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The Ladd Company
The Ladd Company was an American film production company founded by Alan Ladd Jr., Jay Kanter, and Gareth Wigan on August 18, 1979. In 1979, the three founders were executives with 20th Century Fox; Ladd was the president. They announced their intention to leave the company when their contracts expired in December 1980 and form a new production company to be financed by Warner Bros. (Ladd had reportedly been quarreling with other Fox senior executives). Fox subsequently cut their contracts short, ending on October 1, 1979. The day after the contracts expired, the trio placed ads for the newly named "Ladd Company" in ''The Hollywood Reporter'' and ''Variety (magazine), Variety''. Under Warner Bros., The Ladd Company distributed ''Chariots of Fire'', which won the 1981 Academy Award for Best Picture. Among the films it produced were the Space Race epic ''The Right Stuff (film), The Right Stuff'', the Space Western, space western ''Outland (film), Outland'', Ridley Scott's scienc ... [...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] |
Space Race
The Space Race (, ) was a 20th-century competition between the Cold War rivals, the United States and the Soviet Union, to achieve superior spaceflight capability. It had its origins in the ballistic missile-based nuclear arms race between the two nations following World War II and the onset of the Cold War. The technological advantage demonstrated by spaceflight achievement was seen as necessary for national security, particularly in regard to intercontinental ballistic missile and Reconnaissance satellite, satellite reconnaissance capability, but also became part of the cultural symbolism and ideology of the time. The Space Race brought pioneering launches of artificial satellites, robotic landers to the Moon, Venus, and Mars, and human spaceflight in low Earth orbit and ultimately to the Moon. Public interest in space travel originated in the 1951 publication of a Soviet youth magazine and was promptly picked up by US magazines. The competition began on July 30, 1955, when ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lucasfilm
Lucasfilm Ltd. LLC is an American film and television production company founded by filmmaker George Lucas in December 10, 1971 in San Rafael, California, and later moved to San Francisco in 2005. It is best known for creating and producing the ''Star Wars'' and ''Indiana Jones'' franchises, as well as its leadership in developing special effects, sound, and computer animation for films. Since 2012, Lucasfilm has been a subsidiary of The Walt Disney Studios, who also owns former Lucasfilm subsidiary Pixar. The company's films '' Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace'' (1999), '' Star Wars: The Force Awakens'' (2015), '' Rogue One: A Star Wars Story'' (2016), '' Star Wars: The Last Jedi'' (2017), and '' Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker'' (2019) are all among the 50 highest-grossing films of all time, with ''The Force Awakens'' becoming the highest-grossing film in the United States and Canada. On October 30, 2012, Disney acquired Lucasfilm for $4.05 billion in the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Korty Films
John Korty (June 22, 1936 – March 9, 2022), was an American film director and animator, best known for the television film ''The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman'' and the documentary '' Who Are the DeBolts? And Where Did They Get Nineteen Kids?'', as well as the theatrical animated feature '' Twice Upon a Time''. He has won an Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature (for ''Who Are the DeBolts?'') and several other major awards. He is described by the film critic Leonard Maltin as "a principled filmmaker who has worked both outside and within the mainstream, attempting to find projects that support his humanistic beliefs". Early life and career Born in Lafayette, Indiana, he began making amateur films while still in his teens. He took a liberal arts education at Antioch College in Ohio and obtained work as an animator for television commercials while still in school. He graduated in 1959. In a 1963 article he wrote for the ''Bolex Reporter'', he notes that he first took ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Twice Upon A Time (1983 Film)
''Twice Upon a Time'' is a 1983 American animated adventure fantasy comedy film co-directed by John Korty and Charles Swenson from a screenplay by Korty, Swenson, Suella Kennedy, and Bill Couturié. The first animated film produced by George Lucas, it uses a form of cutout animation which the filmmakers called "Lumage," involving prefabricated cutout elements that the animators moved on a light table, emulating stained glass. The film features improvised dialogue and a visual blend of live-action and stop-motion. Plot In the eternally busy city of Din, the black-and-white Rushers constantly go about their business in a fast-paced way and stop only to sleep due to their Cosmic Clock getting wound too tightly. Din lies between two worlds that create dreams to deliver to the sleeping Rushers – one is the bright and cheerful Frivoli, where Greensleeves and his Figmen of Imagination bring sweet dreams. The other is the Murkworks, a dark and dingy factory home to vultures who d ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Once Upon A Time In America
''Once Upon a Time in America'' () is a 1984 epic crime film co-written and directed by Italian filmmaker Sergio Leone, and starring Robert De Niro and James Woods. The film is an Italian–American venture produced by The Ladd Company, Embassy International Pictures, PSO Enterprises and Rafran Cinematografica, and distributed by Warner Bros. Based on Harry Grey's novel ''The Hoods'', it chronicles the lives of best friends David "Noodles" Aaronson and Maximilian "Max" Bercovicz as they lead a group of Jewish ghetto youths who rise to prominence as Jewish gangsters in New York City's world of organized crime. The film explores themes of childhood friendships, love, lust, greed, betrayal, loss and broken relationships, together with the rise of mobsters in American society. It is the final film directed by Leone before his death five years later, and the first feature film that he had directed in 13 years. It is also the third installment of Leone's ''Once Upon a Time Tri ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sergio Leone
