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Small Soldiers
''Small Soldiers'' is a 1998 American action comedy film directed by Joe Dante and written by Gavin Scott, Adam Rifkin, Ted Elliott, and Terry Rossio. It stars Kirsten Dunst and Gregory Smith, along with the voices of Frank Langella and Tommy Lee Jones. It depicts two factions of toys which turn sentient after being programmed with a military microprocessor, putting in danger when one faction ultimately turns lethal. Released on July 10, 1998, in the United States, the film received mixed reviews, but grossed $87.5 million on a $40 million budget. ''Small Soldiers'' marks the last on-screen film role of Phil Hartman, who was murdered two months before the film's American premiere, and is dedicated in his memory. It was also the final film role of Clint Walker. Plot When top defense contractor GloboTech Industries acquires the Heartland Toy Company, CEO Gil Mars commissions toy designers Larry Benson and Irwin Wayfair to develop toys capable of "playing back". Mars sele ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Joe Dante
Joseph James Dante Jr. (; born November 28, 1946) is an American film director, producer, editor and actor. His films—notably '' Gremlins'' (1984) alongside its sequel, '' Gremlins 2: The New Batch'' (1990)—often mix 1950s-style B movies with cartoon comedy. Dante's films also include '' Piranha'' (1978), '' The Howling'' (1981), '' Explorers'' (1985), ''Innerspace'' (1987), ''The 'Burbs'' (1989), '' Matinee'' (1993), '' Small Soldiers'' (1998), and '' Looney Tunes: Back in Action'' (2003). His work for television and cable includes immigration satire '' The Second Civil War'' (1997) and episodes of anthology series '' Masters of Horror'' (" Homecoming" and "The Screwfly Solution") and ''Amazing Stories'', as well as '' Police Squad!'' and '' Hawaii Five-0''. Early life Dante was born in Morristown, New Jersey, and grew up in nearby Livingston. His father, Joseph James Dante, was a professional golfer, though Dante was more interested in becoming a cartoonist. Career 196 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
DreamWorks Pictures
DreamWorks Pictures (also known as DreamWorks SKG and formerly DreamWorks Studios, commonly referred to as DreamWorks) is an American film company and distribution label of Amblin Partners. It was originally founded on October 12, 1994 as a live-action film studio by Steven Spielberg, Jeffrey Katzenberg, and David Geffen (together, SKG), of which they owned 72%. The studio formerly distributed its own and third-party films. It has produced or distributed more than ten films with box-office grosses of more than $100 million each. In December 2005, the founders agreed to sell the studio to Viacom, parent of Paramount Pictures. The sale was completed in February 2006 (this version is now named DW Studios). In 2008, DreamWorks announced its intention to end its partnership with Paramount and made a deal to produce films with India's Reliance Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group, re-creating DreamWorks Pictures as an independent entity. The following year, DreamWorks entered into a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ann Magnuson
Ann Magnuson (born January 4, 1956) is an American actress, performance artist, and nightclub performer. She was described by ''The New York Times'' in 1990 as "An endearing theatrical chameleon who has as many characters at her fingertips as Lily Tomlin does". A founding member of the 1980s band Bongwater, Magnuson starred in the ABC sitcom '' Anything but Love'' (1989–92). Her film appearances include '' The Hunger'' (1983), '' Making Mr. Right'' (1987), ''Clear and Present Danger'' (1994), ''Panic Room'' (2002), and '' One More Time'' (2015). Early life and career Magnuson was born in Charleston, West Virginia, to a journalist mother and a lawyer father. She had a brother, Bobby, who died in 1988 of complications from AIDS. She attended Holz Elementary and George Washington High School in Charleston. After graduating from Denison University in 1978, she moved to New York City and was a DJ and performer at Club 57 and the Mudd Club in Manhattan around 1979 through ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Yosemite National Park
Yosemite National Park ( ) is an American national park in California, surrounded on the southeast by Sierra National Forest and on the northwest by Stanislaus National Forest. The park is managed by the National Park Service and covers an area of and sits in four countiescentered in Tuolumne and Mariposa, extending north and east to Mono and south to Madera County. Designated a World Heritage Site in 1984, Yosemite is internationally recognized for its granite cliffs, waterfalls, clear streams, giant sequoia groves, lakes, mountains, meadows, glaciers, and biological diversity. Almost 95 percent of the park is designated wilderness. Yosemite is one of the largest and least fragmented habitat blocks in the Sierra Nevada, and the park supports a diversity of plants and animals. The geology of the Yosemite area is characterized by granite rocks and remnants of older rock. About 10 million years ago, the Sierra Nevada was uplifted and tilted to form its unique s ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Electromagnetic Pulse
An electromagnetic pulse (EMP), also a transient electromagnetic disturbance (TED), is a brief burst of electromagnetic energy. Depending upon the source, the origin of an EMP can be natural or artificial, and can occur as an electromagnetic field, as an electric field, as a magnetic field, or as a conducted electric current. The electromagnetic interference caused by an EMP disrupts communications and damages electronic equipment; at higher levels of energy, an EMP such as a lightning strike can physically damage objects such as buildings and aircraft. The management of EMP effects is a branch of electromagnetic compatibility (EMC) engineering. EMP weapons are designed to deliver the damaging effects of a high-energy EMP that will disrupt unprotected infrastructure in the country, thus the employment of an EMP weapon against a country is the scenario of war most likely to collapse the functionality of the electrical network of the country. General characteristics An electro ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Artificial Intelligence
