1.
Alex Ross
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Nelson Alexander Alex Ross is an American comic book writer/artist known primarily for his painted interiors, covers, and design work. He first became known with the 1994 miniseries Marvels, on which he collaborated with writer Kurt Busiek for Marvel Comics and he has since done a variety of projects for both Marvel and DC Comics, such as the 1996 miniseries Kingdom Come, which Ross co-wrote. Since then he has done covers and character designs for Busieks series Astro City and his feature film work includes concept and narrative art for Spider-Man and Spider-Man 2, and DVD packaging art for the M. Night Shyamalan film Unbreakable. He has done covers for TV Guide, promotional artwork for the Academy Awards, posters and packaging design for video games, Ross style has been said to exhibit a Norman-Rockwell-meets-George-Pérez vibe, and has been praised for its realistic, human depictions of classic comic book characters. His rendering style, his attention to detail, and the tendency of his characters to be depicted staring off into the distance in cover images has been satirized in Mad magazine. Because of the time it takes Ross to produce his art, thats despite the fact that many outstanding painters are at work in todays comic books. Ross first began drawing at age three, and was first influenced by superheroes when he discovered Spider-Man on an episode of the childrens TV series The Electric Company. By age 16, Ross discovered the work of illustrators such as Andrew Loomis and Norman Rockwell. At age 17, Ross began studying painting at the American Academy of Art in Chicago, during his years there, Ross discovered the work of other artists like J. C. Leyendecker and Salvador Dalí, whose quality, Ross saw, was not that far removed from that of comics. It was during this time that he formed the idea to paint his own comic books, after graduating, Ross took a job at an advertising agency as a storyboard artist. Ross first published comic work was the 1990 five-issue miniseries, Terminator, The Burning Earth, written by Ron Fortier. Ross created all of the art, from pencils through coloring for the series and he performed similar work on a variety of titles over the next few years. His first work for Marvel Comics was to have been printed in the anthology series Open Space #5. Ross story was printed in 1999 as a supplement to Wizards Alex Ross Special. In 1993, he completed his first painted superhero assignment, the cover of a Superman novel, Superman, during this time, Ross met writer Kurt Busiek, and the two began submitting proposals for series that would feature paintings as their internal art. Marvel agreed to a project that would tell much of the history of the Marvel Universe from the perspective of an ordinary person. That limited series, Marvels, was released in 1994, and chronicled the life of a photojournalist, as he reacted to living in a world of superheroes and villains
2.
Kodak Theatre
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Since its opening on November 9,2001, the theater has hosted the Academy Awards ceremonies, initially held there in March 2002. The theater was designed by David Rockwell of the Rockwell Group, with Theatre Projects Consultants, the result of astute planning and technical design, the auditorium is particularly successful as a venue for televised theatrical performance. Power is also substantial and accessible, the theater has a unique, Rockwell-designed cockpit in the orchestra seating area for camera, sound, and stage management. Currently the columns are set for Best Picture up to 2071, the theater is rented to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences for weeks before Oscar night. Having hosted the awards annually since 2002, the theater is best known for this event, during the rest of the year, it hosts numerous live concerts, awards shows, symphony performances, and other events. It has provided the stage for musicals, dance shows, symphony performances, the theater was sponsored, until February 2012, by the Eastman Kodak Company, which paid $75 million for naming rights to the building. In early 2012, Eastman Kodak filed for protection. Then, the name was temporarily changed to The Hollywood and Highland Center. On May 1,2012, it was announced that the venue would be renamed the Dolby Theatre, Dolby updated the sound system first by installing Dolby Atmos. The company plans to continue updating the auditorium with newer technologies as they become available, the show made significant changes to the theater, including adding lifts deep under the original floor. It was announced on November 29,2012 that Iris would close on January 19,2013 after only two seasons, due to lack of profit, after hosting the Academy Awards on February 24,2013, the theater reopened for touring acts and headliners. The theater has hosted the annual AFI Life Achievement Award, the ESPY Awards for excellence in sports performance, in April 2006, it was home to the 33rd Daytime Emmy Awards and hosted the 34th Daytime Emmy Awards on June 15,2007. It also hosted the Miss USA pageant twice, in 2004 and 2007, while the Dolby Theatre has most often hosted public cultural events, such as concerts and other performances, it has also occasionally served private purposes, such as weddings. Live Official Website of the Dolby Theatre
3.
Hollywood
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Hollywood is an ethnically diverse, densely populated neighborhood in the central region of Los Angeles, California. It is notable as the home of the U. S. film industry, including several of its studios, and its name has come to be a shorthand reference for the industry. Hollywood was a community in 1870 and was incorporated as a municipality in 1903. It was consolidated with the city of Los Angeles in 1910, in 1853, one adobe hut stood in Nopalera, named for the Mexican Nopal cactus indigenous to the area. By 1870, an agricultural community flourished, the area was known as the Cahuenga Valley, after the pass in the Santa Monica Mountains immediately to the north. According to the diary of H. J. Whitley, known as the Father of Hollywood, along came a Chinese man in a wagon carrying wood. The man got out of the wagon and bowed, the Chinese man was asked what he was doing and replied, I holly-wood, meaning hauling wood. H. J. Whitley had an epiphany and decided to name his new town Hollywood, Holly would represent England and wood would represent his Scottish heritage. Whitley had already started over 100 towns across the western United States, Whitley arranged to buy the 500-acre E. C. Hurd ranch and disclosed to him his plans for the land. They agreed on a price and Hurd agreed to sell at a later date, before Whitley got off the ground with Hollywood, plans for the new town had spread to General Harrison Gray Otis, Hurds wife, eastern adjacent ranch co-owner Daeida Wilcox, and others. Daeida Wilcox may have learned of the name Hollywood from Ivar Weid, her neighbor in Holly Canyon and she recommended the same name to her husband, Harvey. In August 1887, Wilcox filed with the Los Angeles County Recorders office a deed and parcel map of property he had sold named Hollywood, Wilcox wanted to be the first to record it on a deed. The early real-estate boom busted that year, yet Hollywood began its slow growth. By 1900, the region had a post office, newspaper, hotel, Los Angeles, with a population of 102,479 lay 10 miles east through the vineyards, barley fields, and citrus groves. A single-track streetcar line ran down the middle of Prospect Avenue from it, but service was infrequent, the old citrus fruit-packing house was converted into a livery stable, improving transportation for the inhabitants of Hollywood. The Hollywood Hotel was opened in 1902 by H. J. Whitley who was a president of the Los Pacific Boulevard, having finally acquired the Hurd ranch and subdivided it, Whitley built the hotel to attract land buyers. Flanking the west side of Highland Avenue, the structure fronted on Prospect Avenue, the hotel was to become internationally known and was the center of the civic and social life and home of the stars for many years. Whitleys company developed and sold one of the residential areas
4.
Los Angeles
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Los Angeles, officially the City of Los Angeles and often known by its initials L. A. is the cultural, financial, and commercial center of Southern California. With a census-estimated 2015 population of 3,971,883, it is the second-most populous city in the United States, Los Angeles is also the seat of Los Angeles County, the most populated county in the United States. The citys inhabitants are referred to as Angelenos, historically home to the Chumash and Tongva, Los Angeles was claimed by Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo for Spain in 1542 along with the rest of what would become Alta California. The city was founded on September 4,1781, by Spanish governor Felipe de Neve. It became a part of Mexico in 1821 following the Mexican War of Independence, in 1848, at the end of the Mexican–American War, Los Angeles and the rest of California were purchased as part of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, thereby becoming part of the United States. Los Angeles was incorporated as a municipality on April 4,1850, the discovery of oil in the 1890s brought rapid growth to the city. The completion of the Los Angeles Aqueduct in 1913, delivering water from Eastern California, nicknamed the City of Angels, Los Angeles is known for its Mediterranean climate, ethnic diversity, and sprawling metropolis. Los Angeles also has an economy in culture, media, fashion, science, sports, technology, education, medicine. A global city, it has been ranked 6th in the Global Cities Index, the city is home to renowned institutions covering a broad range of professional and cultural fields, and is one of the most substantial economic engines within the United States. The Los Angeles combined statistical area has a gross metropolitan product of $831 billion, making it the third-largest in the world, after the Greater Tokyo and New York metropolitan areas. The city has hosted the Summer Olympic Games in 1932 and 1984 and is bidding to host the 2024 Summer Olympics and thus become the second city after London to have hosted the Games three times. The Los Angeles area also hosted the 1994 FIFA mens World Cup final match as well as the 1999 FIFA womens World Cup final match, the mens event was watched on television by over 700 million people worldwide. The Los Angeles coastal area was first settled by the Tongva, a Gabrielino settlement in the area was called iyáangẚ, meaning poison oak place. Gaspar de Portolà and Franciscan missionary Juan Crespí, reached the present site of Los Angeles on August 2,1769, in 1771, Franciscan friar Junípero Serra directed the building of the Mission San Gabriel Arcángel, the first mission in the area. The Queen of the Angels is an honorific of the Virgin Mary, two-thirds of the settlers were mestizo or mulatto with a mixture of African, indigenous and European ancestry. The settlement remained a small town for decades, but by 1820. Today, the pueblo is commemorated in the district of Los Angeles Pueblo Plaza and Olvera Street. New Spain achieved its independence from the Spanish Empire in 1821, during Mexican rule, Governor Pío Pico made Los Angeles Alta Californias regional capital
5.
Whoopi Goldberg
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Caryn Elaine Johnson, known professionally as Whoopi Goldberg, is an American actress, comedian, author and television host. She has been nominated for 13 Emmy Awards for her work in television and is one of the few entertainers who has won an Emmy Award, a Grammy Award, an Oscar, and a Tony Award. She was the black woman in the history of the Academy Awards to win an acting Oscar. In the period drama film The Color Purple, her role was playing Celie. In the romantic fantasy film Ghost, Goldberg played Oda Mae Brown, in 1992, she starred as a pretend nun in the comedy Sister Act. From 1998 to 2002, she was co-producer of the game show Hollywood Squares. Since 2007, she has been the moderator of the television talk show The View. Caryn Elaine Johnson was born in Manhattan, New York City on November 13,1955, the daughter of Robert James Johnson, Jr. a clergyman, and Emma Johnson and she was raised in the Chelsea-Elliot Houses. Goldberg has described her mother as a stern, strong, and wise woman who raised her as a mother with her brother Clyde. She went to a local Catholic school, St Columbas when she was younger and her more recent forebears migrated north from Faceville, Georgia, Palatka, Florida, and Virginia. She dropped out of Washington Irving High School and she has stated that her stage forename was taken from a whoopee cushion, If you get a little gassy, youve got to let it go. So people used to say to me, Youre like a whoopee cushion, and thats where the name came from. According to the Jewish Chronicle, one suggests that her mother thought that the familys original surname was not Jewish enough for her daughter to become a star. According to an anecdote told by Nichelle Nichols in Trekkies, a young Goldberg was watching Star Trek, theres a black lady on TV and she aint no maid. This spawned lifelong fandom of Star Trek for Goldberg, who would ask for and receive a recurring guest-starring role on Star Trek. Between 1979 and 1981, she lived in East Germany, working in a number of theater productions, during her travels, she would smuggle various items into the country for the artists she stayed with. Goldberg trained under acting teacher Uta Hagen at the HB Studio in New York City and she first appeared onscreen in 1982 in Citizen, Im Not Losing My Mind, Im Giving It Away, an avant-garde ensemble feature by San Francisco filmmaker William Farley. Goldberg created The Spook Show, a show composed of different character monologues in 1983
6.
