Audrey Barker

Audrey Melville Barker (1 November 1932 – 25 August 2002) was a British artist who in the later stages of her long career created installation pieces that pioneered ideas on disability and access.
Biography.
Barker was born in the West Ham area of East London. During World War II she was evacuated to a rural farm where she contracted tuberculosis. This led to years of hospital treatment and long-term bone damage and arthritis. Despite missing long periods of schooling, Barker gained a scholarship to East Ham Grammar School for Girls in 1944. Between 1950 and 1955 she attended Walthamstow School of Art before taking a one-year teacher training qualification at the Leicester College of Art. In 1961 she married the artist and teacher Denis Barker and moved to Cumberland. She taught at both the University of Newcastle and at the Carlisle College of Art and began to develop installation pieces which she called environments and included compartmented assemblages. She invited performers and poets, including Adrian Henri, to participate in these events. One of her compartmented assemblages won the Abbot Hall Art Gallery prize in 1964. These works were too radical for the traditional Carlisle College authorities, who fired her.
A brief spell in New York, working with Joseph Cornell, in 1966, followed. Late in 1967, Barker had an exhibition, shared with Sylvester Houédard, at the Lisson Gallery which featured assemblages some of which she displayed in compartmented trays. A series of further illnesses limited Barker's artistic output throughout the 1970s but she and her husband did establish a business, Barkers of Lanercost that produced period costume dolls, soft toys and reproductions of artefacts from the Roman fort at Vindolanda. As the business developed, the couple purchased and restored a mill building at Lanercost which they developed into a small arts centre and work space for people with disabilities. The business collapsed in 1987 and the couple divorced shortly after.
In the late 1980s and early 1990s, Barker began to develop a series multisensory installations that explored ideas about disability and accessibility. The largest of these was the "Festival of the Five Senses" which, in 1989, filled a leisure centre in Hexham with artists, actors and musicians. The installation attracted large crowds and the Institute of Contemporary Arts in London were keen to host the work but Barker refused as the space offered was not fully accessible. Her final installation was "Art: An Illusion" at the Keswick Art Gallery in 2000. In 1993, Barker accepted a women of the decade award from the Arts Council for her work on disabilities and the arts but is understood to have refused the award of an MBE.


Greyfriars Bobby Fountain

The Greyfriars Bobby Fountain is a granite fountain in Edinburgh, surmounted by a bronze life-size statue of Greyfriars Bobby, a Skye Terrier who became known in 19th-century Edinburgh for supposedly spending 14 years guarding the grave of his owner John Gray until the dog itself died on 14 January 1872.
The memorial was commissioned by Lady Burdett-Coutts, president of the Ladies Committee of the RSPCA, shortly before the dog died, and the bronze statue was made from life by William Brodie. At the time, Brodie was making statues of characters from Walter Scott's "Waverley" novels for the Scott Monument in Princes Street.
The statue is mounted on a polished column of granite, high and in diameter, above a polished granite basin in diameter, mounted on a plinth, with an octagonal drinking trough at ground level. Bronze plaques are mounted on the column. The fountain was originally furnished with two bronze drinking cups which were attached to the column by a chain. The supply of water to the fountain was discontinued in 1957, and the monument suffered from neglect until it was restored in 1985.
The memorial was sited at the southern end of George IV Bridge, just past its junction Chambers Street and close to the junction with Candlemaker Row, near the Greyfriars Kirkyard and the National Museum of Scotland. It was unveiled on 15 November 1873.
The monument became a category A listed building in 1977. It is reputed to be Edinburgh's smallest listed building.


Sixtus IV Appointing Platina as Prefect of the Vatican Library

Sixtus IV Appointing Platina as Prefect of the Vatican Library is a fresco transferred to canvas by the Italian Renaissance artist Melozzo da Forlì, once decorating the Vatican Library, now housed in the Pinacoteca Vaticana in Rome.
The fresco was executed in 1477 as the central scene of the decoration of the Vatican Library, founded by Sixtus IV two years before, including works by Antoniazzo Romano and the brothers Davide and Domenico Ghirlandaio.
The scene shows the Pope, seen slightly from below, faced by the kneeling humanist Bartolomeo Platina, together with the Pope's nephews: the two cardinals, Giuliano della Rovere, standing in front of the Pope, and Raffaele Riario behind his chair. To the left are Girolamo Riario and Giuliano's brother Giovanni della Rovere on the left. Giuliano della Rovere was later to become Pope Julius II.
The background is a perspective representation of a classic architecture with arcades and a gilded coffer ceiling. Platina is pointing to an inscription, written by himself, which boasts Sixtus' deeds.


Dance of Time (Clodion)

The Dance of Time: Three Nymphs Supporting a Clock is a work by the French sculptor Claude Michel (1738–1814), known as Clodion. Executed in 1788, it includes three terracotta female figures, frequently described as nymphs, dancing around a column that supports a pendulum clock with rotating annular dial by Jean-Baptiste Lepaute (1727–1802), the younger brother of Jean-André Lepaute. It is the only eighteenth-century clock featuring a terracotta sculpture as a completed work of art known to scholars.
Iconography.
Clodion may have been influenced by Poussin's painting, "A Dance to the Music of Time", which was executed between 1634 and 1636 for Giulio Rospigliosi, the future Clement IX, and features figures personifying the hours, the seasons, and the fortunes of mankind. According to the seventeenth-century art critic and biographer Gian Pietro Bellori, the patron was primarily responsible for formulating the iconography of this painting, which reflects on the cycles of life through the representation of the passage of time. Although the painting remained in the Rospigliosi family until 1713, the composition was well known through prints and painted copies. The painting eventually passed through the collection of Cardinal Fesch, uncle of Napoleon Bonaparte, sometime after 1713 and appears to have been in France until 1845. Another source for Clodion's sculpture may have been a Roman copy of a Hellenistic marble group known as the "Three Nymphs", which is presently in the collection of the Louvre. Thus, the three graceful figures could represent nymphs, the Three Graces, or the Horae–female deities personifying the passage of time. It is also possible that the dancing maidens were meant to evoke all of these associations while, as one specialist in eighteenth-century sculpture has noted, playing on the theme of the caryatid.
Acquisition.
The work was acquired in 2006 by The Frick Collection in New York City with funds provided by the late Winthrop Kellogg Edey (1938–1999), an American connoisseur and collector of clocks and watches, and a leading scholar on horology. The Winthrop Edey Bequest includes a collection of twenty-five clocks, fourteen watches, and a reference library relating to the history of time measurement.


Northeaster (painting)

Northeaster is one of several paintings on marine subjects by the late-19th-century American painter Winslow Homer. Like "The Fog Warning" and "Breezing Up", he created it during his time in Maine. It is on display in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. Viewers are presented a struggle of elements between the sea and the rocky shore. Winslow Homer excelled in painting landscape paintings that depicted seascapes and mountain scenery.
Background and description.
After extensive travel, Homer settled in Prouts Neck, Maine. He had a studio built for him, which was completed in 1884, and painted marine subjects, including the hard lives of the fishermen and their families. He increasingly chose to depict the sea itself, and was especially attracted to stormy seas. During this period he painted a wide array of seascapes such as "The Gulf Stream" (1899), "Moonlight – Wood's Island Light" (1886), "Northeaster" (1895) and "Early Morning After a Storm at Sea" (1902). Many of his paintings depict the battlefront of the sea and the shore, and the waves crashing onto the rocky shore. It has been said that they "are among the strongest expressions in all art of the power and dangerous beauty of the sea". "Northeaster" shows the waves while the Northeaster blows. Northeasters are storms along the upper East Coast of the United States that derive their name from the direction of the wind as it rotates onto land. The painting dates from 1895, but Homer reworked it by 1901.
Provenance.
"Northeaster" was at M. Knoedler and Company of New York in 1895 and then in 1895–96 with Thomas B. Clarke, also in New York. It was then returned to Homer in Maine. In 1900 it was again with Knoedler. From 1901 to 1910 it was owned by George A. Hearn, also of New York, who gave it to the Metropolitan Museum.


Mikey Post

Mikey Post (April 29, 1982 - February 17, 2018) was an American actor. He had dwarfism and was three feet two inches tall.
He appeared in the films "Black Knight", "Rest Stop", "", "Killer Pad", "Skid Marks", "Bedtime Stories", TV shows "MADtv", "Boardwalk Empire", "90210" and on Animal Planet's Reality Show "Pit Boss". He also played a recurring character on Disney XD's "Pair of Kings".
Biography.
Mikey Post was born in Columbus, Ohio, but soon after his birth he and his family moved to Roswell, Georgia, where he lived for most of his life. He attended a Performing Arts School North Springs High School, studying different acting techniques and performing in numerous plays. After high school, he attended the University of Georgia (UGA) and received his bachelor's degree in Management Information Systems Technology. In 2013, Mikey announced via his Facebook fan page that he was struggling with his health after being diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS).
Career.
While attending UGA, Mikey auditioned for commercials and movies in between his studies. Through his Atlanta-based talent agent, The People Store, Mikey booked a minor role in the movie "Black Knight". While the role Mikey auditioned for was only a bit part, Martin Lawrence and the director Gil Junger decided they wanted to feature Mikey more throughout the film. Although the role was a small one, it helped jumpstart Mikey's career. After graduating college, Mikey moved to Hollywood, California. Mikey later appeared in various feature films and also played the role of Wicket for the "Star Wars" nationwide tour in 2006 and in the Rose Parade on New Year's Day 2007. He was most recently seen in national commercials for Radio Shack (as Gumdrop the elf), Big Lots (as the Big Lots Spokes Elf), and Go Daddy. He most notably appeared in the movie "Bedtime Stories", starring Adam Sandler & Keri Russell, where he played the Angry Dwarf.
Death.
Post died on February 17, 2018 at the age of 35. His cause of death is Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis.


