed as Ronny Howard), Paul Le Mat, Harrison Ford, Charles Martin Smith, Cindy Williams, Candy Clark, Mackenzie Phillips, Bo Hopkins, and Wolfman Jack. Suzanne Somers, Kathleen Quinlan, Debralee Scott, and Joe Spano also appear in the film. The film is the first movie to be produced by George Lucas's company Lucasfilm. Set in Modesto, California, in 1962, the film is a study of the cruising and early rock 'n' roll cultures popular among Lucas's age group at the time. Through a series of vignettes, it tells the story of a group of teenagers and their adventures over the course of a night. While Lucas was working on his first film, ''THX 1138'', Coppola asked him to write a coming-of-age film. The genesis of ''American Graffiti'' took place in ...
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Mort Drucker
Morris "Mort" Drucker (March 22, 1929 – April 9, 2020) was an American caricaturist and comics artist best known as a contributor for over five decades in '' Mad'', where he specialized in satires on the leading feature films and television series. Personal life Drucker was born in Brooklyn, New York City, with some sources listing his birth date as March 22, 1929, and others as March 29. He was the son of Sarah (Spielvogel), a homemaker, and Edward Drucker, a businessman. His family was Jewish. He attended Brooklyn's Erasmus Hall High School. There he met his future wife Barbara, whom he married shortly after her graduation. The couple moved to Long Island, living in Syosset, where they brought up two daughters, Laurie and Melanie; their family eventually expanded with three grandchildren."Man Behind the Drawing Board", ''The Adventures of Bob Hope'' 87, 1963. Career Drucker entered the comics field by assisting Bert Whitman on the Publishers-Hall newspaper comic strip ...
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Marcia Lucas
Marcia Lou Lucas (née Griffin; born October 4, 1945) * * is an American film editor and film producer. She is best known for her work editing Martin Scorsese's ''Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore'' (1973), ''Taxi Driver'' (1976), and ''New York, New York'' (1977) and her then-husband George Lucas's '' THX-1138'' (1971), ''American Graffiti'' (1973), and the ''Star Wars'' trilogy (1977–1983). She won the Academy Award for Best Film Editing in 1977 for ''Star Wars'' (1977). She was previously nominated for an Academy Award for her film editing on ''American Graffiti'' and for a BAFTA Award for Best Editing for her work on ''Taxi Driver''. After a career gap while raising her family, Lucas produced two films in the 1990s. Early life Lucas was born in Modesto, California. Her father was an Air Force officer stationed in Stockton, California, during World War II. Her parents divorced when she was two. Her mother, Mae Griffin, relocated the family to North Hollywood, California, to ...
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Joe Spano
Joseph Peter Spano (born July 7, 1946) is an American actor best known for his roles as Lt. Henry Goldblume on ''Hill Street Blues'' and FBI Special Agent Tobias C. Fornell on '' NCIS''. He also voiced the Chuck E. Cheese (at the time Chuck E. Cheese's Pizza Time Theatre) character, Pasqually the Chef, from 1977–1983. Career Spano was a member of the San Francisco improv group The Wing, and in college debuted as Paris in a production of ''Romeo and Juliet'' in 1967. In 1968, he helped found the Berkeley Repertory Theatre, appearing in its first production, and stayed with the company for ten years. He moved to Hollywood in the late 1970s, landing guest spots on TV and bit roles in ''American Graffiti'' (1973) and '' The Enforcer'' (1976). In ''Hill Street Blues'' he played Henry Goldblume during the entire seven-year run of the series, first as a detective sergeant, later as a lieutenant. Goldblume was one of Hill Street precinct captain Frank Furillo's trusted junior officers, ...