Leeza Gibbons
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Leeza Kim Gibbons is an American talk show host. She is best known as a correspondent and co-host for Entertainment Tonight as well as for having her own syndicated talk show. In 2013, her book Take 2 became a New York Times bestseller and she won the Daytime Emmy for Outstanding Host in a Lifestyle or Travel program for the PBS show, My Generation. On February 16,2015, Leeza was named the winner of Celebrity Apprentice, Gibbons was born in Hartsville, South Carolina, the daughter of Jean and Carlos Gibbons, a former state superintendent of education and antique shop owner. Gibbons has two siblings – a brother, Carlos Jr. and a sister, Cammy, Gibbons grew up in Irmo, South Carolina, a suburb of Columbia, and graduated from Irmo High School. Gibbons television career started at the CBS affiliate WSPA-TV in Greenville-Spartanburg and her next stop was as the co host of PM Magazine for KFDM, the CBS affiliate in Beaumont, TX. She later moved up North to ABC affiliate WFAA-TV Channel 8 in Dallas-Fort Worth, in 1983, she landed the co hosting job on Two on the Town in New York for WCBS-TV. The show originated as John & Leeza from Hollywood, a show with former Entertainment Tonight co-host John Tesh. Tesh was dropped from the show after seven months, and Gibbons hosted solo for the remainder of the series, from 2001–2003, Gibbons was the host and managing editor of the television show Extra. In 2011, she pulled double duty as the host of the PBS show My Generation and as co-host. In addition to her television and radio career, Gibbons has received the Congressional Horizon Award for her work on childrens issues, in the 1990s, Gibbons hosted the radio countdown show Blockbuster Top 25 Countdown with Leeza Gibbons. The show was created for Adult Contemporary and Hot Adult Contemporary formats, Gibbons counted down the hits in the respective formats and included entertainment news and pre-recorded interviews. When Blockbuster Video stopped sponsoring the program in 1999, the name was changed to Leeza Gibbons Top 25 Countdown. The Adult Contemporary version was cut to a top 20, in January 2001, the countdown aspect of the show was dropped and was renamed Leeza Gibbons Hollywood Confidential, which focused more on entertainment news. The change in format brought new life to the show, as the continued on for another 12 years. In the early to mid-1990s, Gibbons partnered with Guthy Renker and she was the first television star on a daily show to be featured in an infomercial as she starred in back-to-back blockbusters with a young Tony Robbins. In early 2000s, Gibbons launched her makeup line, Sheer Cover Studio. Presently, Sheer Cover continues to be sold around the world, in 2015, Gibbons received the Icon award from the Electronic Retailing Association, where it was announced that Leeza had crossed the $1 billion mark in sales
7.
Ananda Lewis
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Ananda Lewis is an American television personality, model and social activist. She was an MTV veejay from the late 1990s until 2001, Lewis was born on March 21,1973, in Los Angeles, California. She is of African American and Native American descent, specifically of the Creek and her name means bliss in Sanskrit. Lewiss mother worked as an account manager for Pacific Bell, and her sister, Lakshmi, is a physician. Lewiss parents divorced when Ananda was two old, and her mother moved with her daughters to San Diego, California. Her mother took a trip to Europe to escape the pain of her failed marriage, leaving Ananda. During her absence, which lasted less than a year, Lewis felt abandoned and she states, It was like she nurtured me and carried me in her womb and then completely left. Lewis often fought with her mother growing up and rarely saw her father. Lewis and her grandmother also frequently locked horns while she was growing up, Lewis struggled with a speech impediment, stuttering until she was eight years old. In grade school she earned a reputation for outspokenness, her comments provoked her teachers ire or, less often, in 1981 Lewis entered herself in the Little Miss San Diego Contest, a beauty pageant, and won. During the talent portion of the competition, Lewis performed a dance routine, after her win, Lewis attracted the attention of a talent agent and began working in local theater productions and on television. In fourth grade she enrolled at the San Diego School of Creative and Performance Arts, a magnet school. At the age of thirteen, Lewis began volunteering as a tutor and counselor at a Head Start facility, Lewis was inspired by the work and decided to become a teacher or a psychologist, with the goal of helping young people. However, Lewiss family urged her to follow a more lucrative career path specifically law and she majored in history at Howard University, in Washington, D. C. from which she graduated, cum laude, in 1995. Lewis has credited her mother, grandmother, and sister for providing her with a positive, supportive environment, by her own account, as she grew older she felt increasingly upset by her parents divorce. In adulthood, Lewis has healed her rifts with both parents, Lewis was a good friend of singer and actress Aaliyah before her accidental death. In 2011, Lewis gave birth to a boy, her first child and she currently resides in the San Fernando Valley. Throughout college Lewis had volunteered as a mentor with the group Youth at Risk and she was considering attending graduate school to pursue a masters degree in education when she learned that auditions were going to be held for the job of on-screen host of BETs Teen Summit
8.
Laura Ziskin
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Ziskin was born and raised in a Jewish family in the San Fernando Valley, California, the daughter of Jay Ziskin and Elaine Edelman. Jay was a psychologist and lawyer who died of cancer, aged 77. After graduating from the University of Southern California USC School of Cinematic Arts in 1973, Ziskin started out writing for game shows, then became the personal assistant of Jon Peters. Ziskin quickly became a development executive, moving into feature films with Jon Peters production company where she worked on the 1976 remake of A Star Is Born, Ziskin formed Fogwood Films with partner Sally Field in 1984, and produced Murphys Romance. As an independent producer, Ziskin produced the thriller No Way Out for Orion Pictures, in 1988, Ziskin and partner Ian Sander produced two films featuring Dennis Quaid, the remake of D. O. A. and Taylor Hackfords Everybodys All-American. Ziskins success came with the hit comedy Pretty Woman in 1990, starring Julia Roberts and Richard Gere, the following year was difficult for Ziskin. Ziskin and star Bill Murray had spirited disagreements during production, both that film and The Doctor were not as strong at the box office as Pretty Woman. A switch to Columbia resulted in Stephen Frears Hero in 1992, Ziskin directed her first short film in 1994, Oh, What a Day. 1914 and produced the Nicole Kidman tour-de-force To Die For in 1995, by the time that last film was in release, Ziskin had been appointed president of Fox 2000, one of several offshoots 20th Century Fox developed to speed up their production and distribution. Since the formation of Fox 2000, Ziskin rounded up a number of directors and writers. Among those released were Edward Zwicks Gulf War drama Courage Under Fire and the romantic comedy One Fine Day and Pat OConnors Inventing the Abbotts, Ziskin executive produced As Good as It Gets in 1997. After nearly five years on the job, Ziskin resigned from Fox 2000 in November 1999, after being tapped to serve as the first solo female producer of an Academy Awards telecast in 2002, Ziskin returned to the big screen with the highly anticipated feature version of Spider-Man. The film was released on May 3,2002 to widespread acclaim from critics, went on to box office records. The success of the led to two sequels, Spider-Man 2 and Spider-Man 3. In 2002, Ziskin was also awarded the Crystal Award by Women in Film for her efforts at expanding the role of women in the entertainment industry. In February 2004, Ziskin was diagnosed with stage 3 breast cancer, Ziskin died of breast cancer at her home in Santa Monica, California on June 12,2011, aged 61. Her final films were the franchise reboot, The Amazing Spider-Man and she died a few months after filming ended on The Amazing Spider-Man, but three weeks before filming began on The Butler. When she was about 27, Ziskin married writer Julian Barry, the two later had a daughter, Julia Barry
9.
A Beautiful Mind (film)
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A Beautiful Mind is a 2001 American biographical drama film based on the life of John Nash, a Nobel Laureate in Economics. The film was directed by Ron Howard, from a written by Akiva Goldsman. It was inspired by a bestselling, Pulitzer Prize-nominated 1998 book of the name by Sylvia Nasar. The film stars Russell Crowe, along with Ed Harris, Jennifer Connelly, Paul Bettany, Adam Goldberg, Judd Hirsch, Josh Lucas, Anthony Rapp, the story begins in Nashs days as a graduate student at Princeton University. Early in the film, Nash begins to develop paranoid schizophrenia and endures delusional episodes while painfully watching the loss and burden his condition brings on wife Alicia, the film opened in the United States cinemas on December 21,2001. It went on to gross over $313 million worldwide and won four Academy Awards, for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Adapted Screenplay and it was also nominated for Best Actor, Best Film Editing, Best Makeup, and Best Original Score. It was well received by critics, but has criticized for its inaccurate portrayal of some aspects of Nashs life, especially his other family. However, the filmmakers have stated that the film was not meant to be a literal representation, in 1947, John Nash arrives at Princeton University. He is co-recipient, with Martin Hansen, of the prestigious Carnegie Scholarship for mathematics, at a reception, he meets a group of other promising math and science graduate students, Richard Sol, Ainsley, and Bender. He also meets his roommate Charles Herman, a literature student, Nash is under extreme pressure to publish, but he wants to publish his own original idea. His inspiration comes when he and his graduate students discuss how to approach a group of women at a bar. Hansen quotes Adam Smith and advocates every man for himself, Nash develops a new concept of governing dynamics and publishes an article on this. On the strength of this, he is offered an appointment at MIT where Sol, some years later, Nash is invited to the Pentagon to crack encrypted enemy telecommunication. Nash can decipher the code mentally, to the astonishment of other decrypters and he is to look for patterns in magazines and newspapers in order to thwart a Soviet plot. Nash becomes increasingly obsessive about searching for hidden patterns and believes he is followed when he delivers his results to a secret mailbox. Meanwhile, a student, Alicia Larde, asks him to dinner, on a return visit to Princeton, Nash runs into Charles and his niece, Marcee. With Charles encouragement, he proposes to Alicia and they marry, Nash begins to fear for his life after witnessing a shootout between Parcher and Soviet agents, but Parcher blackmails him into staying on his assignment. While delivering a guest lecture at Harvard University, Nash tries to flee from people he thinks are foreign Russian agents, after punching Rosen in an attempt to flee, Nash is forcibly sedated and sent to a psychiatric facility he believes is run by the Soviets
10.
The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring
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The Lord of the Rings, The Fellowship of the Ring is a 2001 epic high fantasy adventure film directed by Peter Jackson based on the first volume of J. R. R. Tolkiens The Lord of the Rings. It is the first instalment in The Lord of the Rings series, set in Middle-earth, the story tells of the Dark Lord Sauron, who is seeking the One Ring. The Ring has found its way to the young hobbit Frodo Baggins, released on 10 December 2001, the film was highly acclaimed by critics and fans alike who considered it to be a landmark in film-making and an achievement in the fantasy film genre. It has continued to be featured on lists of the greatest fantasy films ever made. The film was a box office success, earning over $871 million worldwide. As of January 2017, it is the 50th highest-grossing film of all time worldwide unadjusted for inflation and it also won four British Academy Film Awards, including Best Film and Best Director BAFTA awards. The Special Extended Edition was released to DVD on 12 November 2002, in 2007, The Fellowship of the Ring was voted No.50 on the American Film Institutes list of 100 greatest American films. The AFI also voted it the second greatest fantasy film of all time during their 10 Top 10 special, the film ranks #24 on Empire magazines 2008 list of the 500 greatest movies of all time. Isildur is later killed by Orcs, and the Ring is lost for 2,500 years, found, the Ring is then found by a Hobbit named Bilbo Baggins. Sixty years on, Bilbo celebrates his 111th birthday in the Shire, Bilbo reveals he intends on leaving the Shire for one last adventure and leaves his inheritance to his nephew Frodo, including the Ring. Gandalf investigates the Ring, discovering its true identity and warns Frodo, learning Gollum was tortured by Orcs and told them that Bilbo took the Ring, Gandalf instructs Frodo to leave the Shire, accompanied by his gardener Samwise Gamgee. Gandalf rides to Isengard, meeting fellow wizard Saruman the White, but learns he is in league with Sauron, after a brief battle, Saruman imprisons Gandalf. The Hobbits are ambushed by the Ringwraiths, one stabbing Frodo with a morgul blade, Arwen, an elf and Strider’s lover, comes to Frodo’s aid and successfully takes him to Rivendell where he is healed, meeting Gandalf who escaped Saruman on the back of a giant eagle. Arwen’s father, Lord Elrond, holds a council, deciding that the Ring must be destroyed in Mount Doom, Bilbo gives Frodo his sword, Sting. The Fellowship of the Ring sets off but Saruman’s magic forces them to travel through the Mines of Moria, the Fellowship find the dwarves within Moria have been slain, and they are attacked by Orcs and a cave troll. They defeat them, but are confronted by an ancient demon called a Balrog, Gandalf casts the Balrog into a vast chasm, but its fiery whip drags Gandalf down into the darkness with it. The rest of the Fellowship, now led by Aragorn, reach Lothlórien, home to elves Galadriel, Galadriel privately informs Frodo that only he can complete the quest and one of his friends will try to take the Ring. Meanwhile, Saruman creates an army of Uruk-hai to track and kill the Fellowship, the Fellowship leave Lothlórien by river to Parth Galen
11.
