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Sam (orangutan)
''Dunston Checks In'' is a 1996 comedy film directed by Ken Kwapis. The film stars Eric Lloyd, Graham Sack, Jason Alexander, Faye Dunaway, Rupert Everett, Paul Reubens, Glenn Shadix, and Sam the Orangutan as Dunston. The film received negative reviews and grossed $10 million against a budget of $20 million. Plot At the prestigious five-star Majestic Hotel, guest Lionel Spalding and his dog Neil fall victim to an overflowing fountain, the result of a prank by Kyle and Brian Grant, sons of the hotel's widowed manager Robert. Though disappointed in his sons' behavior, Robert promises them a vacation in Barbados - a trip that's already been postponed twice. However, the strict hotel owner Elena Dubrow forces another cancellation due to the upcoming Crystal Ball, where they expect a critic from the Le Monde Traveller Organization to potentially award the hotel a sixth star. The hotel welcomes "Lord" Rutledge, a jewel thief mistaken by Mrs. Dubrow for the expected critic, who arriv ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ken Kwapis
Kenneth William Kwapis (born August 17, 1957) is an American film and television director, screenwriter, and author. He specialized in single-camera sitcoms in the 1990s and 2000s and has directed feature films such as '' Sesame Street Presents: Follow That Bird'' (1985), ''The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants'' (2005), and '' He's Just Not That Into You'' (2009). Personal life Kwapis was born in East St. Louis, Illinois, and grew up in neighboring Belleville. He is the son of Marge () and Bruno Walter Kwapis, who was an oral surgeon. He is of Polish descent and was raised Catholic, attending the Jesuit preparatory academy at St. Louis University High School. He earned a bachelor's degree at Northwestern University's School of Speech, after which he traveled west to enroll in the M.F.A. program at the USC School of Cinema-Television. Kwapis' twenty-four-minute thesis film, ''For Heaven's Sake'', won the Student Academy Award in 1982. The film is a contemporary adaptatio ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Star (classification)
Star ratings are a type of rating scale using a star glyph or similar typographical symbol. It is used by reviewers for ranking things such as films, TV shows, restaurants, and hotels. For example, a system of one to five stars is commonly used in hotel ratings, with five stars being the highest rating. Similar systems have been proposed for electing politicians in the form of score voting and STAR voting. Historical usage Repeated symbols used for a ranking date to Mariana Starke's 1820 guidebook, which used exclamation points to indicate works of art of special value: ...I have endeavored... to furnish Travellers with correct lists of the objects best worth notice...; at the same time marking, with one or more exclamation points (according to their merit), those works which are deemed peculiarly excellent. '' Murray's Handbooks for Travellers'' and then the '' Baedeker Guides'' (starting in 1844) borrowed this system, using stars instead of exclamation points, first ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Paramount Pictures
Paramount Pictures Corporation, commonly known as Paramount Pictures or simply Paramount, is an American film production company, production and Distribution (marketing), distribution company and the flagship namesake subsidiary of Paramount Global. It is the sixth-oldest film studio in the world, the second-oldest film studio in the United States (behind Universal Pictures), and the sole member of the Major film studio, "Big Five" film studios located within the city limits of Los Angeles. In 1916, film producer Adolph Zukor put 24 actors and actresses under contract and honored each with a star on the logo. In 1967, the number of stars was reduced to 22 and their hidden meaning was dropped. In 2014, Paramount Pictures became the first major Hollywood studio to distribute all of its films in digital form only. The company's headquarters and studios are located at 5555 Melrose Avenue, Hollywood, California. The most commercially successful film franchises from Paramount Pictu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Orangutan
