1.
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
2.
Evita (1996 film)
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Evita is a 1996 American musical drama film based on Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Webbers musical of the same name. The film depicts the life of Eva Perón, detailing her beginnings, rise to fame, political career, after Stone stepped down from the project in 1994, Parker agreed to write and direct the film. Recording sessions for the songs and soundtrack took place at CTS Studios in London, England. Parker worked with Rice and Lloyd Webber to compose the soundtrack, reworking the songs by creating the music first. They also wrote a new song, You Must Love Me, principal photography commenced in February 1996, and concluded in May of that year. Filming took place on locations in Buenos Aires and Budapest, the films production in Argentina was met with controversy, as the cast and crew faced protests over fears that the project would tarnish Evas image. Evita held its premiere at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles, California, Hollywood Pictures gave the film a platform release which involved releasing it in select cities, before expanding distribution in the following weeks. The film had a release on December 25,1996. Evita was a success, grossing $141 million worldwide against a budget of $55 million. The film received a critical response, reviewers praised Madonnas performance. In a cinema in Buenos Aires on July 26,1952, as the nation goes into public mourning, Ché, a member of the public, marvels at the spectacle and promises to show how Eva did nothing, for years. At the age of 15, Eva lives in the town of Junín. She persuades a tango singer, Agustín Magaldi, with whom she is having an affair, after Magaldi leaves her, she goes through several relationships with increasingly influential men, becoming a model, actress and radio personality. She meets Colonel Juan Perón at a following the 1944 San Juan earthquake. Peróns connection with Eva adds to his populist image, since they are both from the working class. Eva has a show during Peróns rise and uses all her skills to promote him. The groundswell of support that Eva generates forces the government to release Perón, Perón wins election to the presidency and marries Eva, who promises that the new government will serve the descamisados. At the start of the Perón government, Eva dresses glamorously, soon after, she embarks on what is called her Rainbow Tour to Europe
3.
Woody Allen
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Heywood Woody Allen is an American actor, writer, director, comedian, playwright, and musician whose career spans more than six decades. He worked as a writer in the 1950s, writing jokes and scripts for television. In the early 1960s, Allen began performing as a stand-up comedian, as a comedian, he developed the persona of an insecure, intellectual, fretful nebbish, which he maintains is quite different from his real-life personality. In 2004, Comedy Central ranked Allen in fourth place on a list of the 100 greatest stand-up comedians and he is often identified as part of the New Hollywood wave of filmmakers of the mid-1960s to late 1970s. Allen often stars in his films, typically in the persona he developed as a standup, some of the best-known of his over 40 films are Annie Hall, Manhattan, and Hannah and Her Sisters. In 2007 he said Stardust Memories, The Purple Rose of Cairo, critic Roger Ebert described Allen as a treasure of the cinema. Allen won four Academy Awards, three for Best Original Screenplay and one for Best Director and he also won nine British Academy of Film and Television Arts Awards. His screenplay for Annie Hall was named the funniest screenplay by the Writers Guild of America in its list of the 101 Funniest Screenplays, in 2011, PBS televised the film biography Woody Allen, A Documentary on the American Masters TV series. Allen was born Allan Stewart Konigsberg in Brooklyn, New York and he and his sister, Letty, were raised in Midwood, Brooklyn. He is the son of Nettie, a bookkeeper at her familys delicatessen, and Martin Konigsberg and his family was Jewish, his grandparents immigrated from Russia and Austria, and spoke Yiddish, Hebrew, and German. His parents were born and raised on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. His childhood was not particularly happy, his parents did not get along, Allen spoke German quite a bit in his early years. He would later joke that when he was young he was sent to inter-faith summer camps. While attending Hebrew school for eight years, he went to Public School 99 and to Midwood High School, at that time, he lived in an apartment at 968 East 14th Street. Unlike his comic persona, he was interested in baseball than school. He impressed students with his talent at card and magic tricks. To raise money, he wrote jokes for agent David O. Alber, at the age of 17, he legally changed his name to Heywood Allen and later began to call himself Woody Allen. According to Allen, his first published joke read, Woody Allen says he ate at a restaurant that had O. P. S and he was then earning more than both parents combined
4.
