Big Trouble in Little China

Big Trouble in Little China (also known as John Carpenter's Big Trouble in Little China) is a 1986 American fantasy martial arts action-comedy film directed by John Carpenter and starring Kurt Russell, Kim Cattrall, Dennis Dun and James Hong. The film tells the story of Jack Burton, who helps his friend Wang Chi rescue Wang's green-eyed fiancée from bandits in San Francisco's Chinatown. They go into the mysterious underworld beneath Chinatown, where they face an ancient sorcerer named David Lo Pan, who requires a woman with green eyes to marry him in order to release him from a centuries-old curse.
Although the original screenplay by first-time screenwriters Gary Goldman and David Z. Weinstein was envisioned as a Western set in the 1880s, screenwriter W. D. Richter was hired to rewrite the script extensively and modernize it. The studio hired Carpenter to direct the film and rushed "Big Trouble in Little China" into production so that it would be released before a similarly themed Eddie Murphy film, "The Golden Child", which was slated to come out around the same time. The project fulfilled Carpenter's long-standing desire to make a martial arts film.
The film was a commercial failure, grossing $11.1 million in North America, below its estimated $19 to $25 million budget. It received mixed reviews that left Carpenter disillusioned with Hollywood and influenced his decision to return to independent filmmaking. It has since become a cult classic and has a 78% average rating on Rotten Tomatoes and a steady audience on home video.
Plot.
Truck driver Jack Burton wins a bet with his friend Wang Chi. To make sure he follows through on payment, Jack accompanies him to the airport to pick up Wang's Chinese fiancée Miao Yin, where Chinese street gang, the Lords of Death, tries to kidnap another Chinese girl. She is being met by her friend Gracie Law. After Jack intervenes, they take Miao Yin instead.
Jack and Wang track the Lords of Death to Chinatown, where they find a funeral procession that erupts into a battle between the Chang Sing and Wing Kong, two ancient Chinese warrior societies. When "The Three Storms" – Thunder, Rain, and Lightning, warriors with weather-themed powers – appear, slaughtering the Chang Sing, Jack attempts to gun his big-rig through the crowd, but runs over David Lo Pan, a man directing the Three Storms. Horrified, Jack exits his truck, but finds Lo Pan unfazed and glowing with magic. Wang hurriedly guides Jack through the alleys; the two escape, but Jack's truck is stolen.
Wang takes Jack to his restaurant, where they meet with Gracie, her journalist friend Margo, Wang's friend Eddie Lee, and magician Egg Shen, a local authority on mysticism and Lo Pan. They explain to Jack (who only wants his truck back) the ancient knowledge and sorcery the Chinese brought with them to America. The group devises a plan to infiltrate a brothel, where they believe Miao Yin is held. They break in, but are interrupted by the Storms who kidnap Miao Yin, and take her to Lo Pan. Jack and Wang track down the front business used by Lo Pan and impersonate telephone repairmen to gain access, but are quickly subdued by Rain. After being tied up and beaten by Thunder, the two meet Lo Pan – however, he now appears as a crippled old man.
Wang tells Jack that Lo Pan needs a green-eyed girl to break an ancient curse, and he intends to sacrifice Miao Yin. Centuries ago, Lo Pan was defeated in battle by Emperor Qin Shi Huang. He cursed Lo Pan with incorporeality; although Lo Pan can be temporarily granted a decrepit body by marrying a woman with green eyes and sacrificing her. Jack and Wang's friends attempt to save them, and are also captured. After getting the drop on Thunder, Jack, Wang, and Eddie escape and free women kept in cells. An orangutan-like monster recaptures Gracie before she escapes. Lo Pan notes that Gracie has green eyes, too, and decides to sacrifice her while making Miao Yin his wife.
Wang and Jack regroup with the Chang Sing and Egg Shen, and enter a cavern to return to Lo Pan's headquarters. Egg pours the group a potent potion. They interrupt the wedding, and start a battle. Wang kills Rain in a sword duel, while Jack and Gracie chase Lo Pan. Wang joins them, and Jack kills Lo Pan with a knife throw. Thunder – who had been distracted with Wang – reappears, and, enraged at finding Lo Pan dead, swells up and explodes. Jack, Wang, Gracie, and Miao Yin are cornered by Lightning in a corridor, who triggers a collapse. Egg rescues them with a rope and kills Lightning by dropping a Buddha statue on him when he tries to follow. After finding Jack's truck and dealing with the remaining Wing Kong guards, the group escapes back to Wang's restaurant.
The group celebrates in the restaurant; Wang and Miao prepare to marry, while Eddie pairs with Margo. Egg sets off to China. Gracie offers to join Jack but he leaves alone. Unbeknownst to him, the monster survived the battle and has stowed away on his truck.
Cast.
Al Leong, Gerald Okamura and Nathan Jung appears as Wing Kong hatchet men. Lia Chang and Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa have minor roles as Wing Kong members. Frank Ho and James Lew appear as Chang Sing warriors. Noble Craig appears as "Chinese Wildman".
Production.
Screenplay.
The first version of the screenplay was written by first-time screenwriters Gary Goldman and David Z. Weinstein. Goldman had been inspired by a new wave of martial arts films that had "all sorts of weird actions and special effects, shot against this background of Oriental mysticism and modern sensibilities". They had written a Western originally set in the 1880s with Jack Burton as a cowboy who rides into town. Goldman and Weinstein envisioned what amounts to a Weird Western, in this case, combining Chinese fantasy elements within an Old West setting. They submitted the script to TAFT Entertainment Pictures executive producers Paul Monash and Keith Barish during the summer of 1982. Monash bought their script and had them do at least one rewrite but still did not like the results. He remembers, "The problems came largely from the fact it was set in turn-of-the-century San Francisco, which affected everything—style, dialogue, action". Goldman rejected a request by 20th Century Fox for a rewrite that asked for major alterations. He was angered when the studio wanted to update it to a contemporary setting. The studio then removed the writers from the project. However, they still wanted credit for their contributions.
The studio brought in screenwriter W. D. Richter, a veteran script doctor (and director of "The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai") to extensively rewrite the script, as he felt that the Wild West and fantasy elements did not work together. The screenwriter modernized everything. Almost everything in the original script was discarded except for Lo Pan's story. Richter realized that "what it needed wasn't a rewrite but a complete overhaul. It was a dreadful screenplay. This happens often when scripts are bought and there's no intention that the original writers will stay on". Richter used "Rosemary's Baby" as his template, presenting "the foreground story in a familiar context – rather than San Francisco at the turn-of-the-century, which distances the audience immediately – and just have one simple remove, the world underground, you have a much better chance of making direct contact with the audience". He wrote his own draft in 10 weeks. Goldman contacted Richter and suggested that he should not work on the project. Richter told him, "I'm sorry the studio doesn't want to go forward with you guys, but my turning it down is not going to get you the job. They'll just hire someone else".
Fox wanted to deny Goldman and Weinstein writing credit, and eliminated their names from press releases. They wanted only Richter to have credit. In March 1986, the Writers Guild of America, West determined that "written by" credit would go to Goldman and Weinstein, based on the WGA screenwriting credit system which protects original writers. However, Richter did get an "adaptation by" credit for his work on the script. Director John Carpenter was disappointed that Richter did not get a proper screenwriting credit because of the ruling. Carpenter made his own additions to Richter's rewrites, which included strengthening the Gracie Law role and linking her to Chinatown, removing a few action sequences due to budgetary restrictions and eliminating material deemed offensive to Chinese Americans. The characters in the film reminded Carpenter "of the characters in "Bringing Up Baby" or "His Girl Friday". These are very 1930s, Howard Hawks people." The rapid-fire delivery of dialogue, especially between Jack Burton and Gracie Law, is an example of what the director is referring to.
Casting.
Barish and Monash first offered the project to Carpenter in July 1985. He had read the Goldman/Weinstein script and deemed it "outrageously unreadable though it had many interesting elements". To compete with rival production "The Golden Child"’s casting of box office draw Eddie Murphy, Carpenter wanted a big star of his own and both Clint Eastwood and Jack Nicholson were considered but were busy.
The studio felt Kurt Russell was an up-and-coming star. Russell was initially not interested because he felt there were "a number of different ways to approach Jack, but I didn't know if there was a way that would be interesting enough for this movie". After talking to Carpenter and reading the script a few more times, he gained insight into the character and liked the notion of playing "a hero who has so many faults. Jack is and isn't the hero. He falls on his ass as much as he comes through. This guy is a real blowhard. He's a lot of hot air, very self-assured, a screw-up". Furthermore, the actor felt that "at heart he thinks he's Indiana Jones but the circumstances are always too much for him". Russell felt that the film would be a hard one to market. "This is a difficult picture to sell because it's hard to explain. It's a mixture of the real history of Chinatown in San Francisco blended with Chinese legend and lore. It's bizarre stuff. There are only a handful of non-Asian actors in the cast".
John Carpenter had seen Dennis Dun in "Year of the Dragon" and liked his work in that film. He met the actor twice before casting him in the role of Wang Chi only a few days before principal photography. The martial arts sequences were not hard for Dun who had "dabbled" in training as a kid and done Chinese opera as an adult. He was drawn to the portrayal of Asian characters in the movie as he said, "I’m seeing Chinese actors getting to do stuff that American movies usually don’t let them do. I’ve never seen this type of role for an Asian in an American film". Jackie Chan was at one point considered for the role of Wang Chi but decided after the box office disasters of "The Big Brawl" and "The Protector" he should put more time and effort into his career in Hong Kong's film industry with "Police Story" instead.
The studio pressured Carpenter to cast a rock star in the role of Gracie Law, Jack Burton's love interest, but Carpenter wanted Kim Cattrall. The studio was not keen on the idea because at the time Cattrall was primarily known for raunchy comedies like "Porky's" and "Police Academy". She was drawn to the film because of the way her character was portrayed. "I'm not screaming for help the whole time. I think the humor comes out of the situations and my relationship with Jack Burton. I’m the brains and he's the brawn".
Principal photography.
Kurt Russell lifted weights and began running two months before production began to prepare for the physical demands of principal photography. In addition, Carpenter and his cast and crew did a week's rehearsals that mainly involved choreographing the martial arts scenes. 20th Century Fox was afraid that the production would create major overruns and hired Carpenter to direct because he could work fast. He was given only 10 weeks of pre-production.