Artificial intelligence (AI) is intelligence—perceiving, synthesizing, and inferring information—demonstrated by machines, as opposed to intelligence displayed by animals and humans. Example tasks in which this is done include speech recognition, computer vision, translation between (natural) languages, as well as other mappings of inputs. The ''Oxford English Dictionary'' of Oxford University Press defines artificial intelligence as: the theory and development of computer systems able to perform tasks that normally require human intelligence, such as visual perception, speech recognition, decision-making, and translation between languages. AI applications include advanced web search engines (e.g., Google), recommendation systems (used by YouTube, Amazon and Netflix), understanding human speech (such as Siri and Alexa), self-driving cars (e.g., Tesla), automated decision-making and competing at the highest level in strategic game systems (such as chess and Go). ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Microprocessor
A microprocessor is a computer processor where the data processing logic and control is included on a single integrated circuit, or a small number of integrated circuits. The microprocessor contains the arithmetic, logic, and control circuitry required to perform the functions of a computer's central processing unit. The integrated circuit is capable of interpreting and executing program instructions and performing arithmetic operations. The microprocessor is a multipurpose, Clock signal, clock-driven, Processor register, register-based, digital integrated circuit that accepts binary code, binary data as input, processes it according to instruction (computing), instructions stored in its computer memory, memory, and provides results (also in binary form) as output. Microprocessors contain both combinational logic and sequential logic, sequential digital logic, and operate on numbers and symbols represented in the binary number system. The integration of a whole CPU onto a s ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Educational Toys
Educational toys (sometimes also called "instructive toys") are objects of play, generally designed for children, which are expected to stimulate learning. They are often intended to meet an educational purpose such as helping a child develop a particular skill or teaching a child about a particular subject. They often simplify, miniaturize, or even model activities and objects used by adults. Although children are constantly interacting with and learning about the world, many of the objects they interact with and learn from are not toys. Toys are generally considered to be specifically built for children's use. A child might play with and learn from a rock or a stick, but it would not be considered an educational toy because 1) it is a natural object, not a designed one, and 2) it has no expected educational purpose. The difference lies in perception or reality of the toy's intention and value. An educational toy is expected to educate. It is expected to instruct, promo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Smart Toy
A smart toy is an interactive toy which effectively has its own intelligence by virtue of on-board electronics. These enable it to learn, behave according to preset patterns, and alter its actions depending upon environmental stimuli and user input. Typically, it can adjust to the abilities of the player. A modern smart toy has electronics consisting of one or more microprocessors or microcontrollers, volatile and/or non-volatile memory, storage devices, and various forms of input–output devices. It may be networked together with other smart toys or a personal computer in order to enhance its play value or educational features. Generally, the smart toy may be controlled by software which is embedded in firmware or else loaded from an input device such as a USB flash drive, Memory Stick or CD-ROM. Smart toys frequently have extensive multimedia capabilities, and these can be utilized to produce a realistic, animated, simulated personality for the toy. Some commercial exampl ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Clint Walker
Norman Eugene "Clint" Walker (May 30, 1927 – May 21, 2018) was an American actor. He played cowboy Cheyenne Bodie in the ABC/ Warner Bros. western series ''Cheyenne'' from 1955 to 1963. Early life Clint Walker was born Norman Eugene Walker in Hartford, Illinois, on May 30, 1927; the son of Gladys Huldah (''née'' Schwanda) and Paul Arnold Walker.Walker's biography from his official website His mother was Czech. He had a twin sister named Lucy. Walker left school to work at a factory and on a , then joined the |
Action Comedy Film
Action comedy is a genre that combines aspects of action and comedy. The genre is most prevalent in film with action comedy films, though several TV series fit this genre. Film The action comedy film is a film genre that combines aspects of action film and comedy film. Allmovie describes action comedy films as those with "fast and furious" action yet being "mostly lighthearted", rarely having death or serious injury. The Script Lab wrote, "he genrerelies on the characters to bring out the humor, while the action scenes tend to be less intense than in the traditional action movie." Television List of action-comedy TV series: *''Burn Notice ''Burn Notice'' is an American espionage television series created by Matt Nix, which originally aired on the USA Network for a total of seven seasons from June 28, 2007, to September 12, 2013. The show stars Jeffrey Donovan, Gabrielle Anwar, ...'' (2007-2013) *'' The Dukes of Hazzard'' (1979-1985) *'' Chuck'' (2007-2012) *'' Future M ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Variety (magazine)
''Variety'' is an American media company owned by Penske Media Corporation. The company was founded by Sime Silverman in New York City in 1905 as a weekly newspaper reporting on theater and vaudeville. In 1933 it added ''Daily Variety'', based in Los Angeles, to cover the motion-picture industry. ''Variety.com'' features entertainment news, reviews, box office results, cover stories, videos, photo galleries and features, plus a credits database, production charts and calendar, with archive content dating back to 1905. History Foundation ''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. As a result, he decided to start his own publication "that ouldnot be influenced by advertising." With a loan of $1,500 from his fa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
