1.
After Dark Horrorfest
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After Dark Horrorfest was an annual horror film festival featuring eight independent horror movies, sometimes with secret bonus films, all distributed by After Dark Films in the USA. The first HorrorFest was held in 2006, in 2011, Horrorfest was replaced with After Dark Originals, composed of original films from After Dark and not previously acquired ones. After Darks HorrorFest for 2006 was scheduled for November 17 through November 21,2006. The films shown during the course of the festival were, The Abandoned A film producer, who was adopted as a baby and sent to America, returns to her native Russia, once there, strange things begin to happen. After completion of the festival, this film was re-released to general theatres on February 23,2007, the Gravedancers A group of friends lives are invaded by a trio of hostile ghosts after they engage in a drunken bout of grave-dancing during a wake for an old chum. Except that they usually wind up killing them, penny Dreadful A young girl and her therapist take a road trip to help her overcome her phobia of riding in cars. This trip turns deadly as a mental patient starts a new spree of killings. Reincarnation A Japanese film crew recreates a gruesome murder at a rural hotel only to find themselves suffer fates they are acting out in the film. Unrest A med student collapses upon sensing a presence about her cadaver and her fears are strengthened by the mysterious death of a friend. She must discover the connection before an angry spirit can wreak further vengeance, Wicked Little Things Recently widowed Karen Tunny and her two daughters, Sarah and Emma, move to a remote mountain home in Pennsylvania which Karen has inherited from the family of her late husband. However, she is unaware that the home is situated near an old coal mine, and have now become zombies out to avenge their deaths. On Thursday, November 16,2006, Dark Delicacies, a bookstore in Burbank, CA hosted a signing event with about 30 filmmakers. A contest for the official spokeswoman of the series and for After Dark Films, was announced September 2006 on YouTube. The four finalists were chieko13, msblackbetty, darkspidernyc, and Ysabella Brave, internet voting ended on November 9,2006. Msblackbetty was named Miss HorrorFest 2006 on November 18,2006,7 of the original list of 8 films from the 2006 festival were released on DVD on March 27,2007. The Abandoned was released on June 19,2007, the delay having been caused by the theatrical re-release, of the bonus films, Snoop Doggs Hood of Horror was released on September 11,2007, and The Tripper was released by Fox Video on October 23,2007. After Darks HorrorFest for 2007 was scheduled for November 9 through November 18,2007, the eight films shown during the course of the festival were, Borderland Phil and his two college buddies road-trip down to a Mexican border town to celebrate their college graduation. While there, they run into a cult looking for human sacrifice, crazy Eights After a mutual childhood friend dies, six friends reunite for the funeral
2.
Horror film
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Horror film is a film genre that seeks to elicit a negative emotional reaction from viewers by playing on their fears. Inspired by literature from authors like Edgar Allan Poe, Bram Stoker, the macabre and the supernatural are frequent themes. Horror may also overlap with the fantasy, supernatural fiction and thriller genres, Horror films often deal with viewers nightmares, fears, revulsions and terror of the unknown. Plots within the genre often involve the intrusion of an evil force, event. Another of his projects was 1898s La Caverne maudite. Japan made early forays into the genre with Bake Jizo and Shinin no Sosei. The era featured a slew of literary adaptations, with the works of Poe and Dante, in 1908, Selig Polyscope Company produced Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. In 1910, Edison Studios produced the first filmed version of Frankenstein, the macabre nature of the source materials used made the films synonymous with the horror film genre. Before and during the Weimar Republic era, German Expressionist filmmakers would significantly influence later productions, the first vampire-themed movie, Nosferatu, was made during this period, though it was an unauthorized adaptation of Bram Stokers Dracula. Other European countries also, contributed to the genre during this period, though the word horror to describe the film genre would not be used until the 1930s, earlier American productions often relied on horror themes. Some notable examples include The Hunchback of Notre Dame, The Phantom of the Opera, The Cat and the Canary, The Unknown, and The Man Who Laughs. Many of these films were considered dark melodramas because of their stock characters and emotion-heavy plots that focused on romance, violence, suspense. The trend of inserting an element of macabre into American pre-horror melodramas continued into the 1920s, directors known for relying on macabre in their films during the 1920s were Maurice Tourneur, Rex Ingram, and Tod Browning. Ingrams The Magician contains one of the first examples of a mad doctor and is said to have had a influence on James Whales version of Frankenstein. The Unholy Three is an example of Brownings use of macabre and unique style of morbidity, he remade the film in 1930 as a talkie, during the early period of talking pictures, Universal Pictures began a successful Gothic horror film series. Tod Brownings Dracula was quickly followed by James Whales Frankenstein and The Old Dark House, some of these films blended science fiction with Gothic horror, such as Whales The Invisible Man and featured a mad scientist, mirroring earlier German films. Frankenstein was the first in a series of remakes which lasted for years, the Mummy introduced Egyptology as a theme, Make-up artist Jack Pierce was responsible for the iconic image of the monster, and others in the series. Universals horror cycle continued into the 1940s with B-movies including The Wolf Man, the once controversial Freaks, based on the short story Spurs, was made by MGM, though the studio disowned the completed film, and it remained banned, in the UK, for thirty years
3.