Problems began to arise when Carpenter learned that the next Eddie Murphy vehicle, "The Golden Child", featured a similar theme and was going to be released around the same time as "Big Trouble in Little China". (As it happened, Carpenter was asked by Paramount Pictures to direct "The Golden Child".) He remarked in an interview, "How many adventure pictures dealing with Chinese mysticism have been released by the major studios in the past 20 years? For two of them to come along at the exact same time is more than mere coincidence." To beat the rival production at being released in theaters, "Big Trouble" went into production in October 1985 so it could open in July 1986, five months before "The Golden Child"s Christmas release.
Although the early exterior establishing scenes were filmed on location in Chinatown, most of the film was shot on sets built in the Fox lot in Los Angeles. Production designer John Lloyd designed the elaborate underground sets and recreated Chinatown with three-story buildings, roads, streetlights, sewers and so on. This was necessary for the staging of complicated special effects and kung fu fight sequences that would have been very hard to do on location. This forced the filmmaker to shoot the film in 15 weeks with a $25 million budget. For the film's many fight scenes Carpenter worked with martial arts choreographer James Lew, who planned out every move in advance. Says Carpenter, "I used every cheap gag – trampolines, wires, reverse movements and upside down sets. It was much like photographing a dance."
Carpenter envisioned the film as an inverse of traditional scenarios in action films with a Caucasian protagonist helped by a minority sidekick. In "Big Trouble in Little China", Jack Burton, despite his bravado, is constantly portrayed as rather bumbling; in one fight sequence, he knocks himself unconscious before the fight begins. Wang Chi, on the other hand, is constantly portrayed as highly skilled and competent. On a commentary track for the DVD release, Carpenter said the film is really about a sidekick (Burton) who thinks he is a leading man. According to Carpenter, the studio "didn't get it" and made him write something that would explain the character of Jack Burton. Carpenter came up with the prologue scene between Egg Shen and the lawyer.
Visual effects.
Carpenter was not entirely satisfied with Boss Film Studios, the company in charge of the film's visual effects. According to the director, they took on more projects than they could handle and some effects for the film had to be cut down. Richard Edlund, head of Boss Film Studios, said that there were no difficulties with the company's workload and that "Big Trouble" was probably its favorite film at the time, with the exception of "Ghostbusters". The effects budget for the film was just under $2 million, which Edlund said was barely adequate. One of the more difficult effects was the floating eyeball, a spy for Lo-Pan. It was powered by several puppeteers and dozens of cables to control its facial expressions. It was shot with a special matting system specially designed for it.
Music.
John Carpenter was nominated for a Saturn Award for Best Music for this film. With the soundtrack, Carpenter wanted to avoid the usual clichés, as he found that "other scores for American movies about Chinese characters are basically rinky tink, chop suey music. I didn’t want that for "Big Trouble"". Carpenter instead opted for his trademark synthesizer score mixed with rock 'n' roll music.
Reception.
Box office.
Opening in 1,053 theaters on July 2, 1986, "Big Trouble in Little China" grossed $2.7 million in its opening weekend and went on to gross $11.1 million in North America, well below its estimated budget of $19–25 million. The film was released in the midst of the hype for James Cameron's blockbuster "Aliens", which was released sixteen days after. On the DVD commentary for "Big Trouble in Little China", Carpenter and Russell discuss this among possible reasons for the film's disappointing box office gross.
Critical response.
, 78% of 45 reviews compiled by Rotten Tomatoes are positive and have an average rating of 6.7/10. The site's consensus reads: "Brimming with energy and packed with humor, "Big Trouble in Little China" distills kung fu B-movies as affectionately as it subverts them." Ron Base, in his review for the "Toronto Star", praised Russell's performance. "He does a great John Wayne imitation. But he's not just mimicking these heroes, he is using them to give his own character a broad, satiric edge." Walter Goodman in "The New York Times" wrote, "In kidding the flavorsome proceedings even as he gets the juice out of them, the director, John Carpenter, is conspicuously with it." Writer Harlan Ellison, widely known in Hollywood for his brutally honest critiques, praised the film, writing that it had "some of the funniest lines spoken by any actor this year to produce a cheerfully blathering live-action cartoon that will give you release from the real pressures of your basically dreary lives." In his review for "Time", Richard Corliss wrote, ""Little China" offers dollops of entertainment, but it is so stocked with canny references to other pictures that it suggests a master's thesis that moves."
However, in his review for the "Chicago Sun-Times", Roger Ebert wrote, "special effects don't mean much unless we care about the characters who are surrounded by them, and in this movie the characters often seem to exist only to fill up the foregrounds," and felt that it was "straight out of the era of Charlie Chan and Fu Manchu, with no apologies and all of the usual stereotypes." Paul Attanasio, in "The Washington Post", criticized the screenwriters for being "much better at introducing a character than they are at developing one". David Ansen wrote, in his review for "Newsweek", "though it is action packed, spectacularly edited and often quite funny, one can't help feeling that Carpenter is squeezing the last drops out of a fatigued genre." In his review for "The Times", David Robinson felt that Carpenter was "overwhelmed by his own special effects, without a strong enough script to guide him."
Alex Stewart reviewed "Big Trouble in Little China" for "White Dwarf" No. 83, and stated that the film was "Amiable nonsense, delivered with panache by fearsome demons and flying swordsmen; and the jokes work. Wayne Crawford should take notes."
After the commercial and critical failure of the film, Carpenter became very disillusioned with Hollywood and became an independent filmmaker. He said in an interview, "The experience [of "Big Trouble"] was the reason I stopped making movies for the Hollywood studios. I won't work for them again. I think "Big Trouble" is a wonderful film, and I'm very proud of it. But the reception it received, and the reasons for that reception, were too much for me to deal with. I'm too old for that sort of bullshit."
It has since enjoyed a resurgence on television and home video, and has received a good deal of retroactive positive press. "Empire" magazine voted "Big Trouble in Little China" the 430th greatest film in their "500 Greatest Movies of All Time" list.
Home media.
"Big Trouble in Little China" was released on a two-disc special edition DVD set on May 22, 2001. "Entertainment Weekly" gave the DVD a "B+" rating and wrote, "The highlight of this two disc set – which also features deleted scenes, an extended ending, trailers, and a 1986 featurette – is the pitch perfect Russell and Carpenter commentary, which delves into Fox's marketing mishaps, Chinese history, and how Russell's son did in his hockey game." In his review for the "Onion A.V. Club", Noel Murray wrote, "If nothing else, this is a DVD designed for "Big Trouble" cultists; it's packed with articles from "Cinefex" and "American Cinematographer" that only a genre geek would appreciate."
A single-disc movie-only DVD version was later released, with the only special features being the Carpenter/Russell commentary and the theatrical trailer.
A Blu-ray Disc edition of the film was released on August 4, 2009. It contains the same content as the double-disc DVD release. In 2013, the film was released on Blu-ray Disc in the United Kingdom by Arrow Films as a regular case and Steelbook.
On December 3, 2019, Scream Factory released a two-disc "Collector's Edition" Blu-ray of the film in the U.S., which included a bevy of new bonus features.
Other media.
Sequel.
In June 2015, "TheWrap" reported that Dwayne Johnson was developing a remake to star as Jack Burton and produce with his Seven Bucks Productions film studio. Ashley Miller and Zack Stentz were hired screenwriters. In an interview with "Entertainment Weekly", Johnson expressed interest in having Carpenter involved in the film. Carpenter responded stating, "It's very early in the process. I haven't spoken to Dwayne Johnson about any of this... I'm ambivalent about a remake."
By August 27, 2018, Seven Bucks Productions' President Hiram Garcia clarified that the film will be a sequel and a continuation of the previous film. The creative minds behind the new film acknowledged that they have no intention of replacing Kurt Russell by re-casting Johnson as Jack Burton, but will make a follow-up movie to the original.
Video game.
A tie-in video game of the same name was published in 1986 by Electric Dreams Software for the ZX Spectrum, Commodore 64 and Amstrad CPC. Critical reception was mixed.
Comic book series.
On February 27, 2014, BOOM! Studios announced they were working on a comic book series. The comic book is written by Eric Powell and John Carpenter with artwork by Brian Churilla. The series began in June 2014.
BOOM! released a crossover comics miniseries between Jack and Snake Plissken titled "Big Trouble in Little China / Escape from New York" in October 2016.
A previously projected comic book series previewed by Top Cow Productions at the 2009 San Diego Comic-Con failed to appear.
On June 14, 2017, BOOM! announced a new four-issue series, to be published in September 2017, called "Big Trouble in Little China: Old Man Jack," written by Carpenter and Anthony Burch, with art by Jorge Corona. Taking place in 2020, Jack Burton comes out of retirement to battle Ching Dai and save the world.
Vinyl figures.
In February 2015, Funko released a line of ReAction and Pop! vinyl figures based on "Big Trouble in Little China".
Board game.
On July 15, 2016, BOOM! Studios announced a partnership with Everything Epic and Flipside to create a board game based on the film. It was released in 2018, and is a highly thematic cooperative miniatures board game for 1–4 players.
Card game.
In August 2016, Upper Deck released the "Legendary: Big Trouble in Little China" deck-building card game. It is a semi-cooperative game for 2–5 players using the deck-building mechanic in which players purchase cards from a central pool to work together against the "villain" deck. The cards feature original artwork based on characters from the movie. It comes with 400 cards and a special playmat, and retails for around $40.
Influence.
The film's portrayal of the lightning sorcerer/demigod character has been occasionally described as an inspiration for the character of Raiden from "Mortal Kombat", introducing the archetype of a straw hat–wearing monk able to control lightning with his hands to Western audiences. (In traditional Chinese and Japanese culture, the lightning god is represented more akin to a traditional Asian creature.) Additionally, the character David Lo Pan has been credited as the original inspiration for the soul-stealing Mortal Kombat villain Shang Tsung.
The twenty-third episode of the second season of the 2012 "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles" TV series, called "A Chinatown Ghost Story", uses concepts from the film, but renames the antagonist Lo Pan to Ho Chan, and the Storm figure Rain is replaced by Wind. In addition, James Hong (Lo Pan) reprises his "Little China" performance as the principal villain character.
The song "We Have Candy" by the South African rap-rave group Die Antwoord features lead singer Ninja reciting some of Jack Burton's dialogue from the film.
A 2012 parody music video of the song "Gangnam Style" was entitled "Lo Pan Style" and featured the storyline and characters from the movie, including a cameo by James Hong.
New Zealand director Taika Waititi cited the film as an influence on "" (2017).