American Broadcasting Company
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The network is headquartered on Columbus Avenue and West 66th Street in Manhattan, New York City. There are additional offices and production facilities elsewhere in New York City, as well as in Los Angeles and Burbank. Since 2007, when ABC Radio was sold to Citadel Broadcasting, ABC originally launched on October 12,1943, as a radio network, separated from and serving as the successor to the NBC Blue Network, which had been purchased by Edward J. Noble. It extended its operations to television in 1948, following in the footsteps of established broadcast networks CBS, in the mid-1950s, ABC merged with United Paramount Theatres, a chain of movie theaters that formerly operated as a subsidiary of Paramount Pictures. Leonard Goldenson, who had been the head of UPT, made the new television network profitable by helping develop, in 1996, most of Capital Cities/ABCs assets were purchased by The Walt Disney Company. The television network has eight owned-and-operated and over 232 affiliated television stations throughout the United States, most Canadians have access to at least one U. S. ABC News provides news and features content for radio stations owned by Citadel Broadcasting. In the 1930s, radio in the United States was dominated by three companies, the Columbia Broadcasting System, the Mutual Broadcasting System and the National Broadcasting Company. The last was owned by electronics manufacturer Radio Corporation of America, in 1938, the FCC began a series of investigations into the practices of radio networks and published its report on the broadcasting of network radio programs in 1940. The report recommended that RCA give up control of either NBC Red or NBC Blue, at that time, the NBC Red Network was the principal radio network in the United States and, according to the FCC, RCA was using NBC Blue to eliminate any hint of competition. Once Mutuals appeals against the FCC were rejected, RCA decided to sell NBC Blue in 1941, the newly separated NBC Red and NBC Blue divided their respective corporate assets. Investment firm Dillon, Read & Co. offered $7.5 million to purchase the network, Edward John Noble, the owner of Life Savers candy, drugstore chain Rexall and New York City radio station WMCA, purchased the network for $8 million. Due to FCC ownership rules, the transaction, which was to include the purchase of three RCA stations by Noble, would require him to resell his station with the FCCs approval, the Commission authorized the transaction on October 12,1943. Soon afterward, the Blue Network was purchased by the new company Noble founded, Noble subsequently acquired the rights to the American Broadcasting Company name from George B. Meanwhile, in August 1944, the West Coast division of the Blue Network, both stations were then managed by Don Searle, the vice-president of the Blue Networks West Coast division. The ABC Radio Network created its audience slowly, the network also became known for such suspenseful dramas as Sherlock Holmes, Gang Busters and Counterspy, as well as several mid-afternoon youth-oriented programs. S. From Nazi Germany after its conquest, to pre-record its programming, while its radio network was undergoing reconstruction, ABC found it difficult to avoid falling behind on the new medium of television. To ensure a space, in 1947, ABC submitted five applications for television station licenses, the ABC television network made its debut on April 19,1948, with WFIL-TV in Philadelphia becoming its first primary affiliate
12.
73rd Academy Awards
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During the ceremony, AMPAS presented Academy Awards in 23 categories. The ceremony, televised in the United States by ABC, was produced by Gil Cates and was directed by Louis J. Horvitz, actor Steve Martin hosted the show for the first time. Gladiator won five awards including Best Picture, the telecast garnered almost 43 million viewers in the United States. The nominees for the 73rd Academy Awards were announced on February 13,2001, by Robert Rehme, president of the Academy, Gladiator received the most nominations with twelve. Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon came in second with ten, the winners were announced during the awards ceremony on March 25,2001. Gladiator became the first film to win Best Picture without a directing or screenwriting win since 1949s All the Kings Men, Best Director winner Steven Soderbergh, who received nominations for both Erin Brockovich and Traffic, was the third person to receive double directing nominations in the same year. Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon became the third film nominated simultaneously for Best Picture, moreover, its ten nominations were the most for a foreign language film. With four wins, the tied with Fanny and Alexander as the most awarded foreign language films in Academy Awards history. Winners are listed first, highlighted in boldface, and indicated with a double dagger, jack Cardiff Ernest Lehman Dino De Laurentiis The following individuals, listed in order of appearance, presented awards or performed musical numbers. Despite earning both praise and increased viewership from last years ceremony, actor Billy Crystal announced that he would not host the ceremony for a second consecutive year. He listed his role in the film Americas Sweethearts and his directing and producing duties for the made-for-television film 61* as obstacles preventing him from reprising his role as emcee. Shortly after being selected as producer for the gala, Gil Cates hired actor. Cates explained his choice of Martin as host saying, Hes a movie star, hes funny, hes classy, additionally, AMPAS president Robert Rehme approved of the selection stating, Steve is a man of great style. I am simply elated to have him on board and he was at the top of our list, we offered and he accepted, it was as simple as that. ”Martin expressed his delight in hosting the gala jokingly retoring, If you cant win em, join em. In view of the taking place in the year 2001, Cates christened the show with a theme saluting the Stanley Kubrick science fiction film 2001. Throughout the broadcast, the orchestra conducted by film composer Bill Conti performed a version of Also Sprach Zarathustra composed by Brazilian jazz musician Eumir Deodato. Furthermore,2001 author Arthur C. Clarke presented the Best Adapted Screenplay award from his home in Sri Lanka, several others participated in the production of the ceremony. Production designer Roy Christopher designed a new stage for the show which featured gigantic louvered cove that curved from the floor to the ceiling via the auditoriums backstage wall
13.
Academy Awards
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The various category winners are awarded a copy of a golden statuette, officially called the Academy Award of Merit, which has become commonly known by its nickname Oscar. The awards, first presented in 1929 at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel, are overseen by AMPAS, the awards ceremony was first broadcast on radio in 1930 and televised for the first time in 1953. It is now live in more than 200 countries and can be streamed live online. The Academy Awards ceremony is the oldest worldwide entertainment awards ceremony and its equivalents – the Emmy Awards for television, the Tony Awards for theater, and the Grammy Awards for music and recording – are modeled after the Academy Awards. The 89th Academy Awards ceremony, honoring the best films of 2016, were held on February 26,2017, at the Dolby Theatre, in Los Angeles, the ceremony was hosted by Jimmy Kimmel and was broadcast on ABC. A total of 3,048 Oscars have been awarded from the inception of the award through the 88th, the first Academy Awards presentation was held on May 16,1929, at a private dinner function at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel with an audience of about 270 people. The post-awards party was held at the Mayfair Hotel, the cost of guest tickets for that nights ceremony was $5. Fifteen statuettes were awarded, honoring artists, directors and other participants in the industry of the time. The ceremony ran for 15 minutes, winners were announced to media three months earlier, however, that was changed for the second ceremony in 1930. Since then, for the rest of the first decade, the results were given to newspapers for publication at 11,00 pm on the night of the awards. The first Best Actor awarded was Emil Jannings, for his performances in The Last Command and he had to return to Europe before the ceremony, so the Academy agreed to give him the prize earlier, this made him the first Academy Award winner in history. With the fourth ceremony, however, the system changed, for the first six ceremonies, the eligibility period spanned two calendar years. At the 29th ceremony, held on March 27,1957, until then, foreign-language films had been honored with the Special Achievement Award. The 74th Academy Awards, held in 2002, presented the first Academy Award for Best Animated Feature, since 1973, all Academy Awards ceremonies always end with the Academy Award for Best Picture. The Academy also awards Nicholl Fellowships in Screenwriting, see also § Awards of Merit categories The best known award is the Academy Award of Merit, more popularly known as the Oscar statuette. The five spokes represent the branches of the Academy, Actors, Writers, Directors, Producers. The model for the statuette is said to be Mexican actor Emilio El Indio Fernández, sculptor George Stanley sculpted Cedric Gibbons design. The statuettes presented at the ceremonies were gold-plated solid bronze
14.
75th Academy Awards
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During the ceremony, AMPAS presented Academy Awards in 24 categories honoring films released in 2002. The ceremony, televised in the United States by ABC, was produced by Gil Cates and was directed by Louis J. Horvitz, Actor Steve Martin hosted for the second time, having previously presided over the 73rd ceremony held in 2001. Three weeks earlier in a ceremony at Regent Beverly Wilshire Hotel in Beverly Hills, California held on March 1, Chicago won six awards including Best Picture. Other winners included The Pianist with three awards, Frida and The Lord of the Rings, The Two Towers with two, and Adaptation, Bowling for Columbine, The ChubbChubbs. 8 Mile, The Hours, Nowhere in Africa, Road to Perdition, Spirited Away, Talk to Her, This Charming Man, the telecast garnered about 33 million viewers in the United States, making it the least watched and lowest rated televised Oscar ceremony at the time. Chicago received the most nominations with thirteen and it was the eighth film to receive that many nominations. Gangs of New York came in second with ten, the winners were announced during the awards ceremony on March 23,2003. Chicago became the first musical film to win Best Picture since 1968s Oliver, at age 29, Adrien Brody was the youngest person to win Best Actor. With her 13th nomination, Meryl Streep became the most nominated actor in Oscar history, meanwhile, Best Actor nominee Jack Nicholson earned his 12th nomination, extending his record as the most nominated male performer. Julianne Moore was the performer to earn two acting nominations in the same year. Lose Yourself from 8 Mile became the first rap song to win the Best Original Song award, winners are listed first, highlighted in boldface, and indicated with a double dagger. Peter OToole — Whose remarkable talents have provided cinema history with some of its most memorable characters, the following individuals presented awards or performed musical numbers. In November 2002, the Academy hired veteran Oscar telecast producer Gil Cates to oversee the telecast for the eleventh time. With ten shows under his belt, no other living producer even comes close to the depth of his experience, Gil practically invented the awards show as a stylistic genre. Were privileged to have him present a special event to celebrate the 75th anniversary of the Oscars. A few days later, actor and comedian Steve Martin was chosen to emcee the upcoming telecast. Cates explained his reason to bring back the veteran comedian saying, A host whos witty, clever, sharp, intelligent, quick on his feet, according to the article published in the Los Angeles Times, Cates approached actor and veteran Oscar host Billy Crystal for emceeing duties. However, as passed and Crystal was still undecided regarding the job
15.
Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences
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The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences is a professional honorary organization with the stated goal of advancing the arts and sciences of motion pictures. The Academys corporate management and general policies are overseen by a Board of Governors, the roster of the Academys approximately 6,000 motion picture professionals is a closely guarded secret. While the great majority of its members are based in the United States, the Academy is known around the world for its annual Academy Awards, now officially known as The Oscars. The Academy plans to open the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures in Los Angeles in 2017, the notion of the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences began with Louis B. He said he wanted to create an organization that would mediate labor disputes without unions and he met with actor Conrad Nagel, director Fred Niblo, and the head of the Association of Motion Picture Producers, Fred Beetsonto to discuss these matters. The idea of this elite club having a banquet was discussed. They also established that membership into the organization would only be open to people involved in one of the five branches of the industry, actors, directors, writers, technicians, and producers. That evening Mayer presented to those guests what he called the International Academy of Motion Picture Arts, everyone in the room that evening became a founder of the Academy. Several organizational meetings were held prior to the first official meeting held on May 6,1927 and their first organizational meeting was held on May 11. At that meeting Douglas Fairbanks, Sr. was elected as the first president of the Academy, while Fred Niblo was the first vice-president and that night, the Academy also bestowed its first honorary membership, to Thomas Edison. Initially, the Academy was broken down into five groups, or branches. The original five were, Producers, Actors, Directors, Writers, the initial concerns of the group had to do with labor. However, as went on, the organization moved further away from involvement in labor-management arbitrations and negotiations. By July 1928 the board of directors had approved a list of 12 awards to be presented, during July the voting system for the Awards was established, and the nomination and selection process began. This award of merit for distinctive achievement is what we know now as the Academy Award, the initial location of the organization was 6912 Hollywood Boulevard. In May 1928, the Academy authorized the construction of a state of the art screening room, the screening room was not completed until April 1929. With the publication of Report on Incandescent Illumination in 1928, the Academy began a history of publishing books to assist its members. Another early initiative concerned training Army Signal Corps officers, in 1929 Academy members in a joint venture with the University of Southern California created Americas first film school to further the art and science of moving pictures
16.
66th Academy Awards
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During the ceremony, AMPAS presented Academy Awards in 23 categories. The ceremony, televised in the United States by ABC, was produced by Gil Cates, Actress Whoopi Goldberg hosted the show for the first time. Nearly a month earlier in a ceremony held at The Beverly Hilton in Beverly Hills, California on February 26, Schindlers List won seven awards, including Best Picture and Best Director for Steven Spielberg. Doubtfire, Schwarzfahrer and The Wrong Trousers with one, the telecast was watched by more than 46 million viewers in the United States. Schindlers List led all nominees with twelve nominations, The Piano, the winners were announced during the awards ceremony on March 21,1994. Best Director nominee Jane Campion was the woman to be nominated in that category. Holly Hunter and Emma Thompsons nominations in lead and supporting acting categories marked the first occurrence that two performers earned double acting nominations in the same year. Best Supporting Actress winner Anna Paquin, at age 11, became the second youngest winner of a competitive acting Oscar, behind Tatum ONeal, winners are listed first, highlighted in boldface, and indicated with a double-dagger. In a statement released by his publicist, he stated, After three Grammys, four Oscars and six Comic Reliefs, Im going to take a break from my hosting duties. I always felt honored to host the show and did my best to carry on the tradition of Bob Hope, I hope the new host has as good a time as I did. With Crystal absent to host the Oscars, many media outlets wondered whom producer Gil Cates would hire to emcee the program, Cates also offered the role to performers Steve Martin, Bette Midler, and Johnny Carson, but they all turned down the opportunity. After several days of speculation, Cates announced that he hired Oscar-winning actress, by virtue of her selection, Goldberg became both the first African American to host as well as the first woman to host the telecast solo. In an interview with the Los Angeles Times, Cates explained the decision to hire her saying and he also addressed the medias concerns regarding Goldbergs raunchy and outspoken humor stating, Some people may think shes potentially dangerous, and she says things that come to her mind. Its going to be exciting for me, the main thing is she wants to do it and shes smart. Whatever she says will be appropriate, Goldberg expressed that she was thrilled to be selected to emcee the 1994 ceremony commenting, To go from watching to winning to hosting in one lifetime is major. As with previous ceremonies he produced, Cates centered the show around a theme, during that segment, singer Bernadette Peters performing a modified version of Stephen Sondheims song Putting It Together from his musical Sunday in the Park with George. Filmmaker and editor Carol A. Streit assembled another montage featuring a salute to the work of cinematographers, several other people and elements were also involved with the production of the ceremony. Film composer and musician Bill Conti served as director of the ceremony
17.
71st Academy Awards
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During the ceremony, AMPAS presented Academy Awards in 24 categories. The ceremony, televised in the United States by ABC, was produced by Gil Cates, actress Whoopi Goldberg hosted the show for the third time. She first hosted the 66th ceremony held in 1994 and had last hosted the 68th ceremony in 1996, Shakespeare in Love won seven awards including Best Picture. The telecast garnered nearly 46 million viewers in the United States, Shakespeare in Love earned the most nominations with thirteen, Saving Private Ryan came in second place with eleven. The winners were announced during the ceremony on March 21,1999. Life Is Beautiful was the second film nominated simultaneously for Best Picture, moreover, its seven nominations were the most for a foreign language film, to date. Best Actor winner Roberto Benigni was the person to direct himself to an acting Oscar win. Laurence Olivier first achieved this feat for his performance in 1948s Hamlet and he also became the fourth individual to earn acting, directing, screenwriting nominations for the same film. In addition, Benigni was the performer to win an Oscar for a non-English speaking role. Winners are listed first, highlighted in boldface, and indicated with a double dagger, elia Kazan Norman F. Jewison The following individuals presented awards or performed musical numbers. In June 1998, Academy president Robert Rehme announced that the show would be held on a Sunday for the first time in history, AMPAS and network ABC hoped to capitalize on the high television ratings and viewership that benefit programs airing on that particular day of the week. The Academy also stated that the move to Sunday would ease concerns about traffic gridlock, the following January, Gil Cates was selected as producer of the telecast. He immediately selected Oscar-winning actress Whoopi Goldberg as host of the 1999 ceremony, Cates explained his decision to bring back Goldberg as host saying, The audience adores Whoopi and that affection, plus Whoopis extraordinary talent makes her a terrific host for the show. In a statement, Goldberg expressed that she was honored and excited to be selected to emcee the telecast commenting, who would have thought that I would be hosting the last Oscar telecast of the century. Several other people participated in the production of the ceremony and its related events, bill Conti served as musical director for the festivities. For the first time, the Academy produced its own pre-show that preceded the main telecast, produced by Dennis Doty, the half-hour program was hosted by actress Geena Davis and CNN reporter Jim Moret. At the time of the announcement on February 9, the combined gross of the five Best Picture nominees was $302 million with an average of $60.4 million per film. Saving Private Ryan was the highest earner among the Best Picture nominees with $194.2 million in box office receipts
18.
Beverly Wilshire Hotel
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The Beverly Wilshire Hotel is a historic luxury hotel in Beverly Hills, California. Located at the intersection of Wilshire Boulevard and Rodeo Drive, it was completed in 1928 and it has been used as a shooting location for films and television series. Guests have included US presidents and celebrities, the hotel is located at 9500 Wilshire Boulevard on the east side of South Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills, California. The hotel was constructed by real estate developer Walter G. McCarty on the site of the former Beverly Hills Speedway and it was completed in 1928, and was then known as the Beverly Wilshire Apartment Hotel. The E-shaped structure is built of a Tuscan stone and Carrara marble in the Italian Renaissance architecture style, renamed the Beverly Wilshire Hotel by new owners, it was renovated with a ballroom in the 1940s to accommodate the popular big bands of the day. An Olympic-sized swimming pool was built and championship tennis courts were added, the hotel changed hands in 1958 and again in 1961, when it was purchased by a group of investors headed by Hernando Courtright. The singer Elvis Presley and later the actor Warren Beatty lived several years in the hotel and it was also the home of John Lennon, when he was separated for several months from his wife Yoko Ono. The American socialite and Woolworth department store heiress Barbara Hutton spent her last years in poverty and poor health in the hotel. Acquired by Regent International Hotels in 1985, the 395-room luxury hotel has been managed by the Four Seasons Hotel since 1992, famous guests have included, among many others, U. S. The Beverly Wilshire was a filming location for HBOs Entourage television series, with cast. Since 2006, Wolfgang Puck has operated a restaurant, Cut, Four Seasons Hotels and Resorts Official website
19.
Beverly Hills, California
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Beverly Hills is a city in Los Angeles County, California, United States, surrounded by the cities of Los Angeles and West Hollywood. By 2013, its population had grown to 34,658, sometimes referred to as 90210, one of its primary ZIP codes, it was home to many actors and celebrities throughout the 20th century. The city includes the Rodeo Drive shopping district and the Beverly Hills Oil Field, gaspar de Portolá arrived in the area that would later become Beverly Hills on August 3,1769, travelling along native trails which followed the present-day route of Wilshire Boulevard. The area was settled by Maria Rita Quinteros de Valdez and her husband in 1828 and they called their 4,500 acres of property the Rancho Rodeo de las Aguas. in 1854, she sold the ranch to Benjamin Davis Wilson and Henry Hancock. By the 1880s, the ranch had been subdivided into parcels of 75 acres and was being bought up by anglos from Los Angeles. Henry Hammel and Andrew H. Denker acquired most of it, at this point, the area was known as the Hammel and Denker Ranch. By 1888, Denker and Hammel were planning to build a town called Morocco on their holdings and they did not find enough to exploit commercially by the standards of the time, though. In 1906, therefore, they reorganized as the Rodeo Land and Water Company, renamed the property Beverly Hills, subdivided it, the development was named Beverly Hills after Beverly Farms in Beverly, Massachusetts and because of the hills in the area. The first house in the subdivision was built in 1907, although sales remained slow, Beverly Hills was one of many all-white planned communities started in the Los Angeles area around this time. Restrictive covenants prohibited non-whites from owning or renting property unless they were employed as servants by white residents and it was also forbidden to sell or rent property to Jews in Beverly Hills. Burton Green began construction on The Beverly Hills Hotel in 1911, the hotel was finished in 1912. The visitors drawn by the hotel were inclined to purchase land in Beverly Hills and that same year, the Rodeo Land and Water Company decided to separate its water business from its real estate business. The Beverly Hills Utility Commission was split off from the company and incorporated in September 1914, buying all of the utilities-related assets from the Rodeo Land. In 1919, Douglas Fairbanks and Mary Pickford bought land on Summit Drive and built a mansion, finished in 1921, the glamor associated with Fairbanks and Pickford as well as other movie stars who built mansions in the city contributed to its growing appeal. By the early 1920s the population of Beverly Hills had grown enough to make the water supply a political issue, in 1923 the usual solution, annexation to the city of Los Angeles, was proposed. There was considerable opposition to annexation among such famous residents as Pickford, Fairbanks, Will Rogers, the Beverly Hills Utility Commission, opposed to annexation as well, managed to force the city into a special election and the plan was defeated 337 to 507. In 1925, Beverly Hills approved an issue to buy 385 acres for a new campus for UCLA. The cities of Los Angeles, Santa Monica and Venice also issued bonds to pay for the new campus
20.
Charlize Theron
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Charlize Theron is a South African and American actress and film producer. Theron became a U. S. citizen in 2007, while retaining her South African citizenship, in the late 2000s, she moved into the field of producing, both in television and film. In 2006, she produced the documentary East of Havana and she had producing credits on the films The Burning Plain and Dark Places, both of which she starred in. In 2012, she played Queen Ravenna in Snow White and the Huntsman and Meredith Vickers in Prometheus and she reprised her role of Queen Ravenna in the 2016 follow-up film The Huntsman, Winters War. In 2016, Time Magazine named her in the annual Time 100 most influential people list, Theron was born in Benoni, in the then-Transvaal Province of South Africa, the only child of Gerda Jacoba Aletta and Charles Jacobus Theron. Second Boer War figure Danie Theron was her great-great-uncle and she is from an Afrikaner family, and her ancestry includes Dutch, as well as French and German, her French forebears were early Huguenot settlers in South Africa. Theron is an Occitan surname pronounced in Afrikaans as and she grew up on her parents farm in Benoni, near Johannesburg. On 21 June 1991, Therons father, an alcoholic, physically attacked her mother, the shooting was legally adjudged to have been self-defence, and so her mother faced no charges. Theron attended Putfontein Primary School, a period during which she has said she was not fitting in, at thirteen, Theron was sent to boarding school and began her studies at the National School of the Arts in Johannesburg. Although Theron is fluent in English, her first language is Afrikaans, although seeing herself as a dancer, Theron at 16 won a one-year modelling contract at a local competition in Salerno and with her mother moved to Milan, Italy. After Theron spent a year modelling throughout Europe, she and her mother moved to the US, in New York, she attended the Joffrey Ballet School, where she trained as a ballet dancer until a knee injury closed this career path. As Theron recalled in 2008, I went to New York for three days to model, and then I spent a winter in New York in a windowless basement apartment. I was broke, I was taking class at the Joffrey Ballet, I realized I couldnt dance anymore, and I went into a major depression. My mom came over from South Africa and said, Either you figure out what to do next or you come home, at 19, Theron flew to Los Angeles, on a one-way ticket her mother bought for her, intending to work in the film industry. During the initial months there, she went to a Hollywood Boulevard bank to cash a cheque her mother had sent to help with the rent, when the teller refused to cash it, Theron engaged in a shouting match with him. Upon seeing this, talent agent John Crosby, waiting behind her, handed her his business card and subsequently introduced her to casting agents and she later fired him as her manager after he kept sending her scripts for films similar to Showgirls and Species. After several months in the city, she made her debut with a non-speaking role in the horror film Children of the Corn III. Her first speaking role was a supporting but significant and attention-garnering part as a hitwoman in 2 Days in the Valley
21.