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Debralee Scott
Debralee Scott (April 2, 1953 – April 5, 2005) was an American comedic actress best known for her roles on the sitcoms ''Welcome Back, Kotter''; '' Angie''; ''Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman''; and '' Forever Fernwood''. Scott was born and raised in Elizabeth, New Jersey, and later lived in Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania, where she was a cheerleader. Career At age 22, she found fame on ''Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman'' playing Mary's sister Cathy Shumway. She appeared on the first season of the sitcom ''Welcome Back, Kotter'' as Rosalie "Hotsy" Totsy, guest-starred in an episode of '' Gibbsville'' in 1976 and played Angie's younger sister Marie Falco in the Donna Pescow situation comedy '' Angie''. Among her feature-film credits were the 1973 feature film ''American Graffiti,'' the 1974 film ''Earthquake,'' and the 1984 film ''Police Academy''. Scott was a fixture on the game-show circuit in the late 1970s and early 1980s, frequently serving as a celebrity guest on shows including ''Mat ...
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Kathleen Quinlan
Kathleen Denise Quinlan Abbott (born November 19, 1954) is an American film and television actress. She is best known for her Golden Globe-nominated performance in the 1977 film of the novel '' I Never Promised You a Rose Garden,'' and her Golden Globe and Academy Award-nominated role in the 1995 film ''Apollo 13'', along with many roles in other feature films, television movies and series, in a career spanning almost five decades. Personal life She was born in Pasadena, California, the daughter of Josephine (née Zachry), a military supply supervisor, and Robert Quinlan, a television sports director, and raised in Mill Valley, California, where she attended Tamalpais High School, studied drama, and began her acting career. She was married to artist Warren Long in 1987. She met actor Bruce Abbott on the TV movie ''Trapped'' (1989) and they married on April 12, 1994. They have one son, Tyler, who was born in 1990. Career Quinlan had an uncredited role in 1972's ''One Is a Lonely ...
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Suzanne Somers
Suzanne Marie Somers (née Mahoney; born October 16, 1946) is an American actress, author, singer, businesswoman, and health spokesperson. She appeared in the television role of Chrissy Snow on ''Three's Company'' and as Carol Foster Lambert on '' Step by Step''. Somers later became the author of a series of self-help books, including ''Ageless: The Naked Truth About Bioidentical Hormones'' (2006), about bioidentical hormone replacement therapy. She has released two autobiographies, four diet books, and a book of poetry. Somers has been criticized for her views on some medical subjects and her advocacy of the Wiley Protocol, which has been labelled as "scientifically unproven and dangerous". Her promotion of alternative cancer treatments has received criticism from the American Cancer Society. Personal life Born Suzanne Marie Mahoney in the San Francisco suburb of San Bruno, California, Somers is the third of four children in an Irish-American Catholic family. Her mother, Ma ...
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Bo Hopkins
William Mauldin "Bo" Hopkins (February 2, 1938 – May 28, 2022) Issucover/ref> was an American actor. He was known for playing supporting roles in a number of major studio films between 1969 and 1979, and appeared in many television shows and TV movies. Career Hopkins appeared in more than 100 film and television roles in a career of more than 40 years, including the major studio films ''The Wild Bunch'' (1969), ''The Bridge at Remagen'' (1969), '' The Getaway'' (1972), ''American Graffiti'' (1973), ''The Man Who Loved Cat Dancing'' (1973), ''The Killer Elite'' (1975), ''Posse'' (1975), ''A Small Town in Texas'' (1976), '' Midnight Express'' (1978), and ''More American Graffiti'' (1979). His final film, Hillbilly Elegy, was directed by his long time friend Ron Howard and released in 2020. After Hopkins' first roles in major films in the early 1970s he appeared in '' White Lightning'' (1973). Hopkins played Roy Boone. Jerry Reed and Hopkins played brothers Joe Hawkins and Tom ...
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Harrison Ford
Harrison Ford (born July 13, 1942) is an American actor. His films have grossed more than $5.4billion in North America and more than $9.3billion worldwide, making him the seventh-highest-grossing actor in North America. He is the recipient of various accolades, including the AFI Life Achievement Award and the Cecil B. DeMille Award, in addition to nominations for an Academy Award and four Golden Globe Awards. He has been a leading man in films of several genres and is regarded as an American cultural icon. Following the initial phase of his career in bit parts and supporting roles, Ford gained worldwide fame for his starring role as Han Solo in the epic space opera film '' Star Wars'' (1977), reprising the role in four sequels over the course of the next 42 years. He is also widely known for his portrayal of Indiana Jones in the titular film franchise, beginning with the action-adventure film '' Raiders of the Lost Ark'' (1981), and for playing other characters in differ ...