Mark Deklin

Mark Deklin (born December 3, 1967) is an American actor and fight coordinator. He starred in the Fox primetime drama "Lone Star", the ABC comedy-drama "GCB", the Lifetime comedy-drama "Devious Maids", and in 2017 joined the ABC political drama "Designated Survivor" as Senator Jack Bowman. He voiced Deimos in the video game "". He also was the voice of Warden in the video game "Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Siege".
Early life and education.
Deklin was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He graduated from Thomas Jefferson High School in 1986. He holds a B.A. in English and History from the Pennsylvania State University, an M.F.A. in acting from the University of Washington in Seattle, and is a certified member of the Society of American Fight Directors.
Career.
A classically-trained stage actor, Deklin has worked extensively on Broadway and off-Broadway. On television, he has had recurring roles as Dr. Matthew Shaw in the Fox series "Justice" from 2006 to 2007, as Elliott Mayer in the CBS sitcom "The Ex List" in 2008, as Stan Edwards in the CBS drama "Hawaii Five-O" from 2011 to 2012, as Joe Nazario in the NBC police drama "Shades of Blue" in 2015, as Agent Cameron Davies in the TNT series "Rizzoli & Isles" in 2016, as Dr. William Landon in the TNT procedural "Major Crimes" in 2017, and as Roy in the Netflix comedy "Grace and Frankie" from 2018 to 2019. He has also had voice roles in several video games, including "Call of Duty 3", ', ', and "Halo Wars 2", and co-starred in the films "Riverworld", "Tarzan", "The Wish List", "Tides of War", "The Wedding Chapel", "Never Say Macbeth", "Switched for Christmas", "The Answer", and "Mini's First Time".
Deklin starred in the Fox primetime drama "Lone Star" as Trammell Thatcher, the ABC soapy comedy "GCB" as Blake Reilly, and the Lifetime comedy-drama "Devious Maids" as Nicholas Deering. He has also had a number of guest-starring roles in television series, including "Sex and the City", "Charmed", "Frasier", "", "Desperate Housewives", "Nip/Tuck", "Two and a Half Men", "Life On Mars", "The Mentalist", "Warehouse 13", "Hot in Cleveland", "Big Love", "Major Crimes", "Castle", "Criminal Minds", and "The Blacklist".


Man on the Moon (film)

Man on the Moon is a 1999 biographical comedy-drama film about the late American entertainer Andy Kaufman, starring Jim Carrey as Kaufman. The film was directed by Miloš Forman and also features Danny DeVito, Courtney Love, and Paul Giamatti.
The story traces Kaufman's steps from childhood through the comedy clubs and television appearances that made him famous, including his memorable appearances on "Saturday Night Live", "Late Night with David Letterman", "Fridays", and his role as Latka Gravas on the sitcom "Taxi", which was popular among viewers but disruptive for Kaufman's co-stars. The film pays particular attention to the various inside jokes, scams, put-ons, and happenings for which Kaufman was famous, most significantly his long-running "feud" with wrestler Jerry "The King" Lawler and his portrayal of the character of bawdy lounge singer Tony Clifton.
It was released on December 22, 1999 in the United States and May 5, 2000 in the United Kingdom by Universal Pictures and Warner Bros. Pictures in some markets. Although the film was unsuccessful commercially and received mixed reviews, Carrey received critical acclaim for his performance and won a Golden Globe, his second in a row after his award for "The Truman Show". His win was in the Musical or Comedy category.
The documentary "" was released in 2017 and chronicles Carrey's performance as Kaufman in the film, a performance he maintained during much of the film's production.
Plot.
Andy Kaufman is a struggling performer whose act fails in nightclubs because, while the audience wants comedy, he sings children's songs and refuses to tell conventional jokes. As the audience begins to believe that Kaufman may have no real talent, his previously timid "foreign man" character puts on a rhinestone jacket and does a dead-on Elvis impersonation. The audience bursts into applause, realizing Kaufman had tricked them.
Kaufman catches the eye of talent agent George Shapiro, who signs him as a client and immediately lands him a network television series, "Taxi", much to Kaufman's dismay, since he dislikes sitcoms. Because of the money, visibility, and a promise that he can do his own television special, Kaufman accepts the role, turning his foreign man into a mechanic named Latka Gravas. Secretly he hates doing the show and expresses a desire to quit.
Invited to catch a different act at a nightclub, Shapiro witnesses a performance by a rude, loud-mouthed lounge singer, Tony Clifton, whom Kaufman wants to guest-star on "Taxi". Clifton's bad attitude is matched by his horrible appearance and demeanor. But backstage, when he meets Shapiro in person, Clifton takes off his sunglasses and reveals that he is actually Kaufman. Clifton is a "villain character" created by Kaufman and his creative partner, Bob Zmuda. Once again, the gag is on the audience.
Kaufman's profile increases with appearances on "Saturday Night Live", but he has problems with his newfound fame. When performing live, audiences dislike his strange anti-humor and demand that he perform as Latka. At one show, he deliberately antagonizes attendees by reading "The Great Gatsby" aloud from start to finish. Kaufman shows up on the "Taxi" set as Clifton and proceeds to cause chaos until he is removed from the set. He relates to Shapiro that he never knows exactly how to entertain an audience "short of faking my own death or setting the theater on fire."
Kaufman decides to become a professional wrestler — but to emphasize the "villain" angle, he will wrestle only women (hired actresses) and then berate them after winning, declaring himself "Inter-Gender Wrestling Champion." He becomes smitten with one woman he wrestles, Lynne Margulies, and they begin a romantic relationship. His professional issues are deepened when, during an appearance on ABC's live television comedy show "Fridays", Kaufman refuses to speak his lines.
Kaufman feuds publicly with Jerry Lawler, a male professional star wrestler, who challenges him to a "real wrestling match", which Kaufman accepts. Lawler easily overpowers and appears to seriously injure Kaufman. Lawler and an injured Kaufman (wearing a neck brace) appear on NBC's "Late Night with David Letterman", ostensibly to call a truce, but the "feud" is exacerbated and they trade insults. Lawler hits Kaufman, who then spews a vicious tirade of epithets and throws coffee at Lawler. It is later revealed that Kaufman and Lawler are in fact good friends and had staged the entire feud as an act, but Kaufman pays an unexpected price when he is voted off from "SNL" following a vote of audience members, weary and bored of his wrestling antics. Shapiro advises Kaufman and Lawler not to work together again, and later calls Kaufman to inform him that "Taxi" has been canceled. Shapiro is despondent at the news but Kaufman is not bothered.
After a show at a comedy club, Kaufman calls together Lynne, Zmuda, and Shapiro to disclose that he has been diagnosed with a rare form of lung cancer and may die soon. Initially they are not sure whether to believe this, thinking it could be yet another of Kaufman's stunts, with Zmuda actually believing a fake death would be a fantastic prank. With little time to live, Kaufman arranges a booking at Carnegie Hall, his dream venue. The performance is a memorable success, culminating with Kaufman inviting the entire audience out for milk and cookies. As his health deteriorates rapidly, a desperate Kaufman heads to the Philippines to seek a medical miracle through psychic surgery only to find it a hoax, laughing at the irony. He dies soon after. At Kaufman's funeral, friends and loved ones sing along to "This Friendly World" with a video of Kaufman. One year later, in 1985, Tony Clifton appears at Kaufman's tribute at The Comedy Store's main stage, performing "I Will Survive". Zmuda watches in the audience.
Cast.
Several original members of the cast of "Taxi", including Marilu Henner, Judd Hirsch, Christopher Lloyd, Carol Kane, and Jeff Conaway make cameos, playing themselves. Danny DeVito, who was also in the cast of "Taxi", co-starred in the film and did not appear as himself.
Many of Kaufman's other real-life friends and co-stars also appear in the film (although not all as themselves), including Zmuda, Shapiro, Margulies, David Letterman, Paul Shaffer, professional wrestler Jerry Lawler, wrestling announcers Jim Ross and Lance Russell, "The Improv" founder Budd Friedman, "Saturday Night Live" creator Lorne Michaels, and actors Vincent Schiavelli and Chad Whitson. Michael Richards is played by Norm Macdonald in a recreation of the "Fridays" show skit. According to Jerry Lawler's autobiography "It's Good to be the King ... sometimes", WCW wrestler Glenn Gilbertti, better known to wrestling fans as Disco Inferno, was considered for the role of Lawler.
Kevin Spacey, Edward Norton, John Cusack and Hank Azaria auditioned for the role of Andy Kaufman.
Production.
"Man on the Moon" was shot in Los Angeles in the winter of 1998. The film's production is notable for Carrey's rigid method acting, staying in-character as Kaufman both on and off the set for the duration of production. Carrey's adherence to the role reached the extent where he would develop unscripted tics and habits that were previously characteristic of Kaufman himself. Among other examples, Courtney Love noted how Carrey would stuff his clothing with Limburger cheese on the set when playing Kaufman's Tony Clifton character in the film, something Kaufman had done in his own performances of the character.
A documentary, "", was released in November 2017. Using behind-the-scenes footage, the documentary covers the production of "Man on the Moon" with a particular focus on Carrey's method-acting as Kaufman.
Soundtrack.
The soundtrack for the film was written by rock band R.E.M., whose 1992 song "Man on the Moon" (originally written in honor of Kaufman) gave the film its title. The soundtrack also included the Grammy-nominated song "The Great Beyond", which remains the band's highest-charting single in the United Kingdom.
Historical accuracy.
The film makes a few changes to Kaufman's life story. As Kaufman (played by Carrey) explains in the film's prologue, "All the most important things in my life are changed around and mixed up for dramatic purposes."
The famous Carnegie Hall "milk and cookies" performance, portrayed in the film as one of his last performances after being diagnosed with cancer, had in fact occurred in 1979, five years before Kaufman's death and well before his diagnosis. Also, the film is deliberately ambiguous over whether Kaufman actually died or if his death was a hoax as some fans believe.
The film implies that Carol Kane was a member of the "Taxi" cast during the show's first season, which in real life was 1978–79. In actuality, Kane did not make her first appearance on the series until the episode "Guess Who's Coming for Brefnish", which first aired on ABC in January 1980 during the show's second season. The film implies that "Taxi" was canceled only once. However, the show went on for one more season on NBC.
Other inaccuracies include scenes supposedly drawn from "SNL", specifically the first episode's host, who is depicted as having been Richard Belzer but was George Carlin in real life. Also, the scene where Lorne Michaels asks the home viewing audience to vote Kaufman off the show happened in 1982, two years after Michaels left the show as executive producer and Dick Ebersol took over.
After its release, the film attracted some criticism over various events in Kaufman's life that were left out. Max Allan Collins maintained that the filmmakers did not understand Kaufman, and that the film "does not give Kaufman the credit for his genius, that he had a complete intellectual grasp of what he was up to and a showman's instincts for how to play an audience." Significantly, these critics included Kaufman's own father Stanley, who was displeased that little of Andy's early life (before show business) and early career were portrayed.
Sam Simon, season 5 writer on "Taxi", stated in a 2013 interview with Marc Maron for the "WTF with Marc Maron" podcast that the portrayal of Andy on the show was "a complete fiction," that Kaufman was "completely professional" and that he "told you Tony Clifton was him." Simon also stated that sources for these stories were mostly from Bob Zmuda and a "little bit of press and hype," but conceded that Kaufman would have "loved" Zmuda's version of events.
Reception.
On review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 63% based on 119 reviews, with an average rating of 6.2/10. The site's critical consensus reads, "Jim Carrey is eerily dead-on in his portrayal of Andy Kaufman, which helps to elevate "Man on the Moon" above the script's formulaic biopic cliches." Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned a score of 58 out of 100, based on 34 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B–" on an A+ to F scale.
Roger Ebert, giving the film three-and-a-half stars out of four, wrote for the "Chicago Sun Times":
"Man on the Moon" ended a string of Jim Carrey films that had very successful opening weekends, and grossed just $47 million against a budget of $82 million. Although the film received mixed reviews from critics, they were near unanimous in their praise for Jim Carrey's portrayal of Andy Kaufman. Carrey won a Golden Globe for his performance, and the film was nominated for Best Musical or Comedy as well.


