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Fast, Cheap And Out Of Control
''Fast, Cheap & Out of Control'' is a 1997 documentary film by filmmaker Errol Morris. Summary The film profiles four subjects with extraordinary careers: Dave Hoover, a wild-animal tamer; George Mendonça, a topiary gardener at Green Animals Topiary Garden in Portsmouth, Rhode Island; Ray Mendez, an expert on naked mole-rats who has designed an exhibit on the animals for the Philadelphia Zoo; and Rodney Brooks, an MIT scientist who works in robotics. In the interviews with the men, which act as the guiding narration for the film, they discuss their personal lives, what led them to their professions, what challenges they face in their work, and their thoughts about what they see in the future for their careers, their fields, and the world. Style In ''Fast, Cheap & Out of Control'', Morris uses a camera technique he invented which allows the interview subject to maintain eye contact with the interviewer while also looking directly into the camera, seemingly making eye contact wi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Errol Morris
Errol Mark Morris (born February 5, 1948) is an American film director known for documentaries that interrogate the epistemology of their subjects, and the invention of the Interrotron. In 2003, his '' The Fog of War: Eleven Lessons from the Life of Robert S. McNamara'' won the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature. His film '' The Thin Blue Line'' placed fifth on a ''Sight & Sound'' poll of the greatest documentaries ever made. Morris is known for making films about unusual subjects; '' Fast, Cheap & Out of Control'' interweaves the stories of an animal trainer, a topiary gardener, a robot scientist, and a naked mole-rat specialist. Early life and education Morris was born on February 5, 1948, into a Jewish family in Hewlett, New York. His father died when he was two and he was raised by his mother, a piano teacher. He had one older brother, Noel, who was a computer programmer. After being treated for strabismus in childhood, Morris refused to wear an eye patch. As a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
35mm Movie Film
35 mm film is a film gauge used in filmmaking, and the film standard. In motion pictures that record on film, 35 mm is the most commonly used gauge. The name of the gauge is not a direct measurement, and refers to the nominal width of the 35 mm format photographic film, which consists of strips wide. The standard negative pulldown, image exposure length on 35 mm for movies ("single-frame" format) is four film perforations, perforations per Film frame, frame along both edges, which results in 16 frames per foot of film. A variety of largely proprietary gauges were devised for the numerous camera and projection systems being developed independently in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, along with various film feeding systems. This resulted in cameras, projectors, and other equipment having to be calibrated to each gauge. The 35 mm width, originally specified as inches, was introduced around 1890 by William Kennedy Dickson and Thomas Edison, using 120 film st ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Phoenix New Times
''Phoenix New Times'' is a free digital and print media company based in Phoenix, Arizona. ''Phoenix'' ''New Times'' publishes daily online coverage of local news, restaurants, music, arts, cannabis, as well as longform narrative journalism. A weekly print issue circulates every Thursday. The company has been owned by Voice Media Group since January 2013, when a group of senior executives bought out the founding owners. Matt Hennie was named editor-in-chief of ''Phoenix New Times'' in 2022. Founding The paper was founded in 1970 by a group of students at Arizona State University, led by Frank Fiore, Karen Lofgren, Michael Lacey, Bruce Stasium, Nick Stupey, Gayle Pyfrom, Hal Smith, and later, Jim Larkin, as a counterculture response to the Kent State shootings in the spring of that year. Gary Brennan played a role in its creation. According to the 20th Anniversary issue of the ''New Times'', published on May 2, 1990, Fiore suggested that the anti-war crowd put out its own ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Chicago Sun-Times
The ''Chicago Sun-Times'' is a daily nonprofit newspaper published in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Since 2022, it is the flagship paper of Chicago Public Media, and has long held the second largest circulation among Chicago newspapers, after the ''Chicago Tribune''. The ''Sun-Times'' resulted from the 1948 merger of the Marshall Field III owned ''Chicago Sun'' and the '' Chicago Daily Times'' newspapers. Journalists at the paper have received eight Pulitzer Prizes, mostly in the 1970s; one recipient was the first film critic to receive the prize, Roger Ebert (1975), who worked at the paper from 1967 until his death in 2013. Long owned by the Marshall Field family, since the 1980s ownership of the paper has changed hands several times, including twice in the late 2010s. History The ''Chicago Sun-Times'' has claimed to be the oldest continuously published daily newspaper in the city. That claim is based on the 1844 founding of the '' Chicago Daily Journal'', which w ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Roger Ebert
Roger Joseph Ebert ( ; June 18, 1942 – April 4, 2013) was an American Film criticism, film critic, film historian, journalist, essayist, screenwriter and author. He wrote for the ''Chicago Sun-Times'' from 1967 until his death in 2013. Ebert was known for his intimate, Midwestern writing style and critical views informed by values of populism and humanism. Writing in a prose style intended to be entertaining and direct, he made sophisticated cinematic and analytical ideas more accessible to non-specialist audiences. Ebert endorsed foreign and independent films he believed would be appreciated by mainstream viewers, championing filmmakers like Werner Herzog, Errol Morris and Spike Lee, as well as Martin Scorsese, whose first published review he wrote. In 1975, Ebert became the first film critic to win the Pulitzer Prize for Criticism. Neil Steinberg of the ''Chicago Sun-Times'' said Ebert "was without question the nation's most prominent and influential film critic," and Kenne ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Journal Of The British Interplanetary Society
