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Mad City (film)
''Mad City'' is a 1997 American thriller drama film directed by Costa-Gavras, written by Tom Matthews based on a story by Matthews and Eric Williams, and starring Dustin Hoffman and John Travolta, with a supporting cast featuring Mia Kirshner, Alan Alda, Blythe Danner, Ted Levine, Raymond J. Barry, and Larry King. This is Costa-Gavras' first English-language film since ''Music Box'' (1989). The title comes from a nickname of Madison, Wisconsin, where it originally was going to be set, and was used for its multiple meanings. Plot After being sacked from his job at a museum, former security guard Sam Baily returns to the place with a shotgun and dynamite and takes his former boss Mrs. Banks and a number of children (at the museum on a school field trip) as hostages. Local television journalist Max Brackett is in the museum using the restroom after an interview with the curator about financial difficulties. He becomes directly involved in the hostage situation, acting as Baily's i ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Costa-Gavras
Costa-Gavras (short for Konstantinos Gavras; el, Κωνσταντίνος Γαβράς; born 12 February 1933) is a Greek-French film director, screenwriter, and producer who lives and works in France. He is known for films with political and social themes, such as the political thriller '' Z'' (1969), for which he won an Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film, and ''Missing'' (1982), for which he won the Palme d'Or and an Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay. Most of his films have been made in French; however, six of them were made in English. His film ''Z'' was the first film, and one of the few, to be nominated for both the Best Picture and Best Foreign Language Film. Early life Costa-Gavras was born in Loutra Iraias, Arcadia. His family spent the Second World War in a village in the Peloponnese, and moved to Athens after the war. His father had been a member of the Pro-Soviet branch of the Greek Resistance, and was imprisoned during the Greek Civil War. His f ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Larry King
Larry King (born Lawrence Harvey Zeiger; November 19, 1933 – January 23, 2021) was an American television and radio host, whose awards included 2 Peabodys The George Foster Peabody Awards (or simply Peabody Awards or the Peabodys) program, named for the American businessman and philanthropist George Peabody, honor the most powerful, enlightening, and invigorating stories in television, radio, and ..., an Emmy and 10 Cable ACE Awards. Over his career, he hosted over 50,000 interviews. King was born and raised in New York City to Jewish parents who immigrated to the United States from Belarus in the 1930s. He studied at Lafayette High School (New York City), Lafayette High School, a public high school in Brooklyn. He was a WMBM radio interviewer in the Miami area in the 1950s and 1960s, and gained prominence in 1978 as host of ''Larry King Show, The Larry King Show'', an all-night nationwide call-in radio program heard on the Mutual Broadcasting System. From 1985 to 2010, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Roger Ebert
Roger Joseph Ebert (; June 18, 1942 – April 4, 2013) was an American film critic, film historian, journalist, screenwriter, and author. He was a film critic for the ''Chicago Sun-Times'' from 1967 until his death in 2013. In 1975, Ebert became the first film critic to win the Pulitzer Prize for Criticism. Neil Steinberg of the ''Chicago Sun-Times'' said Ebert "was without question the nation's most prominent and influential film critic," and Kenneth Turan of the ''Los Angeles Times'' called him "the best-known film critic in America." Ebert was known for his intimate, Midwestern writing voice and critical views informed by values of populism and humanism. Writing in a prose style intended to be entertaining and direct, he made sophisticated cinematic and analytical ideas more accessible to non-specialist audiences. While a populist, Ebert frequently endorsed foreign and independent films he believed would be appreciated by mainstream viewers, which often resulted in such film ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Metacritic
Metacritic is a website that review aggregator, aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted arithmetic mean, weighted average). Metacritic was created by Jason Dietz, Marc Doyle, and Julie Doyle Roberts in 1999. The site provides an excerpt from each review and hyperlinks to its source. A color of green, yellow or red summarizes the critics' recommendations. It is regarded as the foremost online review aggregation site for the video game industry. Metacritic's scoring converts each review into a percentage, either mathematically from the mark given, or what the site decides subjectively from a qualitative review. Before being averaged, the scores are weighted according to a critic's popularity, stature, and volume of reviews. The website won two Webby Awards for excellence as an aggregation website. Criticism of the site has focused on the assessment system, the ass ... [...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 from ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Box Office Bomb
A box-office bomb, or box-office disaster, is a film that is unprofitable or considered highly unsuccessful during its theatrical run. Although any film for which the production, marketing, and distribution costs combined exceed the revenue after release has technically "bombed", the term is more frequently used for major studio releases that were highly anticipated, extensively marketed and expensive to produce that ultimately failed commercially. Causes Negative word of mouth With the advent of social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter in the 2000s, word of mouth regarding new films is easily spread and has had a marked effect on box office performance. A film's ability or failure to attract positive or negative commentary can strongly impact its performance at the box office, especially on the opening weekend. External circumstances Occasionally, films may underperform because of issues largely unrelated to the content of the film, such as the timing of the film's re ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jay Leno