James L. Brooks
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James Lawrence Jim Brooks is an American director, producer and screenwriter. Growing up in North Bergen, New Jersey, Brooks endured a fractured family life, after dropping out of New York University, he got a job as an usher at CBS, going on to write for the CBS News broadcasts. He moved to Los Angeles in 1965 to work on David L. Wolpers documentaries, after being laid off he met producer Allan Burns who secured him a job as a writer on the series My Mother the Car. Brooks wrote for several shows before being hired as an editor on My Friend Tony. Grant Tinker hired Brooks and Burns at MTM Productions to create The Mary Tyler Moore Show in 1970, the show, one of the first to feature an independent working woman as its lead character, was critically acclaimed and won Brooks several Primetime Emmy Awards. Brooks and Burns then created two successful spin-offs from Mary Tyler Moore in the shape of Rhoda and Lou Grant, Brooks left MTM Productions in 1978 to co-create the sitcom Taxi which, despite winning multiple Emmys, suffered from low ratings and was canceled twice. Brooks moved into film work when he wrote and co-produced the 1979 film Starting Over. His next project was the acclaimed film Terms of Endearment. Basing his next film, Broadcast News, on his journalistic experiences, although his 1994 work Ill Do Anything was hampered by negative press attention due to the cutting of all of its recorded musical numbers, As Good as It Gets earned further praise. It was seven years until his film, 2004s Spanglish. His sixth film, How Do You Know, was released in 2010, Brooks also produced and mentored Cameron Crowe on Say Anything. And Wes Anderson and Owen Wilson on Bottle Rocket, in 1984, Brooks founded the television and film company, Gracie Films. Although he did not intend to do so, Brooks returned to television in 1987 as the producer of The Tracey Ullman Show and he hired cartoonist Matt Groening to create a series of shorts for the show, which eventually led to The Simpsons in 1989. The Simpsons won numerous awards and is still running, Brooks also co-produced and co-wrote the 2007 film adaptation of the show, The Simpsons Movie. In total, Brooks has received 47 Emmy nominations, winning 20 of them, Brooks was born James Lawrence Brooks on May 9,1940 in Brooklyn, New York, United States, and raised in North Bergen, New Jersey. His parents, Dorothy Helen and Edward M. Brooks, were both salespeople, the Brooks family was Jewish, Edward Brooks changed his surname from Bernstein and claimed to be Irish. Brooks father abandoned his mother when he found out she was pregnant with him, during the pregnancy, Brooks father sent his wife a postcard stating that If its a boy, name him Jim. His mother died when he was 22 and he has an older sister, Diane, who helped look after him as a child and to whom he dedicated As Good As It Gets
5.
