September 1, 2013
The Wheel of Time is a series of epic fantasy novels written by American author James Oliver Rigney, Jr., under the pen name Robert Jordan. Originally planned as a six-book series, the series now spans fourteen volumes, in addition to a prequel novel and a companion book. Jordan began writing the first volume, ‘The Eye of the World,’ in 1984 and it was published in January 1990.
The author died in 2007 while working on what was planned to be the final volume in the series, although he had prepared extensive notes so another author could complete the book according to his wishes.
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August 30, 2013
‘Cool as Ice‘ is a 1991 American musical romance film directed by David Kellogg and starring rapper Vanilla Ice in his feature film debut. The film focuses on the character of Johnny Van Owen, a freewheeling, motorcycle-riding rapper who arrives in a small town and meets Kathy, an honor student who catches his eye. Meanwhile, Kathy’s father, who is in witness protection, is found by the corrupt police officers he escaped from years ago. The film was developed as a vehicle for Vanilla Ice, and was commercially and critically unsuccessful.
The role of Kathy was offered to Gwyneth Paltrow. Her father Bruce Paltrow forbade her from accepting it, due to the script’s sexual content. The Director of Photography of the film was future ‘Schindler’s List’ and ‘Minority Report’ cinematographer Janusz Kamiński. The film’s soundtrack album contained four new songs by Vanilla Ice, as well as other material. It peaked at #89 on the Billboard 200.
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August 28, 2013
Gil Gunderson, a.k.a. Ol’ Gil, is a character on ‘The Simpsons’ voiced by Dan Castellaneta that first appeared in the ninth season episode ‘Realty Bites’ as a real estate agent with Lionel Hutz’s Red Blazer Realty. He is a spoof of actor Jack Lemmon’s portrayal of Shelley Levene in the 1992 film adaptation of the play ‘Glengarry Glen Ross.’ (Lemmon himself voiced a character similar to Levene in the eighth season episode ‘The Twisted World of Marge Simpson’). Show runner Mike Scully said that the writers thought that Gil would be ‘a one-shot thing’ ‘Dan Castellaneta was so funny at the table read doing the character,’ Scully elaborated, ‘we kept making up excuses in subsequent episodes to put him in.’
Writer Dan Greaney said that it was a great take-off on Levene to make Gil more desperate than he was. Even so, the writers like to write Gil with ‘a little bit of the old sparkle’ left in him. With the retirement of the character Lionel Hutz (after voice actor Phil Hartman’s death), Gil has been working as the Simpsons’ lawyer in later episodes. He had several jobs but inevitably fails at any endeavour, often tragically. For example, he was shot on his first day as a security guard in the bank. As revealed in ‘Natural Born Kissers,’ he lives in a balloon..
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August 28, 2013
Glengarry Glen Ross is a 1992 American drama, adapted by David Mamet from his 1984 Pulitzer Prize- and Tony-winning play of the same name. The film depicts two days in the lives of four real estate salesmen and how they become desperate when the corporate office sends a trainer to ‘motivate’ them by announcing that, in one week, all except the top two salesmen will be fired. The film, like the play, is notorious for its use of profanity, leading the cast to jokingly refer to the film as ‘Death of a Fuckin’ Salesman.’ The title of the film comes from the names of two of the real estate developments being peddled by the salesmen characters: Glengarry Highlands and Glen Ross Farms.
The film was not a commercial success, making only $10.7 million in North America, just below its $12.5 million budget. Al Pacino was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his work in the film.
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August 24, 2013
Syd Mead (b. 1933), is a ‘visual futurist’ and concept artist. He is best known for his designs for science-fiction films such as ‘Blade Runner,’ ‘Aliens,’ and ‘Tron.’ Of his work, Mead was once moved to comment: ‘I’ve called science fiction ‘reality ahead of schedule.” Sydney Jay Mead was born in Saint Paul Minnesota, but spent only a few years there before moving to what would be the second of many homes throughout the western United States prior to graduating from high school in Colorado Springs, Colorado in 1951.
After serving a three-year enlistment in the U.S. Army, Syd Mead continued on to the Art Center School in Los Angeles, (now the Art Center College of Design, Pasadena) where he graduated in 1959. He was recruited by the Ford Motor Company’s Advanced Styling Studio under the management of Elwood Engel. Mead left the studio after two years to accept a variety of assignments to illustrate books and catalogues for large corporate entities such as United States Steel, Celanese, Allis Chalmers and Atlas Cement.
