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Strange Invaders
''Strange Invaders'' is a 1983 American science fiction film directed and co-written by Michael Laughlin, and stars Paul Le Mat, Nancy Allen and Diana Scarwid. Produced as a tribute to the sci-fi films of the 1950s, notably '' The Invasion of the Body Snatchers'', it was intended to be the second installment of the aborted ''Strange Trilogy'' with '' Strange Behavior'' (1981), another 1950s spoof by Laughlin, but the idea was abandoned after ''Invaders'' failed to attract a large audience. Scarwid's performance earned her a Razzie Award nomination for Worst Supporting Actress. Plot In 1958, the town of Centreville, Illinois is quietly invaded by extraterrestrial aliens. The aliens fire mysterious beams of energy from their hands and eyes, which turn the town's inhabitants into crystalized pulsing blue orbs. Using artificial skin and hair, the invaders then assume the identities of their victims and cover up the invasion. Twenty-five years later, Columbia University lec ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Michael Laughlin
Michael Stoddard Laughlin (November 28, 1938 – October 20, 2021) was an American film director, producer and screenwriter. Biography Laughlin was raised in Minonk, Illinois, where his father Donald M. Laughlin had extensive farms. He played basketball and studied law at college. During his first few days in California, he met the Dean Martin family and other movie stars, which had a lasting effect on him. His mother Hazel Stoddard Laughlin died in 1965. During the late 1960s, he lived in London, where he produced ''The Whisperers'' starring Dame Edith Evans, directed by Bryan Forbes. It was in London that he met and married Leslie Caron who had two children from her previous marriage to Sir Peter Hall. They moved to Los Angeles where they settled in Cuesta Way, Bel Air, and over the next few years, Laughlin produced a series of groundbreaking films including the cult hit ''Two-Lane Blacktop'' starring James Taylor and Laurie Bird. He also worked with writers and directors F ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Extraterrestrial Life
Extraterrestrial life, or alien life (colloquially, aliens), is life that originates from another world rather than on Earth. No extraterrestrial life has yet been scientifically conclusively detected. Such life might range from simple forms such as prokaryotes to Extraterrestrial intelligence, intelligent beings, possibly bringing forth civilizations that might be Kardashev scale, far more, or far less, advanced than humans. The Drake equation speculates about the existence of sapient life elsewhere in the universe. The science of extraterrestrial life is known as astrobiology. Speculation about the possibility of inhabited worlds beyond Earth dates back to antiquity. Early Christianity, Christian writers discussed the idea of a "plurality of worlds" as proposed by earlier thinkers such as Democritus; Augustine of Hippo, Augustine references Epicurus's idea of innumerable worlds "throughout the boundless immensity of space" in ''The City of God''. Pre-modern writers typicall ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Michael Murphy (actor)
Michael George Murphy (born May 5, 1938) is a multi-award-winning American film, television and stage actor. He often plays unethical or morally ambiguous characters in positions of authority, including politicians, executives, administrators, clerics, doctors, law enforcement agents, and lawyers. He is also known for his frequent collaborations with director Robert Altman, having appeared in twelve (film, TV series and miniseries) productions directed by Altman in a period spanning from 1963 to 2004, including his leading titular role in the acclaimed, Emmy Award-winning HBO cable miniseries '' Tanner '88''. He had roles in the films '' M*A*S*H'' (1970), '' Brewster McCloud'' (1970), '' McCabe and Mrs. Miller'' (1971), '' What's Up, Doc?'' (1972), '' Phase IV'' (1974), ''Nashville'' (1975), '' The Front'' (1976), '' An Unmarried Woman'' (1978), '' The Class of Miss MacMichael'' (1978), ''Manhattan'' (1979), '' Strange Behavior'' (1981), '' The Year of Living Dangerously'' (1983 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Two-Lane Blacktop