Lonely Town (On the Town)

"Lonely Town" is a song from the 1944 musical "On the Town". It was composed by Leonard Bernstein with lyrics by Adolph Green and Betty Comden.
It is performed in Scene 7 of Act 1 of the musical by the character Gabey, a sailor on shore leave, in the musical as he laments his loneliness despite being in the crowds of New York City. It is the first solo number performed by one of the principal characters in the musical. The song is formed of an AABAB structure. The song segues into the "Lonely Town Pas de Deux" ballet in the musical in which Gabey watches other sailors dance with girls while he is alone. A new verse was created when it was released as sheet music as the original verse contained too many references to the specific plot of the musical. The song includes fragments of the song "New York, New York" from the musical. "Lonely Town" is one of the three principal ballads of the show alongside "Lucky to Be Me" and "Some Other Time". The song had developed from "Lonely Me", of which the lyrics only exist.
The "Boston Herald" critic Elinor Hughes felt that "Lonely Town" was one of the few songs from the musical that would be "most likely to be remembered".
Frank Sinatra starred in the 1947 film version of the musical with Gene Kelly, and believed that he was going to perform the song in the film though in the musical it had been written for Kelly's character. Comden recalled that Sinatra was "very, very angry" upon being told on the last day of shooting that the song was not to be included.
In his biography of Sinatra, "Sinatra! The Song Is You: A Singer's Art", Will Friedwald wrote that Sinatra and Gordon Jenkins considered the song the "high point" of Sinatra's 1957 album arranged by Jenkins, "Where Are You?", and describes the song as a "heavy, moving ballad".
"Lonely Town" was performed by Shirley Horn on Charlie Haden's 1999 album "The Art of the Song", in an arrangement by Alan Broadbent. Broadbent won the Grammy Award for Best Instrumental Arrangement Accompanying Vocalist(s) at the 42nd Annual Grammy Awards in 2000.


Ten Men

Ten Men is a novel by Alexandra Gray that was first published in 2005. Episodic in character, it covers a period of 20 years in the life of the first person narrator, an attractive nameless Englishwoman in search of perfect happiness, a state she equates with life with a perfect partner. "Ten Men" is a serious treatment of the common "chick lit" motif of "waiting for Mr Right". In her late thirties and childless at the end of the novel, the heroine has had relationships with a succession of men but has not been able to achieve the happiness and peace of mind she has been longing for all her adult life. According to WorldCat, the book is found in over 200 United States libraries .
Plot introduction.
"Ten Men" is a picaresque novel in that the heroine is constantly "moving on", time and again leaving behind the people she has been intimate with and associating with a new set in some other part of the world. The novel asks the basic question of how many men a woman "needs" until she has found the right partner and thus fulfilment in life—a question which, although frequently discussed in the wake of the sexual revolution, has turned out to be largely unanswerable.
Plot summary.
The protagonist is born in the mid-1960s. After her father's premature death when she is seven, she and her sister are brought up in England by their mother, who is a French Catholic. Conditioned to believe that pre-marital sex is a sin(it is), at 18 the heroine is forced into an early marriage with a teacher, who works literally day and night at a remote boarding school for boys. Stripped of her privacy and her youthful ways, she clings to her husband, hoping he will take a job elsewhere. When he does not she deserts him and embarks on a series of affairs with wealthy men who are not interested in a long-term relationship with her: a lawyer, a capitalist ("the Billionaire"), a Lord.
Similar to Caroline Meeber in Dreiser's "Sister Carrie", the protagonist is not prepared to earn a living through honest work dependent on her qualifications. Accordingly, she always has to rely financially on the men in her life. In particular, it is the billionaire who, as a kind of parting present, volunteers to pay for her very expensive university education at some exclusive New York college as well as for her Upper East Side apartment.
After her graduation the protagonist eventually moves back to London. An affair with a sexually inexperienced man ("the Virgin") leads to her first pregnancy ever and a subsequent miscarriage. Having trained as an actress, she gets a few jobs in TV commercials. When she meets her ex-husband again it is only to find out that he is going to get married again. At the end of the novel, aged about 38 and still indecisive, she meets a single father who might become her future partner.


Nocturne (Lysenko)

Nocturne is an opera in one act by the Ukrainian composer Mykola Lysenko written in 1912 and first performed in Kyiv soon after composer`s death.
Libreto to this opera wrote Lyudmila Mikhailovna Starytskaya-Chernyakhivska (1868-1941), the daughter of Mikhailo Starytsky (1840-1904), who was Lysenko`s friend. The same as in the previous opera - "Eneid", Lysenko retreated from patriotic themes and folklore and chose a modern plot, in which a folk song and romantic song contrast to each other as representations of the past and modern. As a characteristic motive for the old world, the composer chose the salon song "Vremia Nevozvratnoe", which sings his mother Olga Eeremiyevna Lutsenkova. According to S. Neefova, "this opera is geniusly reflect the position of the intellectual between the bourgeois revolution defeat and the socialist revolution."
The opera entered the repertoire of Ukrainian theaters (for example, in 1927 it was first placed in Odessa), and in the 1930s it was broadcast on the radio in Lviv. Opera rarely falls into the repertoire of theaters, but performed in opera studios of musical educational institutions, in particular conservatory in Kyiv and Lviv.


