Super Monkey Ball (video game)

 is a 2001 platform party video game developed by Amusement Vision and published by Sega. The game debuted in Japan at the 2001 Amusement Operators Union trade show as Monkey Ball, an arcade cabinet running on Sega's NAOMI hardware and controlled with a distinctive banana-shaped analog stick. Due to the failure of Sega's Dreamcast home console and the company's subsequent restructuring, an enhanced port dubbed "Super Monkey Ball" was released as a launch title for the GameCube in late 2001, garnering interest as Sega's first game published for a Nintendo home console.
Conceived by Amusement Vision head Toshihiro Nagoshi, "Super Monkey Ball" involves guiding a transparent ball containing one of four monkeys—AiAi, MeeMee, Baby, and GonGon—across a series of maze-like platforms. The player must reach the goal without falling off or letting the timer reach zero to advance to the next stage. There are also several multiplayer modes: independent minigames as well as extensions of the main single-player game.
"Super Monkey Ball" received highly positive reviews from critics, who praised the simplicity and subtle depth of its control scheme as well as the new multiplayer modes not present in its arcade counterpart, although some felt its presentation was lacking. The game was commercially successful and remained one of Sega's best-sellers in the United States for much of 2002, eventually spawning a direct sequel, "Super Monkey Ball 2", and an entire "Super Monkey Ball" franchise.
Modes.
"Super Monkey Ball" has three game modes: main game, party games, and mini-games. The mini-games are unavailable at first, and must be unlocked by earning 2,500 "play points" through playing the main game in single-player mode.
Main game.
Reminiscent of "Marble Madness" and "Labyrinth", the objective of the main game is to guide one of four playable monkeys (AiAi, MeeMee, Baby, and GonGon) encased in a transparent ball across a suspended series of platforms and through a goal. By moving the analog stick, the player tilts the entire set of platforms that make up a level, called a "floor", and the ball rolls accordingly. If the ball falls off a floor (an event dubbed a "fall out") or the in-game timer reaches zero, the player loses one of their three lives. The speed, in miles per hour, at which the ball is moving is displayed in the corner of the screen. Pausing the game and selecting the "View Stage" option allows one to rotate the camera around and examine the floor. A replay is presented after a floor's goal has been reached; replays can be saved to a memory card and viewed at whim. Every second remaining on the timer when a floor is completed adds 100 points to the player's score. Collectible bananas found throughout the game are also worth 100 points, while multipliers increasing the player's score by a factor of two or four are activated when a floor is finished in under half the allotted time or via a warp gate. The player receives an extra life for every 100 bananas collected.
The main game features three difficulty levels—Beginner, Advanced, and Expert, consisting of 10, 30, and 50 floors each—as well as three modes—Normal, Practice, and Competition. Normal mode allows one to four players to take turns progressing through the arcade "Monkey Ball", whereas competition mode involves two to four player simultaneous split screen races across a selection of floors. In practice mode, any floor already played in normal mode can be repeated indefinitely with no penalties for failure. In normal mode, the player experiences a "Game Over" when they have lost all of their lives, but is allowed five opportunities to continue; eventually, unlimited "continues" can be unlocked. Beginner Extra, Advanced Extra and Expert Extra floors are unlocked when each respective difficulty level is completed without a single continue (or without losing a life in Beginner and Advanced)—and a hidden set of Master floors can be unlocked through playing the Extra floors without using a continue.
Party games.
The following party games are available:
Mini-games.
The mini-games are based on real sporting activities, but with the player's ball containing their monkey. The following mini-games are available, once unlocked through the earning of play points:
Development.
"Super Monkey Ball" was developed by Amusement Vision, a branch of the Japanese video game publisher Sega that was created in 2000 and composed of about fifty people. Amusement Vision president Toshihiro Nagoshi, who had previously worked under Sega AM2's Yu Suzuki and been credited as the creator of the arcade titles "Daytona USA" and "Virtua Striker", devised the concept of rolling spheres through mazes based on his desire to create a game that was instantly possible to understand and play, as a contrast to increasingly complex games at Japanese arcades at the time. Prototypes involving a plain ball or a ball with an illustration were considered visually unappealing due to difficulties in perceiving its movement, so after a series of revisions monkey characters previously created by an Amusement Vision designer named Mika Kojima were placed inside the ball, with their appearance being altered to include their "distinctive" ears. Intended to feature a "cute" aesthetic and accurate physics engine, the game debuted at the 2001 Amusement Operator Union trade show as "Monkey Ball", a single-player arcade cabinet controlled with a distinctive banana-shaped analog stick.
In early 2001, Sega announced that it was discontinuing its Dreamcast home console and restructuring itself into a "platform-agnostic" third-party publisher. As a result, an enhanced version of "Monkey Ball" dubbed "Super Monkey Ball" was released for the GameCube as a launch game in Japan on September 14, 2001 and North America on November 18, 2001. The GameCube version was demonstrated to the public at E3 in May 2001 and at Nintendo's Space World show in August 2001; Sega confirmed that it would arrive in time for the GameCube's launch at the June 2001 World Hobby Fair. As the first game Sega published for a Nintendo home console, "Super Monkey Ball" was considered a milestone for the company. Although "Monkey Ball" had been developed for Sega's NAOMI arcade board, which shared technology with the Dreamcast and was optimized to ensure games could be easily ported between the two platforms, Nagoshi commented that Nintendo's young demographic made the GameCube an even more fitting console for the title. According to Nagoshi, Amusement Vision staff felt more comfortable with the GameCube than Sega's own hardware and this ease of development contributed to their decision to focus on the system over the PlayStation 2 or Xbox; he also joked that Nintendo was the only hardware manufacturer the staff did not "hate". Out of a team composed of ten to twenty individuals, it took four Amusement Vision employees between several weeks and two months to port "Monkey Ball" to the GameCube. Its graphics were enhanced with new background details as well as reflections and particle effects. Moreover, the developers spent an additional six months incorporating six extra modes into the game, with an emphasis on multiplayer competition and the introduction of GonGon as a fourth playable character.
The bananas in the game display the Dole Food Company logo, but this was removed in "Super Monkey Ball Deluxe" due to a licensing dispute. A theme song called "Ei Ei Puh!", which was arranged by Cheru Watanabe and featured vocals by Yu Abiru, was created for the Japanese version of "Super Monkey Ball" but removed from its U.S. release. The voice behind the game's narration was uncredited. However, on 7 December 2019 YouTuber Nick Robinson published a video which reported that the narrator had been Tokyo-based voice actor Brian Matt.
Reception.
Sales.
"Super Monkey Ball" was commercially successful upon release and remained one of Sega's best-selling titles in the United States through much of 2002. The game's North American sales were strong in 2001, in addition to a further 105,000 units sold in 2002.
While it sold well in all major territories, Nagoshi was disappointed by the game's performance in Japan, where he had expected it would be most successful; weak GameCube launch sales were cited as negatively impacting its performance in the country. The game sold 72,631 units in Japan.
Critical reception.
Released to positive reviews, with aggregated scores of 87/100 on Metacritic and 88.7% on GameRankings, some journalists considered "Super Monkey Ball" the highlight of the GameCube's launch lineup. "Edge" praised the main game as "absorb[ing]" due to its high level of difficulty, noting that the trial and error required to complete challenging levels forces one to learn the nuances of its "reductive control system" and eventually enables the player to perform seemingly impossible tasks with increasing ease: "Once a level falls, the mysticism around it vanishes. It's beatable; it's an afterthought on the route to your next impossible hurdle." Ben Turner ("GameSpy") commented on the "excellent progression of difficulty" engendered by three distinct difficulty modes and thoughtful stage design, expounding "most levels introduce some new idea or concept to the game" and "every single level played adds to your skill." Matt Casamassina ("IGN") commended the "great level variation", with "well created mazes and puzzles that must be completed using a combination of physics calculations, careful planning and a huge helping of patience." Turner complimented the frequent introduction of incentives to keep playing such as additional continues and hidden levels, adding that a high "ceiling of mastery" enhanced the game's longevity through a "simple but well conceived" scoring system and the ability to test strategies in practice mode. "Edge" and Casamassina thought similarly, with the latter stating "there are shortcuts that can be carved out by the crafty player, physics to be considered when navigating and more." Tim Knowles ("N-Sider") pointed out that "the latter levels in the game get extremely difficult and you will often get frustrated", while Casamassina felt "it may be a little too difficult for the casual gamer." However, Mark Medina ("N-Sider") called the learning curve "perfectly spot on": "Any falling off the platforms feels entirely "your fault" and at the same time, you always get the sense that you're just that little bit closer to that elusive goal." "Edge" and Jason Nuyens and Will Stevenson ("N-Sider") agreed with this sentiment, with the latter two emphasizing the addictive quality of the gameplay. On a technical note, Four-Eyed Dragon ("GamePro") faulted the camera system, which "can get out of position, making it hard to maneuver in tight spots." Steven L. Kent ("The Japan Times") described the game as "a test of nerve" requiring "advanced eye–hand coordination." Turner reflected on the game's ability to evoke feelings of "nervous excitement", "intensity", and "electrifying, stomach-wrenching fear": "It's a thrilling feeling to be winding down a paper-thin path with ten seconds on the clock, hoping against hope that you can keep your balance for just a few more seconds and make it to the goal before time expires." "Edge" opined that the game is "defined" by "unrefined and angular" emotions:
"Every second brings another jagged spike of highrise elation or freefall despair, and that's what makes the game so superb ... when you finally beat a maze on your 15th try, on the last life of your last continue, it's all worth it. If that experience could be distilled into a single word, it would be euphoria; reducing "Super Monkey Ball" to one word is simpler. It's genius."
On the party and mini games, Kent asserted "All of the activities ... were designed with an unerring eye for quality", "Edge" contended "none are half-assed throwaway rewards", and "Nintendo Power" remarked "each one is a fully realized activity that you could play for hours." Ricardo Torres ("GameSpot") called Monkey Race "a solid little racer", and Casamassina recounted it felt "polished and finely tuned." Stevenson "loved Monkey Fight", while Casamassina and Kent highlighted the use of a crown to identify the player currently in the lead as encouraging "players to gang up on each other." Casamassina hailed Monkey Fight as "a thing of beauty", but Turner dismissed it as "a dud, as it's too much frantic button smacking and not enough skill or thought." Monkey Target, lauded by Kent as the "most addictive interactive activity of 2001" and considered "the most complex" of the party games by Turner, was complimented by Casamassina for its "simple and brilliantly intuitive" control scheme and "careful science of when to use an item and when to forgo it." "Nintendo Power" and Medina, respectively, described Monkey Billiards as "a full-blown pool game" and "a very fun alternative to the real game"; Casamassina applauded its "ultra-realistic physics engine that perfectly mimics how pool balls would react ... it all works just as good if not better than any pool simulation available to home consoles." Casamassina was further impressed by the physics of Monkey Bowling, elaborating that "when the pins break apart one would swear it's the real deal", but Turner criticized its physics as "slightly wonky". Medina singled out Monkey Bowling's "nailbiting" challenge mode as a personal favorite, while "Nintendo Power" considered Monkey Bowling "as good as tenpin gets" and Kent wrote it "is one of the most robust bowling simulations I have ever played." Finally, Four-Eyed Dragon conveyed that Monkey Golf provided "a humongous challenge" with "crazy, lopsided miniature golf course[s]", while Kent called it an "absolutely infuriating ... test [of] your aim and your logic."
Although "not extremely complex or technically impressive in the way that many other launch titles strive to be" Turner believed the graphics were "extremely well-realized and perfectly suited to the game." According to Torres, "while the four selectable monkey models and the various levels are simple in design, they are generously modeled with well-textured and shaded polygons and have a very rich look." Four-Eyed Dragon spoke highly of the "hilarious" monkey animations, "sharp reflections and cool water effects". Likewise, Casamassina enjoyed the dances performed by the monkeys after winning a match and cited the water effects as "particularly incredible". The game was described by Turner as "colorful" and "crisp" and by Torres as "cartoony" and "clean". "Edge" likened the game's aesthetic to Sega's "Sonic the Hedgehog" series: "Every surface is bright and solid and shiny, every aspect impeccably presented." Casamassina, Turner, and Torres all praised the consistent frame rate, with Casamassina emphasizing "it truly, always runs at a full 60 frames per second." However, Four-Eyed Dragon noted the visuals were "not greatly detailed" and Casamassina observed "there isn't much geometry being drawn at any single point in the title and the backgrounds are often barren, whether it be for power or stylistic purposes." Moreover, Casamassina was disappointed that the three difficulty modes reused level themes and by the absence of progressive scan support. Torres regarded the game's sound as "good" but "probably [its] weakest aspect", calling the music "catchy" but finding the monkey noises repetitive and the remaining sound effects "unspectacular." Conversely, Blue-Eyed Dragon was favorable to the "boisterously entertaining monkey sounds that can be heard once a chimp hits a wall or falls off a ledge" as well as the "eclectic mix of instrumental tunes". Turner "thought the music ... set the mood perfectly, but some may find it annoying".
Kent named "Super Monkey Ball" "the best party game of all time." Torres opined that the game "makes a strong case for the power of simple yet incredibly addictive gameplay." Knowles stated it represented "Sega at its pure best." "Famitsu" "liked the mini-games in addition to the regular modes." "Nintendo Power" hailed the game as "one of the ultimate party games" and "the best in serious gaming, too." Turner declared it "that rarity of rarities: a perfectly-realized launch title", with a "bounty of extras" that set "a new standard for arcade to home conversions". According to Medina, "probably the greatest thing about this game is that it's so unassuming, in that you are genuinely very surprised at its extremely high quality."
"Super Monkey Ball" was a runner-up for "GameSpot"s annual "Best GameCube Game" award, which went to "Super Smash Bros. Melee".
Legacy.
 The success of the game spawned a franchise, with 16 sequels or spin-offs released to date. Due to its complex physics engine and abundance of possible shortcuts, "Super Monkey Ball" has been popular with professional speedrunners. A 2006 study conducted by the Beth Israel Medical Center found that surgeons who played the game for 20 minutes prior to performing a surgical drill finished slightly faster and made fewer mistakes. "Super Monkey Ball" inspired "Neverball", a free and open source game for Microsoft Windows, OS X, Linux, Dreamcast, and iOS. The 2020 battle royale game "Fall Guys: Ultimate Knockout" has been described as ""Super Monkey Ball" for the "Fortnite" generation" by Tom Wiggins of "Stuff" magazine.
In 2006, "Nintendo Power" ranked it the 38th best game available on Nintendo platforms, commenting "who knew that such cute characters with cinnamon roll ears could be the source of so much tension (when the clock is ticking) and so much relief (when they finally break the ribbon)?" In 2009, "Edge" ranked the game #39 on its list of "The 100 Best Games To Play Today", stating "Seeing its sturdy physics model being used to perform incredible acrobatic feats shows just how finely honed it is." Writing in "1001 Video Games You Must Play Before You Die", Christian Donlan described "Super Monkey Ball" as "one of Sega's grade-A triumphs."