Orangutans are great apes native to the rainforests of Indonesia and Malaysia. They are now found only in parts of Borneo and Sumatra, but during the Pleistocene they ranged throughout Southeast Asia and South China. Classified in the genus ''Pongo'', orangutans were originally considered to be one species. In 1996, they were divided into two species: the Bornean orangutan (''P. pygmaeus'', with three subspecies) and the Sumatran orangutan (''P. abelii''); a third species, the Tapanuli orangutan (''P. tapanuliensis''), was identified definitively in 2017. The orangutans are the only surviving members of the subfamily Ponginae, which diverged genetically from the other hominids (gorillas, chimpanzees, and humans) between 19.3 and 15.7 million years ago. The most arboreal of the great apes, orangutans spend most of their time in trees. They have proportionally long arms and short legs, and have reddish-brown hair covering their bodies. Adult males weigh about , while female ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Spec Script
A spec script, also known as a speculative screenplay, is a non-commissioned and unsolicited screenplay. It is usually written by a screenwriter who hopes to have the script optioned and eventually purchased by a producer, production company, or studio. Spec scripts which have gone on to win Academy Awards include '' Thelma & Louise'' (sold by Callie Khouri to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer for US$500,000 in 1990), '' Good Will Hunting'' (sold by Matt Damon and Ben Affleck to Miramax for US$675,000 in 1994), and '' American Beauty'' (sold by Alan Ball to DreamWorks Pictures for US$250,000 in 1998), which all won the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay. A spec script reads differently from a shooting script or production script in that it focuses more on the storytelling itself, while focus on cinematography and other directing aspects should rarely, if ever, be used. Videographic and technical directions are often added in the later drafts. The sole purpose of a spec script, a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bree Turner
Bree Nicole Turner (born March 10, 1977) is an American actress and dancer; she is best known for her roles in several major motion pictures in films like My Best Friend’s Wedding, Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me, American Pie 2, The Wedding Planner, Just My Luck and Firehouse Dog, as well as her series regular role as Rosalee Calvert on ''Grimm''. Early life Turner was born March 10, 1977, in Palo Alto, California and grew up in Alamo, California. Her maternal grandparents immigrated from Australia to Palo Alto, California in the 1910s. Her father is former NFL linebacker Kevin Turner. In 1995, she graduated from Monte Vista High School in Danville, California, where she was voted 1994 Homecoming Queen. She then attended King's College London and University of California, Los Angeles. Career Turner landed her first speaking role in '' Deuce Bigalow: Male Gigolo''. That same year, she was cast on MTV's late night anthology series '' Undressed''. She also di ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Frank Welker
Franklin Wendell Welker (born March 12, 1946) is an American actor who specializes in voice acting. He began his career in the 1960s, and held around 850 film, television, and video game credits as of 2020, making him one of the most prolific voice actors in history. With his films earning a total worldwide box-office gross of $17.4 billion, he is also the fourth- highest-grossing actor as of 2024. Welker is best known for voicing Fred Jones from the ''Scooby-Doo'' franchise since its inception in 1969 and later the titular character himself since 2002. In 2020, Welker reprised the latter role in the animated film '' Scoob!'', the only original voice actor from the series in the film's cast. Much of his work includes animal and monster vocalizations. In 2016, he received a Lifetime Achievement Emmy Award. He was nominated for the Children's and Family Emmy Award for Outstanding Voice Performance in an Animated Program in 2022. Early life Franklin Wendell Welker was born on ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jennifer Bassey
Jennifer Bassey (born July 22, 1939) is an American actress who has worked on both stage and screen. She is perhaps best known for her role as Marian Colby in the ABC soap opera ''All My Children'' which she played on and off from 1983 until the show's cancellation in 2011. Life and career Bassey was born in Chicago, Illinois. After graduating from Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London, Bassey moved back to the United States and took roles in several Off-Broadway plays. This led to further work in daytime soap operas. After appearing in ''Love of Life'', ''The Edge of Night'', and ''Somerset'', Bassey changed her professional name from "Joan Bassie" to "Jennifer Bassey." She chose the name Jennifer from Dr. Jennifer Stark, the role she had played on ''Love of Life''. In the early 1990s, Bassey was one of several actresses brought in briefly to replace Eileen Fulton as Lisa on ''As the World Turns'' while Fulton was ill. She began playing Marian Colby on ABC's soap opera ''All ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Steven Gilborn