Angels Unawares

Angels Unawares is a bronze sculpture by Timothy Schmalz installed in St. Peter's Square in the Vatican since September 29, 2019, the 105th World Migrant and Refugee Day.
This statue was inaugurated by Pope Francis in 2019 for the 105th World Day of Migrants and Refugees. At its inauguration Pope Francis said he wanted the sculpture "to remind everyone of the evangelical challenge of hospitality".
The six-meter-long sculpture depicts a group of migrants and refugees on a boat wearing clothes that show they originate from diverse cultures and historical moments. For example, there are a Jew fleeing Nazi Germany, a Syrian departing the Syrian civil war, and a Pole escaping the communist regime. The sculptor of the work said that he "wanted to show the different moods and emotions involved in a migrant's journey". Previously, the artist had already made sculptures of a similar theme as "Homeless Jesus". The work includes angel wings, through which the author suggests that a migrant is secretly an angel in our midst. The artist's inspiration was Hebrews 13:2: "Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for thereby some have entertained angels unawares".
It was the first time in 400 years, i.e. since Bernini, that a new sculpture was installed in St Peter's Square.
The idea for the sculpture originated with Cardinal Michael Czerny, a fellow Canadian and Undersecretary of the Migrants and Refugees Section, who commissioned it in 2016. Among the people represented on the ship are the Cardinal's parents, who immigrated to Canada from Czechoslovakia. The sculpture was funded by a family of migrants from northern Italy, the Rudolph P. Bratty Family. On September 29, 2019, Pope Francis and four refugees from various parts of the world inaugurated the sculpture. A smaller reproduction, about a meter and a half high, will be permanently installed in the Basilica of Saint Paul Outside the Walls in Rome.
A replica of the sculpture is being shown in Boston College, United States, since 15 November 2020. A life-size replica was shown in Miami in February 2021 until 8 April 2021. Archbishop of Miami Thomas Wenski stated about the statue: "This is a representation of the human family and the story of migration and certainly, that’s the story of Miami. Miami is the Ellis Island of the South, and this, I think, represents that very well." He then blessed the replica, commenting: "May all who gaze upon it be filled with compassion for the stranger among us and eager to extend a hand of friendship."
In April, 2021, a replica was currently in New Orleans in front of the Notre Dame Seminary. After a national tour, this sculpture will be installed on the campus of the Catholic University in Washington, DC in fall of 2021.


Ramsay Richard Reinagle

Ramsay Richard Reinagle (19 March 1775 – 17 November 1862) was an English portrait, landscape, and animal painter, and son of Philip Reinagle.
Biography.
Ramsay Richard Reinagle was a pupil of his father Philip Reinagle, whose style he followed, and he exhibited at the Royal Academy as early as 1788. He afterwards went to Italy, and was studying in Rome in 1796. Subsequently, he visited Holland in order to study from the Dutch masters. After his return home he painted for a time at Robert Barker's panorama in Leicester Square, and then entered into partnership with Thomas Edward Barker, Robert's eldest son, who was not himself an artist, in order to erect a rival building in the Strand. They produced panoramas of Rome, the Bay of Naples, Florence, Gibraltar, Bay of Gibraltar, and Paris, but in 1816 disposed of their exhibition to Henry Aston Barker and John Burford.
In 1805 Reinagle was elected an associate of the Society of Painters in Watercolours, and in 1806 a member. He became its treasurer in 1807, and was president from 1808 to 1812 Between 1806 and 1812 he sent to its exhibitions sixty-seven drawings, mostly Italian landscapes and scenery of the English lakes. During the same period he exhibited portraits and landscapes in oil at the Royal Academy, of which he became an associate in 1814, and an academician in 1823. He was a clever copyist of the old masters, and is said to have been much employed by a picture-dealer in restoring and "improving" their works.
In 1848 he sent to the Royal Academy exhibition as his own work a small picture of "Shipping a Breeze and Rainy Weather off Hurst Castle" painted by a young artist named J. W. Yarnold, which he had purchased at a broker's shop, and to which he had made some slight alterations. Attention was called to the deception, and a full inquiry made by the academy resulted in his being called upon to resign his diploma as a royal academician. In 1850 he unsuccessfully endeavoured to exculpate himself in two letters published in the "Literary Gazette".
He continued to exhibit at the academy until 1857, but in his later years sank into poverty, and was assisted by a pension from the funds of the academy. He died at Chelsea on 17 November 1862.
Works.
Three plates, "Richmond", "Sion House", and "The Opening of Waterloo Bridge" in William Bernard Cooke's "The Thames" were engraved after him by Robert Wallis, and many of the illustrations in Peacock's "Polite Repository" from 1818 to 1830, were engraved by John Pye from his designs. There is also a view of Haddon Hall, engraved by Robert Wallis, in the "Bijou" for 1828, and one of Bothwell Castle, engraved by Edward Finden, in John Tillotson's "Album of Scottish Scenery", 1860. Reinagle wrote the scientific and explanatory notices to Turner's "Views in Sussex" published in 1819, and the life of Allan Ramsay in Allan Cunningham's "Lives of the British Painters."
Reinagle's paintings are included in the collections of several British institutions including Sheffield, Rotherham, Doncaster and Derby Art Gallery and in the Government Art Collection.
Family.
Reinagle married Oriana Bullfinch in 1801. They had three sons, of whom George Philip Reinagle the painter, who was the youngest. There was one daughter, Oriana Jane, who married Philip Dottin Souper.


Savannah Welch

Savannah Rose Welch (born August 4, 1984). is an American actress, musician and podcast host. She is best known for her work in the feature films Boyhood, The Tree of Life, and the History Channel drama SIX. Savannah is also a member of the alt-country band The Trishas.
Early life.
Savannah Welch is the daughter of singer-songwriter Kevin Welch
She attended UT Austin and studied film for a year, then dropped out to pursue film production and acting.
Career.
Film and television roles.
Savannah Welch's first significant acting role was in 2005, in the independent film Jumping Off Bridges, directed by Kat Candler. She went on to appear in higher profile projects including the critically acclaimed coming-of-age drama Boyhood directed by Richard Linklater. She also had a role in The Tree of Life, written and directed by Terrence Malick and featuring Brad Pitt, Sean Penn, and Jessica Chastain. She would work with Malick again in 2017's Song to Song.
In 2013, Welch appeared with her band The Trishas in two movies. For her role in Billy Bates, The Trishas played Savannah's backup band, and contributed to the soundtrack. The Trishas also appeared as a band in Angels Sing, starring Harry Connick Jr., Willie Nelson, Lyle Lovett and others.
In 2018, Savannah played the role of ex-Marine Dawn who lost her leg in an IED explosion in the second season of the History Channel's drama series "SIX". Her character meets Alex Caulder (Kyle Schmid), one of the main characters of the Navy SEAL Team, in a physical therapy hospital. While shooting, Welch celebrated the one year anniversary of her real life accident.
Welch was announced to be portraying Barbara Gordon in the third season of the HBO Max series "Titans" in 2021.
Music.
Although she grew up in a musical family, Savannah didn't sing publicly for the first time until 2005's “Chip Off the Old Block” SIMS Foundation fundraiser hosted by the Braun Brothers (Reckless Kelly, Micky and the Motorcars).
She would not sing publicly again until the 2009 MusicFest in Steamboat Springs, Colorado. A tribute concert to Savannah's father brought her together with 3 other independent artists: Liz Foster, Jamie Lin Wilson, and Kelley Mickwee. They would go on the form the alt-country girl group The Trishas.
Podcast.
Welch began recording her KUT NPR local podcast Enough About Music at Austin venue Cactus Cafe. Her first guest was Kevin Russell of Shinyribs. The only rule with her guests is to talk about anything at all, except music.
Personal life.
Savannah has one son, Charlie (born in 2012).
In 2014, Welch become a DONA-trained Birth Doula and Accredited Attached At The Heart Parent Educator.
On November 2, 2016 Savannah was at a farmer's market in Wimbereley, Texas with her father and 4-year-old son when a vehicle leaving the market accidentally accelerated, hitting Savannah. Welch was Star Flighted to Brackenridge Hospital in Austin where doctors determined the impact injury sustained to her right leg was beyond repair resulting in amputation.
There was an outpouring of support after the accident from both the Austin and music communities. Welch's first public appearance was at the "Eye Love Savannah" benefit November 28, 2016 organized by Austin photographer Todd Wolfson. A “Stand with Savannah” benefit concert was held in Nashville, Tennessee December 13, 2016 with Savannah's father, country music artist Kevin Welch, reuniting with his old band Dead Reckoners. Emmylou Harris also attended. On December 23, 2016 there was a "Standing Beside Savannah" Benefit Auction at the Continental Club in Austin held during the Legends & Legacies Holiday Show, which featured multi-generation family collaborations from Austin musical families performing, including Welch's brother Dustin and father, James McMurty, John Dee Graham, and Charlie Sexton. A Go Fund Me page was created to assist with her medical bills with an overflow of support.
on March 12, 2017, Savannah took the stage at the Austin Music Awards, singing beside her bandmates The Trishas, as well as Charlie Sexton, Carolyn Wonderland, Kelly Willis, and others. The theme of the awards centered on the power of music to heal, unite, inspire, and connect.
Over a year after the accident, the Austin and music communities continued to support Savannah.


