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H. G. Wells' The Shape Of Things To Come
''H. G. Wells' The Shape of Things to Come'' is a 1979 Canadian science fiction film directed by George McCowan, and starring Jack Palance, Barry Morse, Nicholas Campbell, Eddie Benton, Carol Lynley and John Ireland. Although credited as an adaptation of H. G. Wells' novel of the same name, the film takes only its title and some character names from the 1933 novel. The film's plot has no relationship to the events of the book. The book and its 1936 film adaptation ''Things to Come'' predict events such as a Second World War and the collapse of social order until a world state is formed, whereas the 1979 film involves a high-tech future involving robots and spaceships. The film was an attempt to capitalize on the popularity of such recent successes as ''Star Wars'', and TV series such as '' Space: 1999'' (also starring Morse), ''Battlestar Galactica'', and ''Star Trek'', although the film had only a fraction of the production budgets of any of these. Plot In the future, Earth ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
George McCowan
George McCowan (June 27, 1927 – November 1, 1995) was a Canadian film and television director in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s. McCowan began his career working for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. He worked as an actor and director for several seasons at the Stratford Festival, and moved to the United States in 1967. He directed episodes of ''Charlie's Angels'', ''S.W.A.T. (1975 TV series), S.W.A.T.'', and ''Starsky and Hutch'', as well as every episode of the popular Canadian series ''Seeing Things (TV series), Seeing Things''. He also worked on such shows as ''The Silent Force (TV series), The Silent Force'', ''The Mod Squad'', ''The Streets of San Francisco'', ''Fantasy Island'', and ''Hart to Hart''. McCowan directed the 1970 TV movie ''Carter's Army'', the 1971 Canadian hockey film ''Face-Off (1971 film), Face-Off'', the fourth and final Magnificent Seven film, ''The Magnificent Seven Ride!'' in 1972, the cult horror film ''Frogs (film), Frogs'' in the same year, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Star Wars (film)
''Star Wars'' (later retitled ''Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope'') is a 1977 American Epic film, epic space opera film written and directed by George Lucas, produced by Lucasfilm Ltd. and released by Twentieth Century-Fox. It is the first film in the ''Star Wars'' franchise and the fourth chronological chapter of the "Skywalker Saga". Set in Universe of Star Wars, a fictional galaxy under the rule of the tyrannical Galactic Empire (Star Wars), Galactic Empire, the film follows a group of freedom fighters known as the Rebel Alliance, who aim to destroy the Empire's ultimate weapon, the Death Star. When the rebel leader Princess Leia is captured by the Empire, Luke Skywalker acquires stolen architectural plans of the Death Star and sets out to rescue her while learning the ways of a metaphysical power known as "the Force" from the Jedi Master Obi-Wan Kenobi. The cast includes Mark Hamill, Harrison Ford, Carrie Fisher, Peter Cushing, Alec Guinness, Anthony Daniels, Kenny Bak ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
1979 Films
The year 1979 in film involved many significant events. Highest-grossing films United States and Canada The top ten 1979 released films by North American gross are as follows: International Major events * March 2 – Buena Vista release their first film since the advent of U.S. movie ratings to not be G-rated, '' Take Down''. * March 5 – Production begins on '' The Empire Strikes Back''. * March – Frank Price becomes president of Columbia Pictures. * May 25 – '' Alien'', a landmark of the science fiction genre, is released. * May 29 - Mary Pickford, a silent screen legend and Hollywood pioneer who was, at the height of her career, the most famous woman in the world, dies of a stroke. * May 31 – '' The Muppet Movie'', Jim Henson's Muppets' first foray into the world of feature-length motion pictures, is released in United Kingdom. * June 11 – John Wayne, a famous Western movie actor, dies at the age of 72 from stomach cancer. * June 27 – 20th Century Fox P ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mystery Science Theater 3000
''Mystery Science Theater 3000'' (abbreviated as ''MST3K'') is an American science fiction comedy television series created by Joel Hodgson. The show premiered on WUCW, KTMA-TV (now WUCW) in Saint Paul, Minnesota, on November 24, 1988. It then moved to nationwide broadcast, first on The Comedy Channel (American TV channel), The Comedy Channel for two seasons, then Comedy Central for five seasons until its cancellation in 1996. Thereafter, it was picked up by Syfy, The Sci-Fi Channel and aired for three more seasons until another cancellation in August 1999. A 60-episode Broadcast syndication, syndication package titled ''The Mystery Science Theater Hour'' was produced in 1993 and broadcast on Comedy Central and syndicated to TV stations in 1995. In 2015, Hodgson led a crowdfunding, crowdfunded revival of the series with 14 episodes in its eleventh season, first released on Netflix on April 14, 2017, with another six-episode season following on November 22, 2018. A second successf ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ardon Bess
