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Twin Films
Twin films are films with the same or similar plots produced and released within a close proximity of time by two different film studios. The phenomenon can result from two or more production companies investing in similar scripts at the same time, resulting in a race to distribute the films to audiences.Fredrik Strage.Tvillingfilmer resultatet av ängsliga filmbolag", , 28 September 2009. Retrieved 22 June 2011. (In Swedish)Henrik Arvidsson.Först till kvarn i Drömfabriken , 11 July 2008. Retrieved 22 June 2011. (In Swedish) Some attribute twin films to industrial espionage, the movement of staff between studios, or that the same screenplays are sent to several film studios before being accepted. Another possible explanation is if the films deal with topical issues, such as volcanic eruptions, reality television, terrorist attacks, or significant anniversaries, resulting in multiple discovery of the concept. While twin films are often big budget films, a mockbuster can be made ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Film Studio
A film studio (also known as movie studio or simply studio) is a major entertainment company that makes films. Today, studios are mostly financing and distribution entities. In addition, they may have their own studio facility or facilities; however, most firms in the entertainment industry have never had their own studios, but have rented space from other companies instead. Day-to-day filming operations are generally handled by a production company subsidiary. Another type of company is an independently owned studio facility, which does not produce motion pictures by itself; such facilities only sell studio space. Beginnings In 1893, Thomas Edison built the first movie studio in the United States: he constructed the Black Maria, a tarpaper-covered structure near his laboratories in West Orange, New Jersey, and he asked circus, vaudeville, and dramatic actors to perform for the camera. He distributed these movies at vaudeville theaters, penny arcades, wax museums, and fair ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Black Mass (film)
''Black Mass'' is a 2015 American biographical film, biographical crime drama film about American mobster Whitey Bulger. Directed by Scott Cooper (director), Scott Cooper and written by Mark Mallouk and Jez Butterworth, it is based on Dick Lehr and Gerard O'Neill's 2000 book ''Black Mass: The True Story of an Unholy Alliance Between the FBI and the Irish Mob''. The film features an ensemble cast led by Johnny Depp as Bulger, alongside Joel Edgerton, Benedict Cumberbatch, Kevin Bacon, Jesse Plemons, Peter Sarsgaard, Dakota Johnson, and Corey Stoll. Principal photography of the film took place in Boston between May and August 2014. The film had its world premiere at the 72nd Venice International Film Festival and was released by Warner Bros. worldwide on September 18, 2015. It received generally positive reviews and grossed $100 million on a $53 million budget. Plot In 1975, Whitey Bulger, James "Whitey" Bulger, leader of the Winter Hill Gang, controls most organized crime within S ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mata Hari (1931 Film)
''Mata Hari'' is a 1931 American pre-Code drama film directed by George Fitzmaurice loosely based on the life of Mata Hari, an exotic dancer and courtesan executed for espionage during World War I. The Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer film stars Greta Garbo in the title role. It was Garbo's most commercially successful vehicle. Only a censored version of the film is currently available. Plot In 1917, France is embroiled in World War I. Dubois, head of the French spy bureau, offers to spare the life of a captured agent (an uncredited Mischa Auer) if he will reveal who he is protecting. Dubois suspects it is Mata Hari, a celebrated exotic dancer, but the prisoner chooses execution by firing squad. Lieutenant Alexis Rosanoff of the Imperial Russian Air Force lands in Paris after a dangerous flight over enemy territory, bringing important dispatches from Russia. He persuades his superior, General Serge Shubin, to take him to see Mata Hari perform that night. Rosanoff is instantly smitten by ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dishonored (film)