Academy Award for Best Director
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The Academy Award for Best Director is an award presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. It is given in honor of a director who has exhibited outstanding directing while working in the film industry. However, these categories were merged for all subsequent ceremonies, nominees are determined by single transferable vote within the directors branch of AMPAS, winners are selected by a plurality vote from the entire eligible voting members of the Academy. For the first eleven years of the Academy Awards, directors were allowed to be nominated for multiple films in the same year, the Academy Awards for Best Director and Best Picture have been very closely linked throughout their history. Of the 89 films that have been awarded Best Picture,63 have also been awarded Best Director, since its inception, the award has been given to 69 directors or directing teams. John Ford has received the most awards in this category with four, william Wyler was nominated on twelve occasions, more than any other individual. As of the 2017 ceremony, Damien Chazelle is the most recent winner in category for his work on La La Land. Chazelle also became the youngest director in history to receive this award, two directing teams have shared the award, Robert Wise and Jerome Robbins for West Side Story in 1961 and Joel and Ethan Coen for No Country for Old Men in 2007. The Coen brothers are the siblings to have won the award. For the first five ceremonies, the eligibility period spanned twelve months from August 1 to July 31, for the 6th ceremony held in 1934, the eligibility period lasted from August 1,1932 to December 31,1933. Since the 7th ceremony held in 1935, the period of eligibility became the full calendar year from January 1 to December 31. org The Academy Awards Database Oscar. com
22.
Ron Howard
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Ronald William Ron Howard is an American actor and filmmaker. Howard is best known for playing two roles in television sitcoms in his youth and directing a number of successful feature films later in his career. Howard first came to prominence playing young Opie Taylor in the sitcom The Andy Griffith Show for eight years, in 1980, Howard left Happy Days to focus on directing. His films include, the science-fiction/fantasy film Cocoon, the historical docudrama Apollo 13, the biographical drama A Beautiful Mind, in 2002, Howard narrated the Fox comedy series, Arrested Development, on which he would also serve as producer and play a semi-fictionalized version of himself. In 2003, Howard was awarded the National Medal of Arts, asteroid 12561 Howard is named after him. He was inducted into the Television Hall of Fame in 2013, Howard has two stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for his contributions in the television and motion pictures industries. Howard was born in Duncan, Oklahoma, the son of Jean Speegle Howard, an actress, and Rance Howard, a director, a writer. He has German, English, Scottish, Irish, and Dutch ancestry and his father was born with the surname Beckenholdt, and had taken the stage name Howard by 1948, for his acting career. Rance Howard was serving three years in the United States Air Force at the time of Rons birth, the family moved to Hollywood in 1958, the year before the birth of his younger brother, Clint Howard. They rented a house on the south of the Desilu Studios. They lived in Hollywood for at least three years, before moving to Burbank, Howard was tutored at Desilu Studios in his younger years, and graduated from John Burroughs High School. He later attended the University of Southern Californias School of Cinematic Arts, Howard has said he knew from a young age he might want to go into directing thanks to his early experience as an actor. In 1959, Howard had his first credited role, in The Journey. Howard played Timmy in Counterfeit Gun, Season 4, Episode 2 of the TV series, in 1960, Howard was cast as Opie Taylor in The Andy Griffith Show. Credited as Ronny Howard, he portrayed the son of the character for all eight seasons of the show. He and Griffith remained close until Griffiths death nearly 45 years later, in the 1962 film version of The Music Man, Howard played Winthrop Paroo, the child with the lisp, the film starred Robert Preston and Shirley Jones. He also starred in the 1963 film The Courtship of Eddies Father and he appeared as Barry Stewart on The Eleventh Hour, in the episode Is Mr. Martian Coming Back. In the 1970s, he appeared in at least one episode of The Bold Ones, Howard appeared on the 1969 Disneyland Records album The Story and Song from the Haunted Mansion
23.
Black Hawk Down (film)
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The film features a large ensemble cast, including Josh Hartnett, Ewan McGregor, Eric Bana, Tom Sizemore, William Fichtner, Jason Isaacs, Tom Hardy, and Sam Shepard. It won two Oscars for Best Film Editing and Best Sound Mixing at the 74th Academy Awards, although it was received positively by American film critics, the film was strongly criticized by a number of groups and military officials. In 1993, following the ousting of the government and start of a civil war. After the bulk of the peacekeepers are withdrawn, the Mogadishu-based militia loyal to Mohamed Farrah Aidid declares war on the remaining UN personnel. In response, U. S. Army Rangers, Delta Force counter-terrorist operators, and 160th SOAR aviators are deployed to Mogadishu to capture Aidid, who has proclaimed himself president of the country. To consolidate his power and subdue the population in the south, Aidid and his militia seize Red Cross food shipments, outside Mogadishu, Rangers and Delta Force capture Osman Ali Atto, a faction leader selling arms to Aidids militia. A mission is planned to capture Omar Salad Elmi and Abdi Hassan Awale Qeybdiid, the U. S. forces include experienced men as well as new recruits, including PFC Todd Blackburn and a desk clerk, SPC Grimes, going on his first mission. When his Lieutenant is removed from duty after having a seizure, Staff Sergeant Matthew Eversmann is placed in command of Ranger Chalk Four. The operation begins and Delta Force operators capture Aidids advisers inside the target building, the Rangers and helicopters escorting the ground-extraction convoy take heavy fire, while Eversmanns Chalk Four is dropped a block away by mistake. Both pilots are killed, the two chiefs are wounded, and one Delta Force sniper on board escapes in another helicopter. The ground forces are rerouted to converge on the crash site, the Somali militia erects roadblocks, and LTC Danny McKnights Humvee column is unable to reach the crash area while sustaining heavy casualties. Meanwhile, two Ranger Chalks, including Eversmanns unit, reach Super-Six Ones crash site and set up a perimeter to await evacuation with the two wounded men and the fallen pilots. In the interim, Super Six-Four, piloted by CWO Michael Durant, is shot down by an RPG. With CPT Mike Steeles Rangers pinned down and sustaining heavy casualties, two Delta Force snipers, SFC Randy Shughart and MSG Gary Gordon are inserted by helicopter to Super Six-Four s crash site, where they find Durant still alive. Being only armed with M4 carbines, MPK-PDWs, and M14s, the site is eventually overrun, Gordon and Shughart are killed, McKnights column relinquish their attempt to reach Six-Ones crash site and return to base with their prisoners and the casualties. As night falls, Aidids militia launch an assault on the trapped Americans at Super Six-Ones crash site. The wounded and casualties are evacuated in the vehicles, but a few of Rangers and Delta Force soldiers are forced to run from the crash site back to the Pakistani Compound UN Safe Zone. Adapting Black Hawk Down, a Story of Modern War by Mark Bowden was the idea of director Simon West, West moved on to direct Lara Croft, Tomb Raider instead
24.
Moulin Rouge!
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Is a 2001 Australian–American pseudo-pastiche jukebox musical film directed, produced, and co-written by Baz Luhrmann. It tells the story of a young English poet/writer, Christian and it uses the musical setting of the Montmartre Quarter of Paris, France. At the 74th Academy Awards, the film was nominated for eight Oscars, including Best Picture and Best Actress for Nicole Kidman and it was the first musical nominated for Best Picture in 10 years, following Disneys Beauty and the Beast. In the year 1900, a British writer named Christian, suffering from depression, as Christian narrates, the film flashes back to one year earlier upon Christians move to the Montmartre district of Paris to become a writer among members of the areas Bohemian movement. He soon discovers that his neighbours are a troupe of performers led by Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec. The group arrives at the Moulin Rouge as Zidler and his Diamond Dog Dancers perform for the audience, Satine mistakes Christian for the Duke, and dances with him before retiring to her private chamber with him to discuss things confidentially, but soon learns he is just a writer. The Duke interrupts them, Christian and Satine claim they were practicing lines for Spectacular Spectacular. With Zidlers help, Toulouse and the rest of the pitch the show to the Duke with an improvised plot about an evil maharajah attempting to woo an Indian courtesan who loves a poor sitar player. The Duke backs the show on the condition that only he may see Satine, Satine contemplates on Christian and her longing to leave the Moulin Rouge to become a real actress. Christian goes back to Satine to convince her that they should be together, as the cabaret is converted to a theater, Christian and Satine continue seeing each other under the pretense of rehearsing Satines lines. Zidler makes excuses to the Duke, claiming that Satine has gone to confession, Zidler learns that Satine does not have long to live. Satine tells Christian that their relationship endangers the show, but he counters by writing a love song to affirm their love. As the Duke watches Christian rehearsing with Satine, Nini, a performer, points out that the play is a metaphor for Christian, Satine. Enraged, the Duke demands the ending be changed with the choosing the maharajah. At the Dukes quarters, Satine sees Christian on the streets below, the Duke attempts to rape her, but she is saved by Le Chocolat, one of the cabaret dancers. Reunited with Christian, he urges her to run away with him, the Duke tells Zidler he will have Christian killed if Satine is not his. Zidler reiterates this warning to Satine, but when she refuses to return, Zidler tells Satine that to save Christians life, she has to tell him that she will be staying with the Duke and she doesnt love him. Christian tries following her, but is denied entry to the Moulin Rouge, the night of the show, Christian sneaks into the Moulin Rouge, intending to pay Satine to return his love just as the Duke paid for her
25.
For the Birds (film)
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For the Birds is a 2000 computer animated short film produced by Pixar and directed by Ralph Eggleston. It won the Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film in 2001 and it premiered on June 5,2000, at the Annecy International Animated Film Festival in France, and was shown alongside the theatrical release of the 2001 Disney/Pixar feature film Monsters, Inc. It is also available on home versions of the film. In 2012, the short was re-rendered into 3D, and it was theatrically re-released alongside the 3D re-release of Monsters, the short was also released in 3D on Monsters, Inc. Blu-ray 3D, on February 19,2013, a small blue bird lands on a telephone wire and makes itself comfortable, only to have a second small bird land next to it. The two birds quickly start to squabble as others land on the wire and join in and they are interrupted when a large, gangly, awkward-looking bird sitting on top of the pole honks to them. Soon, the birds start mocking the large one by puffing up their feathers to resemble its plumage. They then slide farther out along the wire and chatter suspiciously among themselves, however, its weight causes the wire to sag almost to the ground and all the small birds slide down toward it. As the large bird keeps trying to make friends, the small ones get annoyed and try to push it off the wire, only for it to lose its balance and flop over to hang upside down by its feet. The two nearest to the center start pecking at its toes, egged on by the rest of the crowd, one of the other birds suddenly panics, realizing how low the wire is and tries to stop the pecking. The others understand and stop too late, when the large birds last toe slides off, the large one is so close to the ground that it settles down easily, accompanied by a shower of feathers from the small birds. One of them falls to the ground, having lost all its feathers, the others soon tumble down as well and hide behind the large bird as it laughs even harder. A white splatter with the words, the end on it against a screen, similar to the mess caused by bird droppings. A similar appearance occurred in Inside Out, while Riley and her family are driving to San Francisco at the beginning of the movie, for the Birds is one of two short films on the DVD and VHS release of Monsters, Inc. The film was released as part of Pixar Short Films Collection. Official website For the Birds at the Internet Movie Database For the Birds at the TCM Movie Database For the Birds at The Big Cartoon DataBase
26.
