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Gran Via Productions
Mark Johnson (born December 27, 1945) is an American film and television producer. He won the Academy Award for Best Picture for producing the 1988 film ''Rain Man''. Early life Johnson was born in Washington, D.C., the son of Dorothy (née King), a realtor, and Emery Johnson, who worked in the air cargo business. He graduated from the University of Virginia in 1971. Career Johnson first became involved in show business in 1965, as an actor playing the sheriff's deputy in the Spanish "Spaghetti Western" ''Brandy'', directed by Jose Luis Borau. He spent ten years of his youth in Spain, where he worked as a movie extra in films such as Franklin Schaffner's ''Nicholas and Alexandra'' and David Lean's ''Dr. Zhivago''. His early experiences led to small acting roles in the European western ''Ride and Kill'' and the 1964 drama '' The Thin Red Line''. After earning an undergraduate degree in Drama from the University of Virginia and an MA in Film Scholarship from the University of I ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
University Of Virginia
The University of Virginia (UVA) is a Public university#United States, public research university in Charlottesville, Virginia, United States. It was founded in 1819 by Thomas Jefferson and contains his The Lawn, Academical Village, a World Heritage Site, UNESCO World Heritage Site. The original governing Board of Visitors included three List of presidents of the United States, U.S. presidents: Jefferson, James Madison, and James Monroe, the latter as sitting president of the United States at the time of its foundation. As its first two Rector (academia)#United States, rectors, Presidents Jefferson and Madison played key roles in the university's foundation, with Jefferson designing both the #1800s, original courses of study and the university's #Academical Village, architecture. Located within its 1,135-acre central campus, the university is composed of eight undergraduate and three professional schools: the University of Virginia School of Law, School of Law, the University ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mel Brooks
Melvin James Brooks (né Kaminsky; born June 28, 1926) is an American actor, comedian, filmmaker, and songwriter. With a career spanning over seven decades, he is known as a writer and director of a variety of successful broad farces and parodies. A recipient of List of awards and nominations received by Mel Brooks, numerous accolades, he is one of EGOT, 21 entertainers to win the EGOT, which includes an Emmy Awards, Emmy, a Grammy Awards, Grammy, an Academy Awards, Oscar, and a Tony Awards, Tony. He received a Kennedy Center Honor in 2009, a Hollywood Walk of Fame star in 2010, the AFI Life Achievement Award in 2013, a British Film Institute Fellowship in 2015, a National Medal of Arts in 2016, a BAFTA Fellowship in 2017, and the Honorary Academy Award in 2024. Brooks began his career as a comic and a writer for Sid Caesar's variety show ''Your Show of Shows'' (1950–1954). There he worked with Neil Simon, Woody Allen, Larry Gelbart, and Carl Reiner. With Reiner, he co-created ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Variety (magazine)
''Variety'' is an American trade magazine owned by Penske Media Corporation. It was founded by Sime Silverman in New York City in 1905 as a weekly newspaper reporting on theater and vaudeville. In 1933, ''Daily Variety'' was launched, based in Los Angeles, to cover the film industry, motion-picture industry. ''Variety'' website features entertainment news, reviews, box office results, plus a credits database, production charts and film calendar. History Founding ''Variety'' has been published since December 16, 1905, when it was launched by Sime Silverman as a weekly periodical covering theater and vaudeville, with its headquarters in New York City. Silverman had been fired by ''The Morning Telegraph'' in 1905 for panning an act which had taken out an advert for $50. He subsequently decided to start his own publication that, he said, would "not be influenced by advertising." With a loan of $1,500 from his father-in-law, he launched ''Variety'' as publisher and editor. In additi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Golden Globe Award