List of Creature Comforts episodes

The following is a list of episodes from the United Kingdom television series "Creature Comforts" and its American remake.
The series originally aired on ITV in the UK and is currently being repeated on Gold and SF2.


Asmik-kun Land

Asmik-kun Land (アスミッくん ランド "Asumikkun Rando"') is a Famicom game published by Asmik in 1991.
A pink dinosaur named Asmik-kun (named "Boomer" in the English release of "Boomer's Adventure in ASMIK World") seeks to recover six fragments so he can wake the dragon ruler of the world and make Asmik Land a paradise.


Mail Order Monsters

Mail Order Monsters is an action-strategy computer game created by Paul Reiche III, Evan Robinson, and Nicky Robinson. It was published by Electronic Arts (Ariolasoft in Europe) for the Commodore 64 in 1985, then released for Atari 8-bit family in 1986. Players create monsters which they can use to battle multiplayer or against computer-controlled opponents.
Gameplay.
The players create a variety of monsters and equip them with futuristic and modern weapons to do battle. Monsters can be further customized through buying special abilities, such as adding tentacles to use advanced weaponry. Two players can fight against each other, play capture the flag, or compete for a high score against a computer-controlled horde. In single-player mode, the computer controls an opponent to fight. Battles take place on various different maps that can have tactical effects, such as mountains for agile monsters to hide behind during combat. Monsters can be stored on diskette and can be upgraded by victories against other monsters or computer opponents.
Development.
Reiche had previously worked with designers Jon Freeman and Anne Westfall of Free Fall Associates on the game "Archon" for EA. The game was originally envisioned as dark and gritty, but Electronic Arts demanded a more whimsical style. During this development, Reiche became fascinated with his friend Greg Johnson's development on "Starflight", and spent a few weeks consulting on it before he realized he was "supposed to be working on "Mail Order Monsters"".
Reception.
"Ahoy!" stated that "Mail Order Monsters" was a "very good game" that did not reach "true excellence" because of insufficient combat tactics, and suggested that it was best for younger players. Writing in "Vintage Games", Bill Loguidice and Matt Barton identify it as a precursor to the "Pokémon" series.
In a retrospective, Levi Buchanan of IGN said that although he would love to see a remake, any new version, updated to suit modern gamers, would necessarily have to diverge from what made the game unique in 1985.


