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Deadly Blessing
''Deadly Blessing'' is a 1981 American slasher film directed by Wes Craven. The film tells the story of a strange figure committing murder in a contemporary community that is not far from another community that believes in ancient evil and curses. It stars Ernest Borgnine, Maren Jensen, Susan Buckner (both women making their last feature film screen appearances), and Sharon Stone in an early role. AllMovie comments that the film "finds director Wes Craven in a transitional phase between his hard-hitting early work and his later commercial successes." Plot Martha (Maren Jensen) and Jim Schmidt (Douglas Barr) live on an isolated farm named "Our Blessing." Most of their neighbors are "Hittites", an austere religious community led by Isaiah Schmidt (Ernest Borgnine) who forbids any interaction with non-Hittites. After breaking up a fight between one Hittite member, William Gluntz (Michael Berryman) and another, more artistically minded neighbor, Faith Stohler (Lisa Hartman), Jim fin ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Wes Craven
Wesley Earl Craven (August 2, 1939 – August 30, 2015) was an American film director, screenwriter, producer, actor, and editor. Craven has commonly been recognized as one of the greatest masters of the horror genre due to the cultural impact and influence of his work. Amongst his prolific filmography, Craven was best known for his pioneering work in the horror genre, particularly slasher films, where he mixed horror cliches with humor and satire. Craven created the ''A Nightmare on Elm Street'' franchise (1984–2010), specifically writing and directing the first film, co-writing and producing the third, '' A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors'' (1987), and writing and directing the seventh, '' Wes Craven's New Nightmare'' (1994). He additionally directed the first four films in the ''Scream'' franchise (1996–2011). He also directed cult classics ''The Last House on the Left'' (1972) and ''The Hills Have Eyes'' (1977), the horror comedy '' The People Under th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lisa Hartman Black
Lisa Hartman Black is an American actress and singer. Career After some minor television appearances, Hartman starred on the short-lived ''Bewitched'' spin-off, ''Tabitha'' during 1977–78. She subsequently appeared frequently on television in guest roles, and appeared in the 1981 CBS TV remake of Jacqueline Susann's '' Valley of the Dolls'', as Neely O'Hara. She was on WLS-TV's 1979 special "You're Never Too Old" recorded at Marriott's Great America in Gurnee, Illinois. Hartman's breakthrough as an actress came in 1982 when she began appearing on the prime time drama ''Knots Landing'', playing rock singer Ciji Dunne. Her character engaged in romances with the characters played by Ted Shackelford and Michael Sabatino. Hartman was popular with audiences, and when Ciji was murdered off-screen in 1983, there was a public uproar. As a solution, Hartman was brought back on the show as Cathy Geary, also a singer, who later marries an unbalanced televangelist played by a young A ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wang. Although the name "Rotten Tomatoes" connects to the practice of audiences throwing rotten tomatoes in disapproval of a poor stage performance, the original inspiration comes from a scene featuring tomatoes in the Canadian film ''Léolo'' (1992). Since January 2010, Rotten Tomatoes has been owned by Flixster, which was in turn acquired by Warner Bros in 2011. In February 2016, Rotten Tomatoes and its parent site Flixster were sold to Comcast's Fandango. Warner Bros. retained a minority stake in the merged entities, including Fandango. History Rotten Tomatoes was launched on August 12, 1998, as a spare-time project by Senh Duong. His objective in creating Rotten Tomatoes was "to create a site where people can get access to reviews fro ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Review Aggregator
A review aggregator is a system that collects reviews of products and services (such as films, books, video games, software, hardware, and cars). This system stores the reviews and uses them for purposes such as supporting a website where users can view the reviews, selling information to third parties about consumer tendencies, and creating databases for companies to learn about their actual and potential customers. The system enables users to easily compare many different reviews of the same work. Many of these systems calculate an approximate average assessment, usually based on assigning a numeric value to each review related to its degree of positive rating of the work. Review aggregation sites have begun to have economic effects on the companies that create or manufacture items under review, especially in certain categories such as electronic games, which are expensive to purchase. Some companies have tied royalty payment rates and employee bonuses to aggregate scores, and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Golden Raspberry Award
The Golden Raspberry Awards (also known as the Razzies and Razzie Awards) is a parody award show honoring the worst of cinematic under-achievements. Co-founded by UCLA film graduates and film industry veterans John J. B. Wilson and Mo Murphy, the Razzie Awards' satirical annual ceremony has preceded its opposite, the Academy Awards, for four decades. The term '' raspberry'' is used in its irreverent sense, as in "blowing a raspberry". The statuette itself is a golf ball-sized raspberry atop a Super 8mm film reel spray-painted gold, with an estimated street value of $4.97. The Golden Raspberry Foundation has claimed that the award "encourages well-known filmmakers and top notch performers to own their bad." The first Golden Raspberry Awards ceremony was held on March 31, 1981, in John J. B. Wilson's living-room alcove in Hollywood, to honor the perceived worst films of the 1980 film season. To date, Sylvester Stallone is the most awarded actor ever with 10 awards. History ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Academy Award