''Two-Lane Blacktop'' is a 1971 American road film directed and edited by Monte Hellman, from a screenplay by Rudy Wurlitzer and Will Corry. It stars musicians James Taylor and Dennis Wilson, Warren Oates, and Laurie Bird in the leading roles. The sparse, existentialist plot follows a group of street racers during a cross-country race through the American Southwest. Universal Pictures commissioned the film in the wake of '' Easy Rider'' monumental success. Hellman, who had previously worked in low-budget and independent films, developed the screenplay with Wurlitzer, then-known mainly as an underground writer, during an actual cross-country road trip. Filming took place in locations around the Southwest between August and October 1970. On initial release, the film received generally positive reviews, but was not a commercial success. Over the years, it developed the reputation of a sleeper hit and a cult classic, and has been reevaluated as a major work of the New Hollyw ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Starlog
''Starlog'' was an American monthly science fiction magazine that was created in 1976 and focused primarily on ''Star Trek'' at its inception. Kerry O'Quinn and Norman Jacobs were its creators and it was published by Starlog Group, Inc. in August 1976. ''Starlog'' was one of the first publications to report on the development of the first ''Star Wars (film), Star Wars'' movie, and it followed the development of what was to eventually become ''Star Trek: The Motion Picture'' (1979). ''Starlog'' was born out of the ''Star Trek'' fandom craze, but also was inspired by the success of the magazine ''Cinefantastique'' which was the model of ''Star Trek'' and ''Star Wars'' coverage. ''Starlog'', though it called itself a science fiction magazine, actually contained no fiction. The primary focus of the magazine, besides the fact that it was mostly based on ''Star Trek'' fandom, was the making of science fiction media — books, films, and television series - and the work that went into ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jack Kehler
Jack Kehler (May 22, 1946 – May 7, 2022) was an American character actor. He was best known for his role of Marty, a landlord in ''The Big Lebowski''. He also appeared in ''Men in Black II'', '' The Last Boy Scout'', ''Point Break'', ''Wyatt Earp'' and ''Waterworld''. Early years Kehler was born on May 22, 1946, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Career Kehler started to act in theatre at the age of 24. He studied with Sanford Meisner and Wynn Handman and became a member of the Actors Studio. His first film role was in ''Strange Invaders'', released in 1983. In the 1980s, he worked primarily on television, appearing in ''Hill Street Blues'', '' Cagney & Lacey'' and ''St. Elsewhere''. In the 1990s, he had roles in several action films, including '' The Last Boy Scout'', ''Wyatt Earp'' and ''Waterworld''. He appeared in the Coen brothers' 1998 cult film ''The Big Lebowski'' as Marty, the stammering landlord to Jeff Bridges' the Dude. He recurred as Harlan Wyndam Matson on Amazon Pr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lulu Sylbert
Susanna Moore (born December 9, 1945) is an American writer and teacher. Born in Pennsylvania but raised in Hawaii, Moore worked as a model and script reader in Los Angeles and New York City before beginning her career as a writer. Her first novel, ''My Old Sweetheart'', published in 1982, earned a PEN Hemingway nomination, and won the Prize for First Fiction from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. She followed this with ''The Whiteness of Bones'' in 1989, and her third novel, ''Sleeping Beauties'', in 1993. All three of these novels were set in Hawaii and charted dysfunctional family relationships. Moore gained particular critical notice for her fourth novel, '' In the Cut'' (1995), which marked a departure from her previous works in both setting and content, concerning a New York City teacher who has a sexual affair with a detective investigating violent murders and dismemberments in her neighborhood. It was adapted into a 2003 feature film of the same name by director ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Charles Lane (actor, Born 1905)
Charles Lane (born Charles Gerstle Levison; January 26, 1905 – July 9, 2007) was an American character actor and centenarian whose career spanned 76 years. A prolific actor who played hundreds of roles in both film and TV, Lane often played sour, scowling and disagreeable clerks, doctors, judges, and middle-management authority figures. Recalling in 1981 his many roles, he said "They were all good parts, but they were jerks. If you have a type established, though, and you're any good, it can mean considerable work for you." ''The New York Times'' reported that Lane's persona was so familiar to the public, "that people would come up to him in the street and greet him, because they thought they knew him from their hometowns." Lane's first film role, of more than 250, was as a hotel clerk in '' Smart Money'' (1931) starring Edward G. Robinson and James Cagney. Lane appeared in many Frank Capra films, including '' Mr. Deeds Goes to Town'' (1936), '' You Can't Take It with Y ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