Gosford Park
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Gosford Park is a 2001 British mystery film directed by Robert Altman and written by Julian Fellowes. The story follows a party of wealthy Britons and an American, and their servants, who gather for a weekend at Gosford Park. A murder occurs after a party, and the film goes on to present the subsequent investigation from the servants and guests perspectives. Development on Gosford Park began in 1999, when Bob Balaban asked Altman if they could develop a film together, Balaban suggested an Agatha Christie-style whodunit and introduced Altman to Julian Fellowes, with whom Balaban had been working on a different project. The film went into production in March 2001, and began filming at Shepperton Studios with a budget of $19.8 million. Gosford Park premiered on 7 November 2001 at the London Film Festival and it received a limited release across cinemas in the United States in December 2001, before being widely released in January 2002 by USA Films. It was released in February 2002 in the United Kingdom, the film was successful at the box office, grossing over $87 million in cinemas worldwide, making it Altmans second most successful film after MASH. Widely acclaimed by critics, it received awards and nominations, including seven Academy Award nominations. In November 1932, Constance, Countess of Trentham, and her ladys maid, on the way, they encounter actor Ivor Novello, American film producer Morris Weissman and Weissmans valet, Henry Denton, who are also attending the hunting party. At the house, they are greeted by Lady Trenthams niece, Lady Sylvia McCordle, her husband Sir William McCordle, the other guests include Lady Sylvias sisters, Louisa, Lady Stockbridge and Lady Lavinia Meredith and their husbands, Raymond, Lord Stockbridge and Commander Anthony Meredith. Also in attendance are the Honourable Freddie Nesbitt and his wife, Mabel, Isobels suitor, Lord Rupert Standish, the servants hall is divided by a strict social hierarchy, dominated by the head housekeeper, Mrs. Wilson. She maintains a relationship with the head cook, Mrs. Croft. The head housemaid, Elsie, takes a kindly interest in the naive Mary, Sir William is an extremely rich industrialist, and much of the company are dependent on him in one way or another. Commander Meredith is in on the verge of bankruptcy and is outraged when Sir William announces he intends to withdraw his investment in Merediths latest business venture, Lady Sylvia reveals to her aunt that William may stop paying Lady Trenthams allowance. Freddie Nesbitt was having an affair with Sir Williams daughter Isobel, likewise, Rupert Standish is trying to romance Isobel for her money. Lady Sylvia makes an assignation with Mr Weissmans valet, Henry Denton, for 1am that night, the next morning the men go out early on a pheasant shoot, and Sir William is slightly injured by a stray birdshot. Later, the join the gentlemen for an outdoor luncheon on the estate grounds. Dinner that evening is tense and sombre, as the conversation progresses, tempers flare and Lady Sylvia attacks Sir William, implying that he was a First World War profiteer
27.
Iris (2001 film)
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Iris is a 2001 British-American biographical drama film that tells the story of Irish novelist Iris Murdoch and her relationship with John Bayley. The film, directed by Richard Eyre, is based on Bayleys memoir Elegy for Iris, the beach scenes were filmed at Southwold in Suffolk, one of Murdochs favourite haunts. Broadbent received the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his role, dench and Winslet were both nominated, for Best Actress and Best Supporting Actress respectively. When the young Iris Murdoch meets fellow student John Bayley at the University of Oxford, he is a naive virgin easily flummoxed by her spirit, arch personality. Decades later, little has changed and the couple keeps house, with John doting on his more famous wife
28.
Monster's Ball
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The film, originally set to star Vanessa Williams, tells the story of a widowed corrections officer, his adult son, and his bigoted father, all of whom work in the same profession. The main character befriends, and then starts a relationship with, Berry won the Academy Award for Best Actress for her leading performance in this film. Hank Grotowski, a widower, and his son, Sonny, are corrections officers in a prison in Louisiana and they reside with Hanks ailing father, Buck, a bigoted retired corrections officer whose wife committed suicide. He oversees the execution of convicted murderer, Lawrence Musgrove, as explained to Sonny by Hank, at the diner bar the night before, a Monsters Ball is what the execution team calls that nights get-together. The proceedings prove too intense for Sonny, who, as he is leading Lawrence to the chair, vomits. Hank confronts Sonny in the bathroom afterwards and slaps him for being so soft. At home, Hank attacks Sonny in his bed and tells him to get out of the house, Sonny grabs a gun, and threatens his father, who backs off. The confrontation ends in their room with Hank at gunpoint, lying on the carpet. Sonny asks his father if he hates him, after his father calmly confirms that he does, and always has, Sonny responds, Well I always loved you, and then shoots himself in the chest, dying instantly. Hank buries Sonny in the garden with an abbreviated funeral because, as Buck comments. Hank subsequently quits his job, burns his uniform in the backyard, during the years of Lawrences imprisonment, his wife, Leticia, has been struggling while raising their son, Tyrell, who has inherited his fathers artistic talent. She abusively berates the boy regarding his obesity, along with her domestic problems, Leticia struggles financially, leading to the loss of the family car and, worse, an eviction notice on her house. In desperate need of money, Leticia takes a job at a diner which is one frequented by Hank, one rainy night, Leticia and Tyrell are walking down a soaked highway when Tyrell is struck by a car. Hank happens to be driving along and sees Leticia and Tyrell, after some hesitation, he drives Leticia and Tyrell to a hospital, but Tyrell dies upon arrival. At the suggestion of the authorities at the hospital, Hank drives her home, a few days later, Hank gives Leticia a ride home from the diner. They begin talking in the car about their losses. Hank finds out that Leticia is Lawrences widow, though he does not tell her that he participated in her husbands execution and they drown their grief with alcohol and have sex. Leticia stops by Hanks home with a present for him, and she meets Buck, who insults her and implies that Hank is only involved with her because he enjoys sex with black women
29.
Monsters, Inc.
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Monsters, Inc. is a 2001 American computer-animated comedy film produced by Pixar Animation Studios and released by Walt Disney Pictures. The film centers on two monsters employed at the titular corporation Monsters, Inc. top scarer James P. Sulley Sullivan and his one-eyed partner, Docter began developing the film in 1996, and wrote the story with Jill Culton, Jeff Pidgeon, and Ralph Eggleston. Fellow Pixar director Andrew Stanton wrote the screenplay with screenwriter Daniel Gerson, the characters went through many incarnations over the films five-year production process. The technical team and animators found new ways to render fur, Randy Newman, who composed the music for Pixars three prior films, returned to compose its fourth. Monsters, Inc. was praised by critics and proved to be a box office success from its release on November 2,2001. Monsters, Inc. saw a 3D re-release in theaters on December 19,2012,12 years later, a prequel, Monsters University, directed by Dan Scanlon, was released on June 21,2013. The city of Monstropolis in the world is powered by energy from the screams of human children. It is considered work, as human children are believed to be toxic. Energy production is falling because children are becoming less easily scared, James P. Sulley Sullivan is the organizations top scarer, but his chief rival, chameleon-like monster Randall Boggs, is close behind. One day, Sulley discovers that Randall has left a door activated on the floor. After several desperate failed attempts to put her back, Sulley conceals her and he interrupts his best friend Mike Wazowskis date with his girlfriend Celia, and chaos erupts when the child is discovered. Sulley and Mike manage to escape with the child before the Child Detection Agency quarantines the restaurant, Sulley grows attached to her and calls her Boo, while Mike is just anxious to be rid of her. When they smuggle her back into the factory in an attempt to send her home, Randall discovers her and tries to kidnap her, before Randall can use the machine on Mike, Sulley intervenes and reports Randall to Waternoose. Waternoose, secretly in league with Randall, instead exiles Mike, the two are taken in by a Yeti, who suggests they travel to a nearby village to return to the monster world. Sulley prepares to leave, but Mike angrily refuses to go with him, meanwhile, Randall is preparing to use the Scream Extractor on Boo, but Sulley arrives and saves her. Randall and Sulley fight, and after Mike returns and the two reconcile, they overpower Randall, take Boo and flee. Randall pursues them to the giant door vault, and a chase ensues among the millions of doors as they move in. Boos laughter causes all the doors to activate, allowing the chase to pass in, Randall attempts to kill Sulley, but Boo overcomes her fear and attacks him
30.
Murder on a Sunday Morning
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Murder on a Sunday Morning is a documentary film directed by Jean-Xavier de Lestrade. Its subject is the Brenton Butler case, a case in which a fifteen-year-old boy was wrongfully accused of murder. The film won the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature at the 74th Academy Awards in 2002, Brenton Butler was arrested and tried for the 2000 murder of a tourist in Jacksonville, Florida. The prosecutions case relied heavily upon a positive identification made by the husband, and on Butlers confession. The film follows Butlers defense team building their case for his innocence, murder on a Sunday Morning at the Internet Movie Database
31.
No Man's Land (2001 film)
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No Mans Land is a 2001 war film that is set in the midst of the Bosnian war. The film is a parable and marked the debut of Bosnian writer and it is a co-production among companies in Bosnia-Herzegovina, Slovenia, Italy, France, Belgium and the UK. The film won the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film in 2001, two wounded soldiers, a Bosniak and a Bosnian Serb are caught between their lines in the no mans land, in a struggle for survival. The two soldiers confront each other in a trench, where they wait for dark and they trade insults and even find some common ground. Confounding the situation is another wounded Bosniak soldier who wakes from unconsciousness, a land mine had been buried beneath him by the Bosnian Serbs, should he make any move, it would be fatal. A French sergeant, of the United Nations Protection Force, gets involved in effort to help the three trapped soldiers, despite orders to the contrary by high command. UNPROFORs mission in Bosnia was to guard the humanitarian aid convoys, to remain neutral, luckily, an English reporter arrives on scene, bringing media pressure to bear that moves the United Nations high command to swing into action to try to save the soldiers. A row between the stressed out and fatigued Čiki and Nino gradually escalates even after being rescued, eventually, Čiki shoots Nino and is in turn shot by a Peacekeeper. Meanwhile, it is found that the mine cannot be defused, the UNPROFOR high command tries to save face, they lie, saying that Cera has been saved and they leave the area, along with the reporters and everyone else. In reality, Cera is left alone and desolate in the trenches, meanwhile, the UNPROFOR commander has arranged false information to be passed to both Bosnian and Serb troops, to make them believe their enemies will be trying to reoccupy the trench at night. Tanović was presented the Oscar by John Travolta and Sharon Stone, briefly after, Tanović thanked everyone who worked with him on the film and supported its creation. He ended his speech by saying, This is for my country. No Mans Land at the Internet Movie Database No Mans Land at AllMovie No Mans Land at Box Office Mojo No Mans Land at Rotten Tomatoes No Mans Land at Metacritic
32.