Kathleen Man Gyllenhaal

Kathleen Man Gyllenhaal (born Kathleen Kwai Ching Man; 1974) is an American filmmaker from Hawaii.
Education.
Man Gyllenhaal graduated from Yale University with a B.A. degree in Film studies and received her M.F.A. degree from The University of Iowa. Man Gyllenhaal was awarded a Fulbright Scholarship in Paris, France where she directed an award-winning short film titled "L'Entretien (The Interview)". Man Gyllenhaal then served as a professor at Vassar College where she was awarded tenure. While at the college, Man Gyllenhaal directed a short film as a collaboration with her students titled, "Walk the Fish".
Personal life.
Man Gyllenhaal was born on the island of Oahu in Hawaii. There, she attended high school at the Punahou School, graduating in 1992. In July 2011 Gyllenhaal married Stephen Gyllenhaal, a director/producer who is the father of actors Jake and Maggie Gyllenhaal. The ceremony was held on her home island of Oahu. The pair have collaborated on projects such as the film "Grassroots" which starred Jason Biggs and Joel David Moore.
Gyllenhaal gave birth to a son in 2014 after two miscarriages. As of 2017, the couple has resided in the Hollywood Hills.
Career.
Man Gyllenhaal has directed many award-winning shorts including "Sita: A Girl From Jambu" which explores sex trafficking in Nepal, "Kind of a Blur" which starred Sandra Oh and "Lychee Thieves" a short film where Man Gyllenhaal represented her native Hawaii. "Sita: A Girl From Jambu" was used at benefit screenings to raise awareness and funds for the prevention of sex trafficking in Nepal. The film is based on "Bichari (Poor) Sita", a play that was written and performed by native girls in rural Nepal.
Man Gyllenhaal also directed the award-winning feature-length documentary, "Beauty Mark". The film tells the story of runner, Diane Israel, and her struggle with an eating disorder.
Man Gyllenhaal served as a co-producer of "Grassroots" and is a screenwriter for The Kennedy Detail.
Kathleen is also the writer/director of 'In Utero' a feature documentary about in utero life and its impact on human development, which premiered at the Seattle International Film Festival in 2015. For her film 'In Utero', she was nominated for the 'Talented New Director Award' by the International Filmmaker Festival of World Cinema. Man Gyllenhaal was pregnant herself while filming 'In Utero'.


Bertrand Philip, Count of Gronsveld

Bertrand Philip Sigismund Albrecht, Count of Gronsveld-van Diepenbroick-Impel (19 November 1715, Empel – 15 November 1772, Amsterdam) was a former Dutch envoy in Berlin to Frederick the Great.
He was the fourth son of Johann Bertram Arnold, Freiherr von Diepenbroick, from 1719 on "von Gronsfeld-Diepenbroick", and Wilhelmine, countess of Wartensleben. In 1750 or 1751, Bertrand married Amöne Sophie Friederike zu Löwenstein-Wertheim-Virneburg. He was lord of Wijngaarden and Ruigbroek from an unknown date.
From 1749, he was a member of the Ridderschap of Holland, drost of Muiden and president of the Admiralty of Amsterdam. In 1749 he oversaw a proposal by stadholder William IV of a binding college. The Count of Gronsveld fell in 1758 at the instigation of Willem Bentinck van Rhoon.
Bertrand Philip then started the first porcelain factory in the Netherlands in the town of Weesp with Louis Gerverot as a painter; however, the enterprise went bankrupt and its goods and clays were temporarily stored in the Muiderslot and then sold to the minister Joannes de Mol.


Senga Nengudi

Senga Nengudi (born September 18, 1943) is an African-American visual artist best known for her abstract sculptures that combine found objects and choreographed performance. She is part of a group of African-American avant-garde artists working in New York and Los Angeles from the 1960s onward.
Early life and education.
Nengudi was born as Sue Irons in Chicago in 1943, and following the death of her father in 1949, moved to Los Angeles and Pasadena with her mother. As a result of an existing segregated school system, Nengudi found herself in between schools, transferring back and forth between Los Angeles and Pasadena. Her cousin Eileen Abdul-Rashid is also an artist. Following her graduation from Dorsey High School, Nengudi studied art and dance during the 1960s at California State University, Los Angeles, graduating with a BA in 1967. She then spent a year studying at Waseda University, Tokyo, in the hopes of learning more about the Gutai collective. In 1967, she returned to California State University, from which she received her MA in sculpture in 1971. During college, in 1965, she interned at the Watts Towers Art Center when Noah Purifoy was the director. She also worked as an art instructor at the Pasadena Art Museum and the Fine Arts Community Workshop. She moved to New York City shortly thereafter to continue her career as an artist, and she traveling back and forth between New York City and Los Angeles frequently. She lives and works in Colorado Springs, Colorado.
Work.
Nengudi was part of the radical, avant-garde black art scenes in both New York City and Los Angeles during the 1960s and 1970s. She was a member of the Studio Z collective, also known as the LA Rebellion, that comprised African American artists "distinguished by their experimental and improvisational practice" David Hammons and Maren Hassinger, also members of Studio Z, were frequent collaborators with her work.
She worked with two galleries in particular: Pearl C. Woods Gallery in Los Angeles (owned and directed by Greg Pitts) and Just Above Midtown in New York. Just Above Midtown (JAM) was owned and directed by Linda Goode Bryant who influenced Nengudi. She has described the creative energies of working with galleries like these two that were "trying to break down the walls" for the black artist community.
"Répondez s'il vous plait" ("R.S.V.P."), 1975–77.
In 1975, following the birth of her son and seeing the changes in her body, Nengudi began her "répondez s'il vous plait" (RSVP) series for which she is best known. Combining her interest in movement and sculpture, Nengudi created abstract sculptures of everyday objects through choreographed sets which were either performed in front of a live audience or captured on camera. The sculptures were made from everyday objects, like pantyhose, and parts were stretched, twisted, knotted, and filled with sand. The finished sculptures, originally intended to be able to be touched by the audience, were often hung on gallery walls but stretched across gallery space, evoking the forms of bodily organs, sagging breasts, and a mother's womb. For her, the use of pantyhose as a material reflected the elasticity of the human body, especially the female body. These sculptures as well as her later performance pieces involving pantyhose expressed a mélange of sensuality, race identify, body image, and societal impacts on women's bodies.
Despite being increasingly involved within the African American artist community in Los Angeles, when the "R.S.V.P" series made its debut, there was no significant interest from the public in her work. One of Nengudi's close friends, David Hammons, consistently collaborated with Nengudi on multiple artistic pieces. He brought forth an explanation for the public's lack of interest in Nengudi's work, ascribing it to the abstract aesthetic present in a lot of Nengudi's pieces throughout the 1960s and the 1970s. Furthermore, Nengudi's "R.S.V.P" sculptures differed greatly from most of the art work made popular by her artistic peers in Los Angeles, as well as New York. Nengudi was made aware of the perception of her art by the public in relation to artwork made by her peers, a concept solidified in New York, where some people felt as though she was not making "black art".
Nengudi's "R.S.V.P." sculptures have made more recent appearances in traveling group shows, including "Now Dig This! Art & Black Los Angeles 1960–1980" (2011–2013) and "Blues for Smoke" (2013).
Performances.
In 1978, Nengudi paired with Hassinger for a performance piece in which the two artists improvised movement while entangled inside a large web of pantyhose. The performance symbolized the ways in which women are restricted by societal gender norms. Nengudi also took many staged photographs during this period. She often appeared anonymously in them herself as a genderless figure, defying definition.
The same year, Nengudi and members of the Studio Z collective (including Hammons and Hassinger) performed "Ceremony for Freeway Fets" under a freeway overpass on Pico Boulevard in Los Angeles. Nengudi designed costumes and headdresses made of pantyhose for the performers. Hammons and Hassinger played the roles of male and female spirits, with Nengudi performing as a spirit to unite the genders. Both the dance performance and soundtrack, performed by members of Studio Z, were improvised.
In 2007, she created a video installation entitled "Warp Trance", and her residency at the Fabric Workshop and Museum in Philadelphia articulated the experiences of textile workers.
In March 2017, Nengudi participated at the Armory Show in New York City in the Focus Section. The booth was presented by Thomas Erben Gallery and Lévy Gorvy.
Nengudi also participated in the 2017 Venice Biennale, "Viva Arte Viva", May 13 – November 16, 2017.
"Warp Trance".
During her 2007 residency at the Fabric Workshop and Museum in Philadelphia, PA, Nengudi incorporated video art into her practice for the first time. During visits to textile mills around the state, she recorded video and audio footage of the textile mills in full operation, and she also collected objects, like Jacquard punch cards, which were used to program Jacquard loom machines, mechanizing textile mills. In the final installation, Nengudi projected video footage onto a vertical screen of punch cards in a space with ambient sound from the audio recordings. The work explores themes of technology, the politics of labor, contemporary music, and the repetition of ritual dance.
Exhibitions and museum collections.
Nengudi's work can be found in the museum collections of the Museum of Modern Art, NY, The Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, CA, Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh, PA, Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, CA, Studio Museum in Harlem, New York, NY, and Brooklyn Museum, NY.
Themes.
Complicating cultural, ethnic and racial classification became as central to Nengudi's work as her handling of gender constraints. She often combines African, Asian and Native American art forms in particular for her performance pieces and staged photographs. While her oeuvre highlights issues surrounding gender, race and ethnicity, Nengudi's work focuses on the ways in which everyone is negatively affected by these systematic forces and her pieces attempt to foster cross-cultural inspiration for men and women alike.
She often cites African and Eastern philosophies as underpinning her work.
Other work.
In addition to her installations, sculpture, and performances, Nengudi also creates paintings, and photography and writes poetry under the pseudonyms Harriet Chin, Propecia Lee, and Lily B. Moor. In an interview, Nengudi explained how she decided to create these pseudonyms:"It all started when I saw a rack of postcards with art that was incredible and very African-looking, but then when I turned over the postcard and saw that the artist was white, I thought, "What the heck?" Later I questioned why I responded that way. I thought about this issue of naming, and how we jump to conclusions based on the ethnicity of a name. Of course, if there is no name attached, then people just have to respond to the work in itself. But if it's work by someone named "Yamamoto" or "Rodriguez," there's immediately another filter that we put on to view it. The different names I use all have a personal thread related to them. I want it to be like Br'er Rabbit, trying to be the trickster, to play with things, and to make people look at things differently." --Senga NengudiShe has also curated exhibits, like a solo show of Kira Lynn Harris at the Cue Art Foundation in New York in the spring of 2009.