Mr. Destiny

Mr. Destiny is a 1990 American fantasy comedy film starring James Belushi. Other actors in this film included Linda Hamilton, Michael Caine, Jon Lovitz, Courteney Cox, Jay O. Sanders and Rene Russo. It is heavily inspired by the 1946 film, It's A Wonderful Life.
Plot.
The story begins on "the strangest day" of Larry Burrows' (James Belushi) life (his 35th birthday) consisting of a series of comic and dramatic misadventures. Larry blames all of his life's problems on having struck out during a key moment of his state high school baseball championship game on his 15th birthday. When he wishes he had done things differently, his wish is granted by a guardian angel-like figure named Mike (Michael Caine), who intermittently appears a bartender, a cab driver, and so on. Larry soon discovers that Mike has transferred him into an alternative reality in which he had won the pivotal high school game. He now finds himself rich and (within his company) powerful, and married to the boss's (Bill McCutcheon) sexy daughter Cindy Jo Bumpers (Rene Russo). At first, his new life seems perfect, but he soon begins to miss his best friend Clip Metzler (Jon Lovitz) and wife Ellen (Linda Hamilton) from his previous life; he also discovers that his alternative self has created many enemies, like Jewel Jagger (Courteney Cox) who was a forklift operator and now she is his secretary and lover, and as Larry's problems multiply, he finds himself wishing to be put back into his old life.
The story begins with Larry's car, an old Ford LTD station wagon, stalled out in a dark alley. Suddenly the pink lights of "The Universal Joint," a bar, come on. Larry goes inside to call a tow truck, and tells bartender Mike his troubles. He reviews the day he just had, which ended with his getting fired after discovering his department head Niles Pender's (Hart Bochner) scheme to sell the company under the nose of its owners to a group of naive Japanese investors. He tells Mike that he wishes he'd hit that last pitch out of the park, after which Mike fixes him a drink called "The Spilt Milk." The Spilt Milk was a drink that gave him his wish that he hit that home run in that championship game.
Larry leaves the bar, walks home (his car apparently towed) and discovers someone else living in his house, which is now fixed up (previously his yard and driveway were muddy and unfinished). Mike appears as a cabdriver and drives him to his "new" home, a mansion in Forest Hills, explaining that he did in fact hit the last pitch and won the game. He soon discovers that Cindy Jo is his wife and he's the president of his company, Liberty Republic Sporting Goods. Being a classic car buff, he's shocked to find that he owns a collection of priceless antique automobiles.
Larry soon discovers that Clip has a low-level job in the accounting department and is quite insecure, as opposed to the joker he previously was. Ellen is shop steward (in both realities) and is married to another man. Jewel, a forklift operator in the previous reality, is now Larry's mistress and his secretary. Ellen hates Larry and he discovers that the union is threatening a walkout due to massive layoffs and increased production, since Niles is selling Liberty Republic in both realities. Seeing Ellen, he realizes how much he misses her and agrees to all the union's demands, providing Ellen agrees to dinner at his favorite restaurant. She reluctantly agrees, and Larry eventually convinces her that they were married in a previous life.
After discovering that Larry has agreed to union demands, Niles takes revenge, by telling both Cindy Jo and Jewel of Larry's dinner date with Ellen. He then plots to kill Larry at the office that night. However, company owner Leo Hansen arrives to deliver a note to Larry, announcing his termination at Cindy Jo's request, and Niles kills him by mistake. Discovering the note, Niles calls the police who attempt to arrest Larry for Leo's murder. Larry escapes while jealous Jewel creates pandemonium outside in her attempts to shoot him (and shoots out a number of police cars in the process), leading to a police chase. Larry is eventually cornered in a dark alley, but the pink glow of "The Universal Joint" comes on and he runs into the bar. Unable to find Mike, Larry attempts to make the "Spilt Milk" himself, the ingredients clearly aged.
What appears to be flashing police car lights appear and Larry surrenders. However, it is a tow truck driven by Duncan. Confused at first, Larry sees Mike back behind the bar and realizes he has been returned to his old life. Larry thanks Mike for everything and, upon exiting the bar, suddenly realizes that the deal with the Japanese investors is happening shortly. Driven by Duncan to company headquarters, Larry barges into the boardroom, decks Niles and exposes his scheme just as Leo is about to sign the deal.
Thinking everyone forgot his birthday, Larry returns home (which still has the muddy driveway and lawn) to a surprise party with his family and friends. Soon after, Cindy Jo and her husband Jackie Earle (Jay O. Sanders), the company president, arrive. Jackie offers Niles' job to Larry, plus a company car, a new Mercedes, and Larry accepts.
In the past, young Larry is about to leave the stadium, still upset about the loss, when he is approached by a mysterious stranger (Mike) who reassures him that everything will be all right. Larry thanks him for the reassurance, but walks off wondering who Mike thinks he is kidding.
Filming.
Portions of the film were filmed in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, using the baseball team from Richard J. Reynolds High School. The office building is the former headquarters of the R. J. Reynolds Tobacco Company.
Reception.
On Rotten Tomatoes the film has an approval rating of 41% based on reviews from 17 critics.
Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times gave the film 2 out of 4 stars and wrote: "The movie is a slow march through foregone conclusions, and its curious passivity is underscored, if that is the word, by the quietest soundtrack I can remember."
Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B+" on an A+ to F scale.


Jagat (film)

Jagat (Tamil: ஜாகட், slang derived from Malay word "jahat," translated as ‘bad’) is a 2015 Malaysian crime drama film. Set in the early 1990s, the story follows a mischievous 12-year-old boy named Appoy and his relationships with his father, Maniam, and his uncles, former drug-addict Bala and local gangster Dorai. The boy faces pressure from his father to focus on school, but he is drawn to his uncle's life of crime.
The background of the film is a critical period in Malaysian Indian history, the coming-of-age story subtly underlines the plight of the Malaysian Indians community who were forsaken by the estate owners and forced to move to the cities, surviving under harsh circumstances.
The film is directed by Shanjhey Kumar Perumal. He has described the film as semi-autobiographical, having lived for two years in squatter areas with his family. It was released on 17 December 2015 in Malaysia.
The film receives positive reviews from critics. It had won the Best Malaysian Film award in the 28th Malaysia Film Festival in 2016, whereas its director Shanjhey Kumar won the award for Best Director. The film also represent Malaysia at Asean Film Fest 2017.
Plot.
The plot centres on Appoy, a spirited kid who would rather watch gangster flicks and make prank calls than memorise his multiplication tables. Desperately trying to keep his son on the straight path, Appoy’s hard-working father becomes increasingly abusive, as the boy is inexorably drawn to the criminal lifestyle of his uncle, a henchman for a local gang. How will their story goes?
Cast.
Main Cast
Supporting cast
Production.
The film took around 10 years to be completed as the production team faced several financial issues.
Filming.
The principal photography for the film was done across 13 different locations in Malaysia. Some of the locations are Klian Intan Pangkalan Hulu, Baling, Lenggong, Grik, Kuala Sepetang, Bukit Rotan, Sabak Bernam, Jasin, Jerantut and Kuala Lumpur.
Music.
The film score and soundtrack album are composed by Kamal Sabran and the Space Gambus Experiment.
There is also separate soundtrack done strictly for promotional purposes called 'JAGAT Naan Nalla Paiyen'.
Reception.
The film was released on 17 December 2015 and is considered to be one of the best Tamil language movies to be made in Malaysia. The film managed to gross a moderate collection in box office despite facing intense competition from blockbuster movies like "" and "Pasanga 2". It was also the first Tamil-language local movie to screen in cinemas for eight weeks running.
The film available for the international audience through Netflix platform starting from April 2019.


Webs (film)

Webs is a 2003 science fiction-horror television film directed by David Wu and starring Richard Grieco, Colin Fox and Kate Greenhouse. Produced by the Sci-Fi Channel, it was filmed in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
Plot.
Four electricians, Dean, Junior, Ray and Shelly (nickname for Sheldon), are sent to cut off the power in a condemned building before it's torn down. They notice there's a difference between the floor plans and the actual size of the building. Upon breaking down a door they discover an old laboratory, which encloses an atomic pile (vintage nuclear reactor) powering a weird machine in the floor. They unwittingly set off an alarm and then boot up the device. Dean falls through a dimensional portal that's created and Junior goes after him, while Ray and Shelly read a journal left behind by the scientists. Dean and Junior appear outside in a deserted and web covered Chicago. Dean goes off to have a look around, while Junior waits for the others. Shelly, by reading the journal, realizes that the researchers were attempting to make a gateway to a parallel universe and he and Ray decide to step through the portal.
Finding no one on the other side of the dimensional portal, Ray and Shelly set off and get a fright when Junior leaps out. Junior leads them to a broken-down security van, with much money in the back. Junior, Ray and Shelly start celebrating, while Dean comes running back armed with a block of wood. Junior suddenly says "Guys" and steps forward with a claw in his stomach. Junior dies, and more creatures (spider people) attack the others. A group of humans save the electricians and kill the creatures. They fight more of the creatures, and head back to the portal, Dean stops to help a survivor and the portal closes leaving him trapped. On Shelly's and Ray's side, the atomic pile shorts the portal. Shelly starts trying to fix it, while Ray goes off to call for help.
The survivors bring Dean into their hideout where they meet Crane. A female survivor, Elayna, insists that Dean come with them to see "The Old Man". She blindfolds him and they set out for the base. Meanwhile, Ray comes back saying that everyone thinks he's insane and refused to send anyone. He did however come back with a small arsenal of guns. Dean meets the Old Man, who is revealed to be Dr. Richard Moreli, the inventor of the portal who got stranded here 30 years ago. Dean tells him his friends are on the other side and trying to fix it. Dr. Moreli tells him when he opened the portal 30 years ago, it let in giant evil Spider Queens into this parallel Earth, who set out to enslave and devour most of humankind. Mankind held out for a while until the ammunition gave out.
Elayna says the "soldiers" (the spider people) used to be normal people, but the Spider Queen's venom makes them completely under her control. Any survivors are made to show the soldiers where their base camp is, so that when others go out and come across these camps, they are empty and bloodstained. They leave the base, to find the Spider Queen has been watching, they hear gunshots and find Shelly and Ray. The survivors bring them back to the base, and Shelly and Moreli begin to build a new portal.
The lookouts later spot "soldiers" in the building and go to hunt them down. Dean and Ray stay behind to defend Shelly and Moreli. Dean gets impatient and goes off to help, leaving Ray alone. Dean, Crane and Elayna, meet up and go back for Moreli, but find Ray with a broken leg and alone. The three set out for the Queen's lair, while Ray stays behind to build traps. They find Moreli in the food chamber, but Shelly has been bitten. Shelly grabs Dean's gun and holds it to his head, telling them to go. The four race back to the base, while Shelly comes face to face with the Queen. Shelly tries to shoot her, but he is too far gone to take the shot. Fully converted by her venom, he leads the Queen and her army back to the base, and the "soldiers" kill everyone but Crane, who kills what remains of her army save Shelly and the Queen. Crane collapses, and Moreli leaves the makeshift lab to go out to him. Crane dies in his arms, and the Queen leaps down and kills Moreli.
Shelly enters the lab, turning off the power. Dean tries to get through to him, but fails and is forced to kill him. Dean and Elayna work hurriedly on the portal, and they are just about to power it up when the Queen shows up. Dean grabs the last two wires to connect, and he connects them to the Queen. The current starts moving between the two, and the Queen gets electrocuted. The portal opens and Dean and Elayna jump through. The strain on the power system causes it to explode, and the Queen to explode with it.
Dean and Elayna wake up on a beach, and they share a kiss, just before the shadow of a large flying animal descends upon them, the two having apparently only made it to another alternate world and not to Dean’s original Earth. Their fate is left to the imagination.
Release.
The film was released on DVD by Universal Pictures on June 7, 2004. It was released again by Image on Aug 5, 2008.
Reception.
The film has received mixed to negative reviews from critics.
Erich Asperschlager from DVD Verdict gave the film a mostly positive review, criticizing the film's predictable beginning and the improbability of the film's conclusion, but also complimented the film's surprisingly effective special effects, summarizing, "Though Webs feels like a combination of elements from much better movies, the sum of those parts is surprisingly tolerable".