Ritzy Hotel

Ritzy Hotel is a short animated film distributed by Columbia Pictures, and one of the many short films featuring the comic strip character Krazy Kat. A colorized version is available.
Plot.
Krazy is the janitor and bellhop of a luxurious hotel. His task include cleaing the mess of the guests, and carrying their baggage.
As janitor, Krazy sweeps the crumbs of three guys sitting on a couch. Krazy is so focused on his sweeping that he even sweeps a small chihuahua onto his dust pan, and the pet's mistress is a bit bothered. As Krazy continues sweeping, he unknowingly sweeps a strand of thread which is part of the mistress' dress, exposing her knickers. The mistress, upon noticing this, is pretty shocked and runs away breaking a hole in the wall.
In his first task as bellhop, the front desk clerk assigns Krazy to carry bags to a room upstairs, and Krazy heads for the elevators. But the elevator operators are uncooperative as they would open, close, and move too soon before Krazy could get in.
It is unknown if Krazy completes the first bellhop work as the film shows the clerk assigning him to carrying another set of baggage to another room upstairs. Because of the unreliability of elevator operators, the cat decides to take the stairs. After the upward hike, Krazy reaches the door of the assigned room. But because he is carrying a lot of baggage, he could not see the door's keyhole, and therefore repeatedly strikes the key on the door's surface. The occupant opens the door, and gets poked by Krazy with the key. The occupant is pretty annoyed and literally pushes Krazy back to the lobby.
For his third bellhop task, Krazy is assigned to greet a guest outside. The guest's car arrives at the hotel's entrance. The guest is a grumpy old beagle who is on a wheel chair, and has a foot covered in bandage. Krazy tries to push the old beagle inside the hotel, but does so too quickly that the disabled dog's injured foot gets struck by the hotel's spinning door. The old beagle who is quite irritated pounds Krazy in the head with a cane. In the lobby, Krazy again pushes the old beagle too fast that his guest's bandaged foot crashes into the desk of the clerk, and Krazy receives another pounding. The old beagle calls for a room but struggles to sign a book, prompting Krazy to assist. Krazy takes his eldery guest to an elevator, and is the one to operate. The elevator suddenly stops upon reaching the top floor, and the old beagle is thrown upward from the wheelchair, and piercing the elevator's ceiling. Krazy gets his canine guest down, and opens the elevator. But because the elevator is not level with the floor, the old beagle falls flat on the face upon stepping out, and Krazy gets pounded with the cane for a third time. Once more, Krazy pushes his guest too fast that they crash onto a window, and the old beagle falls out and hangs onto a horizontal flagpole by the trousers. Krazy reaches the window below where the flagpole is, and cuts it with an ax. The old beagle falls onto the wheel chair which Krazy already placed to break his client's fall. Feeling that his guest has had enough trouble, Krazy carries the old beagle back into the car. Before the car leaves, the old beagle pounds Krazy in the noggin with the cane one last time.


Snow Dragon (film)

Snow Dragon () is a 2013 Czech television film directed by Eugen Sokolovský. It premiered on 25 December 2013. It was viewed by 700,000 people. It is a fantasy, action film.
Plot.
The film tells story of Princess Laura and Prince Jan. It was prophesied that Jan will make Laura unhappy and Queen Vilma cast a curse upon him. Jan turns into a Snow dragon every night. Vilma then leaves Laura and her husband Valentin. When Laura grows up and has to choose her husband she meets Jan and they fall in love. King disagrees and wants to prevent it. They escape and princes finds out about the curse. They set of to remove it from him. It is revealed during the journey that Jan is coward and is unable to help Laura when she is in danger. It eventually leads to conflict between them and Laura returns home. She is set to marry evil Dacián but Jan finds courage to face him and Dacián turns into a black dragon. Jan fights him in is Snow dragon form and wins. The curse is removed and Jan marries Laura.
Reception.
The film has won an award at Zlín film festival for children.


The Ghosts in Our Machine

The Ghosts in Our Machine is a 2013 Canadian documentary film by Liz Marshall. The film follows the photojournalist and animal rights activist Jo-Anne McArthur as she photographs animals on fur farms and at Farm Sanctuary, among other places, and seeks to publish her work. The film as a whole is a plea for animal rights.
The film premiered at the 2013 Hot Docs International Film Festival.
Synopsis.
"The Ghosts in Our Machine" follows photojournalist and animal activist Jo-Anne McArthur. The documentary opens with images of animals and sound bites on animal rights, before McArthur introduces herself. She describes herself as a war photographer and activist, more concerned with changing the world than with art. She meets with representatives of Redux Pictures—though they are supportive, they express doubts about her work being published—and then has dinner with a group, one of whom, Martin Rowe, offers to be an editor for her photobook.
McArthur travels with an activist to a fur farm. The activist, "Marcus", explains that publishing photographs is more damaging to the fur industry than property damage, and talks about the kind of harms which can come to animals on the farms. The pair enter the facility surreptitiously, keen to leave no traces, in order to photograph the animals on the farm. McArthur looks through her photographs once they have left, focusing on photographs of injured foxes in wire cages. The pair travel to a larger facility housing mink, near which they find breeding cards linking the facility to a company from the Netherlands. They enter this farm to take photographs.
McArthur next visits Farm Sanctuary, where she and Susie Coston, the organization's director, discuss the importance of a personal connection with individual animals. The pair then travel to pick up a "spent" dairy cow and a "down" calf, later named Fanny and Sonny respectively. They take the cows to Cornell University Hospital for Animals where they receive health checks and treatment. Back at Farm Sanctuary, McArthur and Coston discuss the running of the institution before introducing Fanny and Sonny to their new homes. McArthur visits Farm Sanctuary some time later to again to photograph and write about the animals, including Fanny and Sonny.
Undercover footage of beagles used in animal testing introduces Maggie, a purpose-bred beagle for teaching who was adopted by Melanie and Mark. McArthur follows Melanie and Mark as they adopt Abbey, a second beagle, and talk about the difficulties Maggie experienced when it came to adapting to her new life. McArthur compiles photographs for her book alongside footage of marine mammal parks and the voice of Lori Marino, who criticizes the institutions. McArthur talks about the late Ron, a chimpanzee to whom she is dedicating her book. Ron was used in research and kept in a small cage. She describes him as an "ambassador for animals used in research". McArthur next joins Toronto Pig Save activists, protesting the slaughter of pigs and interacting with pigs headed for slaughter. She returns to Farm Sanctuary, which has received a sow abused on a breeding farm and her piglets. McArthur then visits Redux Pictures again, where she shows her pictures to "Newsweek" James Welford and explains the realities of human-animal relationships.
After images of meat, the voice of abattoir-designer Temple Grandin is heard, over footage of cattle slaughter. McArthur visits Farm Sanctuary once again. Among others, she sees Fanny, who will have hoof and bone problems for life, and Sonny, now a year old. McArthur visits a high school, where she answers questions from students. The documentary, dedicated "for the ghosts", finishes with footage of animals and the voices of Vandana Shiva, Bruce Friedrich, Antoine F. Goetschel and Gieri Bolliger, all calling for animal rights.
Development and production.
Filmmaker Liz Marshall was prompted to create "The Ghosts in Our Machine" "to give a voice to the non-human world". Her previous films, including "Water on the Table", about the right to water and the struggle to protect it from the free market, had been "human-centric", focused on human rights and environmental themes, and she intended to also "turn [her] gaze and commitment to the plight of animals used for human profit: the billions of "ghosts" used in the "machine" of our modern world". She was inspired to focus on the suffering of animals by Lorena Elke, her partner, a vegan and animal activist; a second influence was Marshall's dog, Troy Celina Marshall, who died in 2011. Liz Marshall had been planning, with Elke, to produce a film on animal rights for several years, but the idea of the film's particular approach did not come to Marshall until she learned of Jo-Anne McArthur's We Animals photography project —Jo-Anne was a friend of Marshall and Elke. Speaking about McArthur's presence in the film, Marshall said that "it became increasingly clear that I needed a central human narrative to help anchor the animal stories, and Jo was that natural fit for me". Nonetheless, she did not see the film as a biopic, saying that it "is not a biography of Jo, but it will be an up close and personal journey with her as she does what she does, around the world, over the course of many months".
Mirroring McArthur's photographic approach, Marshall intended to make the film about "individual animals used for human profit and consumption". Online, the project would tell the "ghost stories" of individual animals, and the film would tell the stories of individual animals within the four main animal industries. Marshall started to spend a large amount of time on the documentary project in Autumn 2010, with plans to follow and film McArthur in North America and Europe, with filming to begin in Summer 2011. The first story filmed in that Summer was that of the rescue of Sonny and Fanny by Farm Sanctuary.
Long before the release of the film, Marshall began a cross-media campaign, allowing the documentary to "unfold over time in stages". The initial online launch date, including a trailer, website and social media presence, was April 2011. This online presence partially served to create a viewership base prior to the film's release, with Marshall hoping to attract a broad spectrum of animal advocates. Though she said that going "mainstream" would typically not be her aim, she said that "with this subject matter, it is the aim — this issue needs to be on the public radar".
Marshall explained that "The Ghosts in Our Machine" is "a film, a documentary website, a Vimeo channel, an active community-building Facebook page [and so on.] Its sole purpose is to be part of the movement to expand consciousness to help end the suffering of so many animals." An Indiegogo campaign was launched to help fund the project in reaching the next stage of its development, but this next stage was not solely the film. In an interview, Marshall called "The Ghosts in Our Machine" "a documentary film and an online immersive narrative experience". In the same interview, she explained that The Goggles—designers Paul Shoebridge and Michael Simons, creators of the interactive documentary "Welcome to Pine Point" and of "Adbusters" magazine—had joined the team, and, should funding permit it, would conceive of an online interactive companion to the film. The pair became the project's interactive directors, creating the film's interactive story. The magazine-format website www.ghostsinourmachine.com was launched on June 5, 2012; in 2013, the flash "immersive story" following McArthur's We Animals book writing process, by The Goggles, and produced by Ghosts Media was added to the website.
Critical response.
Reviewing the film for "The Daily Telegraph", Rebecca Hawkes suggested that Marshall had eschewed the shocking imagery of many documentary films focused on animal rights, such as "Earthlings", and instead "takes an almost arthouse approach, resulting in a film that's more a meditation on suffering and the relationship between humans and other species, than an angry, didactic diatribe". Using the example of the segments of fur farms, Hawkes suggested that focusing on living animals was "ultimately more powerful than a dozen shots of bloody pelts and butchered corpses". A similar sentiment was expressed in the "Los Angeles Times", in which the critic Betsy Sharkey contrasted "The Ghosts in Our Machine" to the work of Michael Moore. The former, she suggested, as "a heartfelt meditation on animal rights, comes at you as a whisper". Despite this, Sharkey acknowledged that there were "some difficult images in the film", and Peter Debruge, in a critical review in "Variety", described the film as "incredibly difficult-to-watch".
For Sharkey, the animal rights message is combined with a story about activism; "both narrative threads are compelling", she suggested, in this "finely wrought" documentary. Though David DeWitt, writing for "The New York Times", suggested that he could not "imagine anyone not feeling moved during" "Ghosts in Our Machine", he worried that McArthur may appear "extreme" to some viewers. Similarly, John DeFore of "The Hollywood Reporter" argued that "The moodily subjective work is best suited to viewers who already share most if not all of subject Jo-Anne McArthur's values; despite its obvious aesthetic appeal, its commercial value seems limited to niche bookings and special-event screenings for the activist community."