United States
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Forty-eight of the fifty states and the federal district are contiguous and located in North America between Canada and Mexico. The state of Alaska is in the northwest corner of North America, bordered by Canada to the east, the state of Hawaii is an archipelago in the mid-Pacific Ocean. The U. S. territories are scattered about the Pacific Ocean, the geography, climate and wildlife of the country are extremely diverse. At 3.8 million square miles and with over 324 million people, the United States is the worlds third- or fourth-largest country by area, third-largest by land area. It is one of the worlds most ethnically diverse and multicultural nations, paleo-Indians migrated from Asia to the North American mainland at least 15,000 years ago. European colonization began in the 16th century, the United States emerged from 13 British colonies along the East Coast. Numerous disputes between Great Britain and the following the Seven Years War led to the American Revolution. On July 4,1776, during the course of the American Revolutionary War, the war ended in 1783 with recognition of the independence of the United States by Great Britain, representing the first successful war of independence against a European power. The current constitution was adopted in 1788, after the Articles of Confederation, the first ten amendments, collectively named the Bill of Rights, were ratified in 1791 and designed to guarantee many fundamental civil liberties. During the second half of the 19th century, the American Civil War led to the end of slavery in the country. By the end of century, the United States extended into the Pacific Ocean. The Spanish–American War and World War I confirmed the status as a global military power. The end of the Cold War and the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 left the United States as the sole superpower. The U. S. is a member of the United Nations, World Bank, International Monetary Fund, Organization of American States. The United States is a developed country, with the worlds largest economy by nominal GDP. It ranks highly in several measures of performance, including average wage, human development, per capita GDP. While the U. S. economy is considered post-industrial, characterized by the dominance of services and knowledge economy, the United States is a prominent political and cultural force internationally, and a leader in scientific research and technological innovations. In 1507, the German cartographer Martin Waldseemüller produced a map on which he named the lands of the Western Hemisphere America after the Italian explorer and cartographer Amerigo Vespucci
4.