Marsuppini Coronation

The Marsuppini Coronation is a painting of the Coronation of the Virgin by the Italian Renaissance painter Filippo Lippi, dating to after 1444. It is in the Pinacoteca Vaticana, Rome.
History.
The panel was commissioned by the chancellor of the Republic of Florence, Carlo Marsuppini, for the St. Bernard Chapel in the eponymous church at Arezzo. His father Gregorio, to whom it would be dedicated, had died in 1444, and thus the work must date to that year or later, up to c. 1460.
The work remained in Arezzo until 1785, when the monastery which owned the church was suppressed. It was subsequently split into three parts and sold to privates, and was later acquired by Pope Gregory XVI. Thenceforth it has been in the Art Gallery of the Vatican Museums.
Description.
The panel has a sober and archaic style, similar to that of Fra Angelico. It is divided into three sections. The central one, on his podium with steps and framed by a shell-shaped niche, is the scene of the coronation of Mary: she is kneeling at the feet of Christ, who puts the crown on his head. At the sides are two symmetrical compositions of three musician angels and two standing saints in the foreground. The latter, who are connected to the monastic orders, are presenting the two donors, Gregorio Marsuppini and his son Carlo, both kneeling.
The musician angels were executed (at least partly) by assistants.


Excess Flesh

Excess Flesh is a 2015 American horror film directed by Patrick Kennelly, written by Sigrid Gilmer and Kennelly, and starring Bethany Orr and Mary Loveless. Orr and Loveless play the gorgeous new roommates who share an obsession with food.
Plot.
Jealous of her very thin supermodel roommate Jennifer, the midsized Jill binges and purges in an attempt to maintain her weight. Their relationship becomes even more strained as Jennifer mocks Jill's issues. Overcome with hatred, Jill lashes out at her roommate and chains Jennifer to the wall, where she taunts her with food. As Jill falls further into madness, her hygiene suffers, as does the cleanliness of the apartment. None of this seems to concern the women's neighbors and the love interest of the movie as they come to try to check on the women, and Jennifer continues to insult Jill even while restrained.
Jennifer manages to escape at one point and Jill manages to catch up to her on the street just as police officers in passing notice the girls' state of near undress. Despite having officers there, Jennifer says nothing. Jill attributes Jennifer's catatonic state to insomnia and stress and manages to get Jennifer back to the apartment. Jill bathes Jennifer, telling her how she was worried and scared about her. Jennifer finally tries to call for help and Jill strangles her into unconsciousness. Pushed to the edge by Jennifer's continual abuse, Jill finally stabs her to death and envisions taking her place on the modeling stage; however, Jill is seen still alone in the dirty apartment, implying that Jennifer only existed in Jill's mind.
Production.
Kennelly came up with the idea for the film ten years prior its release after reading about eating disorders and how they can physicalize mental issues. The isolation of living in Los Angeles was another inspiration, and Kennelly said that the situations in the story came from his and co-writer Gilmer's experiences. Kennelly wanted to create a horror film using the tropes of romantic comedies and sitcoms, genres that he said he found scary. Kennelly enjoys films that confront and challenge audiences, and he wanted this film to do the same. Kennelly had gone to school with Loveless and believed that she would be good for the role of Jennifer. Orr was cast after auditioning. The film was shot mostly in sequence. Orr and Loveless said that this contributed to developing a better understanding of their characters. There was also a practical reason: the apartment had to be progressively destroyed throughout the story. Due to the trashed set and food that was required to be left out, the crew wore masks. Orr said that she found her character to be an unlikely hero despite her being "brutally flawed". Shooting lasted for three weeks, and many scenes were done in four or less takes. Orr said that she spent so much time getting into character that it was difficult for her when shooting ended. Kennelly said of the film, ""Excess Flesh" is a visualization of what goes on inside a woman's head. It's about the nightmare of the self in the modern world."
The film's score was composed and produced by Jonathan Snipes, best known as a member of noise-rap group clipping.
Release.
"Excess Flesh" premiered at South by Southwest on March 13, 2015. Midnight Releasing will release the film on DVD and video on demand on March 8, 2016.
Reception.
Marc Savlov of "The Austin Chronicle" compared it to Nick Zedd's Cinema of Transgression and said that it is "nauseating, perceptive, and an altogether damning indictment of a hyper-consumerist society run amuck". Writing in "The Daily Beast", Marlow Stern called it "the most twisted movie at SXSW—and of the year, so far". Susanna Jackson of WBUR-FM wrote that it is "handled both thoughtfully and perhaps over gratuitously". Shock Till You Drop's Samuel Zimmerman wrote, "This is a film as informed by the veneer of Los Angeles as it is sickened by it; a layer cake of aggression, shame and madness. It's pretty exhilarating." Matt Donato of We Got This Covered rated it 2.5/5 stars and wrote, ""Excess Flesh" starts out by asking the right questions about body shaming, but it quickly crumbles like a stale, tasteless fruitcake that's meant only for decoration." Heather Wixson of Daily Dead rated it 2/5 stars and wrote that the film is not as clever or insightful as it seems to think it is.


Angelo Muscat

Angelo Muscat (24 September 1930 – 10 October 1977) was a Maltese character actor. He is primarily recalled for his role as the mute butler in the 1967 TV series "The Prisoner".
Biography.
Muscat was born in Malta to a policeman father. He was distinctly diminutive at only , although both his parents and his three brothers were over in height. Muscat initially found work as a kitchen porter and then as a stoker at an RAF base in Malta. After the death of his parents and finding himself largely alone, he moved to England where he worked in a zip-fastener factory. In 1961 Muscat joined a production of "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs" that was to tour the United Kingdom. Moving into television, he played a Chumbley robot in the "Doctor Who" serial "Galaxy 4" (1965), played the part of a clown in the ITV series "Emergency – Ward 10" and appeared as the Queen's Servant in the BBC television adaptation of "Alice in Wonderland" (1966).
Muscat appeared in the television series "The Prisoner" (1967-1968) with Patrick McGoohan, appearing in 14 of the 17 episodes as the mute butler. He played an Oompa-Loompa in "Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory" (uncredited, 1971). He also appeared in the Beatles' "Magical Mystery Tour" (1967).
During his later years, Muscat lived alone and virtually penniless in a basement flat in North London. He found it difficult to find acting work, and to supplement his income he made ornate birdcages by hand.
Death.
Muscat died on 10 October 1977, aged 47 at St Bartholomew's Hospital in London.
Legacy.
Each year, on 10 October a small group of enthusiasts dubbed the "Friends of Angelo Muscat" (FOAM) celebrate his life.


Spring Day (Pozdneev)

Spring Day (Russian: "Весенний день (картина Н. Позднеева)" is a painting by Russian artist Nikolai Matveevich Pozdneev (1930–1978). It attempts to convey the mood of Soviet society of the late 1950s to the early 1960s.
History.
"Spring Day" was one of the first original genre compositions by Nikolai Pozdneev. He developed the theme for the first time raised three years earlier in his graduate painting "From the School" (1956, now reside in collection of the Pskov Painting Gallery). The first version of painting shown in 1960 on the principal Art Show in Leningrad and in Moscow the author does not fully satisfied. Pozdneev repainted the picture, making it a more extended vertically. A group of children has shifted from the center to the upper left corner. The bold decision proved justified: composition of the painting acquired aspiration, which is consistent with the general concept of the work. Were reinforced color accents, the lighter has become the whole palette of the picture. As a result, in the work began to fully feel the air of spring and hope, in tune with the mood of the era turn of the decades.
From 1960 to 1980, "Spring Day" was kept in the artist's family. In 1994, after a long pause, it was featured at the "Painting of 1940-1990s. The Leningrad School" Art Show in the Exhibition Halls of the Saint Petersburg Union of Artists.
In 1995-1996 "Spring Day" was exhibited in Saint Petersburg in the "Nekrasov Memorial Museum" at the exhibitions "The Lyrical motive in painting of artists of the WWII generation", and "Painting of 1940-1990s. The Leningrad School".
The painting was reproduced on the official poster and cover of exhibition catalog.
In 2007 the "Spring Day" was reproduced and described among 350 art works by Leningrad artists in the book "«Unknown Socialist Realism. The Leningrad School»", published in Russian and English.
In 2019 painting "Spring Day" was reproduced in the book "The Leningrad School of Painting. Essays on the History". published in Russian and English.


Negatives (film)


Mikhail Scotti

Mikhail Ivanovich Scotti or Michele Pietro Scotti (Russian: Михаил Иванович Скотти; 29 October 1814, Saint Petersburg - 11 March 1861, Paris) was a Russian historian, portrait and religious painter of Italian ancestry.
Biography.
His father was the decorative painter, (originally, Giovanni Battista Scotti), who was probably born in Northern Italy and brought to Russia at the age of ten by his father, , also a painter, who was invited there by Giacomo Quarenghi.
He received his primary education at Saint Catherine's catholic school. After his father's death, he was adopted and raised by the artist, Alexei Yegorov, who had himself been an orphan. He also audited classes at the Imperial Academy of Arts, and was awarded a silver medal for drawing from life. He graduated with a gold medal in 1835. For a time, he worked on the estate, near Ardatov, giving drawing lessons and painting icons.
Shortly after, he went to Italy, by way of Germany with Count Pavel Kutaisov, chairman of the Imperial Society for the Encouragement of the Arts, and remained there until 1844. That year, he painted icons for the Russian Orthodox chapel at the embassy in Istanbul. In 1845, he created another series of icons for Saviour Cathedral in Nizhny Novgorod, for which he was awarded the title of "Academician".
After 1849, he went to Moscow to replace as a teacher and inspector at the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture. His students there included Konstantin Makovsky, Nikolai Nevrev, Vasily Perov and Sergei Gribkov. He also continued to paint numerous religious works; notably at the Annunciation Church in Saint Petersburg, under the direction of its designer, Konstantin Thon.
In 1857, he began to travel, visiting Italy, Spain and France. He died in Paris after a brief, sudden illness and was buried at the Montmartre Cemetery.


Mick Walter

Mick Walter (born Michael E. Walter in Huddersfield, Yorkshire, in 1955), often referred to by the stage name Big Mick, is an English actor. He is known for appearing in television comedies, first appearing as Jack Large in "Blackadder". He has also appeared in "Black Books", "Green Wing", "Toast of London" and "Psychoville".
He has appeared in the BBC's adaptations of three of "The Chronicles of Narnia": in 1988, he played the White Witch's dwarf in "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe", in 1989, he played Trumpkin in "Prince Caspian", and again in 1990 in "The Silver Chair". He also appeared in "Lexx", most notably as the cross-dressing Titania. His film roles include "Dazzle" (1999) as Bodkin, "Pets" (1999) as Mick and "The Last Leprechaun" (1998) as Finn Regan McCool. In April 2006, Walter appeared in an episode of the ITV soap opera "Emmerdale" as bit-part character Billy Trotter.
In 2010, he appeared in panto at the Alhambra Theatre, Bradford as one of the Seven Dwarves in "Snow White".
Walter is in height. Before he became an actor, he was a drummer for Wild Oates, a three piece band based in Huddersfield.