Ardon Bess (born 1941) is a Canadian actor best known for appearing in a ''Heritage Minutes'' short film about the 1958 Springhill mining disaster portraying survivor Maurice Ruddick, and for playing Nestor "The Jester" Best in the sitcom '' King of Kensington''. Early life and education Bess was born in Kingstown, St. Vincent and the Grenadines. After completing his secondary school education in St. Vincent, he became a bank teller. Before moving to Canada, Bess was acting in and directing local amateur theatre in Kingstown. He moved to Canada in 1964 and first lived in Oakville, Ontario with his father. He briefly studied architecture at Ryerson Polytechnical Institute in Toronto. Bess was encouraged by a classmate at Ryerson to go to an acting audition which took place after a soccer practice they were both attending. Following that audition, Bess was offered his first professional theatre role as Sakini in a production of ''The Teahouse of the August Moon''. Subsequently, Bes ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
William Hutt (actor)
William Ian DeWitt Hutt, (May 2, 1920 – June 27, 2007) was a Canadian actor of stage, television and film. Hutt's distinguished career spanned over 50 years and won him many accolades and awards. While his base throughout his career remained at the Stratford Festival in Stratford, Ontario, he appeared on the stage in London, New York and across Canada. Early life Hutt was born in Toronto, Ontario, the second of three children. A graduate of Toronto's Vaughan Road Collegiate Institute (now Vaughan Road Academy), he served five years as a medic during World War II, receiving a Military Medal for "bravery in the field". After the war, he received his BA in 1948 from Trinity College at the University of Toronto, and subsequently joined the Stratford Festival of Canada for its first season in 1953. About his early life, theatre director Richard Nielsen said, "As a young man, he was openly gay at a time when being openly gay was a very dangerous identity. He shunned violence, b ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Terminal Illness
Terminal illness or end-stage disease is a disease that cannot be cured or adequately treated and is expected to result in the death of the patient. This term is more commonly used for progressive diseases such as cancer, rather than fatal injury. In popular use, it indicates a disease that will progress until death with near absolute certainty, regardless of treatment. A patient who has such an illness may be referred to as a terminal patient, terminally ill or simply as being terminal. There is no standardized life expectancy for a patient to be considered terminal, although it is generally months or less. An illness which is lifelong but not fatal is called a '' chronic condition''. Terminal patients have options for disease management after diagnosis. Examples include caregiving, continued treatment, palliative and hospice care, and physician-assisted suicide. Decisions regarding management are made by the patient and their family, although medical professionals may offer ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Disco Ball
A disco ball (also known as a mirror ball or glitter ball) is a roughly sphere, spherical object that reflects light directed at it in many directions, producing a complex display. Its surface consists of hundreds or thousands of facets, nearly all of approximately the same shape and size, and each has a mirrored surface. Usually, it is mounted well above the heads of the people present, suspended from a device that causes it to rotation, rotate steadily on a vertical axis of rotation, axis, and illuminated by spotlights, so that stationary viewers experience beams of light flashing over them, and see myriad spots of light spinning around the walls of the room. Miniature glitter balls are sold as novelty, novelties and used for several decorative purposes, including dangling from the rear-view mirror of an automobile or Christmas ornament, Christmas tree ornaments. Glitter balls may have inspired a homemade version of the sparkleball, the American outsider craft of building dec ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Domed City
A domed city is a hypothetical structure that encloses a large urban area under a single roof. In most descriptions, the dome is airtight and pressurized, creating a habitat that can be controlled for air temperature, composition and quality, typically due to an external atmosphere (or lack thereof) that is inimical to habitation for one or more reasons. Domed cities have been a fixture of science fiction and futurology since the early 20th century, offer inspirations for potential utopias and may be situated on Earth, a moon or other planet. Origin The social reformer Charles Fourier proposed in 1808 that an ideal city must be connected by glass galleries and the botanist John Claudius Loudon, J. C. Loudon wrote in his ''An Encyclopedia of Gardening'' (1822) about whole cities covered by a giant glass roof In Northern countries, civilized man could not exist without glass; and if coal is not discovered in these countries, say in Russia, the most economical mode of procuring t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Moon
The Moon is Earth's only natural satellite. It Orbit of the Moon, orbits around Earth at Lunar distance, an average distance of (; about 30 times Earth diameter, Earth's diameter). The Moon rotation, rotates, with a rotation period (lunar day) that is synchronized to its orbital period (Lunar month#Synodic month, lunar month) of 29.5 Earth days. This is the product of Earth's gravitation having tidal forces, tidally pulled on the Moon until one part of it stopped rotating away from the near side of the Moon, near side, making always the same lunar surface face Earth. Conversley, the gravitational pull of the Moon, on Earth, is the main driver of Earth's tides. In geophysical definition of planet, geophysical terms, the Moon is a planetary-mass object or satellite planet. Its mass is 1.2% that of the Earth, and its diameter is , roughly one-quarter of Earth's (about as wide as the contiguous United States). Within the Solar System, it is the List of Solar System objects by ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