San Francisco
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San Francisco, officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the cultural, commercial, and financial center of Northern California. It is the birthplace of the United Nations, the California Gold Rush of 1849 brought rapid growth, making it the largest city on the West Coast at the time. San Francisco became a consolidated city-county in 1856, after three-quarters of the city was destroyed by the 1906 earthquake and fire, San Francisco was quickly rebuilt, hosting the Panama-Pacific International Exposition nine years later. In World War II, San Francisco was a port of embarkation for service members shipping out to the Pacific Theater. Politically, the city votes strongly along liberal Democratic Party lines, San Francisco is also the headquarters of five major banking institutions and various other companies such as Levi Strauss & Co. Dolby, Airbnb, Weebly, Pacific Gas and Electric Company, Yelp, Pinterest, Twitter, Uber, Lyft, Mozilla, Wikimedia Foundation, as of 2016, San Francisco is ranked high on world liveability rankings. The earliest archaeological evidence of habitation of the territory of the city of San Francisco dates to 3000 BC. Upon independence from Spain in 1821, the became part of Mexico. Under Mexican rule, the system gradually ended, and its lands became privatized. In 1835, Englishman William Richardson erected the first independent homestead, together with Alcalde Francisco de Haro, he laid out a street plan for the expanded settlement, and the town, named Yerba Buena, began to attract American settlers. Commodore John D. Sloat claimed California for the United States on July 7,1846, during the Mexican–American War, montgomery arrived to claim Yerba Buena two days later. Yerba Buena was renamed San Francisco on January 30 of the next year, despite its attractive location as a port and naval base, San Francisco was still a small settlement with inhospitable geography. The California Gold Rush brought a flood of treasure seekers, with their sourdough bread in tow, prospectors accumulated in San Francisco over rival Benicia, raising the population from 1,000 in 1848 to 25,000 by December 1849. The promise of fabulous riches was so strong that crews on arriving vessels deserted and rushed off to the gold fields, leaving behind a forest of masts in San Francisco harbor. Some of these approximately 500 abandoned ships were used at times as storeships, saloons and hotels, many were left to rot, by 1851 the harbor was extended out into the bay by wharves while buildings were erected on piles among the ships. By 1870 Yerba Buena Cove had been filled to create new land, buried ships are occasionally exposed when foundations are dug for new buildings. California was quickly granted statehood in 1850 and the U. S. military built Fort Point at the Golden Gate, silver discoveries, including the Comstock Lode in Nevada in 1859, further drove rapid population growth. With hordes of fortune seekers streaming through the city, lawlessness was common, and the Barbary Coast section of town gained notoriety as a haven for criminals, prostitution, entrepreneurs sought to capitalize on the wealth generated by the Gold Rush
5.
New York City
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The City of New York, often called New York City or simply New York, is the most populous city in the United States. With an estimated 2015 population of 8,550,405 distributed over an area of about 302.6 square miles. Located at the tip of the state of New York. Home to the headquarters of the United Nations, New York is an important center for international diplomacy and has described as the cultural and financial capital of the world. Situated on one of the worlds largest natural harbors, New York City consists of five boroughs, the five boroughs – Brooklyn, Queens, Manhattan, The Bronx, and Staten Island – were consolidated into a single city in 1898. In 2013, the MSA produced a gross metropolitan product of nearly US$1.39 trillion, in 2012, the CSA generated a GMP of over US$1.55 trillion. NYCs MSA and CSA GDP are higher than all but 11 and 12 countries, New York City traces its origin to its 1624 founding in Lower Manhattan as a trading post by colonists of the Dutch Republic and was named New Amsterdam in 1626. The city and its surroundings came under English control in 1664 and were renamed New York after King Charles II of England granted the lands to his brother, New York served as the capital of the United States from 1785 until 1790. It has been the countrys largest city since 1790, the Statue of Liberty greeted millions of immigrants as they came to the Americas by ship in the late 19th and early 20th centuries and is a symbol of the United States and its democracy. In the 21st century, New York has emerged as a node of creativity and entrepreneurship, social tolerance. Several sources have ranked New York the most photographed city in the world, the names of many of the citys bridges, tapered skyscrapers, and parks are known around the world. Manhattans real estate market is among the most expensive in the world, Manhattans Chinatown incorporates the highest concentration of Chinese people in the Western Hemisphere, with multiple signature Chinatowns developing across the city. Providing continuous 24/7 service, the New York City Subway is one of the most extensive metro systems worldwide, with 472 stations in operation. Over 120 colleges and universities are located in New York City, including Columbia University, New York University, and Rockefeller University, during the Wisconsinan glaciation, the New York City region was situated at the edge of a large ice sheet over 1,000 feet in depth. The ice sheet scraped away large amounts of soil, leaving the bedrock that serves as the foundation for much of New York City today. Later on, movement of the ice sheet would contribute to the separation of what are now Long Island and Staten Island. The first documented visit by a European was in 1524 by Giovanni da Verrazzano, a Florentine explorer in the service of the French crown and he claimed the area for France and named it Nouvelle Angoulême. Heavy ice kept him from further exploration, and he returned to Spain in August and he proceeded to sail up what the Dutch would name the North River, named first by Hudson as the Mauritius after Maurice, Prince of Orange
6.