The Golden Globe Awards are awards presented for excellence in both international film and television. It is an annual award ceremony held since 1944 to honor artists and professionals and their work. The ceremony is normally held every January, and has been a major part of the film industry's awards season, which culminates each year in the Academy Awards. The eligibility period for Golden Globes corresponds from January 1 through December 31. The Golden Globes were not televised in 1969–1972, 1979, and 2022. The 2008 ceremony was canceled due to the 2007–08 Writers Guild of America strike. Currently, the Golden Globes Awards are owned and operated by Dick Clark Productions, following its sale by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association on June 12, 2023. History The Hollywood Foreign Press Association (HFPA) was founded in 1943 as the Hollywood Foreign Correspondent Association (HFCA) by Los Angeles–based foreign journalists seeking to develop a better-organized pro ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bugsy
''Bugsy'' is a 1991 American biographical crime drama film directed by Barry Levinson and written by James Toback. Starring Warren Beatty, Annette Bening, Harvey Keitel, Ben Kingsley, Elliott Gould, Bebe Neuwirth, and Joe Mantegna, the film is based on mobster Bugsy Siegel and his affair with starlet Virginia Hill. ''Bugsy'' was given a limited release by TriStar Pictures on December 13, 1991, followed by a theatrical wide release on December 20, 1991. It received generally positive reviews from critics. It received ten nominations at the 64th Academy Awards (including for Best Picture and Best Director) and won two: Best Art Direction and Best Costume Design. It won the Golden Globe Award for Best Motion Picture - Drama. Plot In 1941, gangster Benjamin "Bugsy" Siegel, who had partnered in crime since childhood with Meyer Lansky and Charlie Luciano, goes to Los Angeles and instantly falls in love with Virginia Hill, a tough-talking Hollywood starlet. The tw ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Diner (1982 Film)
''Diner'' is a 1982 American comedy-drama film written and directed by Barry Levinson. It is Levinson's screen-directing debut and the first of his "Baltimore Films" tetralogy, set in his hometown during the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s; the other three films are '' Tin Men'' (1987), ''Avalon'' (1990), and '' Liberty Heights'' (1999). It stars Steve Guttenberg, Daniel Stern, Mickey Rourke, Paul Reiser, Kevin Bacon, Timothy Daly and Ellen Barkin and was released on March 5, 1982. The movie follows a close-knit circle of friends who reunite at a Baltimore diner when one of them prepares to get married. Plot In 1959 Baltimore, friends Modell, Eddie, Shrevie, Boogie, and Fenwick attend a Christmas dance before driving to their usual late-night haunt, Fell's Point Diner. On the way, Fenwick stages a fake car accident, to his friends' annoyance. Boogie, a hairdresser and law student, has laid a $2,000 bet on a basketball game, and declines his family friend Bagel's offer to call off the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Avalon (1990 Film)
''Avalon'' is a 1990 American drama film written and directed by Barry Levinson and starring Armin Mueller-Stahl, Elizabeth Perkins, Joan Plowright and Aidan Quinn. It is the third in Levinson's semi-autobiographical tetralogy of "Baltimore films" set in his hometown during the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s: ''Diner'' (1982), '' Tin Men'' (1987), and '' Liberty Heights'' (1999). The film explores the themes of Jewish assimilation into American life, through several generations of a Polish immigrant family from the 1910s through the 1950s. The film was released to critical acclaim, and was nominated for four Academy Awards and three Golden Globe Awards. Plot It is the late 1940s and early 1950s, and much has happened to the family of Polish Jewish immigrant Sam Krichinsky since he first arrived in America in 1914 and eventually settled in Baltimore. Television is new. Neighborhoods are changing, with more and more families moving to the suburbs. Wallpaper has been Sam's profession, b ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Young Sherlock Holmes
''Young Sherlock Holmes'' (also known with the title card name of ''Young Sherlock Holmes and the Pyramid of Fear'') is a 1985 American mystery adventure film directed by Barry Levinson and written by Chris Columbus, based on the characters created by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. The film depicts a young Sherlock Holmes and John Watson meeting and solving a mystery together at a boarding school. The film is notable for being the first full-length movie to feature a completely computer-generated character, created by Lucasfilm's Graphics Group. This was a historical landmark in special effects history and influenced other CGI future films such as Pixar's ''Toy Story''. At the 58th Academy Awards for films produced in 1985, the film was nominated for Best Visual Effects ( Dennis Muren, Kit West, John R. Ellis, and David W. Allen). Plot Following the closure of his old school in the countryside, a young John Watson enrolls at London’s Brompton Academy, where Sherlock H ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Toys (film)
