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Night Skies
''Night Skies'' is an unproduced science fiction horror film that was in development in the late 1970s. Steven Spielberg conceived the idea after ''Close Encounters of the Third Kind''. Instead, material developed at the time was used in ''Poltergeist'' and '' E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial''.Grefrath, Richard W. "Review: ''The Greatest Sci-Fi Movies Never Made''." ''Library Journal'', University of Nevada Library, Reno, Nevada, 2002. Origins Steven Spielberg came up with the idea for ''Night Skies'' in the late 1970s when Columbia Pictures wanted a sequel to ''Close Encounters of the Third Kind''.Sinyard 1987, p. 77. He had no interest in a sequel, but also did not want Columbia to make a sequel without him, as Universal Pictures had done with ''Jaws''. Instead, he came up with a horror film treatment for a ''Close Encounters'' follow-up initially titled ''Watch the Skies'' (which had also been a working title for ''Close Encounters''). Spielberg based the story on the Kelly-Hop ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Science Fiction Films
Science fiction (or sci-fi) is a film genre that uses speculative, fictional science-based depictions of phenomena that are not fully accepted by mainstream science, such as extraterrestrial lifeforms, spacecraft, robots, cyborgs, interstellar travel, time travel, or other technologies. Science fiction films have often been used to focus on political or social issues, and to explore philosophical issues like the human condition. The genre has existed since the early years of silent cinema, when Georges Melies' ''A Trip to the Moon'' (1902) employed trick photography effects. The next major example (first in feature length in the genre) was the film ''Metropolis'' (1927). From the 1930s to the 1950s, the genre consisted mainly of low-budget B movies. After Stanley Kubrick's landmark '' 2001: A Space Odyssey'' (1968), the science fiction film genre was taken more seriously. In the late 1970s, big-budget science fiction films filled with special effects became popular with audie ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Joe Dante
Joseph James Dante Jr. (; born November 28, 1946) is an American film director, producer, editor and actor. His films—notably ''Gremlins'' (1984) alongside its sequel, '' Gremlins 2: The New Batch'' (1990)—often mix 1950s-style B movies with cartoon comedy. Dante's films also include ''Piranha'' (1978), ''The Howling'' (1981), ''Explorers'' (1985), ''Innerspace'' (1987), ''The 'Burbs'' (1989), '' Matinee'' (1993), ''Small Soldiers'' (1998), and '' Looney Tunes: Back in Action'' (2003). His work for television and cable includes immigration satire ''The Second Civil War'' (1997) and episodes of anthology series ''Masters of Horror'' ("Homecoming" and " The Screwfly Solution") and ''Amazing Stories'', as well as ''Police Squad!'' and ''Hawaii Five-0''. Early life Dante was born in Morristown, New Jersey, and grew up in nearby Livingston. His father, Joseph James Dante, was a professional golfer, though Dante was more interested in becoming a cartoonist. Career 1960s Dante ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Raiders Of The Lost Ark
''Raiders of the Lost Ark'' is a 1981 American action-adventure film directed by Steven Spielberg and written by Lawrence Kasdan, based on a story by George Lucas and Philip Kaufman. It stars Harrison Ford, Karen Allen, Paul Freeman, Ronald Lacey, John Rhys-Davies, and Denholm Elliott. Ford portrays Indiana Jones, a globe-trotting archaeologist vying with Nazi German forces in 1936 to recover the long-lost Ark of the Covenant, a relic said to make an army invincible. Teaming up with his tough former lover Marion Ravenwood (Allen), Jones races to stop rival archaeologist Dr. René Belloq (Freeman) from guiding the Nazis to the Ark and its power. Lucas conceived ''Raiders of the Lost Ark'' in the early 1970s. Seeking to modernize the serial films of the early 20th century, he developed the idea further with Kaufman, who suggested the Ark as the film's goal. Lucas eventually focused on developing his 1977 space opera ''Star Wars''. Development on ''Raiders of the Lost Ark'' r ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Texas Chain Saw Massacre
