Christian Stavrakis
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Christian Stavrakis
Christian Constantine Stavrakis (born June 6, 1971) is an American fine artist, filmmaker and writer. An authority on the works of filmmaker George A. Romero, Stavrakis sculpted the bronze bust of Romero which was installed at the Monroeville Mall near Pittsburgh, PA on the 40th anniversary of the filming of ''Dawn of the Dead''. He also appears on several DVD commentary tracks as a historian and moderator, notably the 1999 BMG release of ''Dawn of the Dead'' and the 2000 release of ''Knightriders'' by Anchor Bay Entertainment. In the latter, Romero himself states that "Chris has an encyclopedic knowledge of my films." Biography Stavrakis's older brother Taso was studying at Carnegie-Mellon University when he met Tom Savini, who was teaching a stage makeup course. When Savini was approached by Romero to create makeup effects for his long-awaited sequel to '' Night of the Living Dead'', he hired Taso to assist with stunts and makeup, which led to their working together on '' ...
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Pittsburgh
Pittsburgh ( ) is a city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, United States, and the county seat of Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, Allegheny County. It is the most populous city in both Allegheny County and Western Pennsylvania, the List of municipalities in Pennsylvania#Municipalities, second-most populous city in Pennsylvania behind Philadelphia, and the List of United States cities by population, 68th-largest city in the U.S. with a population of 302,971 as of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census. The city anchors the Pittsburgh metropolitan area of Western Pennsylvania; its population of 2.37 million is the largest in both the Ohio Valley and Appalachia, the Pennsylvania metropolitan areas, second-largest in Pennsylvania, and the List of metropolitan statistical areas, 27th-largest in the U.S. It is the principal city of the greater Pittsburgh–New Castle–Weirton combined statistical area that extends into Ohio and West Virginia. Pitts ...
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Lovely Molly
''Lovely Molly'' is a 2011 American supernatural horror film directed by Eduardo Sánchez. The film initially had a working title of ''The Possession'' but was later changed to ''Lovely Molly''. The plot follows newlyweds Molly and Tim as they move into the bride's childhood home, where painful memories and a powerful demon soon begin to haunt Molly. Plot The film opens with a video recording of Molly apologizing for her actions and attempting to slit her throat with a knife. The date is October 16, 2011, and much of the film is revealed in flashback. Tim (Johnny Lewis) and Molly get married and move into Molly's childhood home. Strange happenings in the house soon plague the couple. Tim has to leave town for a few days, leaving Molly, a recovering heroin addict, alone. The film reveals a hidden underground shrine in the shed. In her childhood room, Molly hears crying in her closet. Upon Tim's return, he discovers Molly naked and staring blankly into a corner of the bedroom, a ...
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Smithsonian (magazine)
''Smithsonian'' is the official journal published by the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C. The first issue was published in 1970. History The history of ''Smithsonian'' began when Edward K. Thompson, the retired editor of ''Life (magazine), Life'' magazine, was asked by the then-Secretary of the Smithsonian, S. Dillon Ripley, to produce a magazine "about things in which the Smithsonian [Institution] is interested, might be interested or ought to be interested." Thompson would later recall that his philosophy for the new magazine was that it "would stir curiosity in already receptive minds. It would deal with history as it is relevant to the present. It would present art, since true art is never dated, in the richest possible reproduction. It would peer into the future via coverage of social progress and of science and technology. Technical matters would be digested and made intelligible by skilled writers who would stimulate readers to reach upward while not turning the ...
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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 commercial airliners scheduled to travel from the Northeastern United States to California. The hijackers crashed the first two planes into the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center in New York City, and the third plane into the Pentagon (the headquarters of the United States military) in Arlington County, Virginia. The fourth plane was intended to hit a federal government building in Washington, D.C., but crashed in a field following a passenger revolt. The attacks killed nearly 3,000 people and instigated the war on terror. The first impact was that of American Airlines Flight 11. It was crashed into the North Tower of the World Trade Center complex in Lower Manhattan at 8:46 a.m. Seventeen minutes later, at 9:03, the World Trade Center’s S ...
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Assistant Director
The role of an assistant director on a film includes tracking daily progress against the filming production schedule, arranging logistics, preparing daily call sheets, checking cast and crew, and maintaining order on the set. They also have to take care of the health and safety of the crew.IMDB Glossary, retrieved 2015-02-10 The role of an assistant to the film director is often confused with assistant director but the responsibilities are entirely different. The assistant to the film director manages all of the directors in development, pre-production, while on set, through post-production and is often involved in both personal management as well as creative aspects of the production process. Historically, assistant directing was a stepping stone to directing work; Alfred Hitchcock was an AD, as well as Akira Kurosawa. This was when the role was more general and encompassed all aspects of filmmaking such as set design and script editing. This transition into film directing is no ...
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Goblin (band)
Goblin (also Back to the Goblin, New Goblin, Goblin Rebirth, the Goblin Keys, the Goblins and Claudio Simonetti's Goblin) is an Italian progressive rock band known for their film scores. They frequently collaborate with Dario Argento, most notably creating the scores for ''Profondo Rosso'' in 1975 and ''Suspiria'' in 1977. Because their collaborator Dario Argento specializes in creating horror, suspense and slasher/giallo genre movies, scores made by Goblin in these movies often had eerie and ominous tones. CD re-releases of their scores have performed well, especially in Germany and Japan. Goblin returned with a series of live concerts in Europe in 2009 and in North America in 2013. Initially recording as Cherry Five (they had done some live shows as Oliver), their early work spawned one eponymous progressive rock record, and they were then called in to compose the score for ''Profondo Rosso''. The band changed their name to Goblin, rewriting most of the score, originally writt ...