Project Nim (film)

Project Nim is a 2011 British documentary film. It focuses on Project Nim, a research project that was mounted in the 1970s to determine whether a primate raised in close contact with humans could develop a limited "language" based on American Sign Language. The project was centred on a chimpanzee named Nim Chimpsky.
Release.
The film was first publicly shown during the 2011 Sundance Film Festival, and then released for public exhibition on 8 July 2011.
Controversy.
In 2019, Herbert S. Terrace, who led the research on Nim, published the book "Why Chimpanzees Can’t Learn Language and Only Humans Can". There, he explained how he perceived the documentary "Project Nim" as "mainly an ad hominem attack" on himself. Terrace stated that the allegation that he had returned Nim to the primate colony as punishment for his failing to learn sign language is untrue. Besides, Terrace criticised how the documentary represented a "complete failure to present the scientific background of the work" done and "its theoretical significance."
Reception and awards.
"Project Nim" was released to critical acclaim. The film has received an aggregated score of 98% from 131 reviews on Rotten Tomatoes.
The film has won 15 and was nominated for 27 awards, including Best Documentary at the 65th British Academy Film Awards.
Home media.
The DVD was released on 7 February 2012 by Lionsgate Home Entertainment.


Pullet Surprise

Pullet Surprise is a 1997 7-minute "Looney Tunes" short released in theaters with "Cats Don't Dance". It was produced by Chuck Jones Film Productions. Since this cartoon was produced after the death of legendary Looney Tunes voice artist Mel Blanc, the voice of Foghorn Leghorn is supplied by Frank Gorshin. Stan Freberg still voiced Pete Puma, after voicing him in the 1952 short, "Rabbit's Kin". The term "pullet" in the title refers to a young female chicken, while the title is a pun on "Pulitzer Prize". The short was not included in the DVD release of "Cats Don't Dance", though it was included as a bonus feature on the DVD release of "The Looney Looney Looney Bugs Bunny Movie".
Plot.
In the cartoon, Pete Puma is trying to raid the henhouse Foghorn Leghorn is guarding; Foghorn decides to have some fun with Pete. He tells Pete what he really wants is a Venezuelan Racing Chicken which has unfortunately run back to Venezuela. Pete runs there and back in time. Next, he really wants an Irish Wrestling Chicken, which turns out to be a rope tied to a bull's tail (this bull resembles Toro from "Bully for Bugs"). When Pete makes off with a chicken, nest and all, Foghorn grabs the chicken, then says Pete's found the rare Mongolian Disappearing Chicken, and the only way to make it reappear is tap dancing; Pete dances into a hole; Foggy drops an anvil on Pete's head ("a whole lotta lumps!"). Foggy walks away, chuckling at his cleverness, when a genuine Irish Wrestling Chicken pins him down ("I'm glad I say I'm glad I didn't show him the Norwegian Exploding Chicken").
During the cartoon, Foghorn tries to convince Pete to go hunting for rabbits to which Pete quickly and frantically declines ("uh-uh! No rabbits!"). This is most likely referencing Pete's previous run in with Bugs Bunny during the cartoon "Rabbit's Kin".


John Wick (film)