Eros e Priapo

Eros e Priapo: da furore a cenere is a 1945 satiric pamphlet by Italian author Carlo Emilio Gadda.
Uncensored edition.
An excerpt comparison. The 1967 censored version is shown on the left, the 1945 original uncensored version on the right.
Style and sources.
The work framework is an archaic-style prose drawn from the Florentine dialect of Machiavelli, interpolated with the modern vernacular of the Tuscan language, and in a few cases, of modern Lombard language and Romanesco dialect. Gadda said that this parallels what Machiavelli himself did with Tacitus, whose structure he interpolated with jargon from his time. Another source of archaic Florentine expressions is Benvenuto Cellini.
For the satiric attack, the main influences are the Book of Revelation, for its caricatures against Cesar and Rome, and D'Annunzio's "Maia - Laus vitae".
Related works.
Some of Gadda's fables present related scatological elements. They are the 111th, 129th, 132nd, 134th, 137th, 138th, 147th and 184th fables of the antifascist cycle.


Indian Film Festival Japan

The Indian Film Festival Japan is a film festival in Japan. It works to promote Indian movies both commercial and independent.
History.
The idea for the Indian Film Festival Japan originated with Suresh Thati, CEO of Thati Media Corporation, a Japanese company that specializes in media consulting, IPTV services, publishing and media production. The 1st Indian Film Festival Japan was held in 2012.
IFFJ 2012,
IFFJ 2013,
IFFJ 2014,
IFFJ 2015,
Selection process.
The programming department at IFFJ is responsible for a preliminary screening of the movies. The best 20 movies out of all the submitted movies are selected to be part of the movie festival.
Jury.
The international jury which chooses the three best movies during the final evaluation round is composed of people from the movie industry.


Systo Palty

The Systo Palty is annual open-air art music festival held near St. Petersburg, Russia.


2695 Christabel


Rich People Problems

Rich People Problems is a satirical 2017 romantic comedy novel by Kevin Kwan. It is the third and final novel in Kwan's "Crazy Rich..." trilogy that looks at the rich and powerful families of Singapore. It was preceded by the bestsellers of "Crazy Rich Asians" in 2013 and "China Rich Girlfriend" in 2015.
Plot.
In 2015, two years after the events that take place in "China Rich Girlfriend", Nick and Rachel Young (née Chu), an economics professor at New York University (NYU), are happily married and living their life in Manhattan. Nick is informed by his mother Eleanor that his grandmother, Su Yi, has had a heart attack, and that he must come home to reconcile with her before she dies. While Nick wants to make up with his grandmother out of guilt for having shut her out of his life for marrying Rachel (as Su Yi was opposed to the marriage), his mother wants him to make amends so that he will be re-introduced into the will and inherit Tyersall Park, Su Yi's home. The extended Shang-Young clan has descended upon Tyersall Park to say their last goodbyes with the hopes of getting into Su Yi's good graces and inheriting part of her fortune.
Nick is initially prevented from seeing Su Yi due to scheming from his cousin Eddie Cheng, who believes he has a shot at inheriting his grandmother's estate. Eddie lies and convinces the entire family and house staff that Su Yi does not wish to see Nick while she is on her deathbed. With the help of the head of security, the head maid (who overheard Eddie's plotting) and Astrid, Nick is able to sneak into Tyersall Park and speak with his grandmother while she is in a cardiac intensive care unit in her bedroom. She is happy to see him and they make amends. Meanwhile, Astrid, Nick's cousin, becomes engaged again to Charlie Wu. Her relationship with Charlie faces obstacles from Charlie's scorned ex-wife Isabel Wu and Astrid's soon-to-be ex-husband Michael Teo. Astrid receives a grainy video depicting her and Charlie having sex in his bedroom from Michael, with a threat of releasing the video unless he is given 5 billion dollars in their divorce settlement. The video is released by Isabel just before she attempts suicide.
Astrid is shunned by her family and retreats into seclusion, not even telling Charlie where she went. He goes to great lengths to track her down, eventually finding her on an island in the Philippines. He reveals to her that he has gotten Michael to sign off on their divorce without any challenge by threatening to have him prosecuted for illegal surveillance of Astrid and blackmail. He tells her that though Isabel survived her suicide attempt and is now in stable condition, her family had found out that she was involved in blackmailing Astrid with Michael and that she will face humiliation of her own. Astrid says that she wants to stay and to bring her son Cassian to live with the people on the island. Charlie is willing to let her have the life she wants but wants to know if there is any room for him.
Su Yi dies and everyone prepares for her funeral. In her will, she leaves a share of Tyersall Park to each of her four daughters (Alexandra, Felicity, Victoria, and Catherine) and her son (Phillip, Nick's father) along with a share to Nick and his cousin (and Eddie's brother) Alistair Cheng. Upon the reading of the will, Eddie is humiliated to be left with nothing except his grandfather's antique sapphire cuff links. Astrid inherits Su Yi's fashionable dresses and jewelry. Jacqueline, Su Yi's goddaughter, inherits her shares at Ling Holdings, making her a wealthy woman and angering the family, who expected to inherit some of those shares, and now only have Tyersall Park.
Returning to Tyersall Park, Eddie furiously confronts Fiona for humiliating him by not telling him about the contents of the will, and ruining their family's opportunity to live in luxury. Fiona claims that she respected Su Yi's privacy and that she only picked up the pen to sign the paper as a witness. Eddie ends up curled up in a ball, crying, with Fiona comforting him. The family initially agrees to sell Tyersall Park to Jack Bing, to be used by his new wife Kitty, the former Hong Kong soap actress (and Alistair's former fiancée), for 10 billion dollars, because there are no funds to maintain it. Nick cannot bring himself to let Tyersall Park go, and so he attempts to buy out the shares owned by his four aunts, with his father signing over his portion directly to Nick. However, he is not able to raise the money to do this.
Nick takes a trip to visit an elderly Thai prince, based on a note left to him by his grandmother, thinking that this is the key to the funding to buy Tyersall Park. However he learns that this Prince was his grandmother's first love, and Aunt Catherine's biological father. Nick also learns that during World War II, Su Yi aided in the resistance effort against the Japanese occupation of Singapore by providing Tyersall Park as a safe haven for many Chinese and British agents working against the Japanese. Nick then tries to block the sale of Tyersall Park by claiming that it is a historic site. Rachel and Nick bring together Nick's friends Colin and Araminta Khoo, Rachel's friend Goh Peik Lin, and Alistair to buy Tyersall Park and turn it into the Tyersall Museum and Hotel. Kitty completes the deal by becoming a secret investor in their group in order to spite Jack, who had decided to buy Tyersall Park for Colette (his daughter) instead of Kitty.
One year later, Peik Lin is marrying Alistair, with Nick and Rachel serving as best man and maid of honor. After years of trying to conceive, Araminta and Colin now have a two-month-old son. Eddie finally changes his ways after Fiona convinces him to seek help and he goes to a therapist. Astrid continues to live on the island with Charlie and has started designing her own clothes. She does not wish to get married yet, instead preferring to live "a life of sin" with Charlie, enjoys the fact that this very much bothers her parents. Rachel reveals to Nick that she is six weeks pregnant. They both jokingly agree to not tell Nick's mother about the news, agreeing to wait at least until their child is 21.
Writing.
Kwan has said that this book was actually the first he had mapped out when he was first planning his trilogy.
Reception.
The novel received positive reviews and was noted by "USA Today" to be "a memorable, laugh-out-loud Asian glitz fest that’s a pure pleasure to read".
Film adaptation.
"Time" reported on August 15, 2018 that Kwan has been tasked with developing the sequel to "Crazy Rich Asians" from his two follow-up novels including "China Rich Girlfriend" and "Rich People Problems". The planning was still in pre-production concerning the back-to-back filming of both sequels following "Crazy Rich Asians" as of August 2018, though several of the key actors are committed to other projects until 2020. Awkwafina was interviewed in January 2019 and indicated that there were still no scripts for the sequel and that production filming had not started. According to "Town and Country" magazine, the filming and premiere of the film is not scheduled to take place until 2020. According to a Slash film journal article, the two sequels, including "Rich People Problems", will be shot back-to-back in 2020 once the filming commences.