Pearl Harbor (film)
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Pearl Harbor is a 2001 American epic historical romantic war film directed by Michael Bay, produced by Bay and Jerry Bruckheimer and written by Randall Wallace. It stars Ben Affleck, Kate Beckinsale, Josh Hartnett, Cuba Gooding Jr. Tom Sizemore, Jon Voight, Colm Feore, the film is a dramatic retelling of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941, and the Doolittle Raid. Despite receiving generally negative reviews critics, the film was a major box office success, earning $59 million in its opening weekend and, in the end. It was nominated for four Academy Awards, winning in the category of Best Sound Editing, however, it was also nominated for six Golden Raspberry Awards, including Worst Picture. This marked the first occurrence of a Worst-Picture-nominated film winning an Academy Award, in 1923 Tennessee, two young boys, Rafe McCawley and Danny Walker, play together in the back of an old biplane, pretending to be soldiers fighting the Germans in World War I. After Rafes father lands his biplane and leaves, Rafe and Danny climb into the plane and Rafe accidentally starts it, Rafe manages to stop the plane at the end of the runway, but Dannys father beats Rafe and Danny for climbing into the plane. Rafe stands up to Dannys father calling him a dirty German, however, Dannys father then reveals that he fought the Germans in World War I, and that he prays no one will ever have to experience what he experienced. Eighteen years later, in January 1941, Danny and Rafe are both first lieutenants under the command of Major Jimmy Doolittle, Doolittle informs Rafe that he has been accepted into the Eagle Squadron. A nurse named Evelyn meets Rafe and passes his medical exam despite his dyslexia and that night, Rafe and Evelyn enjoy an evening of dancing at a nightclub and later a jaunt in New York harbor in a borrowed police boat. Rafe shocks Evelyn by saying that he has joined the Eagle Squadron and is leaving the next day, Danny, Evelyn and their fellow pilots and nurses are transferred to Pearl Harbor. Meanwhile, Rafe flies in numerous dogfights with the RAF against the Luftwaffe, becoming a flying ace, Danny gives Evelyn the news and she is devastated. Three months later, Evelyn and Danny begin to develop feelings for each other, Danny takes Evelyn on a sunset flight over the harbor and the two begin a relationship. On the night of December 6, Evelyn is shocked to discover Rafe standing outside her door and he goes to the Hula bar where he is welcomed back by his overjoyed fellow pilots. Danny finds Rafe in the bar with the intention of making things right and they drive away, avoiding being put in the brig when the authorities arrive at the bar. The two later fall asleep in Dannys car, early the next morning, on December 7,1941, the Japanese navy begins its attack on Pearl Harbor. The USS Arizona is obliterated with when a bomb detonates the ships forward ammunition magazine. The USS Oklahoma capsizes after several torpedoes strikes her, trapping hundreds of men inside, on the USS West Virginia suffers severe damage. One bomb mortally wounds Captain Mervyn S. Bennion, cook Dorie Miller, with no training with firearms, mans a.50 caliber machine gun and shoots down a Japanese plane
33.
Shrek
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Shrek is a 2001 American computer-animated fantasy-comedy film directed by Andrew Adamson and Vicky Jenson in their directorial debut. It features the voices of Mike Myers, Eddie Murphy, Cameron Diaz and it is loosely based on William Steigs 1990 fairy tale picture book Shrek. and somewhat serves as a parody film, targeting other films adapted from numerous childrens fantasies. The films soundtrack music by Smash Mouth, Eels, Joan Jett, The Proclaimers, Jason Wade, Baha Men. The rights to Steigs book were bought by Steven Spielberg in 1991, before the founding of DreamWorks. However, John H. Shrek originally cast Chris Farley to do the voice for the title character, recording about 80%–90% of his dialogue. After Farley died in 1997 before he could finish, Mike Myers was brought in to work for the character, who after his first recording decided to record his voice in a Scottish accent. The film was originally planned to be motion-captured, but after poor results. The film grossed $484.4 million at the box office. Shrek also received promotion from food chains such as Baskin-Robbins and Burger King and it was acclaimed as an animated film worthy of adult interest, with many adult-oriented jokes and themes but a simple enough plot and humour to appeal to children. Shrek won the first ever Academy Award for Best Animated Feature and was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay, the films main character was awarded his own star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in May 2010. Shrek established DreamWorks Animation as a competitor to Pixar in feature film animation. A fifth film, planned as the last of the series, was cancelled in 2009 with the announcement that the film would conclude the series. However, the film was revived in 2016, with a planned release for 2019/2020. The films success inspired other merchandise, such as video games, a stage musical. Shrek, an ogre who loves the solitude in his swamp. Shrek tells them that he will go ask Farquaad to send them back and he brings along a talking Donkey, who is the only fairytale creature who knows the way to Duloc. Meanwhile, Farquaad tortures the Gingerbread Man into giving the location of the fairytale creatures until his guards rush in with something he has been searching for. He asks The Mirror if his kingdom is the fairest of all but is told that he is not even a king
34.
Training Day
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Training Day is a 2001 American neo-noir crime thriller film directed by Antoine Fuqua, written by David Ayer, and starring Denzel Washington and Ethan Hawke. The story follows two LAPD narcotics officers over a 24-hour period in the neighborhoods of the LAPD Rampart Division. The film was released on October 5,2001 and grossed $104 million worldwide, Washingtons performance as Detective Alonzo Harris, a departure from his usual roles, was particularly praised and earned him an Oscar for Best Actor at the 74th Academy Awards. His co-star Ethan Hawke was nominated for Best Supporting Actor for his performance as rookie cop, riding around in Alonzos car, they begin the day by catching some college kids buying cannabis from a MS-13 gang member. After smoking it, Alonzo informs him that the weed was laced with PCP and they then pay a brief visit to Roger, an old friend of Alonzos who is also a drug dealer and former police officer. Back in the car, Jake notices a girl being sexually assaulted. Alonzo tells the girl to leave and allows the men to go free, Jake finds the girls wallet on the ground and takes it. Alonzo and Jake later apprehend a wheelchair-bound dealer named Blue, finding crack rocks, in exchange for his freedom, Blue reveals his associate, Kevin Sandman Miller, who is in prison. Alonzo takes Jake to Sandmans home in Watts, where he uses a search warrant to steal $40,000 from the premises. However, Sandmans wife realizes the scam and calls out to nearby gang members, for lunch, the duo visit Alonzos Salvadoran mistress, Sara, and their young son at Baldwin Village. Alonzo thus gives them Sandmans drug money for an arrest warrant, Alonzo then kills Roger and arranges for the scene to appear like a justified shooting. Jake refuses to cooperate and after being threatened, seizes Alonzos shotgun, however, Alonzo calms his associates and claims that the LAPD will run a blood test on Jake, the result of which he can falsify in exchange for Jakes cooperation. Alonzo drives Jake to the home of a Sureño named Smiley and he furtively abandons Jake as Jake reluctantly plays poker with Smiley and his fellow gang members. A tense conversation ensues in which Smiley reveals Alonzos situation, by midnight, Alonzo must pay $1 million to the Russian Mafia for killing one of their men in Las Vegas, or be killed himself. Jake realizes too late that Alonzo had paid Smiley to kill him, the gang search Jake to find the wallet dropped by the teenage girl, who is revealed to be Smileys cousin. Smiley calls her, who confirms that Jake risked his life to defend her, in gratitude, Smiley lets Jake go. Jake returns to Saras apartment and attempts to arrest Alonzo, but a gunfight and chase ensues, the local gang members and residents begin congregating to watch. Alonzo tries to get the crowd on his side by offering a reward to whoever kills Jake, Alonzo attempts to flee via Los Angeles International Airport, but is found and killed by Russian Mafia hitmen in a street shooting
35.
Marcia Gay Harden
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Marcia Gay Harden is an American actress. Her film breakthrough was in the 1990 Coen brothers-directed Millers Crossing and she followed this with roles in films including Used People, The First Wives Club, and Flubber. For her performance as artist Lee Krasner in the 2000 film Pollock and she earned another Academy Award nomination for her performance as Celeste Boyle in Mystic River. Other notable film roles include American Gun, and 2007s The Mist, Harden made her Broadway debut in 1993, starring in Angels in America, for which she was nominated for a Tony Award. She returned to Broadway in 2009 as Veronica in God of Carnage and her performance won her the Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play. She was nominated for her second Primetime Emmy Award for her performance in the 2009 television film The Courageous Heart of Irena Sendler, in September 2015, she began starring in the CBS medical drama Code Black, in which she plays the lead role of Dr. Leanne Rorish. Harden, one of five children, was born in La Jolla, California, the daughter of Texas natives Beverly, a housewife, and Thad Harold Harden, one of Hardens brothers is named Thaddeus, as is her former husband. Hardens family frequently moved because of her fathers job, living in Japan, Germany, Greece, California, Hardens first film role was in a 1979 student-produced movie at the University of Texas. Throughout the 1980s, she appeared in television programs, including Simon & Simon, Kojak. She appeared in the Coen brothers Millers Crossing, a 1930s mobster drama in which she first gained wide exposure, even so, at the time, living in New York City, she had to go back to doing catering jobs because I didnt have any money. In 1992, she played actress Ava Gardner alongside Philip Casnoff as Frank Sinatra in the made for TV miniseries Sinatra, throughout the 1990s, she continued to appear in films and television. In 1993, Harden debuted on Broadway in the role of Harper Pitt in Tony Kushners Angels in America, the role earned her critical acclaim and she received a Tony Award nomination. The winner in that category was Debra Monk in Redwood Curtain, Harden was awarded the 2000 Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her portrayal of painter Lee Krasner in Pollock. In 2003, she was nominated in the same category for Mystic River. Harden guest-starred as FBI undercover agent Dana Lewis posing as a white-supremacist in Raw, in 2007, this role earned Harden her first Emmy Award nomination for best guest actress in a drama series. She reprised the role in the eighth season premiere and again in the twelfth season episode Penetration as a rape victim. In 2007, Harden appeared in films, including Sean Penns critically acclaimed Into the Wild. Also in 2007 she shared top billing with Kevin Bacon in Rails & Ties, in 2008, she appeared in Home playing a woman who has had a mastectomy
36.
DreamWorks
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DreamWorks Pictures is an American film production label of Amblin Partners. It was formerly distributing its own and third-party films by itself and it has produced or distributed more than ten films with box-office grosses of more than $100 million each. As of October 2016, DreamWorks films are marketed and distributed by Universal Pictures, DreamWorks began in 1994 as an attempt by media moguls Steven Spielberg, Jeffrey Katzenberg and David Geffen to create a new Hollywood studio of which they owned 72%. Currently, DreamWorks operates out of offices at Universal Studios, in December 2005, the founders agreed to sell the studio to Viacom, parent of Paramount Pictures. The sale was completed in February 2006, in 2008, DreamWorks announced its intention to end its partnership with Paramount and signed a $1.5 billion deal to produce films with Indias Reliance ADA Group. Reliance provided $325M of equity to fund recreating DreamWorks SKG into DreamWorks Studios, after the formation of Amblin Partners in 2015, the studio entered into a distribution agreement with Universal Pictures. DreamWorks animation arm was spun off in 2004 into DreamWorks Animation SKG, which owns the DreamWorks trademarks. Spielbergs company continues to use the DreamWorks trademarks under license from Universal Studios, the original company was founded following Katzenbergs resignation from The Walt Disney Company in 1994. Katzenberg approached Spielberg and Geffen about forming a live-action and animation film studio, which had not been done in decades due to the risk and expense. They agreed on three conditions, They would make fewer than nine movies a year, they would be free to work for other studios if they chose, and they would go home in time for dinner. They officially founded DreamWorks SKG in October 1994, with backing of $33 million from each of the three partners and $500 million from Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen. Their new studio was based at offices in the Universal Studios lot, despite access to sound stages and sets, DreamWorks preferred to film motion pictures on location. Usually, the company would film in a soundstage or set in a major studio, as of 2016, DreamWorks is still based in Universal. In 1995, traditional animation artists from Amblimation joined the new studio, which led to DreamWorks buying part of Pacific Data Images, both were software divisions, and would merge later on. For then, DreamWorks had the traditional animators working for their animation department. These films were distributed by DreamWorks Pictures, the same year, PDI/DreamWorks produced its first full-length animated features, Antz and The Prince of Egypt, which were also distributed by DreamWorks Pictures. DreamWorks SKG continued to distribute PDI/DreamWorks productions through their name until 2004. In 2000, DreamWorks was planning in building a studio backlot after buying 1,087 acres of land in the Playa Vista area in Los Angeles and it was to be complete with 18 sound stages, with many office buildings and a lake
37.