''Toys'' is a 1992 American surrealist comedy film directed by Barry Levinson, cowritten by Levinson and Valerie Curtin, and starring Robin Williams, Michael Gambon, Joan Cusack, Robin Wright, LL Cool J, Arthur Malet, Donald O'Connor, Jack Warden, and Jamie Foxx in his feature film debut. Released in December 1992, the film was produced by Levinson's production company, Baltimore Pictures, and distributed by 20th Century Fox. The film was a box-office failure at the time of its release. Critical reception was generally negative, with Levinson nominated for a Razzie Award for Worst Director. The film did, however, receive Oscar nominations for Art Direction (losing to '' Howards End'') and Costume Design (losing to '' Bram Stoker's Dracula''). It was also entered into the 43rd Berlin International Film Festival. Plot Kenneth Zevo, the eccentric owner of Zevo Toys in Moscow, Idaho, faces terminal illness. Defying expectations, he bypasses his son, Leslie—a whimsic ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tin Men
''Tin Men'' is a 1987 American comedy film written and directed by Barry Levinson, produced by Mark Johnson, and starring Richard Dreyfuss, Danny DeVito, and Barbara Hershey. It is the second of Levinson's tetralogy of films set in his hometown of Baltimore, Maryland, during the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s, along with ''Diner'' (1982), ''Avalon'' (1990), and '' Liberty Heights'' (1999). Plot Ernest Tilley and Bill "BB" Babowsky are rival door-to-door aluminum siding salesmen in Baltimore, Maryland in 1963, an era when "tin men," as they are called, will do almost anything, legal or illegal, to close a sale. Both have the required 'gift of the gab,' but while BB is a smooth-talking con man who scams naive young women with his sales pitches, Tilley struggles to close his sales. They first meet when BB, driving his new Cadillac automobile off the dealer's lot, backs into Tilley's own Cadillac. Though Tilley had the right of way, each man blames the other, and an escalating feud erup ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Natural
''The Natural'' is a 1952 novel about baseball by Bernard Malamud, and is his debut novel. The story follows Roy Hobbs, a baseball prodigy whose career is sidetracked after being shot by a woman whose motivation remains mysterious. The story mostly concerns his attempts to return to baseball later in life, when he plays for the fictional New York Knights with his self-made bat "Wonderboy". Based loosely on the shooting incident and subsequent comeback of Philadelphia Phillies player Eddie Waitkus, the story of Roy Hobbs takes some poetic license and embellishes what was a memorable account of a career lost too soon. Apart from both Waitkus and Hobbs both being shot by women, there are few other similarities. It has been alternately suggested by historian Thomas Wolf that the shooting incident might have been inspired by Chicago Cubs shortstop Billy Jurges, who was shot by a showgirl with whom he was romantically linked, but Wolf offered no evidence to support this claim. A fil ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Good Morning, Vietnam
''Good Morning, Vietnam'' is a 1987 American war comedy film written by Mitch Markowitz and directed by Barry Levinson. Set in Saigon in 1965, during the Vietnam War, the film stars Robin Williams as an Armed Forces Radio Service (AFRS) DJ who proves hugely popular with the troops, but infuriates his superiors with what they call his "irreverent tendency". The story is loosely based on the experiences of AFRS DJ Adrian Cronauer. Most of Williams's performances portraying Cronauer's radio broadcasts were improvisations. The film was released by Buena Vista Pictures (under its Touchstone Pictures banner) to critical and commercial success; for his work in the film, Williams won a Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy, and was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actor and a BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role. In 2000, the film ranked number 100 on the American Film Institute's " 100 Years...100 Laughs" list, containing 100 m ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
