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Jill Sprecher
Jill Ann Sprecher (born July 27, 1957) is an American film director, producer, and writer. Sprecher collaborates on her film projects with her sister, Karen Sprecher, who writes. She is known for her films '' Clockwatchers'' and ''Thirteen Conversations About One Thing'' and her contributions to ''Big Love'' on HBO. Her films feature stories about realistic human experiences and the struggles of women. Biography Jill Sprecher grew up in Madison, Wisconsin, with her two siblings and parents, Peter, an insurance broker, and Phyllis (née Willingham) Sprecher, a medical technologist. Depending on where Pete found insurance jobs, the family moved between Madison and Milwaukee. The children attended Memorial High School. Jill studied literature and philosophy at the University of Wisconsin. Jill moved to New York the day after she graduated to study film and begin her career in the industry. She graduated from New York University with a Masters in cinema studies. In New York, Ji ...
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United States
The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 contiguous states border Canada to the north and Mexico to the south, with the semi-exclave of Alaska in the northwest and the archipelago of Hawaii in the Pacific Ocean. The United States asserts sovereignty over five Territories of the United States, major island territories and United States Minor Outlying Islands, various uninhabited islands in Oceania and the Caribbean. It is a megadiverse country, with the world's List of countries and dependencies by area, third-largest land area and List of countries and dependencies by population, third-largest population, exceeding 340 million. Its three Metropolitan statistical areas by population, largest metropolitan areas are New York metropolitan area, New York, Greater Los Angeles, Los Angel ...
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Los Angeles
Los Angeles, often referred to by its initials L.A., is the List of municipalities in California, most populous city in the U.S. state of California, and the commercial, Financial District, Los Angeles, financial, and Culture of Los Angeles, cultural center of Southern California. With an estimated 3,878,704 residents within the city limits , it is the List of United States cities by population, second-most populous in the United States, behind only New York City. Los Angeles has an Ethnic groups in Los Angeles, ethnically and culturally diverse population, and is the principal city of a Metropolitan statistical areas, metropolitan area of 12.9 million people (2024). Greater Los Angeles, a combined statistical area that includes the Los Angeles and Riverside–San Bernardino metropolitan areas, is a sprawling metropolis of over 18.5 million residents. The majority of the city proper lies in Los Angeles Basin, a basin in Southern California adjacent to the Pacific Ocean in the ...
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Arizona International Film Festival
The Arizona International Film Festival is the oldest and longest running independent film festival in Arizona. Taking place yearly, film programs include a mix of shorts, children's films, feature-length films, documentaries and animation films. The festival is also a Film Festival Grant Recipient of ''The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS, often pronounced ; also known as simply the Academy or the Motion Picture Academy) is a professional honorary organization in Beverly Hills, California, U.S., with the stated goal of adva ...''. References External links * {{official website, http://www.filmfestivalarizona.com Film festivals in Arizona Festivals in Tucson, Arizona ...
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Constructionism (learning Theory)
Constructionism may refer to * Constructionism (learning theory), an educational philosophy developed by Seymour Papert * Social constructionism, a theory of how social phenomena or objects of consciousness develop in social contexts * Strict constructionism In the United States, strict constructionism is a particular Philosophy of law, legal philosophy of judicial interpretation that limits or restricts the powers of the federal government only to those ''expressly'', i.e., explicitly and clearly, ..., a conservative type of legal or constitutional interpretation See also * Constructivism (other) {{disambig ...
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Modernist Literature
Modernist literature originated in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and is characterised by a self-conscious separation from traditional ways of writing in both poetry and prose fiction writing. Modernism experimented with literary form and expression, as exemplified by Ezra Pound's maxim to "Make it new". This literary movement was driven by a conscious desire to overturn traditional modes of representation and express the new sensibilities of the time. The immense human costs of the First World War saw the prevailing assumptions about society reassessed, and much modernist writing engages with the technological advances and societal changes of modernity moving into the 20th century. In ''Modernist Literature'', Mary Ann Gillies notes that these literary themes share the "centrality of a conscious break with the past", one that "emerges as a complex response across continents and disciplines to a changing world". Modernism, Romanticism, Philosophy and Symbol Literary mo ...
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A Barbecue For Betty
A, or a, is the first letter and the first vowel letter of the Latin alphabet, used in the modern English alphabet, and others worldwide. Its name in English is '' a'' (pronounced ), plural ''aes''. It is similar in shape to the Ancient Greek letter alpha, from which it derives. The uppercase version consists of the two slanting sides of a triangle, crossed in the middle by a horizontal bar. The lowercase version is often written in one of two forms: the double-storey and single-storey . The latter is commonly used in handwriting and fonts based on it, especially fonts intended to be read by children, and is also found in italic type. In English, '' a'' is the indefinite article, with the alternative form ''an''. Name In English, the name of the letter is the ''long A'' sound, pronounced . Its name in most other languages matches the letter's pronunciation in open syllables. History The earliest known ancestor of A is ''aleph''—the first letter of the Phoenician ...