''The Texas Chain Saw Massacre'' is a 1974 American horror film produced and directed by Tobe Hooper from a story and screenplay by Hooper and Kim Henkel. It stars Marilyn Burns, Paul A. Partain, Edwin Neal, Jim Siedow and Gunnar Hansen, who respectively portray Sally Hardesty, Franklin Hardesty, the hitchhiker, the proprietor, and Leatherface. The film follows a group of friends who fall victim to a family of cannibals while on their way to visit an old homestead. The film was marketed as being based on true events to attract a wider audience and to act as a subtle commentary on the era's political climate. Although the character of Leatherface and minor story details were inspired by the crimes of murderer Ed Gein, its plot is largely fictional. It is the first film of the ''Texas Chainsaw Massacre'' franchise. Hooper produced the film for less than $140,000 ($ adjusted for inflation) and used a cast of relatively unknown actors drawn mainly from central Texas, where the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tobe Hooper
Willard Tobe Hooper (; January 25, 1943 – August 26, 2017) was an American director, screenwriter, and producer best known for his work in the horror film, horror genre. The British Film Institute cited Hooper as one of the most influential horror filmmakers of all time. Born in Austin, Texas, Hooper's feature film debut was the independent ''Eggshells (film), Eggshells'' (1969), which he co-wrote with Kim Henkel. The two reunited to co-write ''The Texas Chain Saw Massacre'' (1974), which Hooper also directed. The film went on to become a classic of the genre, and was described in 2010 by ''The Guardian'' as "one of the most influential films ever made." Hooper subsequently directed the horror film ''Eaten Alive'' (1977), followed by the 1979 miniseries ''Salem's Lot (1979 miniseries), Salem's Lot'', an adaptation of the novel by Stephen King. Following this, Hooper signed on to direct ''The Funhouse'' (1981), a major studio slasher film distributed by Universal Pictures. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Searchers
''The Searchers'' is a 1956 American Technicolor VistaVision epic Western film directed by John Ford and written by Frank S. Nugent, based on the 1954 novel by Alan Le May. It is set during the Texas-Native American wars, and stars John Wayne as a middle-aged Civil War veteran who spends years looking for his abducted niece (Natalie Wood), accompanied by his adopted nephew Martin ( Jeffrey Hunter). The film was a critical and commercial success. Since its release, it has come to be considered a masterpiece and one of the greatest and most influential films ever made. It was named the greatest American Western by the American Film Institute in 2008, and it placed 12th on the same organization's 2007 list of the 100 greatest American movies of all time. ''Entertainment Weekly'' also named it the best Western. The British Film Institute's ''Sight & Sound'' magazine ranked it as the seventh-best film of all time based on a 2012 international survey of film critics and in 20 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
John Wayne
Marion Robert Morrison (May 26, 1907 – June 11, 1979), known professionally as John Wayne and nicknamed The Duke or Duke Wayne, was an American actor who became a popular icon through his starring roles in films made during Hollywood's Golden Age, especially in Western and war movies. His career flourished from the silent era of the 1920s through the American New Wave, as he appeared in a total of 179 film and television productions. He was among the top box-office draws for three decades, and he appeared with many other important Hollywood stars of his era. In 1999, the American Film Institute selected Wayne as one of the greatest male stars of classic American cinema. Wayne was born in Winterset, Iowa, but grew up in Southern California. After losing his football scholarship to the University of Southern California from a bodysurfing accident, he began working for the Fox Film Corporation. He appeared mostly in small parts, but his first leading role came in Raoul Wal ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Native Americans In The United States
Native Americans, also known as American Indians, First Americans, Indigenous Americans, and other terms, are the Indigenous peoples of the mainland United States ( Indigenous peoples of Hawaii, Alaska and territories of the United States are generally known by other terms). There are 574 federally recognized tribes living within the US, about half of which are associated with Indian reservations. As defined by the United States Census, "Native Americans" are Indigenous tribes that are originally from the contiguous United States, along with Alaska Natives. Indigenous peoples of the United States who are not listed as American Indian or Alaska Native include Native Hawaiians, Samoan Americans, and the Chamorro people. The US Census groups these peoples as " Native Hawaiian and other Pacific Islanders". European colonization of the Americas, which began in 1492, resulted in a precipitous decline in Native American population because of new diseases, wars, ethni ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Comanche