John Wick (retroactively known as John Wick: Chapter 1) is a 2014 American neo-noir action-thriller film directed by Chad Stahelski, in his directorial debut, and written by Derek Kolstad. It stars Keanu Reeves, Michael Nyqvist, Alfie Allen, Adrianne Palicki, Bridget Moynahan, Dean Winters, Ian McShane, John Leguizamo, and Willem Dafoe. It is the first installment in the "John Wick" film series.
The story focuses on John Wick (Reeves) searching for the men who broke into his home, stole his vintage car and killed his puppy, which was a last gift to him from his recently deceased wife. Chad Stahelski and David Leitch directed the film together, though only Stahelski was credited.
Kolstad had completed the screenplay in 2012 and further developed it for Thunder Road Pictures. The film was produced by Basil Iwanyk of Thunder Road Pictures, Leitch, Eva Longoria, and Michael Witherill. It marks Stahelski and Leitch's directorial debut as a team after multiple separate credits as second-unit directors and stunt coordinators. They previously worked with Reeves as stunt doubles on "The Matrix" trilogy.
Stahelski and Leitch's approach to fight scenes drew upon their admiration for anime and martial arts films. The film used fight choreographers and gun fu techniques from Hong Kong action cinema. The film also pays homage to works such as John Woo's "The Killer", Jean-Pierre Melville's "Le Cercle Rouge" and "Le Samouraï", John Boorman's "Point Blank", and the Spaghetti Western films.
The film was met with positive reviews, with critics labeling it as one of Reeves' best performances and one of the best action films of 2014. It grossed $86 million worldwide against a production budget of . Two sequels, ', and ', released in 2017 and May 2019 respectively, both met with comparable critical and commercial success, with another sequel, "John Wick: Chapter 4", set for a May 2022 release and an untitled fifth film following that.
Plot.
John Wick loses his wife Helen to a terminal illness. Struggling to cope with her loss, he receives a beagle puppy named Daisy from her before she died, to help him cope with his grief. Despite John's stoic demeanor, he bonds with the puppy and they spend their day driving around in his vintage 1969 Ford Mustang Mach 1. At a gas station, he encounters a trio of Russian gangsters whose leader Iosef insists on buying his car, which John refuses to sell. That evening the gangsters break into John's home, knock him unconscious, steal his car, and kill Daisy.
Iosef takes the Mustang to a chop shop to have the VIN changed. Aurelio, the shop's owner, recognizes the car and deduces who it was stolen from. He punches Iosef and throws him out. Aurelio is visited by John, who identifies Iosef as the son of Viggo Tarasov, the head of the Russian crime syndicate in New York City. Aurelio relays Iosef's activities to Viggo, who beats and berates Iosef before explaining to him who John Wick is: a famed assassin, formerly in Viggo's employ, nicknamed "Baba Yaga". When John wanted to retire and marry Helen, Viggo gave him an "impossible task," implied to involve multiple high level assassinations in a short period of time. John succeeded, and his efforts were key in establishing the Tarasov syndicate. After warning Iosef of his impending doom, Viggo tries to talk John out of seeking retribution, but John refuses to even talk. Viggo sends a team of hitmen to John's house, but John kills all of them and enlists an underworld cleaning service to dispose of the bodies and evidence.
Unsurprised, Viggo places a $2 million bounty on John's head and personally offers the contract to John's mentor, Marcus, who accepts. John seeks assistance from the New York Continental Hotel, which caters exclusively to the criminal underworld and permits no assassinations on its premises. Viggo doubles the bounty for those willing to break this rule to kill John. Winston, the Continental's manager, informs John that Viggo has Iosef under guard at his nightclub, the Red Circle. John enters the Red Circle and kills a horde of thugs to reach Iosef, who narrowly escapes after Viggo's lieutenant Kirill manages to incapacitate John. John retreats to the Continental to have his injuries treated. Ms. Perkins, an assassin and former acquaintance, sneaks into John's room to kill him. Marcus alerts John, allowing him to subdue Perkins, who is forced to reveal the location of Viggo's front. He knocks her unconscious and leaves her with Harry, a fellow assassin, to await punishment, but she frees herself and kills Harry. John travels to a church in Little Russia which serves as Viggo's front and destroys his cache of money and blackmail material. When Viggo and his henchmen arrive, John ambushes them, but he is subdued and captured. Viggo taunts John for thinking he would be able to leave his old life behind. Before John can be killed, Marcus intervenes again, allowing John to free himself, kill Kirill, and accost Viggo, who reveals Iosef's location. John then travels to Iosef's safe house and kills him and his bodyguards.
Perkins learns that John and Marcus have been in contact and informs Viggo, who has Marcus beaten and tortured before executing him in his home. Viggo calls John to report this, planning to have Perkins ambush him. While waiting for John, Perkins is summoned to a meeting with Winston, who orders her executed for killing Harry on Continental grounds. Winston calls John to inform him that Viggo is planning to escape by helicopter. John races to New York Harbor, where he kills Viggo's remaining henchmen before fighting Viggo on the dock. Viggo pulls out a knife, and John allows himself to be stabbed, then disarms and fatally wounds Viggo. John breaks into an animal clinic to treat his wounds and releases a pit bull puppy scheduled to be euthanized. John and the dog walk home along the boardwalk where he had his final date with Helen.
Cast.
Other cast members include David Patrick Kelly as Charlie, the "cleaner"; Randall Duk Kim as a doctor with a select clientele; Lance Reddick as Charon, a concierge at The Continental Hotel who always seems to know what the client needs; Munro M. Bonnell as a Russian Orthodox priest who protects the vault where Viggo stores his valuables; Omer Barnea playing Gregori and Toby Leonard Moore playing Victor, Iosef's friends and bodyguards; Matt McColm as a club goon; Daniel Bernhardt as Kirill, Viggo's henchman; Bridget Regan as Addy; Keith Jardine as Kuzma; Tait Fletcher as Nicholai; Thomas Sadoski as Jimmy; Clarke Peters as Harry; Kevin Nash as Francis, a bouncer at the Red Circle night club; Gameela Wright as a delivery woman; Vladislav Koulikov as Pavel; Pat Squire as an elderly woman; Vladimir Troitsky as a Team Leader; and Scott Tixier as a violinist.
Production.
Development.
The premise for "John Wick" was conceived by screenwriter Derek Kolstad who began work on a treatment about a retired contract killer coming out to seek vengeance, entitled "Scorn". After one month of starting, he had completed the first draft of the screenplay and once he had addressed several issues he had pitched the script to various clients, with at least three offers being made. When he first started thinking about writing the script, Kolstad was influenced by film-noir classics and the themes of revenge and the antihero and the occurrences of what may play out if "The worst man in existence found salvation [...] When the source of his salvation is ripped from him [...] Do the gates of Hades open?" For Kolstad, both Alistair MacLean and Stephen King were influences in the creating of the story of John Wick in terms of characterisation and world-building, stating, "[...] MacLean could build a world, and King could surprise you by what the main character truly was capable of."
On 3 December 2012, it was announced that Thunder Road Pictures had bought the script with discretionary funds, with Kolstad agreeing due to Thunder Road's plan to make the film straight away. When Basil Iwanyk, head of Thunder Road Pictures, had first read Kolstad's original screenplay, he was immediately drawn to the main character of Wick, stating, "The tone of the script was subversive and really fun." He too remarked the emotional weight and action theme of the piece, of which he admired. After Thunder Road had optioned the script, Kolstad spent additional months rewriting the script with them. In the original script, the character of John Wick was written with "a man in his mid-sixties" to play the role, given the title character's fabled reputation as a revered and respected assassin, thus the filmmakers had initially imagined an older actor. However, Iwanyk was of the belief that this was irrelevant and bent the original vision ever so slightly, stating, "Instead, we decided to look for someone who is not literally older, but who has a seasoned history in the film world."
On 7 May 2013, it was announced that Keanu Reeves began negotiations to star in the piece in April, and was later confirmed as the film's male lead, after Iwanyk and Peter Lawson of Thunder Road showed him the script, to which he thought to be full of potential and further stated, "I love the role, but you want the whole story, the whole ensemble to come to life." Reeves and Kolstad had worked closely together on further developing the screenplay and the story, with the screenwriter stating, "We spent as much time developing the other characters as we did his. [Keanu] recognizes that the strength of the storyline lies in even the smallest details." The title of the film was later changed from "Scorn" to "John Wick", as according to Kolstad, "Keanu liked the name so much, that Reeves kept telling everyone that he was making a film called 'John Wick'", and the producers agreed, changing the title.
During story discussions for John Wick, Reeves contacted Chad Stahelski and David Leitch, who he originally met on the set of "The Matrix", regarding the possibility as to whether they were interested in choreographing or directing the action of the piece.
 Reeves admired Stahelski and Leitch's work performing, choreographing and coordinating, stating that, "When I got the script... I immediately thought of Chad and Dave for the action design, but I was secretly hoping they'd want to direct it." he then added, "I knew that they would love the genre and I knew that they would love John Wick. And I thought the worlds that get created — the real world and then this underworld — would be attractive to them, and it was." After reading Kolstad's script, Stahelski and Leitch, told Reeves they wanted to tell the story of "John Wick", as they both had a desire to get involved with a first unit or a directing project. Impressed with Reeves' enthusiasm and the quality of the script, Stahelski and Leitch told him that they wished to direct the film and later presented him with their version of the story which was based on "[...] the idea of [Wick] as an urban legend, a thriller assassin movie with a realistic vibe and an otherworldly setting." Impressed with their concept, Reeves supported the pair, and Stahelski and Leitch pitched the idea to the studio, who hired them to direct, contrary to their initial request of directing the film's second unit. On 7 May 2013, it was announced that Stahelski and Leitch were to direct the piece, though it was later ruled by the Directors Guild of America that Stahelski would be given the director credit whereas Leitch would formally be credited as a producer.