''Dishonored'' is a 1931 American pre-Code romantic spy film directed and edited by Josef von Sternberg, who also co-wrote the film with Daniel N. Rubin. It was produced and distributed by Paramount Pictures. The film stars Marlene Dietrich, Victor McLaglen, Gustav von Seyffertitz, and Warner Oland, and follows a female spy (Dietrich) for Austria-Hungary during World War I. Costume design was provided by Travis Banton, in one of his several collaborations with Dietrich. Plot The story opens in 1915 on the streets of Vienna, Austria, in war-torn Europe. The corpse of a prostitute is removed by the authorities from a tenement building in the red-light district – a case of suicide. When Marie Kolverer, a fellow streetwalker, offers a word of sympathy, the concierge warns that she is destined to suffer the same fate. She responds: "No I am not. I am not afraid of life... Although I am not afraid of death, either." The Chief of Austrian Secret Service overhears Marie's remark. He ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Belgian Congo
The Belgian Congo (, ; ) was a Belgian colonial empire, Belgian colony in Central Africa from 1908 until independence in 1960 and became the Republic of the Congo (Léopoldville). The former colony adopted its present name, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), in 1964. Colonization of the Congo Basin, Colonial rule in the Congo began in the late 19th century. Leopold II of the Belgians, King Leopold II of the Belgians attempted to persuade the Federal Government of Belgium, Belgian government to support colonial expansion around the then-largely unexploited Congo Basin. Their ambivalence resulted in Leopold establishing a colony himself. With support from a number of Berlin Conference, Western countries, Leopold achieved international recognition of the Congo Free State in 1885. By the turn of the century, the violence used by Free State officials against indigenous Congolese and a ruthless system of economic exploitation led to intense diplomatic pressure on Belgium to ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Africa Speaks!
''Africa Speaks!'' is a 1930 American documentary film directed by Walter Futter and narrated by Lowell Thomas. It is an exploitation film. Premise Paul L. Hoefler heads a 1928 expedition to Africa capturing wildlife and tribes on film. Production Although the film was shot over the fourteen months of the expedition in the Serengeti and in Uganda, a scene involving an attack by a lion on a native was apparently staged at the Selig Zoo in Los Angeles and involved a toothless lion. Hoefler wrote a book entitled ''Africa Speaks'' about the expedition that was published in 1931. References in popular culture The title of the film was parodied in the 1940 cartoon '' Africa Squeaks'' and the 1949 Abbott and Costello film '' Africa Screams''. Home media ''Africa Speaks'' was released on Region 0 DVD-R by Alpha Video Alpha Video (also known as Alpha Home Entertainment) is an entertainment company founded in 1985 as New Age Video, based near Philadelphia, that specializes in ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ingagi
''Ingagi'' is a 1930 pre-Code Hollywood, pre-Code pseudo-documentary exploitation film directed by William S. Campbell (director), William S. Campbell. It purports to be a documentary about "Sir Hubert Winstead" of London on an expedition to the Belgian Congo, and depicts a tribe of gorilla-worshipping women encountered by the explorer. The film claims to show a ritual in which African women are given over to gorillas as Sexual slavery, sex slaves, but in actuality was mostly filmed in Los Angeles, using American actresses in place of natives. It was produced and distributed by Nat Spitzer's Congo Pictures, which had been formed expressly for this production. Although marketed under the pretense of being ethnography, ethnographic, the premise was a fabrication, leading the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors Association to retract any involvement. The film trades heavily on its nudity in film, nudity and on bestiality, the suggestion of sex between a woman and a gorilla. RK ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Strange Case Of Dr Jekyll And Mr Hyde
''Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde'' is an 1886 Gothic horror novella by Scottish author Robert Louis Stevenson. It follows Gabriel John Utterson, a London-based legal practitioner who investigates a series of strange occurrences between his old friend, Dr. Henry Jekyll, and a murderous criminal named Edward Hyde. ''Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde'' is one of the most famous pieces of English literature, and is considered to be a defining book of the gothic horror genre. The novella has also had a sizeable impact on popular culture, with the phrase "Jekyll and Hyde" being used in vernacular to refer to people with an outwardly good but sometimes shockingly evil nature. Inspiration and writing Stevenson had long been intrigued by the idea of how human personalities can reflect the interplay of good and evil. While still a teenager, he developed a script for a play about William Brodie, a Scottish cabinet-maker, deacon of a trades guild, and Edinburgh city counc ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