Pleasantville (film)
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Pleasantville is a 1998 fantasy comedy-drama film written, co-produced, and directed by Gary Ross, and co-produced by Jon Kilik, Bob Degus, and Steven Soderbergh. It stars Tobey Maguire, Jeff Daniels, Joan Allen, William H. Macy, J. T. Walsh, and Reese Witherspoon, with Don Knotts, Paul Walker, and Jane Kaczmarek in supporting roles. The story centers around two siblings who wind up trapped in a 1950s TV show, set in a small Iowa town, in their attempts to get comfortable, the two become more aware of social issues such as racism and freedom of speech. The film was released in the United States by New Line Cinema on October 23,1998. It was a box office bomb, only acquiring about $49.8 million of a $60 million budget, but received positive reviews for its visuals, acting, the film was J. T. Walshs final performance, and was dedicated to his memory. David and his twin sister Jennifer lead very different high-school social lives, Jennifer is shallow and extroverted, David is introverted and spends most of his time watching television. One evening while their mother is away, they fight over the TV, Jennifer wants to watch a concert on MTV, but David wants to watch a marathon of Pleasantville, a black and white 1950s sitcom about the idyllic Parker family. During the fight, the remote control breaks, and the TV cannot be turned on manually, a mysterious TV repairman shows up, quizzes David about Pleasantville, then gives him a strange remote control. The repairman leaves, and David and Jennifer resume fighting, however, they are transported into the Parkers black and white Pleasantville living room. David tries to reason with the repairman, but he succeeds only in chasing him away, David and Jennifer must now pretend they are Bud and Mary Sue Parker, the son and daughter on the show. David and Jennifer witness the wholesome nature of the town, such as a group of firemen rescuing a cat from a tree. David tells Jennifer they must stay in character and not disrupt the lives of the towns citizens, to keep the shows plot, Jennifer dates a boy from high school but has sex with him, a concept unknown to him and everyone else in town. Slowly, Pleasantville begins changing from black and white to color, including flowers, David introduces Mr. Johnson, owner of the burger joint/soda fountain where Bud works, to colorful modern art via a book from the library, sparking in him an interest in painting. Johnson and Betty Parker fall in love, causing her to home, throwing George Parker, Bud and Mary Sues father. The only people who remain unchanged are the fathers, led by the mayor, Big Bob. They resolve to do something about their increasingly independent wives and rebellious children, as the townsfolk become more colorful, a ban on colored people is initiated in public venues. Eventually, a riot is touched off by a painting of Betty on the window of Mr. Johnsons soda fountain. The soda fountain is destroyed, books are burned, and people who are colored are harassed in the street
6.
Coen brothers
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Joel David Coen and Ethan Jesse Coen, collectively referred to as the Coen brothers, are American filmmakers. Their films span many genres and styles, which they frequently subvert or parody and their best-reviewed works include Fargo, The Big Lebowski, No Country for Old Men, A Serious Man, True Grit, and Inside Llewyn Davis. The brothers write, direct, and produce their films jointly, although until The Ladykillers, Joel received sole credit for directing and they often alternate top billing for their screenplays while sharing film credits for editor under the alias Roderick Jaynes. The duo also won the Palme dOr for Barton Fink, and were nominated for Fargo, the Coen brothers have written a number of films that neither of the two directed. Ethan is also a writer of stories, theater. Their films No Country for Old Men, A Serious Man, Joel and Ethan Coen were born and raised in St. Louis Park, Minnesota, a suburb of Minneapolis. Their mother, Rena, was an art historian at St. Cloud State University, when they were children, Joel saved money from mowing lawns to buy a Vivitar Super 8 camera. Together, the brothers remade movies they saw on television, with a kid, Mark Zimering. Their first attempt was a romp entitled Henry Kissinger, Man on the Go, cornel Wildes The Naked Prey became their Zeimers in Zambia, which also featured Ethan as a native with a spear. Joel Coen has said, in regards to whether our background influences our film making, theres no doubt that our Jewish heritage affects how we see things. Joel and Ethan graduated from St. Louis Park High School in 1973 and 1976 and they both also graduated from Bard College at Simons Rock in Great Barrington, Massachusetts. Joel then spent four years in the film program at New York University. Ethan went on to Princeton University and earned a degree in philosophy in 1979. His senior thesis was a 41-page essay, Two Views of Wittgensteins Later Philosophy, Joel has been married to actress Frances McDormand since 1984. They adopted a son from Paraguay, named Pedro McDormand Coen and she also did a voice-over in Barton Fink. Ethan married film editor Tricia Cooke in 1990 and they have two children, daughter Dusty and son Buster Jacob, who goes to Vassar College. Both couples live in New York, after graduating from New York University, Joel worked as a production assistant on a variety of industrial films and music videos. He developed a talent for film editing and met Sam Raimi while assisting Enda Ruth Paul in editing Raimis first feature film, in 1984, the brothers wrote and directed Blood Simple, their first commercial film together
7.