Sergio Leone ( ; ; 3 January 1929 – 30 April 1989) was an Italian filmmaker, credited as the pioneer of the spaghetti Western genre. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest directors in the history of cinema. Leone's film-making style includes juxtaposing extreme Close-up, close-up shots with lengthy long shots. His films include the Dollars Trilogy of Westerns featuring Clint Eastwood: ''A Fistful of Dollars'' (1964), ''For a Few Dollars More'' (1965), and ''The Good, the Bad and the Ugly'' (1966); and the ''Once Upon a Time'' films: ''Once Upon a Time in the West'' (1968), ''Duck, You Sucker!'' (1971), and ''Once Upon a Time in America'' (1984). Early life Born on 3 January 1929 in Rome, Leone was the son of the cinema pioneer Vincenzo Leone (known as Roberto Roberti or Leone Roberto Roberti) and silent film actress Edvige Valcarenghi (known as Bice Waleran). His mother was of Milanese and remote Austrians, Austrian descent. During his schooldays, Leone was a classm ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Police Academy (franchise)
''Police Academy'' is a comedy film, comedy franchise of seven Movie theater, theatrical films and two Spin-off media, spin-off Television program, television shows. The 1984 film ''Police Academy (film), Police Academy'' followed the premise of a new mayor requiring the local police department to accept all recruits. The film franchise relies heavily on slapstick humor and physical comedy, as the misfit recruits attempt to prove themselves capable of being police officers, succeeding despite their eccentricities. The first four films follow Carey Mahoney (Steve Guttenberg), a repeat offender forced to join the police academy as punishment. The 1994 film ''Police Academy: Mission to Moscow, Mission to Moscow'' marked the seventh installment, with cast members George Gaynes, Michael Winslow, and David Graf appearing throughout the film series. The first film grossed $149.8 million worldwide. While the subsequent films failed to impress critics, they sustained commercial success, g ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Body Heat
Thermoregulation is the ability of an organism to keep its body temperature within certain boundaries, even when the surrounding temperature is very different. A thermoconforming organism, by contrast, simply adopts the surrounding temperature as its own body temperature, thus avoiding the need for internal thermoregulation. The internal thermoregulation process is one aspect of homeostasis: a state of dynamic stability in an organism's internal conditions, maintained far from thermal equilibrium with its environment (the study of such processes in zoology has been called physiological ecology). If the body is unable to maintain a normal temperature and it increases significantly above normal, a condition known as hyperthermia occurs. Humans may also experience lethal hyperthermia when the wet bulb temperature is sustained above for six hours. Work in 2022 established by experiment that a wet-bulb temperature exceeding 30.55°C caused uncompensable heat stress in young, heal ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Neo-noir
Neo-noir is a film genre that adapts the visual style and themes of 1940s and 1950s American film noir for contemporary audiences, often with more graphic depictions of violence and sexuality. During the late 1970s and the early 1980s, the term "neo-noir" surged in popularity, fueled by movies such as Sydney Pollack's '' Absence of Malice'', Brian De Palma's '' Blow Out'', and Martin Scorsese's '' After Hours''. The French term ''film noir'' translates literally to English as "black film", indicating sinister stories often presented in a shadowy cinematographic style. Neo-noir has a similar style but with updated themes, content, style, and visual elements. Definition The neologism neo-noir, using the Greek prefix for the word ''new'', is defined by Mark Conard as "any film coming after the classic noir period that contains noir themes and noir sensibility". Another definition describes it as later noir that often synthesizes diverse genres while foregrounding the scaffolding ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Blade Runner
''Blade Runner'' is a 1982 science fiction film directed by Ridley Scott from a screenplay by Hampton Fancher and David Peoples. Starring Harrison Ford, Rutger Hauer, Sean Young, and Edward James Olmos, it is an adaptation of Philip K. Dick's 1968 novel '' Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?'' The film is set in a dystopian future Los Angeles of 2019, in which synthetic humans known as '' replicants'' are bio-engineered by the powerful Tyrell Corporation to work on space colonies. When a fugitive group of advanced replicants led by Roy Batty (Hauer) escapes back to Earth, burnt-out cop Rick Deckard (Ford) reluctantly agrees to hunt them down. ''Blade Runner'' initially underperformed in North American theaters and polarized critics; some praised its thematic complexity and visuals, while others critiqued its slow pacing and lack of action. The film's soundtrack, composed by Vangelis, was nominated in 1982 for a BAFTA and a Golden Globe as best original score. ''B ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ridley Scott
Sir Ridley Scott (born 30 November 1937) is an English film director and producer. He directs films in the Science fiction film, science fiction, Crime film, crime, and historical drama, historical epic genres, with an atmospheric and highly concentrated visual style. He ranks among the List of highest-grossing film directors, highest-grossing directors, with his films grossing a cumulative $5 billion worldwide. He has received List of awards and nominations received by Ridley Scott, many accolades, including the BAFTA Fellowship for Lifetime Achievement in 2018, two Primetime Emmy Awards, and a Golden Globe Award. He was Knight Bachelor, knighted by Elizabeth II, Queen Elizabeth II in 2003, and appointed a Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the British Empire, Knight Grand Cross by Charles III, King Charles III in 2024. An alumnus of the Royal College of Art in London, Scott began his career in television as a designer and director before moving into advertising as a director o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