All-star
An all-star team is a group of people all having a high level of performance in their field. Originating in sports, it has since drifted into vernacular and has been borrowed heavily by the entertainment industry. Sports "All-star" as a sports term refers to individual players named to an "all-star" roster or team representing the top performers (members of such a team were ''all wikt:star, stars'' from other teams) during and before the end of a season in a given sport, or to a list of top participants who played in individual sports such as golf and bowling. Events limited to such honorees are referred to as "all-star games" or events. In American team sports the premier all-star games are the Major League Baseball All-Star Game, NBA All-Star Game (basketball), Pro Bowl (football), NHL All-Star Game (hockey), and MLS All-Star Game (soccer). Many all-star teams, such as collegiate "all-conference" and All-America squads, are recognitions of performance only, without the conno ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Towering Inferno
''The Towering Inferno'' is a 1974 American disaster film directed by John Guillermin and produced by Irwin Allen, featuring an ensemble cast led by Paul Newman and Steve McQueen. It was adapted by Stirling Silliphant from the novels '' The Tower'' by Richard Martin Stern and '' The Glass Inferno'' by Thomas N. Scortia and Frank M. Robinson. In addition to McQueen and Newman, the cast includes William Holden, Faye Dunaway, Fred Astaire, Susan Blakely, Richard Chamberlain, O. J. Simpson, Robert Vaughn, Robert Wagner, Susan Flannery, Gregory Sierra, Dabney Coleman and Jennifer Jones in her final role. ''The Towering Inferno'' was released theatrically December 16, 1974. The film received generally positive reviews from critics, and earned around $203.3 million, making it the highest-grossing film of 1974. It was nominated for eight Academy Awards, including Best Picture, winning three: Best Song, Best Cinematography and Best Editing. Plot Architect Doug Robe ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cadillac Records
''Cadillac Records'' is a 2008 American biographical drama film written and directed by Darnell Martin. The film explores the musical era from the early 1940s to the late 1960s, chronicling the life of the influential Chicago-based record-company executive Leonard Chess, and a few of the musicians who recorded for Chess Records. The film stars Adrien Brody as Leonard Chess, Jeffrey Wright as Muddy Waters, Columbus Short as Little Walter, Cedric the Entertainer as Willie Dixon, Eamonn Walker as Howlin' Wolf, Mos Def as Chuck Berry, and Beyoncé Knowles as Etta James. The film was released in North America on December 5, 2008, by TriStar Pictures. The soundtrack was released on Music World/Columbia and Sony Music. Plot In 1947 in Chicago, a Jewish immigrant from Poland and bar owner Leonard Chess hires a blues combo, including guitarist Muddy Waters and harmonica player Little Walter. Waters' and Walter's success leads to Chess opening the doors for black musicians and beginni ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Chess Records
Chess Records was an American record company established in 1950 in Chicago, specializing in blues and rhythm and blues. It was the successor to Aristocrat Records, founded in 1947. It expanded into soul music, gospel music, early rock and roll, and jazz and comedy recordings, released on the Chess and its subsidiary labels Checker and Argo/ Cadet. The Chess catalogue is owned by Universal Music Group and managed by Geffen Records and Universal Music Enterprises. Established and run by two Jewish immigrant brothers from what was then Poland, Leonard and Phil Chess, the company produced and released many singles and albums regarded as central to the rock music canon. The musician and critic Cub Koda described Chess as "America's greatest blues label". Chess was based at several locations on the south side of Chicago, initially at 4750 South Cottage Grove Ave. The most famous was 2120 S. Michigan Avenue, from May 1957 to 1967 immortalized by the Rolling Stones in ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