June Lockhart
June Lockhart (born June 25, 1925) is an American retired actress, beginning a film career in the 1930s and 1940s in such films as A Christmas Carol (1938 film), ''A Christmas Carol'' and ''Meet Me in St. Louis''. She appeared primarily in 1950s and 1960s television and with performances on stage and in film. On two television series, ''Lassie (1954 TV series), Lassie'' and ''Lost in Space'', she played mother roles. Lockhart also portrayed Dr. Janet Craig on the CBS television sitcom ''Petticoat Junction'' (1968–70). She is a two-time Emmy Award nominee and a Tony Award winner. With a career spanning nearly 90 years, Lockhart is one of the last surviving actors from the Golden Age of Hollywood. Early life June Lockhart was born on June 25, 1925, in New York City, New York. She is the daughter of Canadian-American actor Gene Lockhart, who came to prominence on Broadway in 1933 in ''Ah, Wilderness!'', and English-born actress Kathleen Lockhart (née Arthur). Her grandfather w ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kenneth Tobey
Jesse Kenneth Tobey (March 23, 1917 – December 22, 2002) was an American actor active from the early 1940s into the 1990s, with over 200 credits in film, theatre, and television. He is best known for his role as a captain who takes charge of an Arctic military base when it is attacked by a plant-based alien in '' The Thing from Another World'' (1951), and a starring role in the 1957-1960 Desilu Productions TV series '' Whirlybirds''. Early years Tobey was born in 1917 in Oakland, California. Following his graduation from high school in 1935, he entered the University of California, Berkeley, with intentions to pursue a career in law, until he began to dabble in acting at the school's theater. His stage experience there led to a drama scholarship, a year-and-a-half of study at New York City's Neighborhood Playhouse, where his classmates included fellow actors Gregory Peck, Eli Wallach, and Tony Randall. [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Fiona Lewis
Fiona Lewis (born 28 September 1946) is a British actress and writer from Westcliff-on-Sea, Essex. Biography She is married to Art Linson, an American film producer, director, and screenwriter. In February 1967, she had an appearance in ''Playboy'' as part of the 13-page James Bond parody pictorial "The Girls of ''Casino Royale (1967 film), Casino Royale''". Lewis has written two books, the novel ''Between Men'' (1995) and the memoir ''Mistakes Were Made (Some In French)'' (2017). She has written for ''The New Yorker'', the ''Los Angeles Times'', and ''The Observer''. Her blog, Fiona's French Chateau, includes information about her French chateau, stories about London and Paris in the 1960s, Los Angeles in the 1970s, and her time working as an actress. Partial filmography References External links * Fiona Lewis at the British Film Institute 1946 births Living people 20th-century English actresses 20th-century English novelists 20th-century English women writers 21s ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Wallace Shawn
Wallace Michael Shawn (born November 12, 1943) is an American actor, essayist, playwright, and screenwriter. He is known for playing Vizzini in '' The Princess Bride'' (1987), Mr. Hall in '' Clueless'' (1995), Dr. John Sturgis in '' Young Sheldon'' (2018–2024), and voicing Rex in the ''Toy Story'' franchise (1995–present). Shawn also appeared in '' The Bostonians'' (1984), '' Prick Up Your Ears'' (1987), '' Scenes from the Class Struggle in Beverly Hills'' (1989), '' Vanya on 42nd Street'' (1994), '' My Favorite Martian'' (1999), '' The Double'' (2013), '' Maggie's Plan'' (2015), and '' Marriage Story'' (2019). He appeared in six Woody Allen films including ''Manhattan'' (1979), '' Radio Days'' (1987), and '' Rifkin's Festival'' (2020). His television work includes recurring roles as Jeff Engels in '' The Cosby Show'' (1987–1991), Grand Nagus Zek in '' Star Trek: Deep Space Nine'' (1993–1999), Cyrus Rose in '' Gossip Girl'' (2008–2012), and Father Frank Ignatius in ' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