Stahelski acknowledged the challenges in balancing the action with that of both the pace and tone, to which he had stated, "we're good at doing that for a particular scene when doing action, but here, we had to take a through-line for the entire film." He too acknowledged that action itself should be a collaborative entity with the story, as opposed to being a thing of its own, "If you're clever with the story and clever with the action, they can fuse together. We don't see any real separation that the story stops, and then we just wow you with action. If it all fits and weaves together and helps you love the character, that's what we want to do. ... Demand more out of your action, as an audience." It was remarked by Kolstad that once Reeves, Stahelski and Leitch were officially on board, during the period of January 2013 and September 2013 he was still working on the final drafts of the screenplay and the modifying of it, to which he described in the general sense a rather "relentless process," further stating, "[...] it needs to be in order to get everyone's vision in check."
On 12 September 2013, Willem Dafoe was confirmed to have been cast in the role of Marcus "[...] a close friend of Wick. He was the one who encouraged Wick to leave the life after his wife dies." On 19 September 2013, Michael Nyqvist, Alfie Allen, Adrianne Palicki and Dean Winters were confirmed to be a part of the film's supporting cast. On 14 October 2013, Bridget Moynahan had joined the cast of Stahelski and Leitch's film in the role of John Wick's wife who, "the beagle puppy, Daisy, was a posthumous gift to John from." On 15 October 2013, Jason Isaacs had joined the cast, portraying David. On 27 November 2013, Daniel Bernhardt was confirmed to have joined the cast of Stahelski and Leitch's "John Wick", playing Kirill, "a formal Russian military commander who is Viggo's henchman." Stahelski and Leitch are hoping for more opportunities behind the camera, with Stahelski himself stating, "Our focus has always been to be filmmakers first and department heads second," as well as adding, "Now we're following our passion and our dream."
Filming.
Principal photography was confirmed to have begun in New York City, with an expected late 2014 release, with an original shooting schedule meant to have occurred from 25 September to 5 December. On 14 October 2013, shooting began in Mill Neck, New York, with the filming process scheduled to continue in and around New York City and greater New York area.
On August 26, 2013, Lionsgate announced that they were looking for "a high-end glass house with a water view" that was located in Nassau County, additionally with a scene or two being shot in Long Island. On October 6, 2013, filming occurred next door to the Flatiron School, on 11 Broadway. Filming moved to Brooklyn on October 24, with filming occurring on 6th Avenue between Union and Carroll Street, President Street between 6th and 7th Avenues and Carroll Street between 6th and 7th Avenues. Additionally filming later occurred at the St. Francis Xavier Church on 6th Avenue. On October 28, 2013, a scene was shot CITGO gas station, 501 N. Highland Ave in Upper Nyack, whilst also shooting footage at Route 9W and Christian Herald Road.
On November 1, 2013, filming took place in lower Manhattan where Delmonico's, at 2 South William Street, was used for the exterior of The Continental hotel. On November 12, 2013, some scenes were shot on 25 Broadway, and in the Financial District on Beaver Street by Broad Street. Filming also took place at W 43rd Street and 8th Avenue, on November 13, in Manhattan, and club scenes for "John Wick" have been filmed on W 27 Street, with November 15 being the last night schedule at the location. On November 21, 2013, it was announced that a bath house scene was scheduled to be filmed on November 24, December 4 and December 5. Other shooting locations included Tribeca, on November 20, which a chase scene was filmed on Church Street. It was also reported, on November 27, that filming had been set up on E 83rd and 3rd Street on the Upper East Side.
On December 2, 2013, a three-week Upper East Side. shoot was scheduled until December 22, with Keanu Reeves and William Dafoe filming several scenes. Filming continued to shoot in Tribeca from December 3 to December 5, with the notification placed on Church and Franklin. After the Tribeca shoot, the crew moved to Long Island on December 6 to film a funeral scene, and the shoot will be exterior. Additional filming was reported on December 13 for Chambers Street, Worth Street, and Lafayette Street. On December 19, Reeves was filming in the Williamsburg neighbourhood of Brooklyn.
Principal photography was confirmed to have ended on December 20, 2013, with post-production beginning on January 10, 2014.
Cinematography.
The film was shot on an Arri Alexa XT digital camera, with a distributed aspect ratio of . Sela described the contrast between John Wick's normal life and the assassin underworld as, "We wanted the first look to be soft and clean, and the second to be grittier, darker, and sharper. For cost reasons we were shooting with just the one camera format, so I used different lenses and contrasting camerawork to create these two distinct looks." He describes the first section of the film as being far more static by stating that, "the camera never stops moving". For "John Wick" he had decided on using both anamorphic and spherical lenses, to which he combined a set of Hawk V-Lite Vintage´74 anamorphics with that of Cooke S4 sphericals. The initial plan was to use the anamorphic and spherical lenses in the first and second parts, respectively, to create the visual contract; however, he decided against such a course of action, as he stated, "once we were shooting we felt that the camerawork was enough to separate those two worlds and we ended up using the anamorphics mainly for day work and the sphericals for night work."
Design.
Costume designer Luca Mosca explained that Wick had to possess a piece of attire that had to be worn throughout almost the entire production of the film, to which he then added, "Then we had to tailor it perfectly and make it sleek and timeless enough to fit into this perfect world." Due to the nature of the world Stahelski and Leitch created, Luca had to create a statement for every character based on their costume. Initially the idea was to place the villains of the piece in combat gear, but later they decided against that due to the principle that they have to be placed in suits, with Leitch quoting Luca, "It is about men in suits."
Production designer Dan Leigh said, "I approached the story as more of a fable, which ties into the graphic-novel idea. The visual manifestation of that is something that transcends reality. The light is a little bit different. There's texture in the air. There are unexpected objects everywhere."
Sound engineers Jim Bolt and Martyn Zub mixed the sound for "John Wick", supervised by sound editor Mark Stoeckinger. Production sound mixer Danny Michael had used Sound Devices' 788T-SSD Digital Recorder and CL-WiFi as sound devices, additionally with a Lectrosonics VRT-Venue System, Lectrosonics radio mics, Schoeps CMC-6U and CMIT-5U microphones, a Cooper Sound 208 mixer, Blackmagic dual seven-inch monitors and a Denecke Dcode GR-1 as the main time clock for "John Wick". Due to "John Wick" being an action-oriented piece, it required a lot of sound effects, as well as "file-based workflow". For Michael, the 788T-SSD's ability to swap out removable storage was an advantage, due to himself simply supplying his CompactFlash to the post-production company Light Iron, in order for them to process the raw unedited footage on the set. Michael stated, "I was basically handing over my sound every time a camera roll changed, to a person who was literally five feet away from me," adding that, "They then took my material and synched it with what was coming off the cameras, on the spot. We would rotate CF cards throughout the course of the day."
Visual effects.
Jake Braver was the overall visual-effects supervisor and visual-effects company Spin VFX worked on most of the visual effects.
Music.
The musical score to "John Wick" was composed by Tyler Bates and Joel J. Richard, with on-screen violin music performed by Scott Tixier. The film features a few pieces of additional music such as Marilyn Manson's "Killing Strangers" and T-Bo and Bengie B's "Get Money". The original soundtrack album, "", was released digitally on October 21, 2014 and received a physical format release on October 27 by Varese Sarabande Records. In addition to Bates and Richard's score, the album features music by artists such as Ciscandra Nostalghia, The Candy Shop Boys, and M86 & Susie Q. Le Castle Vania provided additional music for the score.
Influences.
Director Chad Stahelski said influences on "John Wick" included; "The Good, The Bad And The Ugly" (1966), "Point Blank" (1967), "Le Cercle Rouge" (1970), and "The Killer" (1989). Stahelski said about "The Good, The Bad And The Ugly", "Look at Clint Eastwood in [the film] —there is so much back-story unsaid there. We're big fans of leaving it to your imagination. We just give you some gold coins, and then it's, "Where do the gold coins come from?" We'll get to that. Have your imagination do some work there." He also said "Point Blank" (1967) influenced John Wick: "One of the biggest inspirations for the film was "Point Blank". We watched it on a loop in our office and there are a couple homages to that [in John Wick]." Park Chan-wook's "The Vengeance Trilogy" (2002-2005) and Lee Jeong-beom's "The Man from Nowhere" (2010) influenced the film due to "[their] minimalist composition and graphic nature."
For screenwriter Derek Kolstad, both Alistair MacLean and Stephen King were huge influences in the creation of the story of "John Wick" in terms of characterisation and world-building, stating, "MacLean could build a world, and King could surprise you by what the main character truly was capable of." Outside of films, Stahelski and Leitch drew inspiration from the visual stylings of the 60's and 70's as well as cinematic influences, including Sergio Leone, Akira Kurosawa, Steve McQueen, Lee Marvin, William Friedkin and Sam Peckinpah. With Stahelski himself stating, "All the way back to Kurosawa up to Sergio Leone. We like the spaghetti western sensibility there, some of the composition." Albeit inspiration and emulation from the noir film genre, Stahelski too added that, "Noir maybe was sort of less impactful for us than the other sort of westerns and Kurosawa and things like that. I think we wanted to make this hard-boiled character."
Marketing.
The official website for "John Wick" debuted on August 15, 2014 introducing a marketing campaign and interactive layout to promote the film. The website streamed an audio file and contained interactive games such as "The Red Circle Club" and "Revenge Ride". Lionsgate provided information on the cast and crew along with a gallery and video section.
The first images debuted on August 21, 2014 featuring Reeves' as Wick. With the release Lionsgate confirmed the film being set for a "sudden release" on October 24, 2014.
On September 10, 2014, the teaser poster was released with the confirmation date of the expected teaser trailer.
The teaser trailer for "John Wick" debuted September 12, 2014. The theatrical release poster and the final theatrical trailer were both released on September 30, 2014, by Stahelski and Leitch on an 'Ask me anything' Reddit session.
Lionsgate had provided Collider and Moviepilot, on October 2, 2014, with a prize pack to give away to various readers, which included "Assassin's Creed Unity", a $25 Fandango gift card, a Lionsgate DVD 3-pack with "Dredd", "Gamer", and "Rambo", and a John Wick poster and T-shirt. On October 6, 2014, the official website for "John Wick" had been updated to include three trailers, photographs with John's story, individual cast photos, and mini-biographies. The IMAX TV spot trailer for "John Wick" debuted October 6, 2014, featuring new footage of the film. Carl F. Bucherer was the official partner of the "John Wick" premiere in New York City on October 13, 2014. Keanu Reeves sported a Manero AutoDate with a light dial, Willem Dafoe wore a Manero AutoDate in classic black, and Daniel Bernhardt with a Patravi ChronoGrade. An IMAX featurette was released on October 22, 2014 with clips relating to the film accompanied by statements by Reeves, Stahelski, and Leitch.