The Cambridge Squatter

The Cambridge Squatter (Brazilian Portuguese: Era o Hotel Cambridge) is a 2016 Brazilian film directed by Eliane Caffé. It tells a fictionalised version of the occupation of the Cambridge Hotel in innercity São Paulo. Filmed mainly in the building, actual squatters act alongside well-known Brazilian actors such as José Dumont and Suely Franco.
Synopsis.
The film tracks the occupation of the Cambridge Hotel by low-paid workers and refugees. It is a large 15 storey building in the innercity of São Paulo. The squatters include people from the Congo, Haiti, Syria and Palestine as well as from Brazil. From the established actors, José Dumont plays Apolo, who in a film within the film is workshopping a documentary set in the building and Suely Franco is Gilda, an elderly circus performer. A charismatic housing activist is played by Carmen Silva (who is in real life a campaigner with Frente de Luta por Moradia (FLM, or the Front for Housing Struggle)). Filming mostly inside the squat, the camera follows the different characters as they go about their daily routines of cooking food, skyping family members, attending meetings and interacting with each other. The threat of eviction is seen off after Silva encourages everyone to throw coconuts at the police on the street.
Production.
In order to get everyone on the same level, Caffé ran a series of workshops for a year with the actors and the squatters. After the film was completed, the art director (and sister of the director) Carla Caffé produced a book about the production process which was called "The Cambridge Squatter". The book explains that the film-makers helped to build a vegetable garden and taught camera workshops.
Reviews.
The film received generally positive reviews. Cineuropa said that Caffé reveals "with a brutal candour tempered by humour and affection, a glimpse of the everyday lives of the protagonists". FIPRESCI commented that the film was not perfect but "the essence is a timely film, global and urgent". Hollywood Reporter concluded that "this uneven film delivers a potent combination of empathy and food for thought, not unlike a coconut thrown at the establishment's head".
Accolades.
At the Rio de Janeiro International Film Festival, the film won Best Film (Audience), Best Brazilian Film and Best Editing.


Mabel Pakenham-Walsh

Mabel Pakenham-Walsh (2 September 1937 − 19 August 2013) was a British painter, sculptor and designer, and pioneering female artist in post-war European figurative art. She worked in many mediums, but is particularly well known for her colourful wooden relief sculptures. Her work was significantly influenced by primitive and outsider art, and created primarily from recycled materials, earning her recognition as an early eco artist.
Life.
Mabel Pakenham-Walsh was born in Lancaster, England, the daughter of Robert Pakenham-Walsh, a prominent psychiatrist. Born with congenital hip dysplasia, she suffered lifelong physical disability; and in 1957, while a student at university, she was badly injured in a major car accident which compounded her disability. Consequently, Pakenham-Walsh campaigned throughout her life for disability rights, especially for children and youths, ultimately leaving a legacy with the Snowdon Trust to assist disabled students in future. Pakenham-Walsh was active in the London arts scene throughout the 1960s and '70s, and befriended many significant figures, including Lord Snowdon, Frances Bond, Martin Leman, Maeve and Mervyn Peake, Wendy Ramshaw, and Tom Stoppard. Pakenham-Walsh also taught woodcarving classes to Further Education students in Kent, England. In the late 1970s she moved to Aberystwyth, Wales, where she continued to create, and became a local legend and beloved eccentric.
Education.
Pakenham-Walsh trained as an artist at Lancaster and Morecambe College of Arts and Crafts (1954–58) and Wimbledon College of Art (1958-59). The writer and artist Mervyn Peake was an early mentor.
Career.
From the beginning of her career, Pakenham-Walsh created drawings, paintings, and sculptures made almost exclusively from mundane and salvaged materials; this unique strategy was borne of necessity as Pakenham-Walsh encountered "social barriers associated with being a female artist in the mid twentieth century, which made it difficult for her [...] to acquire raw materials for her art." Pakenham-Walsh's first published artwork was in the early 1960s when her biro drawings appeared in the literary journal "Transatlantic Review". At that time, she was employed as a designer at Pinewood Studios, where she created set-pieces for major motion-pictures, including "Cleopatra"; she also worked as a sculptor at Shepperton Studios. From 1965 to 1982, she exhibited at the Summer Exhibitions of the Royal Academy of Arts in London. During this era, select London artists rejected abstraction and conceptualism to pursue "the depiction of the human figure and everyday landscape"; Pakenham-Walsh also sought to depict ordinary daily life, creating art that was both "playful and profound [to] invoke the deep time of human nature." Pakenham-Walsh "exhibited widely in her lifetime in many art galleries and museums" worldwide. Her work has been shown at the Victoria and Albert Museum, and is held in numerous public and private collections, including: the National Library of Wales, the Ulster Museum, Aberystwyth University, and the UK Craft Council; the actor and art historian Vincent Price and the photographer Lord Snowdon also admired and collected her work.


Kushka (film)

Kushka (English: "Biriyani Rice") is a 2020 Indian Kannada drama film, directed and edited by Vikram Yoganand, produced by Prathap Reddy, Madhu Gowda and Kailash Pal under the banner of Smart Screen Productions and PM Productions. The film follows "Heegondhu Dina" (2018) and features writer and actor Guruprasad, along with Kailash Pal and Sanjana Anand. The director Yoganand is also credited as cinematographer. The songs are composed by Abhilash Gupta.
The film derives its name from the Khuska Rice, which is a popular dish from Southern India. It was theatrically released on 13 March 2020.
Movie inspired from Snatch, Delhi Belly, Hungama films. cryper crime comedy genre which is new in South Indian movies.
Promotion and release.
The official teaser was launched by Smart Screen Productions on 20 January 2020.
It was theatrically released on 13 March 2020.
Soundtrack.
The soundtrack composed by Abhilash Gupta and lyrics by Rahul Dit-O and Ramakrishna Ranagatti.
External links.


The Monk by the Sea

The Monk by the Sea () is an oil painting by the German Romantic artist Caspar David Friedrich. It was painted between 1808 and 1810 in Dresden and was first shown together with the painting "The Abbey in the Oakwood" ("Abtei im Eichwald") in the Berlin Academy exhibition of 1810. On Friedrich's request "The Monk by the Sea" was hung above "The Abbey in the Oakwood". After the exhibition, both pictures were bought by king Frederick Wilhelm III for his collection. Today, the paintings hang side by side in the Alte Nationalgalerie, Berlin.
For its lack of concern with creating the illusion of depth, "The Monk by the Sea" was Friedrich's most radical composition. The broad expanses of sea and sky emphasize the meager figure of the monk, standing before the vastness of nature and the presence of God.
Development.
A single figure, dressed in a long garment, stands on a low dune sprinkled with grass. The figure, usually identified as a monk, has turned almost completely away from the viewer and surveys a rough sea and a gray, blank sky that takes up about three quarters of the picture. It is unclear whether he is standing on a high rock or only on a gentle slope to the sea. The dune forms an inexpressive triangle in the composition, at the farthest point of which is the figure. Contrasting with the dark ocean there are several whitecaps of waves sometimes mistaken for seagulls.
Although Friedrich's paintings are landscapes, he designed and painted them in his studio, using freely drawn plein air sketches, from which he chose the most evocative elements to integrate into an expressive composition. The composition of "The Monk by the Sea" shows evidence of this reductive process, as Friedrich removed elements from the canvas after they were painted. Recent scientific investigations have revealed that he had initially painted two small sailing ships on the horizon, which he later removed. Friedrich continued to modify the details of the painting right up to its exhibition—to the sky's grey was added blue, with stars and a moon—but the basic composition always stayed the same.
The picture appeared at a time when Friedrich had his first public success and critical acknowledgment with his controversial "Tetschener Altar", a work that explicitly fused the landscape format with a religious theme. "The Monk by the Sea" furthered his success and drew much attention.
Friedrich probably began the painting in Dresden, 1808. In a letter of February 1809, he described the image for the first time. The stages in its conception were also documented by guests to his studio. In June 1809, the wife of painter Gerhard von Kügelgen, an acquaintance of Friedrich, visited him and later criticized the painting in a letter; she was put off by the loneliness of the setting and the lack of consolation that movement or narrative might provide the "unending space of air".
Art historian Albert Boime believed that the figure of the monk was Friedrich, walking on the cliffs at Rügen, which would place the subject near the site where a Protestant mystic built a chapel for poor fishermen who were far from home and wished to profess their faith. The identification of the monk as a self-portrait has been accepted by other scholars, both for physical resemblances to Friedrich (the long blond hair and round skull), and for the fact that, in keeping with the perception of artists as belonging to a "higher priesthood", Friedrich later painted himself in a monk's clothing.
Contemporary reception.
The painting was exhibited in its current form at the Berlin Academy in October 1810, to much controversy and criticism. The composition notably lacks a repoussoir—a framing device that leads the viewer's gaze into the image. Rather, the emptiness of the foreground is overwhelming. It is commonly argued that a viewer of this painting has difficulty relating himself to the picture's space. One cannot mentally "penetrate" the image: Friedrich has created an unbridgeable gap between the monk and the viewer. The monk is cut off from us spatially and existentially, and there are no traditional landscape elements that might soften the effect—only a cold sky and a flat foreground, void of greenery, and a dark sea, reduced to a narrow band on which no vessels sail. Friedrich has compressed space in a manner anticipating abstract art; "The Monk by the Sea" has been described as "perhaps the first 'abstract' painting in a very modern sense".
In the month of the exhibition, German Romantic author Clemens Brentano submitted an article on the painting to the "Berliner Abendblätter", a new daily journal edited by his friend Heinrich von Kleist. The piece, titled "Different Feelings about a Seascape by Friedrich on which is a Capuchin Monk", was critical of the work, but Kleist substantially revised Brentano's text to produce an article sympathetic to Friedrich's painting. Kleist's commentary has become a central element in discussion of the painting and of Friedrich; the two men are seen as at odds with the aesthetic of the more conventional German Romantics, in which Brentano was firmly entrenched.
Kleist wrote, for example:
How wonderful it is to sit completely alone by the sea under an overcast sky, gazing out over the endless expanse of water. It is essential that one has come there just for this reason, and that one has to return. That one would like to go over the sea but cannot; that one misses any sign of life, and yet one senses the voice of life in the rush of the water, in the blowing of the wind, in the drifting of the clouds, in the lonely cry of the birds ... No situation in the world could be more sad and eerie than this—as the only spark of life in the wide realm of death, a lonely center in a lonely circle... Nevertheless, this definitively marks a totally new departure in Friedrich's art...
More famously, Kleist also wrote, "since in its monotony and boundlessness it has no foreground except the frame, when viewing it, it is as if one's eyelids had been cut away."
The painting was too minimalist for Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, who had been a supporter of Friedrich by introducing his work to the duke of Weimar and gaining prizes for him at an 1805 exhibition. Goethe said the painting "could be looked at standing on one's head", making a criticism that would be levied against abstract artists a century later.
Influence.
"The Monk by the Sea" inspired responses from painters like Gustave Courbet and James Abbott McNeill Whistler later in the 19th century. In works such as Gustave Courbet's "The Coast Near Palavas" a lone figure is depicted as a seeker, similarly exposed and looking out to sea.
Friedrich, though a Romantic painter, had a significant influence on later Symbolist and Expressionist artists. Franz Marc's "Horse in a Landscape" (1910) has been described as formally similar to "The Monk by the Sea". Although their use of colour is at two extremes, both paintings are compositionally simple, with undulating horizontals and a figure that looks out at the same scene as the viewer. In his 1961 article "The Abstract Sublime", the art historian Robert Rosenblum drew comparisons between the Romantic landscape paintings of both Friedrich and Turner with the Abstract Expressionist paintings of Mark Rothko. Rosenblum specifically describes "The Monk by the Sea", Turner's "The Evening Star" and Rothko's 1954 "Light, Earth and Blue" as revealing affinities of vision and feeling. According to Rosenblum, "Rothko, like Friedrich and Turner, places us on the threshold of those shapeless infinities discussed by the aestheticians of the Sublime. The tiny monk in the Friedrich and the fisher in the Turner establish a poignant contrast between the infinite vastness of a pantheistic God and the infinite smallness of His creatures. In the abstract language of Rothko, such literal detail—a bridge of empathy between the real spectator and the presentation of a transcendental landscape—is no longer necessary; we ourselves are the monk before the sea, standing silently and contemplatively before these huge and soundless pictures as if we were looking at a sunset or a moonlit night." From the 1960s on, Gotthard Graubner's picture-size coloured cushions or "color-space bodies" were also inspired by Friedrich's "The Monk by the Sea". According to art historian Werner Hofmann, both Graubner and Friedrich created an aesthetics of monotony as a counterpart to the aesthetics of variety that was predominant before the nineteenth century.