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August 21, 2013
Evan Penny (b. 1953) is a South African-Canadian artist currently living and working in Toronto (he completed a postgraduate degree from the Alberta College of Art and Design in 1978). He makes sculptures of human forms out of silicone, pigment, hair and aluminium.
His pieces range from the almost precisely lifelike, to the blurred or stretched. Penny says one of his interests ‘is to situate the sculptures perceptually between the way we might see each other in real time and space and the way we imagine our equivalent in a photographic representation.’ Though his creations are lifelike, Penny believes that ‘the real can’t be represented or symbolized,’ leaving everything to be a representation.
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August 16, 2013
A happy ending is an ending of the plot of a work of fiction in which almost everything turns out for the best for the protagonists, their sidekicks, and almost everyone except the villains.
In storylines where the protagonists are in physical danger, a happy ending would mainly consist in their surviving and successfully concluding their quest or mission; where there is no physical danger, a happy ending is often defined as lovers consummating their love despite various factors which may have thwarted it; and a considerable number of storylines combine both factors.
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August 13, 2013
Foodfight! is a 2012 computer animated family film produced by Threshold Entertainment and directed by Larry Kasanoff. The film features the voices of Charlie Sheen, Wayne Brady, Hilary Duff, and Eva Longoria (additional voices were provided by Bobby Costanza, Chris Kattan, Larry Miller, Christopher Lloyd, Ed Asner, Jerry Stiller, Christine Baranski, Harvey Fierstein, and Cloris Leachman).
It was originally planned for a Christmas 2003 release. ‘Foodfight!’ takes place in the supermarket at night after everyone has left. The grocery store transforms into a city, and from every door of this city comes two types of characters: well-known marketing icons and new characters, including Dex Dogtective (Charlie Sheen), Sunshine Goodness (Hilary Duff) and Daredevil Dan (Wayne Brady).
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August 13, 2013
Jeans are trousers made from denim (a robust textile originating from Nimes in the south of France) or dungaree cloth (a similar cloth used in England since the 17th century, possibly derived from Dongri, a dockside village near Mumbai).
Often the term ‘jeans’ refers to a particular style of trousers, called ‘blue jeans,’ which were invented by Jacob Davis and Levi Strauss in 1873. Starting in the 1950s, jeans, originally designed for cowboys, became popular among teenagers, especially members of the greaser subculture. Historic brands include Levi’s, Lee, and Wrangler.
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August 12, 2013
‘The Day the Clown Cried‘ is an unreleased 1972 film directed by and starring Jerry Lewis. It is based on a script of the same name by Joan O’Brien, who had co-written the original script with Charles Denton ten years previously.
The film was met with controversy regarding its premise and content, which features a circus clown who is imprisoned in a Nazi concentration camp. ‘The Day the Clown Cried’ has become somewhat infamous among film historians and movie buffs as a film that has never officially been released.
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August 9, 2013
Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! is a 1965 exploitation film directed by Russ Meyer, who also wrote the script with Jack Moran. It stars Tura Satana, Haji, and Lori Williams. Consistent with the genre, the film features gratuitous violence, sexuality, provocative gender roles, and camp dialogue. It is one of Meyer’s more boldly titled and unflinchingly exploitative films; however, there is no nudity. The film was shot in the extreme western parts of the Mojave Desert and outside Baker, California).
The film depicts three thrill-seeking go-go dancers (Billie, Rosie, and their leader, Varla) who encounter a young couple in the desert while racing their sports cars. After killing the boyfriend with her bare hands, Varla drugs, binds, gags and kidnaps his girlfriend, Linda. On a desolate highway, the four stop at a gas station, where they see a wheelchair-bound old man and his muscular, dimwitted son, Vegetable. The gas station attendant tells the women that the old man and his two sons live on a decrepit ranch with a hidden cache of money. Intrigued, Varla hatches a scheme to rob the lecherous old man.
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August 9, 2013
Bad girl art is a superheroines art form genre coined after the analogy of ‘good girl art’ (‘girl art’ that is ‘good’) which also includes strong female characters in comic books. Bad girls are typically tough and violent superheroines.
While the ‘good’ in ‘good girl art’ refers to the art itself, the ‘bad’ in ‘bad girl art’ refers to the girls: anti-heroine characters, often portrayed as cruel, mercenary, or demonic, although it may also be intended to reflect on the crude mannerisms and exaggerated anatomy of the drawing style associated with those characters. While Good Girl Art was common in the 1940s and 1950s, Bad Girl Art arose in the comic book market of the 1980s and 1990s. During the heyday of the style, some 50 titles within the subgenre were being published, with ‘Lady Death’ as the best selling title.
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