Reality television
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It differs from documentary television in that the focus tends to be on drama, personal conflict, and entertainment rather than educating viewers. The genre has various standard tropes, including confessionals used by cast members to express their thoughts, an early example of the genre was the 1991 Dutch series Nummer 28, which was the first show to bring together strangers and record their interactions. It then exploded as a phenomenon in the late 1990s and early 2000s with the success of the series Survivor, Idols. These shows and a number of others became global franchises, spawning local versions in dozens of countries, Reality television as a whole has become a fixture of television programming. There are grey areas around what is classified as reality television, Reality television has faced significant criticism since its rise in popularity. Much of the criticism has centered on the use of the word reality, Television formats portraying ordinary people in unscripted situations are almost as old as the television medium itself. Precedents for television that portrayed people in unscripted situations began in the late 1940s, queen for a Day was an early example of reality-based television. The 1946 television game show Cash and Carry sometimes featured contestants performing stunts, debuting in 1948, Allen Funts hidden camera show Candid Camera broadcast unsuspecting ordinary people reacting to pranks. In 1948, talent search shows Ted Macks Original Amateur Hour and Arthur Godfreys Talent Scouts featured amateur competitors, in the 1950s, game shows Beat the Clock and Truth or Consequences involved contestants in wacky competitions, stunts, and practical jokes. Confession was a show which aired from June 1958 to January 1959. The radio series Nightwatch tape-recorded the daily activities of Culver City, the series You Asked for It incorporated audience involvement by basing episodes around requests sent in by postcard from viewers. First broadcast in the United Kingdom in 1964, the Granada Television documentary Seven Up, broadcast interviews with a dozen ordinary 7-year-olds from a broad cross-section of society and inquired about their reactions to everyday life. Every seven years, a film documented the life of the same individuals during the period, titled the Up Series, episodes include 7 Plus Seven,21 Up. The program was structured as a series of interviews with no element of plot, however, it did have the then-new effect of turning ordinary people into celebrities. The first reality show in the modern sense may have been the series The American Sportsman, Another precursor may be considered Mutual of Omahas Wild Kingdom which aired from 1963 through 1988. This show featured zoologist Marlin Perkins traveling across the globe and illustrating the variety of animal life on the planet. Though mostly a travelogue, it was popular in syndication and new episodes were produced through the eighties. The 12-part 1973 PBS series An American Family showed a nuclear family going through a divorce, unlike many later reality shows, it was more or less documentary in purpose and style
7.
New Orleans
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New Orleans is a major United States port and the largest city and metropolitan area in the state of Louisiana. The population of the city was 343,829 as of the 2010 U. S. Census, the New Orleans metropolitan area had a population of 1,167,764 in 2010 and was the 46th largest in the United States. The New Orleans–Metairie–Bogalusa Combined Statistical Area, a trading area, had a 2010 population of 1,452,502. The city is named after the Duke of Orleans, who reigned as Regent for Louis XV from 1715 to 1723, as it was established by French colonists and it is well known for its distinct French and Spanish Creole architecture, as well as its cross-cultural and multilingual heritage. New Orleans is also famous for its cuisine, music, and its celebrations and festivals, most notably Mardi Gras. The city is referred to as the most unique in the United States. New Orleans is located in southeastern Louisiana, straddling the Mississippi River, the city and Orleans Parish are coterminous. The city and parish are bounded by the parishes of St. Tammany to the north, St. Bernard to the east, Plaquemines to the south, and Jefferson to the south and west. Lake Pontchartrain, part of which is included in the city limits, lies to the north, before Hurricane Katrina, Orleans Parish was the most populous parish in Louisiana. As of 2015, it ranks third in population, trailing neighboring Jefferson Parish, La Nouvelle-Orléans was founded May 7,1718, by the French Mississippi Company, under the direction of Jean-Baptiste Le Moyne de Bienville, on land inhabited by the Chitimacha. It was named for Philippe II, Duke of Orléans, who was Regent of the Kingdom of France at the time and his title came from the French city of Orléans. The French colony was ceded to the Spanish Empire in the Treaty of Paris, during the American Revolutionary War, New Orleans was an important port for smuggling aid to the rebels, transporting military equipment and supplies up the Mississippi River. Bernardo de Gálvez y Madrid, Count of Gálvez successfully launched a campaign against the British from the city in 1779. New Orleans remained under Spanish control until 1803, when it reverted briefly to French oversight, nearly all of the surviving 18th-century architecture of the Vieux Carré dates from the Spanish period, the most notable exception being the Old Ursuline Convent. Napoleon sold Louisiana to the United States in the Louisiana Purchase in 1803, thereafter, the city grew rapidly with influxes of Americans, French, Creoles, and Africans. Later immigrants were Irish, Germans, and Italians, Major commodity crops of sugar and cotton were cultivated with slave labor on large plantations outside the city. The Haitian Revolution ended in 1804 and established the republic in the Western Hemisphere. It had occurred several years in what was then the French colony of Saint-Domingue
8.
