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Trans World Entertainment (film Company)
Trans World Entertainment was an American independent production and distribution company which produced a low-to-medium budget films mostly targeted for home-video market. In the early 1990s, the company became embroiled in the Credit Lyonnais banking scandal in Hollywood and was foreclosed on by the bank and subsequently folded into Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) for sale. History Founding and early years (1983–1986) The company was founded as a video distribution company in 1983 by Moshe Diamant and Eduard Sarlui, a filmmaker whose company Continental Motion Pictures, founded with his sister Helen, had previously produced a number of films including ''Ator, the Fighting Eagle'' and ''Warrior of the Lost World''. In 1984, it bought out the video distribution rights to shows handled by various syndicators, including Viacom Enterprises and Ziv International for a 200-title agreement. Also that year, it expanded into the world of theatrical film distribution and production, with a li ... [...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 (company), 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 Productions, 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 (1959 film), Ben Hur''. After that, it divested itself of the Loews movie theater chain, and, in the 1960s, diversified ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Warrior Of The Lost World
''Warrior of the Lost World'' (also known as ''Mad Rider'') is a 1983 Italian post-apocalyptic science fiction film written and directed by David Worth and starring Robert Ginty, Persis Khambatta, and Donald Pleasence. It was created and first released in Italy under the title ''Il Giustiziere della terra perduta'' ("Vigilante of the Lost Earth") in 1983 during the wide popularity of the ''Mad Max'' films, and many subsequently created post-apocalyptic films of the 1980s. Later the film was given another Italian title for VHS and television markets, ''I predatori dell'anno Omega'' ("Raiders of the Omega year"). Plot The Rider arrives on his advanced motorcycle with its artificial intelligence computer Einstein. He crashes but manages to pass through the "wall of illusion" and is found and brought back to health by the Enlightened Elders. They have chosen him to lead their fight against the evil Omega, an Orwellian state run by the evil Prossor. The Elders are allied with the resis ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Joe D'Amato
Aristide Massaccesi (15 December 1936 – 23 January 1999), known professionally as Joe D'Amato, was an Italian film director, producer, cinematographer, and screenwriter who worked in many genres (westerns, decamerotici, peplum, war films, swashbuckler, comedy, fantasy, postapocalyptic film, and erotic thriller) but is best known for his horror, erotic and adult films. D'Amato worked in the 1950s as electric and set photographer, in the 1960s as camera operator, and from 1969 onwards as cinematographer. Starting in 1972, he directed and co-directed around 200 films under numerous pseudonyms, regularly acting as cinematographer as well. Starting in the early 1980s, D'Amato produced many of his own and other directors' genre films through the companies he founded or co-founded, the best known being Filmirage. From 1979 to 1982 and from 1993 to 1999, D'Amato also produced and directed about 120 adult films. Among his best known erotic films are his five entries into the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Media Home Entertainment
Media Home Entertainment Inc. was a home video company headquartered in Culver City, California, originally established in 1978 by filmmaker Charles Band. Media Home Entertainment also distributed video product under three additional labels — The Nostalgia Merchant (very old or classic films), Hi-Tops Video (children's videos), and Fox Hills Video (special-interest videos/obscure B-movies and low-profile Cannon pictures). The "Fox Hills" name was derived from a geographical location near the company's headquarters at 5700 Buckingham Parkway. History The company got off to a rocky start when ABKCO Records successfully sued them for releasing The Rolling Stones' Hyde Park concert on Betamax and VHS, followed by a successful suit against it, VCI Home Video, and Video Tape Network filed by Northern Songs for releasing Beatles material (Media's tapes included ''Around The Beatles''—featuring the Beatles and the Rolling Stones as backup singers, with performers such as Long Joh ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sho Kosugi
is a Japanese actor with extensive training in Shindō jinen-ryū Karate, Kendo, Judo, Iaido, Kobudo, Aikido and Ninjutsu. A former All Japan Karate Champion, he gained popularity as an actor during the 1980s, often playing ninjas. He starred in a trilogy of martial arts ninja films produced by Cannon Films (''Enter the Ninja'', ''Revenge of the Ninja'' and '' Ninja III: The Domination''), before starring in the primetime television series '' The Master''. His work helped establish ninjas in popular culture, leading to a "ninja boom" or "ninjamania" during the early-to-mid-1980s. Life and career At the age of 19, Kosugi left Japan to study and reside in Los Angeles where he earned a bachelor's degree in Economics at CSULA. At the same time, he consistently improved his martial arts skills while learning a wide variety of styles, such as Chinese Xing Yi Quan, Korean taekwondo and Japanese Shitō-ryū and Shotokan-ryū karate. He is the father of Kane Kosugi and Shane Kosugi, w ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pray For Death
''Pray for Death'' is a 1985 American martial arts film, martial arts action film directed by Gordon Hessler and starring Sho Kosugi, James Booth, Norman Burton, Michael Constantine, and, the lead's sons Kane Kosugi, Kane and Shane Kosugi. The plot follows a retired ninja warrior, now married to an American woman, moves to Los Angeles at his wife's request in order to begin a new life for their two sons. Shortly after their arrival, he is mistakenly drawn into a protracted conflict with an L.A. crime boss and his vicious henchmen. He is forced by a series of brutal circumstances to come out of retirement and bring the criminals to justice. Plot At the insistence of his American-born wife, Aiko, Yokohama salaryman Akira Saito decides to immigrate from Japan to the United States to raise their two sons Takeshi and Tomoya. Unbeknownst to his family, Akira is in fact a highly skilled ninja, who had faithfully protected the secrets of his temple minded by his adoptive father and sensei ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Creature (1985 Film)