American Beauty (1999 film)
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American Beauty is a 1999 American drama film directed by Sam Mendes and written by Alan Ball. Kevin Spacey stars as Lester Burnham, a 42-year-old advertising executive who has a crisis when he becomes infatuated with his teenaged daughters best friend. Annette Bening co-stars as Lesters materialistic wife, Carolyn, and Thora Birch plays their insecure daughter, Wes Bentley, Chris Cooper, and Allison Janney also feature. Ball began writing American Beauty as a play in the early 1990s and he shelved the play after realizing the story would not work on stage. After several years as a screenwriter, Ball revived the idea in 1997 when attempting to break into the film industry. The modified script had a cynical outlook that was influenced by Balls frustrating tenures writing for several sitcoms, producers Dan Jinks and Bruce Cohen took American Beauty to DreamWorks, the then-fledgling film studio bought Balls script for $250,000, outbidding several other production bodies. DreamWorks financed the $15 million production and served as its North American distributor, principal photography took place between December 1998 and February 1999 on soundstages at the Warner Bros. backlot in Burbank, California, and on location in Los Angeles. Mendes dominant style was deliberate and composed, he made use of static shots and slow pans. Cinematographer Conrad Hall complemented Mendes style with peaceful shot compositions to contrast with the turbulent on-screen events, during editing, Mendes made several changes that gave the film a less cynical tone than the script. Released in North America on September 17,1999, American Beauty was positively received by critics, reviewers praised most aspects of the production, with particular emphasis on Mendes, Spacey, and Ball, criticism focused on the familiarity of the characters and setting. It was nominated for and won other awards and honors, mainly for the direction, writing. Lester Burnham is an advertising executive and magazine writer who despises his job. He is unhappily married to Carolyn, a neurotic yet fiercely ambitious real estate broker who grows red roses in their yard, their daughter, Jane. His job as a part-time bar caterer serves as a front for his secret marijuana dealings, Frank is a strict disciplinarian who previously sent Ricky to a military school and briefly committed him to a psychiatric hospital. Jim Olmeyer and Jim Berkley, a gay couple who live nearby, on the way to school, Frank reveals his homophobia while he angrily discusses the incident with Ricky. Lester becomes infatuated with Janes vain friend, Angela Hayes, after seeing her perform a dance routine at a high school basketball game with Jane. He starts having sexual fantasies about Angela, in red rose petals are a recurring motif. Carolyn begins an affair with her married business rival, Buddy Kane, when Lesters boss and efficiency expert, Brad, tells him that he is to be laid off, Lester instead blackmails him for $60,000 and quits his job
38.
Gladiator (2000 film)
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Gladiator is a 2000 epic historical drama film directed by Ridley Scott and written by David Franzoni, John Logan and William Nicholson. It stars Russell Crowe, Joaquin Phoenix, Connie Nielsen, Ralf Möller, Oliver Reed, Djimon Hounsou, Derek Jacobi, John Shrapnel, reduced to slavery, Maximus rises through the ranks of the gladiatorial arena to avenge the murders of his family and his emperor. The film was released in the United States on May 5,2000, the film won multiple awards, including Best Picture, Best Actor for Crowe and three other Oscars at the 73rd Academy Awards. It has also credited with rekindling interest in films centered around ancient Greek. In AD180, Hispano-Roman General Maximus Decimus Meridius leads the Roman army to a victory against the Germanic tribes near Vindobona on the northern frontier. Now weary of battle, Maximus only desires to retire to his Spanish farm estate, but Emperor Marcus Aurelius tells him that his own son and heir, Commodus, is unfit to rule and that he will appoint Maximus as regent to help save Rome from corruption. When the Emperor reveals his plan to his son, Commodus murders him in a fit of rage, Commodus announces he is the new Emperor and asks Maximus for his loyalty. When the general refuses, he is arrested by his officers and is sentenced to death at dawn, Maximus kills his captors and rides for his farm. However, he too late, and finds it destroyed and his family murdered. Maximus buries his wife and son, and then collapses from his wounds and he is found by slavers who take him to Zucchabar, a colonia in the Roman North African province of Mauretania Caesariensis, where he is sold to a lanista named Proximo. As he wins every match because of his skills and indifference to death, he gains fame. Proximo encourages Maximus to go to Rome and fight in the Colosseum and he could then use the power he commands in the arena as leverage against the Emperor. Maximus first gladiatorial combat in the Colosseum is a re-enactment of the Roman victory over Carthage at the Battle of Zama, although the gladiators are expected to be massacred, Maximus leads them to victory over the legionaries of Scipio Africanus. This prompts a surprised and delighted Commodus to enter the arena to offer his personal congratulations, when the emperors young nephew, Lucius, also joins them, Maximus decides not to kill Commodus. Instead he reveals himself and vows to have vengeance, the Praetorian Guard is ordered to attack but this angers the crowd. Under pressure to keep the mob of Rome happy, Commodus angrily relents, Maximus next fight is a victory against a large undefeated gladiator. Despite Commoduss orders to kill the loser, Maximus spares his opponents life. This defiance earns him the nickname Maximus the Merciful and more cheers of adulation, angered at this outcome, Commodus enters the arena to taunt Maximus about his familys death
39.
Denzel Washington
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Denzel Hayes Washington Jr. is an American actor, director, and producer. Tolson in The Great Debaters, and drug kingpin Frank Lucas in American Gangster and he has been a featured actor in the films produced by Jerry Bruckheimer and has been a frequent collaborator of directors Spike Lee, Antoine Fuqua and Tony Scott. In 2016, Washington was selected as the recipient for the Cecil B, deMille Lifetime Achievement Award at the 73rd Golden Globe Awards. In 2002, Washington made his debut with biographical film Antwone Fisher. His second directorial effort was The Great Debaters, released in 2007, Washingtons third directorial effort, Fences, starring himself and Viola Davis, was released on December 16,2016. Washington was born in Mount Vernon, New York and his mother, Lennis Lynne, was a beauty parlor owner and operator born in Georgia and partly raised in Harlem. Washington attended Pennington-Grimes Elementary School in Mount Vernon until 1968, when he was 14, his parents divorced, and his mother sent him to a private preparatory school, Oakland Military Academy in New Windsor, New York. That decision changed my life, Washington later said, because I wouldnt have survived in the direction I was going, the guys I was hanging out with at the time, my running buddies, have now done maybe 40 years combined in the penitentiary. They were nice guys, but the streets got them, after Oakland, Washington next attended Mainland High School, a public high school in Daytona Beach, Florida, from 1970 to 1971. He was interested in attending Texas Tech University, I grew up in the Boys Club in Mount Vernon, so when I was in high school, I wanted to go to Texas Tech in Lubbock just because they were called the Red Raiders and their uniforms looked like ours. Washington earned a B. A. in Drama and Journalism from Fordham University in 1977, at Fordham, he played collegiate basketball as a guard under coach P. J. Carlesimo. After a period of indecision on which major to study and taking a semester off, Washington worked as creative director at an overnight summer camp, Camp Sloane YMCA in Lakeville. He participated in a talent show for the campers and a colleague suggested he try acting. He then attended school at the American Conservatory Theater in San Francisco. Washington spent the summer of 1976 in St, shortly after graduating from Fordham, Washington made his screen acting debut in the 1977 made-for-television film Wilma, and his first Hollywood appearance in the 1981 film Carbon Copy. A major career break came when Washington starred as Dr. Phillip Chandler in NBCs television hospital drama St. Elsewhere and he was one of only a few African-American actors to appear on the series for its entire six-year run. He also appeared in television, motion picture and stage roles, such as the films A Soldiers Story, Hard Lessons. In 1989, Washington won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his portrayal of a defiant, in 1990, Washington starred as Bleek Gilliam in the Spike Lee film Mo Better Blues
40.
Best Actor in a Leading Role
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The Academy Award for Best Actor is an award presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. It is given in honor of an actor who has delivered a performance in a leading role while working within the film industry. The 1st Academy Awards ceremony was held in 1929 with Emil Jannings receiving the award for his roles in The Last Command and The Way of All Flesh. Currently, nominees are determined by single transferable vote within the branch of AMPAS. In the first three years of the awards, actors were nominated as the best in their categories, at that time, all of their work during the qualifying period was listed after the award. The following year, this unwieldy and confusing system was replaced by the current system in which an actor is nominated for a performance in a single film. Starting with the 9th ceremony held in 1937, the category was officially limited to five nominations per year, since its inception, the award has been given to 79 actors. Daniel Day-Lewis has received the most awards in this category with three Oscars, spencer Tracy and Laurence Olivier were nominated on nine occasions, more than any other actor. As of the 2017 ceremony, Casey Affleck is the most recent winner in category for his role as Lee Chandler in Manchester by the Sea. In the following table, the years are listed as per Academy convention, and generally correspond to the year of release in Los Angeles County. For the first five ceremonies, the eligibility period spanned twelve months from August 1 to July 31, for the 6th ceremony held in 1934, the eligibility period lasted from August 1,1932 to December 31,1933
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Sidney Poitier
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Sir Sidney Poitier, KBE, is a Bahamian-American actor, film director, author and diplomat. In 1964, Poitier became the first Bahamian and first African-American to win an Academy Award for Best Actor, for his role in Lilies of the Field. In 1999, the American Film Institute named Poitier among the Greatest Male Stars of classic Hollywood cinema, from 1997 to 2007, he served as the non-resident Bahamian ambassador to Japan. On August 12,2009, Poitier was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, in 2016, he was awarded the BAFTA Fellowship for outstanding lifetime achievement in film. Sidney Poitiers parents were Evelyn and Reginald James Poitier, Bahamian farmers who owned a farm on Cat Island and traveled to Miami to sell tomatoes, Reginald worked as a cab driver in Nassau, Bahamas. Poitier was born in Miami while his parents were visiting and his birth was two months premature and he was not expected to survive, but his parents remained in Miami for three months to nurse him to health. Poitier grew up in the Bahamas, then a British Crown colony, because of his birth in the United States, he automatically received American citizenship. He mentions that the surname Poitier is a French name, Poitier lived with his family on Cat Island until he was 10, when they moved to Nassau. He was raised a Roman Catholic but, later became an agnostic with views closer to deism, at the age of 15, he was sent to Miami to live with his brother. At the age of 16, he moved to New York City, a waiter sat with him every night for several weeks helping him learn to read the newspaper. He lied about his age and enlisted in the Army during World War II in 1943, Poitier joined the North American Negro Theatre, but was rejected by audiences. Contrary to what was expected of African American actors at the time, determined to refine his acting skills and rid himself of his noticeable Bahamian accent, he spent the next six months dedicating himself to achieving theatrical success. By the end of 1949, he had to choose between leading roles on stage and an offer to work for Darryl F. Zanuck in the film No Way Out, Poitiers breakout role was as a member of an incorrigible high school class in Blackboard Jungle. Poitier was the first male actor of African descent to be nominated for a competitive Academy Award and he was also the first actor of African descent to win the Academy Award for Best Actor. Poitier worked relatively little over the year, he remained the only major actor of African descent. He acted in the first production of A Raisin in the Sun on Broadway in 1959 and he also gave memorable performances in The Bedford Incident, and A Patch of Blue co-starring Elizabeth Hartman and Shelley Winters. In 1967, he was the most successful draw at the box office, Poitier was aware of this pattern himself, but was conflicted on the matter. For instance, in 1966, he turned down an opportunity to play the lead in an NBC production of Othello with that spirit in mind, in 2002, Poitier received the 2001 Honorary Academy Award for his overall contribution to American cinema
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