The Comanche or Nʉmʉnʉʉ ( com, Nʉmʉnʉʉ, "the people") are a Native American tribe from the Southern Plains of the present-day United States. Comanche people today belong to the federally recognized Comanche Nation, headquartered in Lawton, Oklahoma. The Comanche language is a Numic language of the Uto-Aztecan family. Originally, it was a Shoshoni dialect, but diverged and became a separate language. The Comanche were once part of the Shoshone people of the Great Basin. In the 18th and 19th centuries, Comanche lived in most of present-day northwestern Texas and adjacent areas in eastern New Mexico, southeastern Colorado, southwestern Kansas, and western Oklahoma. Spanish colonists and later Mexicans called their historical territory ''Comanchería''. During the 18th and 19th centuries, Comanche practiced a nomadic horse culture and hunted, particularly bison. They traded with neighboring Native American peoples, and Spanish, French, and American colonists and set ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Drums Along The Mohawk
''Drums Along the Mohawk'' is a 1939 American historical drama western film based upon a 1936 novel of the same name by American author Walter D. Edmonds. The film was produced by Darryl F. Zanuck and directed by John Ford. Henry Fonda and Claudette Colbert portray settlers on the New York frontier during the American Revolution. The couple experiences British, Tory, and Native American attacks on their farm before the Revolution ends and peace is restored. Edmonds based the novel on a number of historic figures who lived in the valley. The film—Ford's first Technicolor feature—was well received. It was nominated for one Academy Award and became a major box-office success, grossing over US$1 million in its first year. Plot In colonial America, Lana Borst, the eldest daughter of a wealthy family, marries Gilbert Martin. Together, they leave her family's luxurious home to embark on a frontier life on Gil's small farm in Deerfield in the Mohawk Valley of central New York. Th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Western Film
The Western is a genre set in the American frontier and commonly associated with folk tales of the Western United States, particularly the Southwestern United States, as well as Northern Mexico and Western Canada. It is commonly referred to as the "Old West" or the "Wild West" and depicted in Western media as a hostile, sparsely populated frontier in a state of near-total lawlessness patrolled by outlaws, sheriffs, and numerous other stock "gunslinger" characters. Western narratives often concern the gradual attempts to tame the crime-ridden American West using wider themes of justice, freedom, rugged individualism, Manifest Destiny, and the national history and identity of the United States. History The first films that belong to the Western genre are a series of short single reel silents made in 1894 by Edison Studios at their Black Maria studio in West Orange, New Jersey. These featured veterans of ''Buffalo Bill's Wild West'' show exhibiting skills acquired by living ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Straw Dogs (1971 Film)
''Straw Dogs'' is a 1971 psychological thriller film directed by Sam Peckinpah and starring Dustin Hoffman and Susan George. The screenplay, by Peckinpah and David Zelag Goodman, is based upon Gordon M. Williams's 1969 novel, ''The Siege of Trencher's Farm''. The film's title derives from a discussion in the ''Tao Te Ching'' that likens people to the ancient Chinese ceremonial straw dog, being of ceremonial worth, but afterwards discarded with indifference. The film is noted for its violent concluding sequences and two complicated rape scenes, which were censored by numerous film rating boards. Released theatrically in the same year as ''A Clockwork Orange'', '' The French Connection'', and ''Dirty Harry'', the film sparked heated controversy over a perceived increase of violence in films generally. The film premiered in the UK in November 1971. Although controversial at the time, ''Straw Dogs'' is considered by some critics to be one of Peckinpah's greatest films, and was no ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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