Rocket-propelled grenade
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A rocket-propelled grenade is a shoulder-fired, anti-tank weapon system that fires rockets equipped with an explosive warhead. These warheads are affixed to a motor and stabilized in flight with fins. Some types of RPG are reloadable, while others are single-use, RPGs, with some exceptions, are generally loaded from the muzzle. RPGs with high explosive warheads are very effective against armored vehicles such as armoured personnel carriers. However, heavily armored vehicles, such as main battle tanks, are too well armored to be penetrated by an RPG. Various warheads are also capable of causing damage to vulnerable systems. The RPG has its roots in the 20th century with the development of the explosive shaped charge. Before the adoption of the charge, anti-tank guns and tank guns relied primarily on kinetic energy to defeat armor. Armies found that they needed to give infantry the means to defeat enemy armor when no anti-tank guns were available, initial attempts to put such weapons in the hands of the infantry resulted in weapons like the Soviet RPG-40 blast effect hand grenade. What was needed was a means of delivering the shaped charge warhead from a distance, different approaches to this goal would lead to the anti-tank spigot mortar, the recoilless rifle and, from the development of practical rocketry, the rocket propelled grenade. Research occasioned by World War II produced such weapons as the American Bazooka and German Panzerfaust, the Soviet-developed RPG-7 is the most widely distributed, recognizable and used RPG in the world. In the 2000s, they were still being used widely in conflict areas such as Chechnya, Iraq, the RPG has a design that is comparable to a shaped charge explosive. A shaped charge is an explosive charge shaped to focus the effect of the explosives energy, various types are used to penetrate tank armour. A typical modern lined shaped charge can penetrate armor to a depth of seven or more times the diameter of the charge, though greater depths of 10 CD. An RPG comprises two parts, the launcher and a rocket equipped with a warhead. The most common types of warheads are high explosive and high explosive anti-tank rounds and these warheads are affixed to a rocket motor and stabilized in flight with fins. Some types of RPG are single-use disposable units, such as the RPG-22 and M72 LAW, others are reloadable, such as the Soviet RPG-7, the launcher is designed so that the rocket exits the launcher without discharging an exhaust that would be dangerous to the operator. In the case of the RPG-7, the rocket is launched by a booster charge
9.