''Creature'' (also known as ''The Titan Find'' and ''Titan Find'') is a 1985 American science fiction horror film directed by William Malone, starring Stan Ivar, Wendy Schaal, Lyman Ward, Annette McCarthy, Robert Jaffe, Diane Salinger, and Klaus Kinski. It features early special effects work by Robert and Dennis Skotak, who would go on to design the special effects for '' Aliens''. Plot Two geological researchers for the American multinational corporation NTI find an ancient alien laboratory on Titan, the largest moon of Saturn. In the lab is an egg-like container which is keeping an alien creature alive. The creature emerges and kills the researchers. Two months later, the geologists' spaceship crashes into the space station Concorde in orbit around Earth's Moon, its pilot having died in his seat. NTI dispatches a new ship, the ''Shenandoah'', to Titan. Its crew, consisting of Captain Mike Davison, Susan Delambre, Jon Fennel, Dr. Wendy H. Oliver, David Perkins and Beth ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Alien (film)
''Alien'' is a 1979 science fiction horror film directed by Ridley Scott and written by Dan O'Bannon. Based on a story by O'Bannon and Ronald Shusett, it follows the crew of the commercial space tug ''Nostromo'', who, after coming across a mysterious derelict spaceship on an undiscovered moon, find themselves up against an aggressive and deadly extraterrestrial set loose on the ''Nostromo''. The film stars Tom Skerritt, Sigourney Weaver, Veronica Cartwright, Harry Dean Stanton, John Hurt, Ian Holm, and Yaphet Kotto. It was produced by Gordon Carroll, David Giler, and Walter Hill through their company Brandywine Productions, and was distributed by 20th Century Fox. Giler and Hill revised and made additions to the script; Shusett was the executive producer. The Alien and its accompanying artifacts were designed by the Swiss artist H. R. Giger, while concept artists Ron Cobb and Chris Foss designed the more human settings. ''Alien'' premiered on May 25, 1979, as the opening n ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Horror Film
Horror is a film genre that seeks to elicit fear or disgust in its audience for entertainment purposes. Horror films often explore dark subject matter and may deal with transgressive topics or themes. Broad elements include monsters, apocalyptic events, and religious or folk beliefs. Cinematic techniques used in horror films have been shown to provoke psychological reactions in an audience. Horror films have existed for more than a century. Early inspirations from before the development of film include folklore, religious beliefs and superstitions of different cultures, and the Gothic and horror literature of authors such as Edgar Allan Poe, Bram Stoker, and Mary Shelley. From origins in silent films and German Expressionism, horror only became a codified genre after the release of ''Dracula'' (1931). Many sub-genres emerged in subsequent decades, including body horror, comedy horror, slasher films, supernatural horror and psychological horror. The genre has been produ ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Science-fiction
Science fiction (sometimes shortened to Sci-Fi or SF) is a genre of speculative fiction which typically deals with imaginative and futuristic concepts such as advanced science and technology, space exploration, time travel, parallel universes, extraterrestrial life, sentient artificial intelligence, cybernetics, certain forms of immortality (like mind uploading), and the singularity. Science fiction predicted several existing inventions, such as the atomic bomb, robots, and borazon, whose names entirely match their fictional predecessors. In addition, science fiction might serve as an outlet to facilitate future scientific and technological innovations. Science fiction can trace its roots to ancient mythology. It is also related to fantasy, horror, and superhero fiction and contains many subgenres. Its exact definition has long been disputed among authors, critics, scholars, and readers. Science fiction, in literature, film, television, and other media, has become po ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
William Malone (director)
William Malone (born 1947) is an American horror filmmaker who directed several movies such as the 1999 remake ''House on Haunted Hill'', '' Scared to Death'', '' Creature'', and ''FeardotCom''. After a brief career in makeup and costumes, he attended UCLA film school and moved on as a director thereafter. History Malone was born in 1947 in Lansing, Michigan where, during high school, he played in a Beatles-inspired garage band called The Plagues. The band released several 45 rpm singles on their own label Quarantined Records and on Fenton Records, an independent record label (affiliated with now defunct Great Lakes Studios, in Sparta, MI). Malone moved to California at age 19 to pursue a career in music. However, after a friend's encouragement, Malone found himself getting involved in film and working a job at Don Post Studios, doing makeup and costume work. After attending UCLA film school, Malone soon thereafter directed his first film, '' Scared to Death''. After which he ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cannes Film Festival
The Cannes Festival (; french: link=no, Festival de Cannes), until 2003 called the International Film Festival (') and known in English as the Cannes Film Festival, is an annual film festival held in Cannes, France, which previews new films of all genres, including Documentary film, documentaries, from all around the world. Founded in 1946, the invitation-only festival is held annually (usually in May) at the Palais des Festivals et des Congrès. The festival was formally accredited by the FIAPF in 1951. On 1 July 2014, co-founder and former head of French pay-TV operator Canal+, Pierre Lescure, took over as President of the Festival, while Thierry Frémaux became the General Delegate. The board of directors also appointed Gilles Jacob as Honorary President of the Festival. It is one of the "Big Three" major European film festivals, alongside the Venice Film Festival in Italy and the Berlin International Film Festival in Germany, as well as one of the "Big Five" major interna ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