Robert Altman
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Robert Bernard Altman was an American film director, screenwriter, and film producer. He is consistently ranked as one of the greatest and most influential filmmakers in American cinema and his style of filmmaking was unique among directors, in that his subjects covered most genres, but with a subversive twist that typically relies on satire and humor to express his personal vision. Altman developed a reputation for being anti-Hollywood and non-conformist in both his themes and directing style, however, actors especially enjoyed working under his direction because he encouraged them to improvise, thereby inspiring their own creativity. He preferred large ensemble casts for his films, and developed a recording technique which produced overlapping dialogue from multiple actors. This produced a natural, more dynamic, and more complex experience for the viewer. He also used highly mobile camera work and zoom lenses to enhance the activity taking place on the screen, critic Pauline Kael, writing about his directing style, said that Altman could make film fireworks out of next to nothing. In 2006, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences recognized Altmans body of work with an Academy Honorary Award and he never won a competitive Oscar despite five nominations. His films MASH, McCabe & Mrs. Miller, and Nashville have been selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry. Altman is one of the few filmmakers whose films have won the Golden Bear at Berlin, the Golden Lion at Venice, and the Golden Palm at Cannes. Altmans ancestry was German, English and Irish, his grandfather, Frank Altman. Altman had a Catholic upbringing, but he did not continue to follow or practice the religion as an adult, although he has referred to as a sort of Catholic. He was educated at Jesuit schools, including Rockhurst High School and he graduated from Wentworth Military Academy in Lexington, Missouri in 1943. In 1943 Altman joined the United States Army Air Forces at the age of 18, during World War II, Altman flew more than 50 bombing missions as a crewman on a B-24 Liberator with the 307th Bomb Group in Borneo and the Dutch East Indies. Upon his discharge in 1946, Altman moved to California and he worked in publicity for a company that had invented a tattooing machine to identify dogs. He entered filmmaking on a whim, selling a script to RKO for the 1948 picture Bodyguard, Altmans immediate success encouraged him to move to New York City, where he attempted to forge a career as a writer. Having enjoyed little success, in 1949 he returned to Kansas City, in February 2012, an early Calvin film directed by Altman, Modern Football, was found by filmmaker Gary Huggins. Altman directed some 65 industrial films and documentaries before being hired by a businessman in 1956 to write. The film, titled The Delinquents, made for $60,000, was purchased by United Artists for $150,000, while primitive, this teen exploitation film contained the foundations of Altmans later work in its use of casual, naturalistic dialogue
8.
Bridget Jones's Diary (film)
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Bridget Joness Diary is a 2001 British-American-French romantic comedy film directed by Sharon Maguire and written by Richard Curtis, Andrew Davies, and Helen Fielding. It is based on Fieldings novel of the name, which is a reinterpretation of Jane Austens Pride. The adaptation stars Renée Zellweger as Bridget, Hugh Grant as the caddish Daniel Cleaver, production began in May 2000 and ended in August 2000, and took place largely on location in London and the Home Counties. The film premiered on 4 April 2001 in the UK and was released to theatres on 13 April 2001 simultaneously in the UK, Bridget Joness Diary received positive reviews and was a commercial success, grossing over $280 million worldwide. Zellweger was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress for her role in the film, a sequel, Bridget Jones, The Edge of Reason, was released in 2004 and another sequel, Bridget Joness Baby, was released in 2016. Bridget Jones is 32 years old, single, very accident-prone and she works in publicity at a book publishing company in London where her main focus is fantasising about her boss, Daniel Cleaver. At a New Year party hosted by her parents, she re-encounters Mark Darcy and they had known each other as children. After