On October 16, 2014, "John Wick" was featured on the week's issue of "Entertainment Weekly".
As part of a cross-promotional deal with Overkill Software, Lionsgate and Thunder Road Pictures, on October 21, 2014, John Wick was added as a playable character in the online game "Payday 2". Other elements from the film were included, such as Wick's signature weapons and skill tree that allowed for dual-wielding of certain firearms. Fandango offered people who purchased tickets online at select theaters a free download of "Payday 2" through Steam. "Variety" described Liongate's deal as a "pretty imaginative marketing move". Danielle DePalma, Lionsgate's EVP of digital marketing, stated, "We're big fans of "Payday 2" and the team at Starbreeze, and we're thrilled to kick off our partnership with such a cool movie". Bo Andersson Klint, Starbreeze CEO, stated, "We've finally got a real hitman on our team. Being able to play as John Wick in "Payday 2" ahead of the movie's release is a great reward for our loyal "Payday 2" community."
Release.
"John Wick" premiered at the Regal Union Square Theatre, Stadium 14 on October 13, 2014 in New York City. It had an earlier screening at the Austin Fantastic Fest on September 19, where it opened the official sidebar section, Special Gala Screening, to an astounding reception. It opened in Los Angeles at the ArcLight Hollywood on October 22, 2014. "John Wick" had its television premiere on the USA channel on March 12, 2017.
Pre-release screenings.
Prior to "John Wick"'s public release, an advance screening of the film was shown on October 9, 2014 at Regal Oakwood in Hollywood, Florida. A screening was shown in advance at the UA Court Street in Brooklyn, New York on October 14. Glendale Designs sponsored a private screening on October 16, 2014 at Harkins Arrowhead in Peoria, Arizona. BackstageOL and Lionsgate hosted an advance screening on October 21, 2014 at Edwards Greenway Grand Palace Stadium in Houston, Texas and at the Santikos Embassy 14 in San Antonio, Texas. Additionally, Lionsgate had announced 40 additional advanced screenings at selected theatres in the United States October 21 and 22, as part of a national promotional campaign. Entertainment One Films held advance screenings in Toronto, Ottawa, Halifax, Calgary, Edmonton, Victoria, and Vancouver between October 20 and 23.
Theatrical run.
"John Wick" began a wide theatrical release in the United States on October 24, 2014, expanding in successive weeks to France, Australia, and Netherlands, and premiered in the United Kingdom on February 2, 2015 after expanding throughout Europe.
On May 22, 2013, Lionsgate had sold more than $250 million in territorial rights to nine titles at the Cannes Film Festival, including "John Wick". StudioCanal will distribute the piece throughout Germany, Metropolitan Filmexport acquired the French distribution rights to "John Wick" from Lionsgate, Acme Film acquired the distribution rights throughout the Baltic region, Monolith Films acquired the film rights in Poland, Imagem Filmes had acquired the Brazilian distribution rights, VieVision Pictures obtained the film rights in Taiwan while Panasia Films obtained the film rights in Hong Kong, and InterCom acquired some of the rights for Eastern Europe. Entertainment One picked up the Canadian distribution rights. On June 10, 2014, Belga Films had acquired the rights to distribute the film in Belgium while A-Film has distribution in the Netherlands. On July 2, 2014, M2 Pictures were confirmed to have acquired the Italian distribution rights to "John Wick". On May 8, 2014, the Huayi Brothers picked up the Chinese distribution rights to "John Wick", being one of only four films from the United States that were picked up, with a planned 2015 limited theatrical release. On August 11, 2014, Lionsgate acquired from Thunder Road Pictures the distribution rights to "John Wick" in the United States, with a planned 2014 limited theatrical release, and in October, Summit Entertainment, a Lionsgate company, distributed the film in the United States On October 31, 2014, it was announced that Warner Bros. Pictures would be distributing the film in the UK (along with ). It was later announced that the release date in the United Kingdom was moved back from the first weekend of 2015 to April 10, 2015.
On October 2, 2014, Summit Entertainment announced that "John Wick" would be released in IMAX.
Reception.
Box office.
"John Wick" earned $14.4 million from 2,589 locations on its opening weekend, compared to the $7–8 million most analysts projected the film would make. By the end of its theatrical run, "John Wick" grossed $43 million in North America and $45.7 million in other territories for a worldwide total of $88.8 million, against a production budget of $20–30 million.
The film had a wide release in the United States and Canada in selected theatres on October 24. The film earned $5.45 million on its opening day, including $875,000 from Thursday night previews, which was the second-highest opening of that weekend, at an average of $5,465 per theater. The film grossed $2.5 million from 347 IMAX locations that weekend, which represented 17.7 percent of the film's overall gross for its opening weekend. The audience was 60% male and 77% were older than 25.
Outside North America, the film took $1.4 million during its international opening weekend. The film's highest-grossing debuts were in France, Australia, Thailand, Mexico, and the United Arab Emirates. On its second week, it added $6.7 million from 33 territories. The film went number one in France ($1.2 million) from 300 screens, number three in Australia ($961,000) from 177 screens, and number ten in the Middle East ($1 million) from a total of 80 screens.
Critical reception.
"John Wick" earned a mostly positive reception upon release, attaining praise for the action sequences, direction, visual style, pacing and the performances of the cast, especially Keanu Reeves as John Wick. The review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes gave the film a score of 87% based on 215 reviews, and an average rating of 6.96/10. Its critical consensus reads, "Stylish, thrilling, and giddily kinetic, "John Wick" serves as a satisfying return to action for Keanu Reeves – and what looks like it could be the first of a franchise." Metacritic, assigned the film a weighted average score of 68 out of 100, based on reviews from 40 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews". CinemaScore reported that audiences gave the film a "B" grade, on an A+ to F scale.
Peter Travers of "Rolling Stone" stated, ""John Wick" is the kind of fired-up, ferocious B-movie fun some of us can't get enough of" and noted the "juicy performances" from Dafoe, Leguizamo, and McShane. Richard Corliss of "Time" magazine wrote, "Action movies are about movement, and "John Wick" pursues that goal with remorseless verve." Ignatiy Vishnevetsky of "The A.V. Club" gave the film a "B+" rating, stating, "An underworld fantasy that grafts crisp action on to Rian Johnson-esque world-building, producing one of the more fully realized shoot-'em-up flicks in recent memory." He continued by praising Kolstad's script which "distinguishes itself by carefully defining the boundaries of its universe". Chris Nashawaty of "Entertainment Weekly" gave the film an "A−" rating and called Kolstad's screenplay, "a marvelously rich and stylish feat of pulpy world-building."
Justin Lowe of "The Hollywood Reporter" wrote, "After a marked absence from the genre, Reeves resoundingly returns with an effortless, kinetic style that positions the film extremely well for any potential follow-ups." Peter Debruge of "Variety" spoke highly of the film, "Back in action-hero mode, Keanu Reeves joins forces with his "Matrix" stunt double to deliver a slick and satisfying revenge thriller" and noted "what a thrill well-choreographed action can be when we're actually able to make out what's happening". Stephanie Zacharek of "The Village Voice" said that, "Reeves is wonderful here, a marvel of physicality and stern determination – he moves with the grace of an old-school swashbuckler." Bilge Ebiri of "Vulture" commented, "It's a beautiful coffee-table action movie."
Jeannette Catsoulis wrote, in her review for "The New York Times", "Harboring few ambitions beyond knock-your-socks-off action sequences, this crafty revenge thriller delivers with so much style – and even some wit – that the lack of substance takes longer than it should to become problematic." Catsoulis praised Dafoe and Leguizamo for "bringing real subtlety to an all-too-brief scene" and Nyqvist as "marvellous", as well as Stahelski's direction and Sela's cinematography. Forrest Wickman of "Slate" noted, ""John Wick" offers a slow burn, sizzling in a manner true to its hero's surname." Jordan Hoffman of "The Guardian" scored the film four out of five stars, writing, "A slick, propulsive and ridiculous crime picture that strides like an automatic machine gun."
Peter Bradshaw, also reviewing for "The Guardian", gave the film 2 out of 5 stars and stated "Reeves's semi-deliberate zonked deadpan style only really works in juxtaposition with funny dialogue – and this is a pretty humourless and violent film, which grinds on and on with more and more gleaming black SUVs getting trashed." Ealasaid Haas of "San Jose Mercury News" described "John Wick" as a "disappointingly standard revenge movie." John Semley of "The Globe and Mail" called the title "the new name in crummy action cinema," giving it one-half out of 4 stars.
Video game.
On August 7, 2015, Lionsgate and Starbreeze Studios announced a partnership to develop a first-person shooter virtual reality game based on the film for the HTC Vive/Steam VR. Development was to be headed by Grab Games, with Starbreeze set to publish. WEVR was to develop an introductory experience for the game. The game was released on February 9, 2017, with the name "John Wick Chronicles". and have a standalone narrative based on the Continental Hotel. Additionally, John Wick content – a free "Character Pack" and a chargeable "Weapons Pack" – was released for the "Payday 2" games on October 20, 2016, as cross-promotion.
"The Reaper" character skin in "Fortnite Battle Royale" was often referred to as John Wick. There has since been an official John Wick skin released alongside a limited game mode titled "Wick's Bounty."
"John Wick Hex" is a tactical third person mobile game set in the John Wick universe, just before the trilogy's events. It has been relatively well-received, with an 80% rating on PC Gamer. It makes use of a timeline and movement budget, as well as a replay function that stitches together a level the player completed into an action sequence.
Sequels.
A sequel was released on February 10, 2017, and at the 2016 CinemaCon, Reeves hinted that more sequels had been planned. Following the release of "John Wick: Chapter 2", a third movie was released as of May 17, 2019 by the name of "John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum". A fourth installment, "John Wick: Chapter 4", is in the works, and is set for release on May 27, 2022. A fifth film is intended to follow, being filmed simultaneously with the fourth film. Filming of Chapter 4 was delayed due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
TV series.
In 2017, a prequel series titled "The Continental" was in development focusing on the hotel chain that acts as a neutral ground for assassins.