Sofia
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Sofia is the capital and largest city of Bulgaria. The city has a population of 1.26 million, while 1.68 million people live in its metropolitan area, the city is located at the foot of Vitosha Mountain in the western part of the country, within less than 50 kilometres drive from the Serbian border. Its location in the centre of the Balkan peninsula means that it is the midway between the Black Sea and the Adriatic Sea, whereas the Aegean Sea is the closest to it, Sofia has been an area of human habitation since at least 7000 BC. Being Bulgarias primate city, Sofia is a hometown of many of the local universities, cultural institutions. Sofia is one of the top 10 best places for business in the world. Sofia is Europes most affordable capital to visit as of 2013, for the longest time the city possessed a Thracian name, derived from the tribe Serdi, who were either of Thracian, Celtic, or mixed Thracian-Celtic origin. It seems that the first written mention of Serdica was made during his reign, during the Romans civitas Serdenisium was mentioned the brightest city of the Serdi in official inscriptions. The city was major throughout the past ever since Antiquity, when Roman emperor Constantine the Great referred to it as my Rome, other names given to Sofia, such as Serdonpolis and Triaditza, were mentioned by Byzantine Greek sources or coins. The Slavic name Sredets, which is related to middle and to the citys earliest name, the city was called Atralissa by the Arab traveller Idrisi and Strelisa, Stralitsa or Stralitsion by the Crusaders. The name Sofia comes from the Saint Sofia Church, as opposed to the prevailing Slavic etymology among Bulgarian cities and towns. It is ultimately derived from the Egyptian Kemetic word sbÅ, meaning star, door, teaching and wisdom and this was a tradition of collection of wise literature, shared between Mediterranean cultures, which was called sophia in Greek. In these documents the city is called Sofia, but at the time the region and the citys inhabitants are still called Sredecheski. The city became popular to the Ottomans by the name Sofya. In 1879 there was a dispute about what the name of the new Bulgarian capital should be, the citys name is pronounced by Bulgarians with a stress on the o, in contrast with the tendency of foreigners to place the stress on i. The female given name Sofia is pronounced by Bulgarians with a stress on the i, Sofia has an area of 492 km2, while Sofia City Province has an area of 1344 km2. Sofias development as a significant settlement owes much to its position in the Balkans. It is situated in western Bulgaria, at the foot of the Vitosha mountain, in the Sofia Valley that is surrounded by the Balkan mountains to the north. The valley has an altitude of 550 metres
10.
Bulgaria
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Bulgaria, officially the Republic of Bulgaria, is a country in southeastern Europe. It is bordered by Romania to the north, Serbia and Macedonia to the west, Greece and Turkey to the south, with a territory of 110,994 square kilometres, Bulgaria is Europes 16th-largest country. Organised prehistoric cultures began developing on current Bulgarian lands during the Neolithic period and its ancient history saw the presence of the Thracians, Greeks, Persians, Celts, Romans, Goths, Alans and Huns. With the downfall of the Second Bulgarian Empire in 1396, its territories came under Ottoman rule for five centuries. The Russo-Turkish War of 1877–78 led to the formation of the Third Bulgarian State, the following years saw several conflicts with its neighbours, which prompted Bulgaria to align with Germany in both world wars. In 1946 it became a one-party socialist state as part of the Soviet-led Eastern Bloc, in December 1989 the ruling Communist Party allowed multi-party elections, which subsequently led to Bulgarias transition into a democracy and a market-based economy. Bulgarias population of 7.2 million people is predominantly urbanised, most commercial and cultural activities are centred on the capital and largest city, Sofia. The strongest sectors of the economy are industry, power engineering. The countrys current political structure dates to the adoption of a constitution in 1991. Bulgaria is a parliamentary republic with a high degree of political, administrative. Human activity in the lands of modern Bulgaria can be traced back to the Paleolithic, animal bones incised with man-made markings from Kozarnika cave are assumed to be the earliest examples of symbolic behaviour in humans. Organised prehistoric societies in Bulgarian lands include the Neolithic Hamangia culture, Vinča culture, the latter is credited with inventing gold working and exploitation. Some of these first gold smelters produced the coins, weapons and jewellery of the Varna Necropolis treasure and this site also offers insights for understanding the social hierarchy of the earliest European societies. Thracians, one of the three primary groups of modern Bulgarians, began appearing in the region during the Iron Age. In the late 6th century BC, the Persians conquered most of present-day Bulgaria, and kept it until 479 BC. After the division of the Roman Empire in the 5th century the area fell under Byzantine control, by this time, Christianity had already spread in the region. A small Gothic community in Nicopolis ad Istrum produced the first Germanic language book in the 4th century, the first Christian monastery in Europe was established around the same time by Saint Athanasius in central Bulgaria. From the 6th century the easternmost South Slavs gradually settled in the region, in 680 Bulgar tribes under the leadership of Asparukh moved south across the Danube and settled in the area between the lower Danube and the Balkan, establishing their capital at Pliska
11.