their initial encounter, Mark thinks that Bridget is a fool and vulgar and Bridget thinks that he is arrogant and rude and she starts her own diary, which covers all her attempts to stop smoking, lose weight and find her Mr. Right. Bridget and Daniel begin to flirt heavily at work, first over email, ahead of an important book launch, at which Bridget bumps into Mark and his glamorous but haughty colleague Natasha. Bridget leaves with Daniel and they have dinner, despite the fact that he is a womaniser with a questionable personality. Bridget learns from Daniel that he and Mark have a history and, as a result, Daniel informs Bridget of their falling-out, telling her that Mark broke their friendship by sleeping with his fiancée. Bridget is invited to a party, and she takes Daniel along as her plus one. They spend the day before the party at a country house hotel, Daniel, having to spend the day working, is not able to attend and sends Bridget to the party alone. However, his dubious character becomes clearer to Bridget when she returns home from the party to find Daniel with another woman, a colleague of his, Lara, and Bridget cuts ties with him soon after. Bridget begins to search for a new job and after landing a job in television, Daniel makes a desperate attempt to convince Bridget to stay, only for her to retort that she would rather have a job wiping Saddam Husseins arse. Bridget has an invitation to a friends dinner party, where she is the only single person and distraught to see Mark. During the party, Mark privately confesses to Bridget that, despite her faults and he later helps Bridget to achieve an exclusive TV interview in a landmark legal case. Bridget begins to develop feelings for Mark, and he comes to her rescue at her dinner party at her flat in Borough
9.
Swingers (1996 film)
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Swingers is a 1996 American comedy-drama film about the lives of single, unemployed actors living on the eastside of Hollywood, California during the 1990s swing revival. Written by Jon Favreau and directed by Doug Liman, the film starred Favreau and Vince Vaughn, the film was honored on the 2007 Spike TV Guys Choice Awards. Mike Peters is a comedian who left New York City to find success in Los Angeles. To help Mike with his depression, his womanizing friend Trent and some other aspiring actor friends try, the movie opens with Mike telling his friend Rob about how desperately he misses Michelle and that she has not called him. Rob explains that somehow girls know not to call their ex-boyfriends until they have moved on from them. To help Mike recover, Trent coaxes him into a trip to Las Vegas. Trent succeeds in picking up two waitresses, but Mikes obsession with Michelle ruins Trents plans. Back in Los Angeles, Mike, Rob and other friends go bar hopping, stopping at party, and later an after-hours spot, inspired by this, Mike meets a girl named Nikki and gets her phone number. Back at his apartment, however, he leaves a series of increasingly anxious and desperate messages on her answering machine until she calls back, missing Michelle more than ever, he contemplates moving back to New York until Rob comes over and consoles him. Out again for swing night at a Hollywood night club, Mike spots a woman named Lorraine and he summons all his courage to approach and connect with her. The following morning, Mike receives a call from Michelle, when Lorraine calls him, Mike ends his call with Michelle to connect further with Lorraine. Jon Favreau as Mike Peters, a comedian from New York City. Vince Vaughn as Trent Walker, an actor, Mikes closest friend. Ron Livingston as Rob, Mikes friend from New York, patrick Van Horn as Sue, an irritable swinger who is named after the Johnny Cash song A Boy Named Sue. Alex Désert as Charles, an acquaintance of the group. One scene, in which Trent yells at Sue for insulting Mike, was written at Vaughns request to make it clear that beneath Trents swagger, Favreau and his friends gave readers theater performances of the script to drum up interest in and capital for the movie. Swingers was filmed on location at several Los Angeles nightclubs, particularly in the hip Los Feliz neighborhood, including the Dresden Lounge, filming locations Mikeys apartment is located in the Franklin Village area of Los Angeles, a few miles from the Dresden Room. The Dresden room is a bar and club in the Los Feliz neighborhood
10.