Mizuhiki

 is an ancient Japanese artform that uses stiff rice paper cord - also referred to as - to create three dimensional sculptures and models.
The cord is created by twisting lengths of rice paper together tightly, before starching them for strength and stiffness, and colouring them for decoration. Methods of colouration include a thin, brightly coloured mylar coating, wrapping the in thin strands of silk, or simply painting the cord.
There are a number of different forms of ; it is traditionally used to create decorations given away at special occasions, such as the birth of a child, weddings, and funerals. given at these occasions commonly take the forms of animals or boats, with different forms used for different auspicious meanings; cranes, frogs, fish, dragons and turtles are amongst the most popular.
Other traditional forms of include decorating cards with decorative knots tied with lengths of , similar to the Western use of ribbons tied in a bow around a present; a third style of is using the cord to create paper jewellery.


Richard Roud

Richard Stanley Roud (6 July 1929 in Boston – 13 February 1989) was an American writer on film and co-founder, with Amos Vogel, of the New York Film Festival. At the NYFF, he was a former program director, and latterly director, from 1963 to 1987.
Biography.
Roud graduated from the University of Wisconsin in 1950, and after spending a year in Paris on a Fulbright scholarship, undertook post-graduate study at the University of Birmingham. In the 1950s, Roud became the London correspondent of the French film magazine "Cahiers du cinéma". In 1960 he became the director of the London Film Festival, and in 1963 co-founded the New York Film Festival, where he headed up the selection committee. He worked for both festivals until February 1970, when he ceased to be the director of the London Film Festival to concentrate on the New York festival. From 1963 to 1969, he was also film critic for "The Guardian" of London, and latterly a roving arts correspondent for the newspaper, and also wrote annual reports from the Cannes Film Festival, and other articles, for the British film publication "Sight and Sound".
Roud's books include "Cinema - A Critical Dictionary - The Major Film-Makers" (1980), a two-volume work which he edited; "A Passion for Film" (1983), a biography of Henri Langlois, the former director of the Cinémathèque Française; and two books on "nouvelle vague" directors "Straub" and "Godard". A volume of Roud's previously uncollected writings, "Decades Never Start on Time: A Richard Roud Anthology" was published by the BFI in 2014.
He was made a Knight in the French Legion of Honor in 1979 and was the recipient of the National Society of Film Critics Awards (USA) Special Award in January 1988.


Casino Theatre (Toronto)

The Casino Theatre was a live theatre, in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It was located at 87 Queen Street West across the street from the current site of Nathan Phillips Square.
The structure was designed by architects Kaplan & Sprachman, who designed 21 other theatres in Toronto, and 48 elsewhere in Canada. The theatre opened in 1936 and demolished in 1960. It seated almost 1,200 patrons.
The theatre hosted well-known performers, such as Johnny Rae, Patti Page, Gene Nelson, Pearl Bailey, Phil Silvers, Abbott and Costello, Nat King Cole, Sammy Davis Jr., Mickey Rooney, Frankie Laine, Sally Rand, Gypsy Rose Lee, Rose La Rose, Cup Cakes Cassidy, the Crewcuts, the Four Lads, Golden Gate Quartet, Billy Daniels and Rosemary Clooney.
The strippers, and baudy comedians who performed at Casino made the Casino particularly subject to commentary and complaints. Doug Taylor, the author of "Toronto Theaters and the Golden Age of the Silver Screen" wrote that, "Other perhaps than the Victory Theatre on Spadina, there is no entertainment venue that elicited as much praise, raunchy stories, condemnation and press coverage as the infamous Casino Theatre." He described one high school principal staking out the theatre in order to catch students who were playing hookey to catch a show at the Casino.
"Mike Filey", the "Toronto Sun"s historical columnist, noted that the theatre opened at one minute after midnight, April 13, 1936, a Monday, because conservative laws required the closure of venues that catered to pleasure, on Sundays. Filey suggested public complaints about the morals of the establishment were routinely ignored, since it was right across the street from City Hall, and many city councilors were regular patrons.
Filey wrote that the Casino "offered every type of performance allowed by law, and some that weren't."
The three partners who founded the Casino were Jules Allen, and Jay Allen, and Murray Little, who already owned the Broadway Theatre, another Burlesque theatre at 75 Queen Street West.


Meute (band)

Meute (stylized MEUTE) is an eleven-piece self-described techno marching band from Germany.
The band arranges techno, house and deep house works by well-known DJs, augmenting them with electronic beats created by marching band instruments. In doing so, they seek to "[create] a new genre by combining hypnotic driving techno and expressive brass band music," thereby "detaching electronic music from the DJ desk." Meute have toured Europe, America, and southern Africa in their four-year history and have performed in a variety of venues, including city streets, music festivals, and classical concert halls.
Band history.
Meute was founded by trumpeter Thomas Burhorn in Hamburg in 2015. The band had their breakthrough in early 2016 when their video for the song "Rej" by Berlin DJ duo Âme became a viral hit on social media. Within a week, their interpretation of the deep house song received more than 400,000 views on YouTube.
After the release of their debut album, "Tumult", in mid-2017, Meute toured music clubs in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, France and Luxembourg. In total, the band gave more than 150 concerts in their first two years of existence. In 2018, Meute participated in the showcase festivals ESNS and SXSW, ending the year as one of the most booked festival bands in Europe.
In addition to formal gigs, Meute has given unannounced concerts in several cities. In June 2018, one such performance in Berlin gained widespread attention when a video of the band performing its song "You & Me (Flume Remix)" went viral. , the video has had over 39 million views on YouTube, making it the band's most widely viewed to date. Meute's unannounced October 2018 appearance in Rome drew attention to their single "Hey Hey (Dennis Ferrer Remix)" in a similar fashion.
Meute's arrangements have earned recognition from their original artists. In 2017, Meute and Laurent Garnier, whose song "The Man with the Red Face" the band had prominently covered, made a joint stage appearance at the 2017 Festival Yeah! in France. In 2018, Meute and Stephan Bodzin took the stage at the Festival Reperkusound in Lyon.
In early 2019, as part of their "Europe 2019" tour, the band toured forty cities across fourteen countries. Later that same year, the band played concerts in South Africa and Eswatini with the help of the Goethe Institute.
Meute undertook their first North American tour in October 2019, with 14 performances in the United States and Canada.
In October 2019, Meute released their first live album, "Meute Live In Paris", which they recorded in March 2019 at Le Trianon in Paris. The collection consists of 14 previously released songs as singles or on album, as well as three previously unreleased tracks.
Additionally, Meute supports projects by Musicians without Borders with the help of Musik Bewegt, a German philanthropic organisation seeking to use music to make a difference in education, integration, health, and youth.
Style.
Meute's music is based on techno, house and deep house hits. They call their covers or arrangements "reworks". These works are rearranged by the Hamburg musicians and adapted to the instruments of the band. Through the combination of techno and the acoustic marching band instruments, Meute makes electronic music visible and combines these two German music styles. German national newspaper "Die Zeit" describes the band as placing a unique twist on the genres, in that "[t]he hypnotic monotony of the electronic music is retained, but the sterile sounds from the machine are replaced by the warmer-sounding wind instruments." Per the German newspaper "Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung", the result sounds "Symphonic. Hymnlike. Orchestral".
The band plays acoustic or amplified on major festival stages, in techno clubs, and on the street. Their cross-genre appeal has also led Meute to perform in classical settings such as the Hamburg State Opera and Vienna Concert House.
Discography.
Singles
Albums


Pearlie Kennedy Pettway

Pearlie Kennedy Pettway (1920–1982) was an American quilter. She was among the quilters of Gee's Bend. Her works are in the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Pearlie Kennedy was born in Boykin, Alabama (Gee's Bend) in 1920. She had a brother, Herman Kennedy. She married Horace Pettway, who was the brother of her brother's wife, Mary Elizabeth Pettway.
Pettway created her "Triangles" quilt around 1960. The quilt, also known as "Triangles Creating Squares-within-Squares (Housetop) Motif", is made from cotton sacking material. It is included in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, a gift of the Souls Grown Deep Foundation in 2014. Once clothing was no longer able to be mended, Pettway would use the material from coverall pants, dresses, and skirts to create quilts. Her quilt "Bars", made 1950, was crafted using cotton and denim work-clothes. According to her daughter Florida Irby, Pettway also sewed clothing using 25 lb. flour sacks and cloth that she acquired in Camden, using the leftover fabric to make quilts.
Pettway died in 1982 in Boykin.


List of puppet films

This is a list of films prominently featuring puppets.