James Douglas Muir Leno (; born April 28, 1950) is an American television host, comedian, writer, and actor. After doing stand-up comedy for years, he became the host of NBC's ''The Tonight Show'' from 1992 to 2009. Beginning in September 2009, he started a primetime talk show, ''The Jay Leno Show'', which aired weeknights at 10:00p.m. ET, also on NBC. Prior to the premiere of Leno's prime time show, O'Brien's ratings as the new ''Tonight Show'' host had already suffered a decline, however. When O'Brien turned down NBC's offer to have Leno host a half hour monologue show before ''The Tonight Show'' to boost ratings amid reported viewership diminishing, Leno returned to hosting the show on March 1, 2010. He hosted his last episode of this second tenure on February 6, 2014. That year, he was inducted into the Television Hall of Fame. Since 2014, he has hosted ''Jay Leno's Garage,'' and the 2021 revival of ''You Bet Your Life''. Leno writes a regular column in ''Popular Mechani ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Richard Portnow
Richard Portnow (born January 26, 1947) is an American actor known for such films and television series as ''Good Morning, Vietnam'', ''Barton Fink'', ''Kindergarten Cop'', ''Seven'', '' Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai'', ''The Spirit'', ''Law Abiding Citizen'', '' Private Parts'', ''Fallen Arches'', '' Double Down'', ''Poolhall Junkies'', ''Spring Break '83'', ''The Sopranos'', ''Hannah Montana'', ''The Nanny'', '' Trumbo'', '' Oldboy'', '' Find Me Guilty'', ''Underdogs'' and '' Boston Legal''. Early life and education Portnow was born in Brooklyn, New York. He graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree as a speech and theater major from Brooklyn College. Career Portnow was named one of the "Actors We Love" from the actors' trade newspaper ''Back Stage West'' with the newspaper saying "Portnow knows exactly how to hook an audience with every character". 1990s Portnow played the role of defense attorney Harold "Mel" Melvoin on the Emmy-winning HBO series ''The Sopranos'' (19 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
William Atherton
William Atherton Knight (born July 30, 1947) is an American actor, best known for portraying Richard Thornburg in ''Die Hard'' and its sequel and Walter Peck in ''Ghostbusters''. Early life Atherton was born in Orange, Connecticut, the son of Myrtle (née Robinson) and Robert Atherton Knight. He studied acting at the Drama School at Carnegie Tech and graduated from Carnegie Mellon University in 1969. Career Atherton was successful on the New York stage immediately after graduating and worked with many of the country's leading playwrights including David Rabe, John Guare, and Arthur Miller, winning numerous awards for his work on and off Broadway. He got his big break playing hapless fugitive Clovis Poplin in ''The Sugarland Express'' (1974), the feature film debut of Steven Spielberg. After this, he garnered major roles in dark dramas such as ''The Day of the Locust'' (1975) and '' Looking for Mr. Goodbar'' (1977), as well as the big-budget disaster film '' The Hindenburg'' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lucinda Jenney
Lucinda Jenney (born April 23, 1954) is an American actress. Early life Jenney was born in Long Island City in 1954. Career She began her acting career in 1979 with the film ''Impostors''. Several roles followed throughout the 1980s, with appearances in the 1986 comedy ''The Whoopee Boys'', and the award-winning ''Peggy Sue Got Married'', with Kathleen Turner and Nicolas Cage. She appeared as 'Iris' in the Oscar Award, Oscar-winning film ''Rain Man'', starring Dustin Hoffman and Tom Cruise. In 1991, Jenney played waitress 'Lena' in Ridley Scott's ''Thelma & Louise''; the following year, she appeared in ''American Heart (film), American Heart'', a film which earned her an Independent Spirit Awards, Independent Spirit Award for Best Supporting Female. Jenney played the role of 'Anne Loomis' in the Joe Dante comedy ''Matinee (1993 film), Matinee'', with John Goodman and Cathy Moriarty-Gentile, Cathy Moriarty. During the nineties, she appeared in much smaller roles including ''Mr. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kyla Pratt
Kyla Amore Pratt (born September 16, 1986) is an American actress. She provided the voice of Penny Proud in the first animated series for Disney Channel called ''The Proud Family'', and Breanna Latrice Barnes in UPN's '' One on One''. After playing the daughter of Eddie Murphy's character in the films ''Dr. Dolittle'' and '' Dr. Dolittle 2'', Pratt became the main character in the remake series of the franchise such as '' Dr. Dolittle 3'', '' Dr. Dolittle: Tail to the Chief'', and '' Dr. Dolittle: Million Dollar Mutts''. Pratt has also been in the films ''Fat Albert'', ''Hotel for Dogs'', and ''The Proud Family Movie''. She also appeared in the series '' Let's Stay Together''. She is currently a part of VH1's '' Black Ink Crew: Compton'' and the cast of ''Call Me Kat'' on Fox and is reprising the role of Penny in ''The Proud Family'' revival '' The Proud Family: Louder and Prouder'' on Disney+. Personal life Kyla Alissa Pratt is the oldest of five children of Kecia Pratt, an ac ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bill Nunn
William Goldwyn Nunn III (October 20, 1953 – September 24, 2016) was an American actor known for his roles as Radio Raheem in Spike Lee's film ''Do the Right Thing'', Robbie Robertson in the Sam Raimi ''Spider-Man'' film trilogy and as Terrence "Pip" Phillips on '' The Job'' (2001–02). Early life Bill Nunn III was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, the son of Frances Nunn and William G. Nunn, Jr., a journalist and editor at the ''Pittsburgh Courier'' and a National Football League scout. His paternal grandfather was the first African American football player at George Westinghouse High School. While ball boys for the Pittsburgh Steelers, Bill Nunn and current Steelers president Art Rooney II stole "Mean" Joe Greene's car during training camp at Saint Vincent College in Latrobe, Pennsylvania. "Joe Greene showed up in a beautiful green Lincoln Continental, and me and Bill Nunn, Jr. were ball boys. Somehow Bill got the keys one night and we decided to take it for a ride. We ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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