Doug Liman
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Douglas Eric Doug Liman is an American film director and producer best known for Swingers, The Bourne Identity, Mr. & Mrs. Smith, Jumper, Fair Game, and Edge of Tomorrow. He has two siblings, Emily and Lewis, Liman began making short films while still in junior high school and studied at International Center of Photography in New York City. While attending Brown University, he helped to co-found the student-run cable television station BTV, Liman attended the graduate program at University of Southern California, where he was tapped to helm his first project in 1993, the comedy thriller Getting In/Student Body. Liman became attached to direct Swingers when its screenwriter Jon Favreau turned down offers from studios who wanted to cast established actors, the director agreed to cast Favreau and his friends in this comedy about struggling actors amid the L. A. club milieu. The result was a $250,000 dialogue-propelled film that became a sleeper hit, in addition to establishing a cult following, it jump-started the careers of the featured actors. Liman sold the film to Miramax for $5.5 million, shortly after the sale and they rekindled their friendship years later. Limans next effort, Go, tracked the events of one night through three different points of view as plot lines diverged and reconverged, Liman was also the films cinematographer. The film made a profit at the box office grossing $28.4 million worldwide against a $6.5 million budget. In 1999, Liman shot a commercial for Nike in which Tiger Woods, without letting the ball touch the ground, repeatedly bounced a ball on his club and then drove it into the distance. Liman enjoyed further success when he directed the action thriller The Bourne Identity. The film that Liman delivered lacked sufficient action sequences to satisfy test groups of young males, Liman remained with the Bourne franchise through three of its next four installments, but served instead as an executive producer while Paul Greengrass took over directing duties. Building on his success, Liman executive produced and directed the episode as well as the second episode of the successful Fox prime time drama The O. C. Liman produced and directed a series of shorts for the Chrysler Film Project. Liman also directed Mr. & Mrs. Smith, a thriller about an increasingly distant married couple. The film, his most commercially successful to date, is well known for the off-screen romance that developed between stars Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie after making the film. In 2005, Liman signed on to direct the episode of NBCs television series Heist. His film adaptation of Steven Goulds science fiction novel Jumper was released in 2008, in 2009, he co-founded the website 30ninjas. com which is geared towards fans of action movies and television, gaming, extreme sports and viral videos. He also maintains a blog on the site and he directed 2010s Fair Game, about the Plame affair, which competed for the Palme dOr at the 2010 Cannes Film Festival
11.
Frank Oz
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Frank Oz is an English-born American puppeteer, filmmaker and actor. His career began as a puppeteer, where he performed the Muppet characters of Miss Piggy, Fozzie Bear, Animal, and Sam Eagle in The Muppet Show, and Cookie Monster, Bert, and Grover in Sesame Street. He is also known for being the puppeteer and voice of Yoda in the Star Wars films and his work as a director includes Little Shop of Horrors, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, What About Bob. In & Out, Bowfinger, The Score and Death at a Funeral, Oz was born in Hereford, England, the son of Frances and Isidore Oznowicz, both of whom were puppeteers. His father was also a window trimmer and his parents moved to England after fighting the Nazis with the Dutch Brigades. Ozs Dutch/Polish father was Jewish and his Flemish mother was a lapsed Roman Catholic, Oz left England when he was six months old and lived in Belgium until he was five. Oz and his moved to Montana in 1951. They eventually settled in Oakland, California, Oz attended Oakland Technical High School and Oakland City College. He worked as a puppeteer at Childrens Fairyland as a teenager with the Vagabond Puppets, a production of the Oakland Recreation Department. Oz is known for his work as a puppeteer, performing with Jim Hensons Muppets and his characters have included Miss Piggy, Fozzie Bear, Animal, and Sam Eagle on The Muppet Show, and Grover, Cookie Monster and Bert on Sesame Street. In addition to performing a variety of characters, Oz has been one of the primary responsible for the development of the Muppets over the last 30 years. His puppetry work spans from 1963 to the present, although he retired completely from the Muppets in 2000, in 2001, his characters were taken over primarily by Eric Jacobson (with David Rudman as Cookie Monster. Oz is also known as the performer of Jedi Master Yoda from George Lucas Star Wars series, Jim Henson had originally been contacted by Lucas about possibly performing Yoda. Henson was pre-occupied and suggested Oz to be assigned as chief puppeteer, while Stuart Freeborn designed and fabricated the Yoda puppet, Oz performed the voice and puppet for Yoda in The Empire Strikes Back, Return of the Jedi and Star Wars, Episode I – The Phantom Menace. Oz also provided the voice of the computer-generated imagery Yoda in Star Wars, Episode II – Attack of the Clones and Star Wars, the conversion to CGI was met with some criticism among fans but Oz himself said that was exactly what should have done. Oz had a deal of creative input on the character and was himself responsible for creating the characters trademark syntax. Inspiration as a film-maker came to Oz upon a viewing of the film Touch of Evil, I think it opened up my view of film—that theres so much more that could be done. Actually, by breaking so many rules, he allowed other people to say, Hey, I can maybe think of some stuff and he just opened up the possibilities more for me
12.