A Long Return

A Long Return, also known by the title Largo Retorno in Spain, is a 1975 Spanish romantic film, directed by Pedro Lazaga.
Plot.
A vibrant young college student, Anna (Lynne Frederick), catches eye of architect, David Ortega (Mark Burns), at an orchestra show. She quickly falls in love with him and begins to pursue him. Although David is initially hesitant, she eventually wins his love. The two become inseparable and eventually get married.
Soon after their Venice honeymoon, Anna begins acting strange; experiencing sudden fatigue, grogginess, and memory loss (even forgetting her best friend). Eventually Anna is hospitalized and doctors diagnose her condition as lipomatosis of the nervous system, a rare and deadly disease that is quickly killing her. While in the hospital, with her husband by her bed side, Anna suddenly goes into a state of a coma. Doctors tell David that his wife has less than days to live and he desperately pleads with them for help of any kind. They inform him that Anna's only chance of survival is to put her in a state of perpetual deep cryogenic sedation, which would shut down her body (stopping the disease from spreading), freeze her in time, and prevent her from aging, until a cure can be found, in which event she would be taken out of sedation. With great optimism, David accepts and Anna is put in a state of cryogenic sedation.
For forty agonizing and heart acing years, David remains faithful to Anna and waits for a cure to be found. Meanwhile, Anna’s friends and family move on with their lives, even as going as far as wanting to pull the plug on her and bury her, as she remains sedated. A cure is finally found in 2014, and she is successfully taken out of sedation and fully cured. When Anna awakens she is kept at the hospital for observations. She repeatedly asks to see her husband, not knowing he is now middle aged and that she has been in sedation for the last forty years. The doctor denies her request.
The ice is broken when her best friend, Irene (now well past her 60s), visits her and informs her of what has happened in the last forty years (such events like Anna’s parents dying and the inevitable changes David has succumb to with age). When she is released from the hospital, Irene takes her to David, and much to his delight, Anna greets him with overflowing love and affection. Later that night David expresses his trepidation and guilt of the age difference in their relationship. Anna assures David that her love for him is still there, and that it is stronger than ever for him remaining faithful to her.
The couple has only a short time together as David dies (possibly of heart failure or old age) a few days later. After David’s death, Anna’s doctor comes by the house, asking the grief-stricken widow, where she will go from here. She replies, in a sorrowful manner, “Go on living.” Anna then has a flash back to her first date with David when he gave Anna her motto (“Today is the first day of the rest of your life”). She then tearfully glances at the doctor and utters to him “Today is the first day of the rest of my life,” knowing David would want her to go on living her life.
Production.
Lynne Frederick got the part of Anna largely because she had the ability to cry out of either eye on cue. Due to the productions low budget, many of the outfits that Frederick wore in the film were from her own personal wardrobe. She recycled some of these outfits a year later when she starred in the film "Schizo" (1976).
Frederick herself did all her own singing for the film's English soundtrack. The songs on the Spanish soundtrack were performed by vocalist, Mariví Navarrete. The films score never had an official soundtrack release and, like the movie, remains obscure.
The film was shot in Madrid, Segovia, Venice and Mallorca, in 1975.
Release.
"A Long Return" was released in Spain on 26 May 1975. In Italy it was released under the title "A Venezia muore un'estate". One alternate English title it was released under was "A Long Returning".
Home video.
The film was only available in the early '80s on PAL Betamax and VHS. It was released in English, Spanish, Italian, and English with Greek subtitles. The film was never available in the US on DVD or VHS. Today the film is out of print and physical copies are near impossible to find anywhere.
Critical reception.
Upon release the film received mixed to favorable reviews from critics, who praised Burns's and Frederick's performances but jeered some of the science and medical fiction elements.
Legacy.
With the increase of Lynne Frederick's new found cult following in recent years, the movie has become a fan favorite and enjoyed a second life on the internet with fans praising Frederick's acting and beauty in the film. Many noting the film as her best work.
The film has been frequently associated with Frederick's other Spanish film, "El Vicio Y La Virtud" (The Vice and Virtue), which was released the same year. Despite the popular demand for both films, neither have received a DVD release.
Mark Burns later stated that this film was one of his favorites from his whole career. But after the films theatrical run Burns didn't see it again for nearly thirty years. It wasn't until about a few years before his death (in 2007) that an acquaintance of his tracked down the film for him to see, much to his delight.


Portrait of Manuel Godoy

Portrait of Manuel Godoy is a large 1801 oil on canvas painting by the Spanish artist Francisco de Goya, now in the Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando. It was commissioned by the Spanish Prime Minister Manuel Godoy to commemorate his victory in the brief War of the Oranges against Portugal.
The portrait is an incisive psychological characterisation. The subject's self belief is depicted via his unusual reclining posture, the surrounding horses, and the phallic baton situated between his legs. The painting metaphorically places Godoy sitting at the apex of the Spanish government. The artist captures Godoy's arrogance through his posture, and the inclusion of Portuguese flags. The choice of lighting gives intensity to the piece.
In 1801 Godoy was the height of his power, having won in the War of the Oranges he was now Generalissimo of "land and sea" and "Prince of Peace"; pompous titles he willingly accepted. He and Goya were friends, Godoy owned two of the artist's portraits of Majas, which he may have commissioned. He was close to and held influence over the Charles IV of Spain's wife, Maria Luisa of Parma, and married into the royal family via the Countess of Chinchon, a cousin of the king. Goya had earlier portrayed Godoy in 1794 when he was Duke of Alcudia, with a small equestrian portrait. His career ended in disgrace and after the Spanish War of Independence, after which he was banished to live in poverty. He died in exile in Paris in 1851. Despite his fall he continued to speak favourably for the artist, and in his memoirs referred to Goya's "Caprichos" with extreme favour, as if he himself had seen them published.


Vartan Makhokhian

Vartan Makhokhian (; 31 May 1869 – 10 February 1937) was an Armenian painter who lived in the Ottoman Empire and France and was known for his marine paintings. After completing his studies at the Berlin Academy of Arts, he traveled and exhibited his art in France, Germany, Egypt and elsewhere. His art is displayed in various museums throughout the world.
Life and career.
Vartan Makhokhian was born in Trabzon in the Ottoman Empire on 31 May 1869 to Armenian parents. His father, Aristakes Makhokhian, was a merchant who demanded that his two daughters and four sons be educated. In 1875, Makhokhian began his early education at a local Armenian school where he took an interest in drawing. He later attended the prestigious Sanasarian College in Erzurum, returning to Trabzon after five years of study. During his time spent at Sanasarian, Makhokhian learned to paint. He also learned to play the violin and studied music theory. Makhokhian's uncle persuaded him to pursue a career in art. In 1891, Makhokhian began studies at the Berlin Academy of Arts where he was trained under the directorship of and Hans Gude.
Makhokhian graduated from the academy in 1894 and traveled to the Crimea, where he met with renowned Russian Armenian painter Ivan Aivazovsky in Feodosia. While in Russia, Makhokhian painted various scenes of the sea. He returned to his native Trabzon in 1895 and witnessed the Hamidian massacres. He escaped first to Batum and then to Europe where he began exhibiting his art. One of his first exhibitions was in Berlin in 1900. In 1904 Makhokhian was accepted into the Berlin Artists' Association. He traveled to Egypt where he exhibited over 150 pieces of his artwork in Alexandria and Cairo. After a brief stop in Denmark, Makhokhian went to Italy, settled in Capri and continued painting there. He returned to Germany in 1907 and participated in various exhibitions Berlin, Düsseldorf, and Munich.
He returned to the Ottoman Empire in 1908 and settled in his hometown of Trabzon. He continued to paint there, but with the start of World War I and the Armenian Genocide, Makhokhian moved to Nice, France in 1914, where he remained the rest of his life.
He received French citizenship in 1927, two years after being awarded the Legion of Honor. He participated in the Paris Salon in 1921, 1922, and 1927. In 1931 a personal exhibition was held at the Palais de la Méditerranée in Nice which included 65 of his works. He also exhibited his works in Monte Carlo in 1932.
In 1915, in memory of those who died during the Armenian Genocide, Makhokhian composed a symphony entitled "The Sobbing of Armenia". It was first performed at Monte Carlo in 1918 and then played throughout Europe.
After a long illness, Makhokhian died on 10 February 1937 in Nice, France at the age of 67.
Exhibitions.
Vartan Makhokhian held exhibitions in Cairo, Alexandria (1904), Munich, Düsseldorf, Berlin (1907), Berlin (1907), London (1914), Nice (1918, 1932, 1936), Marseilles (1923), Paris (1925), and Monaco (1932).
Awards.
He received the Legion of Honour with the degree of "Chevalier" (Knight) in 1925.
Legacy.
French art critic Camille Mauclair published a book in 1918 about Makhokhian entitled "Le Peintre de la mer Wartan Makhokhian" (French: The Painter of the Sea Vartan Makhokhian). In it, Mauclair describes his work as follows:
Makhokhian's art is displayed in museums throughout the world, including the Musée des Beaux-Arts de Nice, Musée Arménien de France, National Gallery of Armenia, and the Pontifical Residence of the Etchmiadzin Cathedral.