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De Wolfe Music
De Wolfe Limited (previously known as Music de Wolfe, often referred to as De Wolfe Music) is a British music production company, recognised as the originator of what has become known as library music. De Wolfe Music was established by Meyer de Wolfe in 1909 and began its recorded library in 1927 with the advent of 'Talkies'. Music from the library has been used in a number of well-known productions, including ''Monty Python'', ''Emmanuelle'', '' Dawn of the Dead'', '' American Gangster'', ''The Simpsons Movie'', ''Death Wish'', ''Brokeback Mountain'', '' EastEnders'', ''Kavanagh QC'', ''The Royle Family'', ''Spitting Image'', ''Top Gear'' and ''Doctor Who''. Well known theme tunes include ''Vision On'', ''Van der Valk'', ''Roobarb'' and ''The NFL Today''. In recent years has been sampled by the likes of Mark Ronson and Lily Allen, Peshay, Swing Out Sister, Ja Rule, Gorillaz, Unkle and Beyoncé. De Wolfe built and owns Angel Recording Studios, a recording and mixing complex situa ...
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Discovery Channel
Discovery Channel (known as The Discovery Channel from 1985 to 1995, and often referred to as simply Discovery) is an American cable channel owned by Warner Bros. Discovery, a publicly traded company run by CEO David Zaslav. , Discovery Channel was the third most widely distributed subscription channel in the United States, behind now-sibling channel TBS and The Weather Channel; it is available in 409 million households worldwide, through its U.S. flagship channel and its various owned or licensed television channels internationally. It initially provided documentary television programming focused primarily on popular science, technology, and history, but by the 2010s had expanded into reality television and pseudo-scientific entertainment. , Discovery Channel is available to approximately 88,589,000 pay television households in the United States. History John Hendricks founded the channel and its parent company, Cable Educational Network Inc., in 1982. Several investo ...
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Wonder Boys (film)
''Wonder Boys'' is a 2000 comedy-drama film directed by Curtis Hanson and written by Steve Kloves. An international co-production between the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, and Japan, it is based on the 1995 novel of the same name by Michael Chabon. Michael Douglas stars as professor Grady Tripp, a novelist who teaches creative writing at a university but has been unable to finish his second novel. The film was shot in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, including locations at Carnegie Mellon University, Chatham University, University of Pittsburgh, and Shady Side Academy. Other Pennsylvania locations included Beaver, Rochester and Rostraver Township. After the film failed at the box office, there was a second attempt to find an audience with a new marketing campaign and a November 8, 2000, re-release, which was also a financial disappointment. Despite this, the film received three Academy Award nominations at the 73rd Academy Awards, including Best Adapted Screenplay, wi ...
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Sudden Death (1995 Film)
''Sudden Death'' is a 1995 American action-thriller film directed by Peter Hyams and starring Jean-Claude Van Damme, Powers Boothe, and Dorian Harewood. The film was released in the United States on December 22, 1995. Set at the Pittsburgh Civic Arena, the film was written by Gene Quintano, based on a story by Karen Elise Baldwin, the wife of then-Pittsburgh Penguins owner Howard Baldwin, who was a co-producer. It was the second collaboration between Van Damme and Hyams, after ''Timecop'' (1994). The film grossed $64 million at the box office on a $35 million budget and received mixed reviews at the time of its release, although retrospective reviews have been more positive and it is seen by many as one of Van Damme's best. Plot Darren McCord is a French Canadian-born firefighter for the Pittsburgh Bureau of Fire now serving as the fire marshal for the Pittsburgh Civic Arena, after being unable to save a young girl from a house fire two years prior. During the 1995 Stanley Cup Fi ...
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The Mothman Prophecies (film)
''The Mothman Prophecies'' is a 2002 American supernatural-mystery film directed by Mark Pellington, and starring Richard Gere and Laura Linney. Based on the 1975 book of the same name by parapsychologist and Fortean author John Keel, the screenplay was written by Richard Hatem. The story follows John Klein (Gere), a reporter who researches the legend of the Mothman. Still shaken by the death of his wife two years earlier from Glioblastoma, Klein is sent to cover a news piece and ends up inexplicably finding himself in Point Pleasant, West Virginia, where there have been sightings of an unusual creature and other unexplained phenomena. As he becomes increasingly drawn into mysterious forces at work, he hopes they can reconnect him to his wife, while the local sheriff (Linney) becomes concerned about his obsessions. The film claims to be based on actual events that occurred between November 1966 and December 1967 in Point Pleasant, as described by Keel. It was shot in Pittsburgh ...
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Dogma (film)
''Dogma'' is a 1999 American fantasy comedy film written and directed by Kevin Smith, who also stars with Ben Affleck, Matt Damon, George Carlin, Linda Fiorentino, Janeane Garofalo, Chris Rock, Jason Lee, Salma Hayek, Bud Cort, Alan Rickman, Alanis Morissette and Jason Mewes. It is the fourth film in Smith's View Askewniverse series. Brian O'Halloran and Jeff Anderson, stars of the first Askewniverse film '' Clerks'', appear in the film, as do Smith regulars Scott Mosier, Dwight Ewell, Walt Flanagan, and Bryan Johnson. The story revolves around two fallen angels who plan to employ an alleged loophole in Catholic dogma to return to Heaven after being cast out by God, but as existence is founded on the principle that God is infallible, their success would prove God wrong, thus undoing all creation. The last scion and two prophets are sent by the seraph Metatron to stop them. The film's irreverent treatment of Catholicism and the Catholic Church triggered considerable ...
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