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Comedy-drama
Comedy drama, also known by the portmanteau ''dramedy'', is a genre of dramatic works that combines elements of comedy and drama. The modern, scripted-television examples tend to have more humorous bits than simple comic relief seen in a typical hour-long legal or medical drama, but exhibit far fewer jokes-per-minute as in a typical half-hour sitcom. In the United States Examples from United States television include: ''M*A*S*H'', ''Moonlighting'', ''The Days and Nights of Molly Dodd'', '' Northern Exposure'', '' Ally McBeal'', ''Sex and the City'', '' Desperate Housewives'' and '' Scrubs''. The term "dramedy" was coined to describe the late 1980s wave of shows, including ''The Wonder Years'', ''Hooperman'', ''Doogie Howser, M.D.'' and ''Frank's Place''. See also *List of comedy drama television series *Black comedy *Dramatic structure * Melodrama *Seriousness *Tragicomedy *Psychological drama References Comedy drama Drama Drama is the specific mode of fiction ...
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Coming-of-age Story
In genre studies, a coming-of-age story is a genre of literature, theatre, film, and video game that focuses on the growth of a protagonist from childhood to adulthood, or "coming of age". Coming-of-age stories tend to emphasize dialogue or internal monologue over action, and are often set in the past. The subjects of coming-of-age stories are typically teenagers. The ''Bildungsroman'' is a specific subgenre of coming-of-age story. The plot points of coming of age stories are usually emotional changes within the character(s) in question. ''Bildungsroman'' In literary criticism, coming-of-age novels and ''Bildungsroman'' are sometimes interchangeable, but the former is usually a wider genre. The ''Bildungsroman'' (from the German words ''Bildung'', "education", alternatively "forming" and ''Roman'', "novel") is further characterized by a number of formal, topical, and thematic features. It focuses on the psychological and moral growth of the protagonist from childhood to adulthood ...
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The Numbers (website)
The Numbers is a film industry data website that tracks box office revenue in a systematic, algorithmic way. The company also conducts research services and forecasts incomes of film projects. History The site was launched in 1997 by Bruce Nash. On March 21, 2020, the Numbers released a statement that because of movie theater closures due to the COVID-19 pandemic, "We don’t expect much box office reporting in the short term" and did not report the usual daily box office estimates due to lack of box office data from film studios. See also * Box Office Mojo Box Office Mojo is an American website that tracks box-office revenue in a systematic, algorithmic way. The site was founded in 1998 by Brandon Gray, and was bought in 2008 by IMDb IMDb (an abbreviation of Internet Movie Database) is ... * Lumiere References External links * ''The Numbers'' Bankability Index 1997 establishments in California Companies based in Beverly Hills, California Film ...
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Locarno International Film Festival
The Locarno Film Festival is an annual film festival, held every August in Locarno, Switzerland. Founded in 1946, the festival screens films in various competitive and non-competitive sections, including feature-length narrative, documentary, short, avant-garde, and retrospective programs. The Piazza Grande section is held in an open-air venue that seats 8,000 spectators. The top prize of the festival is the Golden Leopard, awarded to the best film in the International Competition. Other awards include the Leopard of Honour for career achievement, and the Prix du Public, the public choice award. History The Festival del film Locarno kicked off on 23 August 1946, at the Grand Hotel of Locarno with the screening of the movie ''O sole mio'' by Giacomo Gentilomo. The first edition was organized in less than three months with a line-up of fifteen movies, mainly American and Italian, among which was ''Rome, Open City'' directed by Roberto Rossellini, ''And Then There Were None'' dire ...
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