The Darkest Universe

The Darkest Universe is a 2016 black comedy film by Will Sharpe and Tom Kingsley. The film premiered at the London Comedy Film Festival (LOCO) in April 2016, and subsequently screened at the East End Film Festival in July 2016. The film was written by Tiani Ghosh and Will Sharpe and was shot over a three-year period from 2013 to 2015. It is set on the canals of London and tells the story of the disappearance of a young couple on a narrow boat.
Plot.
Zac (Will Sharpe) is a lonely, highly strung city trader on the edge of a psychological breakdown. He has lost everything—his job, his girlfriend Eva (Sophia Di Martino) and, most devastatingly, his weird and wayward younger sister Alice (Tiani Ghosh), the only family he had left. Alice is now a missing person, having disappeared on a narrow boat trip along with her kindred drifter and boyfriend Toby (Joe Thomas). Zac becomes increasingly frustrated with the futile attempts of the police to find them and, eventually, decides to take matters into his own inexpert hands by starting a terribly executed video blog and scouring the dark canals of the UK in a desperate, perhaps even deluded search for clues. Struggling for information and fast losing hope, Zac reflects on his past and the difficult relationship he had with Alice. Wracked with guilt and regret, his sanity starts to unravel as he fights with memories of her in the weeks leading up to her disappearance. As he remembers her sweetly burgeoning relationship with the mysterious Toby, however, he begins to wonder if there may in fact be a grander, wilder, much stranger explanation for their disappearance.


Vaughn Bell

Vaughn Bell (born 1978, Syracuse, New York) is an environmental artist working with sculpture, installation, performance and video, who lives and works in Seattle, Washington. Vaughn received her MFA from the Studio for Inter-related Media at Massachusetts College of Art in Boston, MA and her undergraduate degree from Brown University, where her work focused on "Nature and Culture: Human Perspectives on the Natural Environment".
Work.
Bell creates interactive projects and immersive environments which affect the ways in which we relate to our environment. She has exhibited her sculpture, installation, performance, video and public projects internationally. Her commissions include installations at the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art, the Edith Russ Site for New Media Art in Oldenburg, Germany, the Owens Walter E. Terhune Art Gallery in Ohio, and the Schuylkill Center for Environmental Education and Chemical Heritage Foundation in Philadelphia, PA. Her work has been featured in Artnews, Afterimage, and Arcade Journal, among others.
Many of her pieces are "personal biospheres", living spaces into which people can insert themselves at eye-to-ground level to intimately experience the sight, smell, and touch of a growing world. Some are single-person environments while others, like the "biosphere for three" at the Edith Russ House, accommodate multiple people. Vaughn Bell has also explored the boundaries between plants and people by making plants a part of wearable clothing, and treating them like pets.
Bell has been employed as a “staff artist” by the Seattle Department of Transportation (SDOT), working on arts planning and integrating design enhancements into public projects such as trails, sidewalks, and bridges.


Darlington Memorial Fountain

The Darlington Memorial Fountain is a gilded bronze statue by C. Paul Jennewein. It is located at Judiciary Park at 5th Street and D Street, Northwest, Washington, D.C., in the Judiciary Square neighborhood.
Background.
The Darlington Memorial Fountain was named after Joseph J. Darlington. As a young man, Darlington came to Washington to attend law school in 1849. He then gained an office on Fifth Street, and was known as the leader of the legal community. Darlington worked on Fifth Street for the remainder of his career.
Shortly after his death, friends and colleagues proposed to have a memorial built in his honor. A committee was formed under Frank J. Hogan to further the cause. After Congress passed a resolution in favor of the memorial, the committee passed its design selection responsibilities to the United States Commission of Fine Arts.
Design.
The design by C. Paul Jennewein was approved by the United States Commission of Fine Arts, in 1921.
It was installed in November 1923. There was some controversy about the nymph, both for its nudity and its lack of reference to Darlington.
Inscription.
The inscription reads:
Awards.
The sculpture was awarded the 1926 Fairmount Park Association Prize from the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. Another example was acquired by Brookgreen Gardens in 1940, from Charles Louis Borie, friend of the sculptor.


Landscape with the Finding of Moses

Landscape with the Finding of Moses is an oil painting on canvas of 1639–40 by Claude Lorrain, one of a series commissioned from the artist by Philip IV of Spain for the Palacio del Buen Retiro. It is now in the collection of the Museo del Prado.


The Ginger Bread Boy

The Ginger Bread Boy is a 1934 animated short by Walter Lantz Productions and is among the many films of the Oswald the Lucky Rabbit series. The story mentioned in the cartoon is based on "The Gingerbread Man", published in "St. Nicholas Magazine" in 1875.
Plot.
In a living room, Oswald and the boy beagle are listening to a radio, awaiting a program. Suddenly, they are interrupted by a baby dog from another room who is sucking a thumb very loudly. Not wanting to be bothered by the noise, the boy beagle approaches the small puppy and puts a boxing glove on the latter's hand. The two friends resume their waiting at the radio, only to be disturbed again by the bawling baby dog. The boy beagle then comes back to help the little mutt burp as well as giving a diaper change.
While Oswald and the boy beagle are still anticipating at the living room, the baby dog comes to them, craving for chocolate pudding. This time, Oswald stands up and takes the little mutt to the dining room. The rabbit then provides a serving spoon and a bowl with the dessert. When the baby dog gets busy eating, Oswald and the boy beagle were finally listening to their sound system in peace. Their awaited program is a fairy tale about a live ginger bread boy.
Once there was a spinster who desperately wanted to have children but simply couldn't obtain any. Thus she decided to create a boy out of ginger bread. After baking one in the oven, it came to life somehow.
While the ginger bread boy is still on the table, getting used to his new life, the household cat sees and finds him delicious. The cat began running after the humanoid biscuit, much to the spinster's dismay.
A clever dodger, the ginger bread boy was unfazed by the cat's ferocity and is able to keep himself at a safe distances. With a little help from the spinster, he eventually drove the fearsome feline away from household, resulting a favorable outcome for both him and his surrogate mother.
Back in the living room, Oswald and the boy beagle were enjoying themselves, listening to the rest of their radio program. Just then, the baby dog comes in again, wanting to have a hobby after such a meal. Still having a large supply of chocolate pudding, the small puppy decides to splatter it on the faces of the two friends, thus leading to a friendly food fight.
Directing.
Unusual to most shorts of the series, the person who directed the cartoon is not credited, although some believe it was Fred "Tex" Avery. The reason to this remains undisclosed.
Differences from the original story.
In the original version of the fairy tale, the ginger bread boy ends up eaten by the animal chasing him, namely a fox. In this adaptation, he subdues his predator and remains alive. Also in the original story, the ginger bread would always try to run away from anyone (including his creator) just for pleasure. In the film, he cherishes his human mother and would not run off.


Matilda Lotz

Matilda Lotz is known for being one of California's premiere female artists, as well as being a prominent animal portrait artist. Lotz was born and raised in the Lotz House, which became the site of an American Civil War Battle and is now on the National Register of Historic Places.
Early life.
Matilda Lotz was born in Franklin, Tennessee on November 29, 1858 to German parents. Her father, Johann Albert Lotz, was a master carpenter who designed and built the family home, where they lived with her mother, Margaretha and her brothers, Paul and Augustus. The Lotz family home became the site of the Battle of Franklin; Lotz, who was only six years old at the time, and her family were forced to hide in their neighbour's brick basement for hours as the battle raged on, as their wooden house would not have provided sufficient protection. When they emerged after seventeen hours, their property was filled with dead and wounded soldiers, and their house was turned into a hospital for several months. The Lotz family home has been turned into a Historic site and has begun collecting examples of Lotz's work.
Lotz began an interest in art early in life, as a child she would draw farm and household animals in the dirt. When given the chance, she used coal from the fireplace and small scraps of paper to practice drawing. Reportedly, she also once tried drawing on a wall, but was disciplined for doing so.
Education.
The Lotz family left Franklin, and briefly migrated to Memphis, Tennessee before moving to San Jose, California. Lotz began her art career in the 1860s; her first painting lessons came from her brother Paul. In 1874, Lotz attended the San Francisco School of Design on a six-year course with Virgil Williams, where she won several medals and received the highest honours. She continued her education in Paris in the 1880s with Felix-Joseph Barrias, and later Emile van Marcke. It was while in Paris that Lotz received two gold medals from the Paris Academy, the first woman to receive such an honour, and an honorable mention from the Paris Salon.
Later career.
Lotz travelled throughout Europe and North Africa, uncommon for a single, un-chaperoned woman, and her journeys influenced her work. She also painted portraits while visiting her family in California, including that of William Randolf Hearst and Leland Stanford. Lotz returned to Paris in the 1890s where she worked closely for several years with French artist Rosa Bonheur. During this time she was also invited to London by the Duke of Portland, where she was commissioned by British nobility for animal paintings, as well as to Tata, Hungary for animal portraiture. Lotz was living in Algiers at the outbreak of the First World War, but was forced to leave by the French and returned to Tata in 1915, until her death on February 21, 1923. She married painter Ferenc Blaskovitz later in her life.


Frances Stebbins Allen

Frances Stebbins "Fanny" Allen (1854–1941) was an American photographer.
Allen was born in Deerfield, Massachusetts to Josiah Allis Allen and Mary, née Stebbins. She and her sister, Mary Electa Allen (1858–1941), were schoolteachers, who left teaching when they became deaf in their thirties.
Their deafness led Allen and her sister to take up photography. By 1895, they were permanently exhibiting and selling their prints from their families ancestral home. Many of their works were never attributed to one sister or the other, but to "the Misses Allen." Many of their idyllic images harken back to an idealized version of the region's colonial history. In 1899, the Allen sisters joined Deerfield's Arts and Crafts Movement, and began to document the works of its earliest members. In 1907, Frances Allen was elected Director of the "Society of Deerfield Industries".
Family and education.
Allen was one of four children born to Josiah and Mary Allen in the 1850s. She attended Deerfield Academy and then the State Normal School teacher's college in Westfield, Massachusetts.