The Academy Awards, better known as the Oscars, are awards for artistic and technical merit for the American and international film industry. The awards are regarded by many as the most prestigious, significant awards in the entertainment industry worldwide. Given annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS), the awards are an international recognition of excellence in cinematic achievements, as assessed by the Academy's voting membership. The various category winners are awarded a copy of a golden statuette as a trophy, officially called the "Academy Award of Merit", although more commonly referred to by its nickname, the "Oscar". The statuette, depicting a knight rendered in the Art Deco style, was originally sculpted by Los Angeles artist George Stanley from a design sketch by art director Cedric Gibbons. The 1st Academy Awards were held in 1929 at a private dinner hosted by Douglas Fairbanks in The Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel. The Academy Awards cere ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios Inc., also known as Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures and abbreviated as MGM, is an American film, television production, distribution and media company owned by Amazon through MGM Holdings, founded on April 17, 1924 and based in Beverly Hills, California. MGM was formed by Marcus Loew by combining Metro Pictures, Goldwyn Pictures, and Louis B. Mayer Pictures into one company. It hired a number of well known actors as contract players—its slogan was "more stars than there are in heaven"—and soon became Hollywood's most prestigious film studio, producing popular musical films and winning many Academy Awards. MGM also owned film studios, movie lots, movie theaters and technical production facilities. Its most prosperous era, from 1926 to 1959, was bracketed by two productions of '' Ben Hur''. After that, it divested itself of the Loews movie theater chain, and, in the 1960s, diversified into television production. In 1969, Kirk Kerkorian bought 4 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Transamerica Corporation
The Transamerica Corporation is an American holding company for various life insurance companies and investment firms operating primarily in the United States, offering life and supplemental health insurance, investments, and retirement services. The company has major offices located in Baltimore, Maryland; Cedar Rapids, Iowa; Denver, Colorado; Norwood, Massachusetts; Exton, Pennsylvania; Harrison, New York; Johns Creek, Georgia; Plano, Texas; and St. Petersburg, Florida. Additional affiliated offices are located throughout the United States. In 1999, it became an independent subsidiary of multinational company Aegon. Transamerica funds the Transamerica Institute, a nonprofit foundation which comprises the Transamerica Center for Retirement Studies and the Transamerica Center for Health Studies. History In October 1904, A.P. Giannini founded the Bank of Italy in San Francisco. In October 1928, Giannini created a holding company that he named the Trans-America Corporation, wh ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Universal Pictures
Universal Pictures (legally Universal City Studios LLC, also known as Universal Studios, or simply Universal; common metonym: Uni, and formerly named Universal Film Manufacturing Company and Universal-International Pictures Inc.) is an American film production and distribution company owned by Comcast through the NBCUniversal Film and Entertainment division of NBCUniversal. Founded in 1912 by Carl Laemmle, Mark Dintenfass, Charles O. Baumann, Adam Kessel, Pat Powers, William Swanson, David Horsley, Robert H. Cochrane, and Jules Brulatour, Universal is the oldest surviving film studio in the United States; the world's fifth oldest after Gaumont, Pathé, Titanus, and Nordisk Film; and the oldest member of Hollywood's "Big Five" studios in terms of the overall film market. Its studios are located in Universal City, California, and its corporate offices are located in New York City. In 1962, the studio was acquired by MCA, which was re-launched as NBCUniversal in 2 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Hills Have Eyes (1977 Film)
''The Hills Have Eyes'' is a 1977 American horror film written, directed, and edited by Wes Craven and starring Susan Lanier, Michael Berryman and Dee Wallace. The film follows the Carters, a suburban family targeted by a family of cannibal savages after becoming stranded in the Nevada desert. Following Craven's directorial debut, ''The Last House on the Left'' (1972), producer Peter Locke was interested in financing a similar project. Craven based the film's script on the legend of Scottish cannibal Sawney Bean, which Craven viewed as illustrating how supposedly civilized people could become savage. Other influences on the film include John Ford's ''The Grapes of Wrath'' (1940) and Tobe Hooper's '' The Texas Chain Saw Massacre'' (1974). ''The Hills Have Eyes'' was shot in the Mojave Desert. The film's crew were initially unenthusiastic about the project, but they became more passionate due to Craven's enthusiasm and came to believe that they were making a special movie. ''Th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Texas
Texas (, ; Spanish: ''Texas'', ''Tejas'') is a state in the South Central region of the United States. At 268,596 square miles (695,662 km2), and with more than 29.1 million residents in 2020, it is the second-largest U.S. state by both area (after Alaska) and population (after California). Texas shares borders with the states of Louisiana to the east, Arkansas to the northeast, Oklahoma to the north, New Mexico to the west, and the Mexican states of Chihuahua, Coahuila, Nuevo León, and Tamaulipas to the south and southwest; and has a coastline with the Gulf of Mexico to the southeast. Houston is the most populous city in Texas and the fourth-largest in the U.S., while San Antonio is the second most populous in the state and seventh-largest in the U.S. Dallas–Fort Worth and Greater Houston are, respectively, the fourth- and fifth-largest metropolitan statistical areas in the country. Other major cities include Austin, the second most populous s ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Waxahachie, Texas
Waxahachie ( ) is the seat of government of Ellis County, Texas, United States. Its population was 41,140 in 2020. Etymology Some sources state that the name means "cow" or "buffalo" in an unspecified Native American language. One possible Native American origin is the Alabama language, originally spoken in the area of Alabama around Waxahatchee Creek by the Alabama-Coushatta people, who had migrated by the 1850s to eastern Texas. In the Alabama language, ''waakasi hachi'' means "calf's tail" (the Alabama word ''waaka'' being a loan from Spanish ''vaca''). That there is a Waxahatchee Creek near present-day Shelby, Alabama, suggests that Waxahachie shares the same name etymology. Many place names in Texas and Oklahoma have their origins in the Southeastern United States, largely due to forced removal of various southeastern Indian tribes. The area in central Alabama that includes Waxahatchee Creek was for hundreds of years the home of the Upper Creek moiety of the Muscoge ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