Steven Neil Gilborn (July 15, 1936 – January 2, 2009) was an American actor and educator. He portrayed Harold Morgan on ''Ellen''. Gilborn was born in New Rochelle, New York. He attended Swarthmore College, where he was awarded a bachelor's degree in English and earned a Ph.D. in dramatic literature from Stanford University in 1969, where his dissertation provided a psychoanalytic perspective on the plays of the 19th-century French dramatist Émile Augier. Before becoming an actor, Gilborn was a professor of humanities at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and faculty adviser to the Gilbert and Sullivan Society. He also taught at Stanford University, Columbia University and at the University of California, Berkeley. He was married to American landscape photographer Karen Halverson. Gilborn guest-starred in a number of notable television series, including ''Columbo'' (4 episodes), '' Perfect Strangers'', ''Boy Meets World'', ''The Golden Girls'', ''Malcolm in the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nathan Davis (actor)
Nathan Davis (May 22, 1917 – October 15, 2008) was an American film and television actor. He was featured in Holes, Chain Reaction, Flowers in the Attic, Stony Island. Life and career Davis was born in Chicago, Illinois, the son of Romanian-Jewish immigrants, Rose (née Marcus) and Fred Davis. He served in Europe during World War II and performed on the local stage and in radio productions after the war. Davis was also a pharmaceutical sales rep by trade but pursued acting after being fired from his sales job in the late '70s. Davis started acting in the late 1970s. He appeared on ''Mister Rogers' Neighborhood'' in 1975 and in films such as '' Dunston Checks In'', ''Holes'', ''Code of Silence'', ''Chain Reaction'', ''Thief'', ''Poltergeist III'', and many others. He was nominated for a 1980 Joseph Jefferson Award for Actor in a Principal Role in a Play for his performance in '' Buried Child'' at the Northlight Theatre in Chicago, Illinois. He was again nominated for a Joseph ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bob Bergen
Robert Berger (born March 8, 1964), known professionally as Bob Bergen, is an American voice actor. He voices Warner Bros. cartoon characters Porky Pig and Tweety and has voiced characters in the English dubs of various anime. He formerly hosted the children's game show ''Jep!'', adapted from the game show ''Jeopardy!''. Early life In his childhood, Bergen would often spend hours watching and taping cartoons, imitating voices as well as creating characters of his own. He once told his parents that he wanted to voice Porky Pig, to which his mother objected. As a teenager in 1978, he phoned Mel Blanc after researching in phone books, crashed a recording session pretending to be Blanc's assistant, and watched him in action. Upon the realization that he needed training and for his voice to change, he began studying voice-over with coaches in Los Angeles. He took acting lessons with Daws Butler at his weekly voice-over workshop. In March 1980, Bergen appeared as a contestant on a Teen ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Coconut
The coconut tree (''Cocos nucifera'') is a member of the palm tree family (biology), family (Arecaceae) and the only living species of the genus ''Cocos''. The term "coconut" (or the archaic "cocoanut") can refer to the whole coconut palm, the seed, or the fruit, which botanically is a drupe, not a Nut (fruit), nut. Originally native to Central Indo-Pacific, they are now ubiquitous in coastal tropical regions and are a cultural icon of the tropics. The coconut tree provides food, fuel, cosmetics, folk medicine and building materials, among many other uses. The inner flesh of the mature seed, as well as the coconut milk extracted from it, forms a regular part of the diets of many people in the tropics and subtropics. Coconuts are distinct from other fruits because their endosperm contains a large quantity of an almost clear liquid, called "coconut water" or "coconut juice". Mature, ripe coconuts can be used as edible seeds, or processed for Coconut oil, oil and Coconut milk, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