A Little Priest


Martha Cole

Martha Cole (born 1946 in Regina, Saskatchewan) is a Canadian artist. She is known for her work with textiles, landscape, and artist's books, addressing themes of inter-contentedness, sustainability, and protection of ecological diversity. She currently resides in Disley, Saskatchewan. Cole's high school art teacher, Helmut Becker (now professor emeritus at the University of Western Ontario) encouraged her to pursue a career in art. She was an instructor in the Extension Division, Fine Arts and Humanities, University of Regina.
Her work has represented Canada at the Yokohama Quilt Week in Japan, the Commonwealth Games in Vancouver, BC, the Assoc. of Pacific NW Quilters Biennial Showcase in Seattle, WA and at the prestigious Quilt National 2015 in Athens, Ohio. Her art is included in public collections of the Saskatchewan Arts Board, Mackenzie Art Gallery, the Government of Saskatchewan, and the City of Regina.
Career.
Martha Cole attended the University of Washington in Seattle where she received a Bachelor of Fine Arts in sculpture (1970). Cole worked as the slide librarian in the University of Toronto's Fine Arts Department after she moved back to Canada in 1970. She earned a Bachelor of Education in Art from the University of Toronto with a secondary focus in Librarianship (1972). She taught art at the high school level at a metropolitan Toronto school. In 1978, Cole moved back to Saskatchewan and bought the United Church in Disley, Saskatchewan. She began to create her first fabric landscapes in 1978, inspired by the surrounding countryside.
Cole has worked with fabric for the majority of her career. She has focused on the incorporation of traditional crafts such as sewing, embroidery and quilting into her artistic practice. Her first fabric-based exhibition was at the Rosemont Art Gallery, in Regina, Saskatchewan in 1984. In the 1980s, Cole also began to create artist's books. Two work by Cole are in the collection of the Mackenzie Art Gallery: "Cygnus Spiral Arm of the Milky Way Galaxy ("1986) and "Elemental Blue: Water ("2003)
In 2002, Cole was affected by the demolition of the elevator in Disley, which she realized was connected to the self-identification of people who have grown up on farms and small towns in the province. This led to the show "The Survivors," which toured in twenty-nine galleries in rural Saskatchewan in 2005. The primary images were grain elevators which are still standing in various towns around the province. It was during this time that Cole toured the province as part of the Saskatchewan Centennial celebrations, presenting her quilted works and teaching classes.
Cole was one of four artists that constructed "All Beings Confluence," a collaborative work a community-based, interactive art installation grounded in "social activism and creating connections." Cole, in addition to artists Shannon Carson, Madeline Lepage, and Fenella Temmerman came up with the exhibition, which was inspired by a song by Carolyn McDade, who is a composer, social activist, and environmentalist. The project began in 2010 and has been shown in more than 50 venues across North America.
Awards.
In 2017, Cole was awarded the Saskatchewan Order of Merit for her contributions to the province. In 2019, she was awarded the Lieutenant Governor's Lifetime Achievement Award.


Anadiplosis

Anadiplosis ( ; , "anadíplōsis", "a doubling, folding up") is the repetition of the last word of a preceding clause. The word is used at the end of a sentence and then used again at the beginning of the next sentence.


Lonsdale Quay Market

Lonsdale Quay Market is a major public market and tourist destination located in the city of North Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. The market is located at the foot of Lonsdale Avenue and is adjacent to the Lonsdale Quay transit exchange that serves Metro Vancouver's North Shore municipalities. The headquarters for the Insurance Corporation of British Columbia is located in a neighbouring building.
History.
The marketplace opened just prior to Expo 86 on April 12, 1986, and features over 80 tenants, including food retailers, restaurants, retail shops, artisans and a boutique hotel. The quay was built on the former site of North Van Ship Repair, a major shipyard during World War II. In the 2010s, the quay area became the site of intensive construction of housing developments, backed by Mayor Darrell Mussatto.


Little 8th Route Army

Little 8th Route Army (Chinese: 小八路) is a stop motion Chinese animated puppet film. It is also referred to as "Little 8th Route Heroes" and "Small 8th Route Army".
Background.
The film was produced and released under the term of chairman Mao Zedong when the cultural revolution was still ongoing. The plot backdrop is based on the National Revolutionary Army's 8th Route Army division, when it was under the control of Communist Party of China instead of the opposing Kuomintang. Despite numerous movie adaptations, this is the only animation piece ever produced on the subject. A story book was also released as a companion to the film.
Story.
The story took place during the Second Sino-Japanese War. The Imperial Japanese Army entered a village in northern China where young Huzi () was involved in the anti-Japanese movement. His sister was taken as part of the village sweep. Huzi went on the revenge and was rescued by an 8th Route Army chief named Yang. After Huzi and the party restored the grain supplies and went on the offensive against the Japanese forces. Eventually Huzi himself was admitted to the 8th Route division.
Adaptations.
The first documentary on the subject was the 1938 (). The first movie to come before this puppetry animation was the 1961 "Little Heroes" (). Two movies were also made in 1978 "Two Young 8th Route Army Soldiers" () and "We are the 8th Route Army Men" ().


Rosa Elena Egipciaco

Rosa Elena Egipciaco, often referred to as the 'Queen of Mundillo', is a master Mundillo lacemaker and teacher of the Puerto Rican folk art. In addition to being part of the long Mundillo tradition of her hometown of Moca, Puerto Rico, she belongs to the much larger, much longer tradition of Spanish and European bobbin lacemaking.
Egipciaco was born into a family tradition of lace-making, as her mother and grandmother were noted makers of lace. She recalls starting to learn mundillo when she was four years old. After graduating from the University of Puerto Rico, Río Piedras Campus, she continued to practice mundillo and co-founded the Cultural Center of Moca. Egipciaco moved to New York in 1986 and began to teach lace-making through a variety of programs ranging from workshops for the International Ladies Garment Workers Union to serving as a master in the New York State Council on the Arts Folk Arts Apprenticeship Program. Her work has been exhibited at New York University, Columbia University, the American Museum of Natural History, Casita Maria, El Museo del Barrio, Marymount College, Brentwood International Ladies Garment Union, the Office of the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, and La Casa de la Herencia Cultural Puertorriqueña.
Awards.
In 2003, Egipciaco was named as one of eleven artists to receive a National Heritage Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts. The fellowships are the country’s highest honor in the folk and traditional arts. The awardees each received a one-time award of $20,000.


Honiton pottery

Honiton pottery is a type of earthenware pottery from Honiton, Devon, England. The popular design was Jacobean, and the most famous designer was Charles Collard who learned his trade at the Aller Vale Pottery in Kingskerswell. Its heyday was in the 1930s.
References.
honiton pottery collectors club


Holice Turnbow

Holice Edward Turnbow (born October 1, 1930) is an American quilter, artist, and textile consultant. Since the early 1970s, Turnbow has curated, judged, and lectured at a multitude of quilting events throughout the United States and Canada. He is certified by the National Quilting Association as a judge and teacher. In 1988, he co-founded the Hoffman Challenge, a national quilting, clothing, and dolls contest featuring hundreds of participants. His design have been commissioned by Spartex, Inc., Stencil House, and Benartex, Inc.
Early life, career.
Turnbow was born in Shamrock, Texas, on October 1, 1930. He has three sisters, each of whom was also born in Shamrock, Texas. His sisters, Martha Turnbow Darr and Nancy Turnbow Simpson, are also a quilters. Holice began his quilting career in the early 1970s after he was asked to teach needlework and quilting for a county recreational program.
Turnbow first received national exposure in 1978, when he was asked by the West Virginia Department of Culture and History to consult on and organize a quilt show. The show was in conjunction with the U.S. Postal Service issuing a commemorative stamp that recognized quilting as a folk art. That same year, he also served on the planning committee for the First Continental Quilting Congress, which was held in Arlington, Virginia. After these two events, he was invited to teach and lecture at numerous quilting events across the United States and Canada.
Judging.
Turnbow is a quilt judge and teacher certified by the National Quilting Association. He has been a judicial fixture in a multitude of quilting and craft events since the 1980s. In 1988, Turnbow and Betty Boyink founded and curated the Hoffman Challenge, a national contest of quilted wall hangings, clothing, and dolls. The event, which started out with 94 quilters, has since grown to regularly over 700 participants. Turnbow and Boyink curated the event until 1998.
Exhibits.
Turnbow has designed and made garments for two invitational exhibits; "Statements", which was sponsored by P and B Fabrics, and the Fairfield Fashion Show." He has designed and made quilts for a multitude of special exhibits and challenges, as well, including the exhibit "Men of Biblical Proportions".
Stencils.
In 1992, Turnbow was asked by Spartex, Inc., a South Carolina fabric company, to develop and design whole cloth patterns to be printed onto fabric. Included in Turnbow's designs was a series based on quilts from the National Museum of American History at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington DC.
Afterwards, he served as a quilt consultant to various textile and fabric companies, including the Canadian company Stencil House and the thread company Talon, Inc. He also provided further designs, including whole cloth quilts, to companies such as the New York fabric company Benartex, Inc. and the Stencil Company. His stencils are also re-published by various merchants online.
Teaching.
Turnbow continues to teach quilting techniques, both hand and machine, to quilting groups, quilt shops, and national conventions across the United States. In addition to teaching regularly for local quilt shops, guilds, and conventions, he was a regular faculty member for the Original Sewing and Quilting Expo which conducted sewing and quilting events eight times a year.
Media presence.
Turnbow has written regularly for various quilting magazines. He has been featured on "Quilters TV", and appeared on Kay Wood's "Strip Quilting with Kaye" and "Quilting for the '90s." He also represented the Stencil Company in six shows on "QNN", and in 2006 was named "QNN"'s "Designer of the Month for July." He has appeared in 13 segments of the television series "Heirlooms by Design", which was shown through the CBS network. He has recently completed the quilting series "Quilt as Desired" for "QuiltersTV", which began showing on the internet in late April 2011. This was the third time he provided instructional videos for the site. The series is sponsored by the Stencil Company. He was also featured in the book "Men and the Art of Quiltmaking" by Joe Cunningham, published by the American Quilter's Society.
Personal life.
Turnbow currently lives in Sturbridge, Massachusetts.