Technological Threat

Technological Threat is a 1988 American animated short made by Brian Jennings and Bill Kroyer and was produced by Kroyer Films. It was an example of early computer animation, integrated with traditional animation, and is itself an allegory for the threat computer animation represented to traditional animators at the time. The robots and backgrounds were drawn based on computer-generated 3D models, while the dogs and wolves were drawn by hand.
Plot.
The film takes place in an office staffed by wolves who hand-copy documents using pencils. One of them passes out because of overwork. The bulldog boss pushes a button that carries him through a trapdoor below the worker's desk, and replaces him with a robot that writes faster. Another yawns, and is also dropped through a trapdoor under his desk and replaced by a robot. Three more are eliminating for drinking water, sneezing and injury (one of them desperately plugs his nose with two pencils, but is unable to keep from sneezing, propelling the pencils into another's head). They are replaced by more robots. The remaining worker, madly scribbling away, is shocked to discover that his boss has been replaced by a boss robot. When the latter leaves, the last worker decides to take action, and begins destroying the robots in various cartoony ways (blowing one up with a stick of dynamite, dropping another through its desk trapdoor, yet another by hitting it with different objects, and electrically shocking another into a pile of cinders). As the worker and the one remaining robot are locked in a life-or-death struggle, they see the boss robot threatening to push the trapdoor button. In a sudden instance of cooperating, they shove the trapdoor beneath the boss robot, who falls in. As the two workers peer down the open trapdoor, the remaining worker becomes aware of the opportunity being presented and shoves the robot in thus ending the film with a cigar in his hand and eventually pushing the trapdoor button on the viewer.
Credits.
Staff.
The film's credits give "special thanks to" Brad Bird, Yutaka Fujioka, Mike Giaimo, Masami Hata, Gábor Csupó, and Bill Hedge.
Accolades.
"Technological Threat" was featured on the DVD "Computer Animation Festival Vol. 3" (renamed "Computer Animation Experience" in 2001). It also aired in the second third-season episode of "Liquid Television", in 1993.
At the 1988 Ottawa International Animation Festival, "Technological Threat" shared the prize for "Best film under 5 minutes" with Paul Vester's "Picnic". It was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film in 1989, but lost to a fully CGI short: Pixar's "Tin Toy".
The Academy Film Archive preserved "Technological Threat" in 2013.


Bobby Deerfield

Bobby Deerfield is a 1977 American romantic drama film directed by Sydney Pollack and starring Al Pacino and Marthe Keller. Based on Erich Maria Remarque's 1961 novel "Heaven Has No Favorites", the film is about a famous American race car driver on the European circuit who falls in love with an enigmatic Swiss woman who is terminally ill. Pacino was nominated for a Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Motion Picture Drama. The movie utilises clips filmed during the 1976 Formula One season.
Premise.
Formula One auto racer Bobby Deerfield is a calculating, control-obsessed loner who has become used to winning the checkered flag on the track. But after he witnesses a fiery crash that kills a teammate and seriously wounds a competitor, Deerfield becomes unsettled by the spectre of death.
During a visit to the survivor, Deerfield's world is further set askew when he meets Lillian Morelli (Marthe Keller), a quirky, impulsive woman racing against time.
Reception.
Critical response.
Critics panned "Bobby Deerfield" as an over-the-top melodrama with a plodding story line; audiences reportedly laughed at scenes intended to be dramatic. Race-film fans, expecting another "Grand Prix" or "Le Mans", were disappointed that the story did not play out on the race track; however, the action footage was filmed by racing cinematographers over the course of the 1976 Formula One season and features actual drivers, including Carlos Pace, Tom Pryce, James Hunt, Patrick Depailler and Mario Andretti. Vincent Canby of "The New York Times" said that it "may turn out to be the year's most cynical movie made by people who know better, including Sydney Pollack, the director, and Alvin Sargent, who wrote the screenplay."
Critics continue to give the film negative reviews and the film has a 29% on Rotten Tomatoes from 14 reviews. "Time Out" stated that the film is a "classic example of a Hollywood director being struck down by a lethal 'art' attack as soon as he sets foot in Europe."
"Bobby Deerfield" was released on DVD for the first time on March 11, 2008. The soundtrack, recorded on the Casablanca Records label, has been unavailable for years.
Box office.
"Bobby Deerfield" grossed $9,300,000 in the United States.


Parallel (film)

Parallel is a 2018 Canadian science fiction thriller film. The film stars Aml Ameen, Martin Wallström, Georgia King, Mark O'Brien and Alyssa Diaz.
Release.
It premiered at the 2018 Brussels International Fantastic Film Festival.


The Disappearance (film)

The Disappearance is a 1977 British-Canadian thriller film directed by Stuart Cooper and starring Donald Sutherland, Francine Racette and David Hemmings. It is based on the novel "Echoes of Celandine" by Derek Marlowe.
Plot.
Jay Mallory is a contract killer living in Montréal who works for an unknown international criminal organization. He returns home to his downtown apartment one cold winter day to find that his wife, Celandine, is gone without a trace. Mallory initially thinks that Celandine has left him on her own volition since their marriage was a sometimes stormy, albeit passionate, relationship. However, words from Mallory's main point of contact at the Organization, Burbank, indicate that Celandine's disappearance may be associated with Mallory's last hit. Shortly after their discussion, Burbank himself disappears.
The Organization assigns Mallory another job in Suffolk, England. Mallory has a feeling that there is something unusual about this job - he is given little initial information including not knowing who the target is - and that it too is associated with Celandine's disappearance. Despite feeling that he may be being set up, Mallory decides to take the job anyway to see how it plays out and if it leads him back to Celandine.
Mallory flies to London as instructed where he meets his new contact, Atkinson, who gives him the weapon to be used for the "shy" (a code-word the Organization uses to describe an assassination job) and the location and when it will take place. After renting a car and driving to rural Suffolk, Mallory begins to suspect the Organization plans to betray him since Burbank informed him earlier that the Organization often "retires" (kills) fellow members who are deemed no longer trustworthy or if they are felt to be no longer useful. After breaking into a large country house of his target, Mallory finds that his "shy" happens to be Deverell, the head of the Organization whom Mallory has never met. Deverell and his fellow aide Edward inform Mallory that they have been expecting him to show up and reveal that Celandine has been having an affair with Deverell behind Mallory's back the entire time and that she just left England the day before that Mallory arrived and that she may have orchestrated the entire "shy". When Deverell attempts to kill Mallory for knowing too much, Mallory succeeds in killing him and Edward instead and flees to London where he takes the first flight back to Canada.
After arriving back at his apartment in Montréal, Mallory finds Celandine back where after confronting her, she admits to him that she indeed was involved with Deverell out of frustration to their failing marriage and she also, through the Organization's various channels and middle men, planned for Mallory to assassinate Deverell so she could be free from him and that Mallory could be free from the Organization. Mallory seems to accept this and he and Celandine make love.
The next morning, Mallory wakes up confident and decides to cook Celandine breakfast, but after seeing that he does not have enough food in his refrigerator he leaves the apartment alone to go food shopping. A little later, as Mallory returns to his apartment, carrying a large brown paper bag filled with groceries, he stumbles along the balcony outside his apartment to look for his apartment keys when an unseen sniper shoots at him but misses. When a surprised Mallory looks around trying to locate the sniper, the unseen marksman opens fire again and hits Mallory again in his chest with the second bullet, killing him instantly. In the final images, as Mallory lies dead outside the door to his apartment, Celandine sits alone inside the apartment with a calm look on her face, and ending the film with many more questions then answers (i.e.; Who killed Mallory?; The new leaders of the Organization? Deverell's family? An unknown third party? Did Celandine have anything to do with Mallory's murder?, etc.).
Production.
Jake Eberts helped raise money for the film when some funds ran out at the last minute.
Shot in 1977 in Montreal, this was film producer Garth Drabinsky's first production. According to film critic Jay Scott, Eric Boyd-Perkins originally edited the film; but the version released in Canadian cinemas in 1983 had been re-cut by "film doctor" Fima Noveck, who had "saved any number of other ailing" movies.
The film went over budget during filming and the completion guarantor had to step in.
Reception.
Jay Scott dismissed the film as "irredeemably nasty, supremely glossy trash."
The film was a box office failure.


Tide (Pillow Pal)


Shorty Rossi

Luigi "Shorty" Rossi (born February 10, 1969) is the former star of "Pit Boss", a reality series (now cancelled) on Animal Planet. He is also the owner and talent manager of Shortywood Productions, a company that works with little people in the entertainment industry and Shorty's Rescue, an organization set up for Pit Bull rescue (which is no longer in service).
Life and career.
Rossi was born in Los Angeles, California. He was raised by his parents, also little people. During his childhood, he lived in two very disparate neighborhoods: the San Fernando Valley, a wealthy area in Greater Los Angeles, and Nickerson Gardens Housing Projects in Watts, a poor area in South Central Los Angeles, where he lived with a family friend to avoid conflict at home. By the age of 15, he was living on his own.
In 1987, Rossi graduated from Fremont High School. He joined the neighborhood Blood gang while living there. That year, he was involved in a gang-related shooting and convicted of felonies including attempted murder and assault with a deadly weapon. He was sent to the California Youth Authority and was later transferred to Folsom State Prison to serve a total sentence of 10 years, 10 months and 10 days.
Looking for a fresh start, Rossi turned to entertainment, soon learning he could earn good money as a little person in show business. His first job in the industry was at Universal Studios Hollywood, where he was "Alvin" for an "Alvin and the Chipmunks" stage show. Since then, he has appeared in many commercials and movies, the latter including "The Grinch", with Jim Carrey; "The Kid", with Bruce Willis. He has also appeared on dozens of TV shows and has performed in theater for years. In 2000, Rossi founded a company, Shortywood Productions, to provide little people entertainers for all types of shows, private parties and corporate events, and to manage their careers.
Since owning his first pit bull terrier at the age of 14, Rossi has championed the breed. This led him to form Shorty’s Pit Bull Rescue, a second business that rescues, rehabilitates and places neglected and abused pit bulls in new homes. It also aims to restore the reputation of the breed through education, activism and positive pit bull involvement in the community. The dogs have been featured in student and short films as well as public-service commercials and print ads. The group does volunteer work by visiting nursing homes, schools, functions and hospitals. It caught the attention of cable TV network Animal Planet, leading to its continuing series "Pit Boss".
After injuring himself in a stunt, Rossi became interested in service animal training. One of his pit bulls has been involved in the Americans with Disabilities Act community ever since. At present two of his dogs are registered service animals, with one in training.
Shorty has written a tell-all memoir titled "Four Feet Tall and Rising", which was released in 2012.