NBCUniversal
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NBCUniversal is an American multinational media conglomerate. It has a significant presence in broadcasting through a portfolio of domestic and international properties, including terrestrial, via the Universal Parks & Resorts division, the company is also the third-largest operator of amusement parks in the world. NBC Universal was formed on May 12,2004 by the merger of General Electrics National Broadcasting Company with Vivendis Vivendi Universal Entertainment, as of March 19,2013, it is wholly owned by Comcast who bought GEs ownership stake. NBC and Universal Television had a long-standing partnership dating back to 1950 and this partnership continued throughout a number of name changes and changes of ownership. NBC Universal Television has its roots in a series of expansions undertaken by NBC. In the late 1980s, NBC began pursuing a strategy of diversification, NBC also had partial ownership of several regional sports channels and other cable channels such as American Movie Classics and Court TV. In 1995, NBC began operating NBC Desktop Video, a news service that delivered live video to personal computers. The following year, NBC announced an agreement with Microsoft to create an all-news cable television channel, a separate joint venture with Microsoft included establishing a news website, MSNBC. com. In 1998, NBC partnered with Dow Jones & Co, the two companies combined their financial news channels outside the US. The new networks included NBC Europe, CNBC Europe, NBC Asia, CNBC Asia, NBC Africa, in 1999, NBC took a 32% stake in the Paxson group, operator of PAX TV. Five years later, NBC decided to sell its interest in PAX TV and end its relationship with PAX owner, in 2001, NBC acquired the US Spanish-language broadcaster Telemundo, which included the bilingual Mun2 Television. That same year NBC acquired the cable channel Bravo, the sale and resulting merger formed NBC Universal. The new company was 80% owned by GE, and 20% owned by Vivendi, Universal Music Group was not included in the deal and is not part of NBC Universal. On August 2,2004, the divisions of NBC. NBC Studios series bought into the company include the NBC dramas Las Vegas, Crossing Jordan, Universal Network Television bought the Law & Order franchise and The District—in fact, Universal Network Television had co-produced American Dreams with NBC before the merger. Entertainment shows produced by the new group include The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, Late Night with Jimmy Fallon, Last Call with Carson Daly, and Saturday Night Live. The formation of NBC Universal saw the establishment of NBC Universal Cable, which oversees the distribution, marketing, NBC Universal Cable also manages the companys investments in The Weather Channel and TiVo. The cable division also used to operate NBC Weather Plus until 2008 and it also owned a 50% stake in Canal+ and also owned a 15% stake in A+E Networks until 2012
12.
Scott Adkins
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Adkins has also appeared in Dangerfield, Hollyoaks, The Tournament TV series and many others, as well as starred in many direct-to-video films. Scott Adkins was born in Sutton Coldfield, England, on 17 June 1976 and he became interested in martial arts at the age of ten when he, his father, and older brother, Craig, visited the local Judo club. His interest towards martial arts even more at age 14 because he was mugged around the age of 13 on a bus. That same year, he started practicing Taekwondo, since age 16, Adkins has also trained in Kickboxing under Anthony Jones. He is now a fully trained Kickboxing Instructor for the P. K. A and his first break came when he was offered a role in a Hong Kong martial arts film called Dei Seung Chui Keung. Spotted by Head of The Hong Kong Stuntmen Association and director Wei Tung and English-born Hong Kong movie expert Bey Logan, Adkins found himself in the East for the first time. Scott got the chance to work some of Hong Kong cinemas leading action directors including Woo-ping Yuen, Corey Yuen, Sammo Hung Kam-Bo. Acting roles started to come in and he was offered a guest role in BBCs Doctors filmed at Birminghams Pebble Mill, starring roles in feature films soon followed with his portrayal of Talbot in Special Forces and Yuri Boyka in Undisputed II, Last Man Standing. It was this film that broke him into the mainstream with his villainous portrayal of a Russian MMA underground fighter Boyka, Adkins appears in the role of King Amphitryon in The Legend of Hercules. In 2012, he was cast to star in Métal Hurlant Chronicles, guillaume Lubrano creator and director of the show decided to cross the universe of two originals stories. Official website Scott Adkins at the Internet Movie Database