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Thin Ice (2011 Film)
''Thin Ice'' (originally released as ''The Convincer'') is a 2011 American black comedy film directed by Jill Sprecher and starring Greg Kinnear, Alan Arkin and Billy Crudup. Plot summary Wisconsin insurance salesman Mickey Prohaska is in desperate financial straits. His wife JoAnn has thrown him out of the house, and he is willing to do or say practically anything to sell anybody a policy. Mickey accompanies another insurance agent he has just met, Bob Egan, to the farm of an elderly man named Gorvy Hauer. The house is a mess and Gorvy is absent-minded, perhaps a tad senile. He does not have much money and the little he has, he seems to keep in a jar. Mickey tries to sell the old man some insurance anyway. Gorvy also has an old violin. A man named Dahl, an appraiser from Chicago who has a shop filled with musical instruments, examines the violin and says it is somewhat rare and actually worth $25,000. Complications arise when Mickey's plan to steal the instrument is discovered b ...
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Matthew McConaughey
Matthew David McConaughey ( ; born November 4, 1969) is an American actor. He achieved his breakthrough with a supporting performance in the coming-of-age comedy '' Dazed and Confused'' (1993). After a number of supporting roles, his first success as a leading man came in the legal drama '' A Time to Kill'' (1996). His career progressed with lead roles in the science fiction film '' Contact'' (1997), the historical drama '' Amistad'' (1997), and the war film '' U-571'' (2000). In the 2000s, McConaughey became known for starring in romantic comedies, including '' The Wedding Planner'' (2001), '' How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days'' (2003), '' Failure to Launch'' (2006), ''Fool's Gold'' (2008), and ''Ghosts of Girlfriends Past'' (2009), establishing him as a sex symbol. In 2011, after a two-year hiatus from film acting, McConaughey began to appear in more dramatic roles, beginning with the legal drama '' The Lincoln Lawyer''. In 2012, he gained wider praise for his roles as a strippe ...
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Torino International Festival Of Young Cinema
The Torino Film Festival (also called the Turin Film Festival, TFF) is an international film festival held annually in Turin, Italy. Held every November, it is the second largest film festival in Italy, following the Venice Film Festival. It was founded in 1982 by film critic and professor Gianni Rondolino as Festival Internazionale Cinema Giovani or the Festival of Young Cinema. The festival's directors have included Alberto Barbera, Stefano della Casa, Giulia d'Agnolo, Roberto Turigliatto, Nanni Moretti, Gianni Amelio and Paolo Virzì. As of 2024, the director is Giulio Base. History Gianni Rondolino founded the Festival Internazionale Cinema Giovani in 1982 in Turin, a city that was in economic decline. The festival, attracting big names in Italian and international cinema, helped to re-energise the city both economically and culturally. The first directors were Rondolino and Ansano Gianarelli. In 1998, the festival's name changed to the Torino Film Festival. In 2007, film ...
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Sundance Film Festival
The Sundance Film Festival is an annual film festival organized by the Sundance Institute. It is the largest independent film festival in the United States, with 423,234 combined in-person and online viewership in 2023. The festival has acted as a showcase for new work from American and international independent filmmakers. The festival consists of competitive sections for American and international dramatic and documentary films, both feature films and short films, and a group of out-of-competition sections, including NEXT, New Frontier, Spotlight, Midnight, Sundance Kids, From the Collection, Premieres, and Documentary Premieres. The festival was established in Salt Lake City, Utah, in 1978 as the Utah/US Film Festival. The festival moved to nearby Park City, Utah, in 1981 and was renamed the US Film and Video Festival. It was renamed the Sundance Film Festival in 1991. From its inception through 2025, the festival took place every January in Utah. In March 2025, it was ann ...
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Lisa Kudrow
Lisa Valerie Kudrow ( ; born July 30, 1963) is an American actress. She rose to international fame for her role as Phoebe Buffay in the American television sitcom ''Friends'', which aired from 1994 to 2004. The series earned her Primetime Emmy Awards, Primetime Emmy, Screen Actors Guild Awards, Screen Actors Guild, Satellite Awards, Satellite, American Comedy Awards, American Comedy and TV Guide Award, TV Guide awards. Phoebe has since been named one of the greatest television characters of all time and is considered to be Kudrow's breakout role, spawning her successful film career. Kudrow initially appeared in a 1989 episode of the hit sitcom ''Cheers'' playing a character named Emily. She also starred in several episodes of the show ''Mad About You'' (1993) as Ursula, before auditioning and earning the role of Phoebe on ''Friends''; her character on ''Mad About You'' was written into the ''Friends'' storyline as Phoebe's twin. In the late 1990s, Kudrow starred in the cult film, ...
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