Spike Jonze
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Spike Jonze is an American director, producer, screenwriter and actor, whose work includes music videos, commercials, film and television. Jonze is well known for his music video collaborations with Daft Punk, Fatboy Slim, Weezer, the Beastie Boys, Björk and he was a co-creator and executive producer of MTVs Jackass. He is currently the director of Vice Media, Inc. He is part owner of skateboard company Girl Skateboards with riders Rick Howard and he co-founded Directors Label, with filmmakers Chris Cunningham and Michel Gondry, and the Palm Pictures company. He has been nominated for four Academy Awards, Best Director for Being John Malkovich and he won the Golden Globe Award for Best Screenplay, the Writers Guild of America Award for Best Original Screenplay, and the 2014 Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay for Her. Jonze was born on October 22,1969 in Rockville, Maryland and his father, Arthur H. Spiegel III, was a distant relation of the Spiegel catalog family, and founded APM Management Consultants. His mother, Sandra L. Granzow, is a writer, communications consultant in developing countries and his brother, Sam Squeak E. Clean Spiegel, is a producer and DJ. He also has a sister, Julia and his father was from a German Jewish family, while his mother has German, Scottish, and English ancestry. Jonze attended the San Francisco Art Institute in San Francisco, California, when he was a junior in high school, Jonze spent time at a Bethesda community store, where the former owner Mike Henderson gave him his nickname Spike Jonze in reference to Spike Jones. He fronted Club Homeboy, an international BMX club, with Mark Lew Lewman and Andy Jenkins, the three also created the youth culture magazines Homeboy and Dirt. In 2006, he was nominated by the Directors Guild of America for Outstanding Achievement in Commercials in 2005 and he was nominated for a body of work that included Hello Tomorrow for Adidas, Lamp for IKEA, and Pardon Our Dust for The Gap. He was a producer and co-creator of MTV television series Jackass and Jackass, The Movie, also directing some of the segments. Jonze has acted in videos and films, his most prominent role was in Three Kings as the sweet, dimwitted, casually racist Conrad. Jonze was a co-founder and editor of Dirt magazine along with Mark Lewman and Andy Jenkins, as well as an editor for Grand Royal Magazine and senior photographer for Transworld Skateboarding. In the past, Jonze shot street skateboarding videos, most notably Blinds highly influential Video Days in 1991 and he co-directed the Girl Skateboards film Yeah Right. and the Chocolate Skateboards video Hot Chocolate. In the closing montage of Yeah Right. Spike is shown doing a nollie heelflip in loafers and he is co-owner of Girl Skateboards. Jonze has many alter egos, including Richard Koufey, the leader of the Torrance Community Dance Group, the Koufey persona appeared when Jonze, in character, filmed himself dancing to Fatboy Slims The Rockafeller Skank as it played on a boom box in a public area