The ''Journal of the British Interplanetary Society'' (''JBIS'') is a monthly peer-reviewed scientific journal that was established in 1934. The journal covers research on astronautics and space science and technology, including spacecraft design, nozzle theory, launch vehicle design, mission architecture, space stations, lunar exploration, spacecraft propulsion, robotic and crewed exploration of the Solar System, interstellar travel, interstellar communications, extraterrestrial intelligence, philosophy, and cosmology. It is published monthly by the British Interplanetary Society. History The journal was established in 1934 when the British Interplanetary Society was founded. The inaugural editorial stated: The first issue was only a six-page pamphlet, but has the distinction of being the world's oldest surviving astronautical publication. Notable papers Notable papers published in the journal include: * The B.I.S Space-Ship, H.E.Ross, ''JBIS'', 5, pp. 4–9, 1939 * ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Vernon, Florida (film)
''Vernon, Florida'' is a 1981 American documentary film produced and directed by Errol Morris profiling various residents living within the town of Vernon, Florida. Originally titled ''Nub City'', this follow-up to '' Gates of Heaven'' initially focused on residents of the Southern town who cut off their own limbs as a way to collect insurance money. After Morris's life was threatened by the subjects of the film, he re-worked ''Nub City'' into ''Vernon, Florida''. Background and "Nub City" controversy After reading an article about the citizens of Vernon, Florida's propensity for collecting insurance money after losing limbs in accidents, Errol Morris, with financial help from filmmaker Werner Herzog, spent most of a year living in the town. During this time, he tried to interview the residents about these accidents and was met with hostility, even receiving a death threat. In 1980, following the release of his first film '' Gates of Heaven'', Morris secured funding from WNET ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Thin Blue Line (1988 Film)
''The Thin Blue Line'' is a 1988 American documentary film by Errol Morris, about the trial and conviction of Randall Dale Adams for the 1976 shooting of Dallas police officer Robert W. Wood. Morris became interested in the case while doing research for a film about Dr. James Grigson, a psychiatrist known in Texas as "Dr. Death" for testifying with "100 percent certainty" of a defendant's recidivism in many trials, including that of Randall Adams. The film centers around the "inconsistencies, incongruities and loose ends" of the case, and Morris, through his investigation, not only comes to a different conclusion, but actually obtains an admission of Adams's innocence from the original suspect of the case, David Harris. The " thin blue line" in the title "refers to what Mr. Morris feels is an ironic, mythical image of a protective policeman on the other side of anarchy". The film won many awards, but was a controversial film among documentary film critics, who felt the use of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gates Of Heaven
''Gates of Heaven'' is a 1978 American independent documentary film produced, directed, and edited by Errol Morris about the pet cemetery business. It was made when Morris was unknown and did much to launch his career. Production After a trip to Florida where he tried and failed to make a film about the residents of the town of Vernon, Errol Morris read a '' San Francisco Chronicle'' article with the headline: "450 Dead Pets Going to Napa Valley." This story about dead pets being exhumed from one pet cemetery and reburied in another became the basis for ''Gates of Heaven.'' For financing Morris borrowed money from family and friends, and the film was shot throughout the spring and summer of 1977, with the total budget estimated at $125,000. Production was difficult at times, with Morris frequently clashing with his cinematographer over the film's visual style. Morris ultimately ended up firing three cinematographers before finally settling on Ned Burgess, with whom he would ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Zombies Of The Stratosphere
''Zombies of the Stratosphere'' is a 1952 black and white Republic Studios serial directed by Fred C. Brannon, with a screenplay by Ronald Davidson, and special effects by Republic's Lydecker brothers. It was intended to be Republic's second serial featuring "new hero" Commando Cody and the third 12-chapter serial featuring the rocket-powered flying jacket and helmet introduced in ''King of the Rocket Men'' (1949). Instead, for reasons unknown, the hero was renamed "Larry Martin", who must prevent Martian invaders from using a hydrogen bomb to blow Earth out of its orbit, so that the Martians can move a dying Mars into a much closer orbital position to the Sun. As in ''Radar Men from the Moon'' (also released in 1952), much of the screen time for each of the dozen chapters is spent on fistfights and car chases between the heroes and a gang of earthly crooks hired by renegade scientist Dr. Harding and his extraterrestrial colleague Marex to steal and stockpile the Atomic supplies ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Darkest Africa
''Darkest Africa'' (1936) is a Republic movie serial. This was the first serial produced by Republic Pictures and was a loose sequel to a Mascot Pictures serial called '' The Lost Jungle'', also starring Clyde Beatty. Mascot, and other companies, had been taken over in 1935 by Consolidated Film Laboratories and merged to become Republic. Producer Nat Levine was formerly the owner of Mascot Pictures. Plot While on Safari in East Africa, Clyde Beatty runs into a loincloth wearing boy, Baru, and his pet ape Bonga. Baru reveals that he has escaped from the lost city of Joba, King Solomon's sacred city of the Golden Bat, but that his sister, Valerie, remains there. She was found by High Priest Dagna as a child and declared to be Joba's goddess as part of his quest for power. Her escape could cause a revolt among the city's citizens. Clyde agrees to help Baru rescue Valerie and they set out to Joba, through the Valley of Lost Souls. Meanwhile, the unscrupulous Durkin and Cra ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Serial Film
A serial film, film serial (or just serial), movie serial, or chapter play, is a motion picture form popular during the first half of the 20th century, consisting of a series of short subjects exhibited in consecutive order at one theater, generally advancing weekly, until the series is completed. Usually, each serial involves a single set of characters, protagonistic and antagonistic, involved in a single story. The film is edited into chapters, after the fashion of serial fiction, and the episodes should not be shown out of order, as individual chapters, or as part of a random collection of short subjects. Each chapter was screened at a movie theater for one week, and typically ended with a cliffhanger, in which characters found themselves in perilous situations with little apparent chance of escape. Viewers had to return each week to see the cliffhangers resolved and to follow the continuing story. Movie serials were especially popular with children, and for many youths in t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