Shakma

Shakma (also known as Panic in the Tower) is a 1990 American horror film directed by Tom Logan and Hugh Parks. It stars Christopher Atkins, Amanda Wyss, Ari Meyers and Roddy McDowall battling a baboon which has been driven insane by an experimental drug. Despite negative reviews, the film has achieved a small cult audience.
Plot.
Shakma, a hamadryas baboon belonging to medical student Sam (Atkins), is injected by Sam's professor Sorensen (McDowall) with an experimental variation of corticotropin intended to inhibit aggression. When Shakma awakes and goes berserk, Sorensen instructs Sam to euthanize him, but Sam cannot bring himself to carry out the order and leaves Shakma unconscious. Before fellow student Richard can cremate Shakma, Sorensen insists on performing a necropsy the following day, and Shakma is left alive. That night, Sorenson organizes a live-action role-playing game for Sam and his colleagues Gary, Bradley, Richard and Tracy (Wyss). The objective of the game is to reach Richard's younger sister Kim (Meyers) on the top floor. The players are issued walkie-talkies, which allow communication with only Sorenson, the gamemaster. As part of the game's preparation, Sorensen disables the fire alarm system and locks the offices and building to disallow any player from leaving until the end of the game. Shakma, who has since regained consciousness, murders Bradley when he ventures into the specimen room on the fifth floor. Richard is also killed while investigating Bradley's whereabouts on Sorensen's instruction.
Sorensen investigates the players' disappearances personally and finds Richard's mutilated body before falling prey to Shakma himself. The sound of Shakma's slaughter alerts Sam and Tracy to his presence, but they are unable to use the elevator as Sorensen's body is jamming the door. Sam takes the stairs to the fifth floor and unsuccessfully attempts to tame Shakma before fleeing the floor along with Tracy. Tracy goes to the electricity lab to collect a strobe light that she uses to temporarily blind Shakma, and she holds the specimen room door shut while Sam goes to locate and remove Sorensen's body from the elevator. When Tracy confirms Richard's presence in the specimen room, she distracts Shakma while Sam goes to recover Richard, but Shakma returns before he is able to recover from the shock of discovering his body, and Sam and Tracy narrowly escape Shakma's pursuit once more. As Sam and Tracy begin a search for Gary and Bradley, Gary is murdered while using the elevator, which allows Shakma onto the sixth floor. Tracy is murdered in the floor's restroom shortly after.
Sam goes to the top floor to warn Kim (without letting her know of Richard's death), arms himself with a kitchen knife and continues his search for the others while Kim stays to attract the attention of Richard's girlfriend Laura, whose car is parked below. As Sam finds Gary's and Tracy's bodies as well as Sorensen's keys, Laura drives away, and Kim decides to go find Richard herself after leaving a hand-written note for Sam; she is killed by Shakma after finding Richard's body. Sam, after finding Bradley's and Kim's bodies, prepares to alert the police from Sorensen's office, but his guilt over the deaths of his colleagues drives him to kill Shakma himself. He sets up a trap to electrocute Shakma, who avoids the trap and gravely injures Sam. Shakma is ultimately burned to death when Sam manages to lure Shakma into the incinerator. Sam collapses in a hallway and declares "I win" to a nearby monkey doll.
Production.
The monkey playing Shakma is called Typhoon and was handled by Gerry Therrien of Action Animals. Although the title might be read to indicate it is a chacma baboon, Typhoon was actually a hamadryas baboon. Actress Amanda Wyss was terrified of the animal.
Filming took place at Universal Studios Florida.
Release.
"Shakma" had a limited theatrical run before being released on VHS in 1990. It would get a barebones budget DVD release on October 16, 2007, and a more substantial Blu-ray version from Screen Archives Entertainment under its Code Red label in 2013. This edition features an interview with director Tom Logan, commentary by Logan and David Decoteau, and host segments by Katarina Waters. It was only released in a limited 3000-copy print run. A DVD with the same features came out on October 13, 2015.
In April 2015, "Shakma" was made available on streaming video from Shout! Factory. It is also available on Amazon Video and was once on Netflix.
A new HD master of "Shakma" was released by Code Red DVD on Blu-ray in a limited edition of 3000.
Reception.
Critical reception for "Shakma" was highly negative upon its release, with many panning the film's weak humor, shoddy effects, and flat direction.
Eric Snyder of MTV criticized the film's extended dull stretches, weak characters, soundtrack, and poorly executed attack sequences.
Kurt Dahlke from DVD Talk panned the film, awarding it 1.5 out of a possible 5 stars, writing, "While it might sound delightfully bad, "Shakma"'s tale of a murderous monkey knocking off role-playing med-students pisses on the line between so-bad-it's-good and downright insulting with willful disobedience. It's not funny, scary, or much of anything more than bewildering and tiresome." Maitland McDonagh from TV Guide gave the film 1 out of 5 stars, stating that the film "veers between the creepy and the profoundly silly", also noting that the role-playing aspect was "painfully dated". Katie Rife of The A.V. Club called the film "standard" and criticized the film's "laughable" dialogue, role-playing sub-plot, and acting.
Dread Central rated the film a score of 2.5 out of 5, stating that the film's camp value was its primary source of entertainment. The film was listed on IFC's "The 25 best Animal Attacks in Movie History", stating that the film was "Pretty stupid as these things go, but at least it gives it the old college try".
Regardless, the film has gained a small cult following over the years.


Midnight and Jeremiah

Midnight and Jeremiah () is a 1943 children's book written by Sterling North and illustrated by Kurt Wiese. It concerns a boy named Jeremiah who adopts a black baby lamb and as the story progresses they share a strong bond. "Midnight and Jeremiah" was the basis for the 1949 film "So Dear to My Heart", whose title was used for a revised edition, published in 1948, of the original book.
Plot.
Set in early 1900s Pike County, Indiana, the story starts with a boy named Jeremiah and his granny Kincaid who go into their barn where the sheep have given birth. One of the lambs is black and is rejected by its mother so Jeremiah takes him in and names him Midnight. As Midnight grows he becomes more troublesome around the house and in town when Jeremiah buys jawbreakers in the sweet shop much to the annoyance of Granny Kincaid who gets Jeremiah to keep him outside. As the story progresses Midnight and Jeremiah journey side by side and bond with each other but Granny Kincaid and Uncle Hiram are finding hard times getting money so Jeremiah has the idea of entering Midnight into the Pike County Fair. Jeremiah and Uncle Hiram get Midnight ready for the fair by trimming him then when they go there the judges assume that Midnight is a pure breed sheep. Granny Kincaid explains to the judges that Midnight is just a mixed breed but the judges say that it doesn't matter whether or not the sheep is pure breed so Midnight wins first place in the Pike County Fair.
After the event Uncle Hiram organises a big parade of nearly fifty neighbours to celebrate back home but it scares Midnight who runs off into the distance much to the shock of Jeremiah. Jeremiah searches everywhere but cannot find Midnight and becomes depressed as Winter comes. Granny Kincaid tries to make Jeremiah feel better by taking his mind off Midnight but it doesn't help.
On Christmas Eve Jeremiah goes off in the night to get luck on finding Midnight by going to the Baby Jesus model set. He goes off into the night to keep searching and then, at the end of the book, Jeremiah finally finds Midnight near the church asleep beyond the cradle and they both are reunited.
Revised version.
Subsequent to the 1948 filming of "Midnight and Jeremiah" as "So Dear to My Heart" (released in 1949), a revised edition of North's book was published under the film's title and with the lamb now named Danny in honor of celebrity harness horse Dan Patch: film-maker Walt Disney, who regarded Dan Patch as an icon of Americana as nostalgia, had insisted his film "So Dear to My Heart" open with Jeremiah encountering Dan Patch when a train transporting the horse makes a local stopover. North opened the revision of his original story with the Dan Patch episode and also incorporated other amendments from the Disney film, such as the lamb's running away occurring earlier and the episode of the county fair - where the lamb wins a special ribbon while being passed for first place - occurring almost at the story's end.
See also.
So Dear to My Heart


The Wind in the Willows (2006 film)

The Wind in the Willows is a 2006 live-action television adaptation of Kenneth Grahame's classic 1908 novel "The Wind in the Willows". It was a joint production of the BBC and the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation and starred Matt Lucas (Mr. Toad), Bob Hoskins (Badger), Mark Gatiss (Ratty), and Lee Ingleby (Mole), with a cameo appearance from Michael Murphy as the Judge. Rachel Talalay directed. It debuted in Canada on CBC Television on 18 December 2006 in the United Kingdom on BBC1 on 1 January 2007, in the U.S. on PBS's "Masterpiece Theatre" on 8 April 2007 and in Australia on ABC TV on 23 December 2007. It was filmed on location in Bucharest, Romania.
Though the novel is considered children's literature, critics noted that this adaptation might not be appropriate for young children; Ginia Bellafante wrote in "The New York Times" that it "is ultimately too jaunty to be considered 100 percent safe for someone over 10", and David Knox thought it "may well alienate children". However, Variety's Brian Lowry said that its appeal "should run the demographic gamut for PBS, from "Sesame Street" to "Bleak House"."
Reception.
Critics praised Matt Lucas's portrayal of Mr. Toad. "In ordinary life Mr. Lucas’s frame does not suggest that he is a salad-and-pea-shoots kind of guy, and here he has fun with an exaggerated corpulence that seems to leave him channeling W. C. Fields," wrote Bellafante. David Knox wrote that "Lucas’ performance positively swamps this treatment of the classic story".
Director Rachel Talalay received the 2007 Leo Award for "Best Direction in a Youth or Children's Program or Series" for the film. It was also nominated for the 2007 Satellite Award for "Best Motion Picture Made for Television"


The Animals Film

The Animals Film is a 1981 feature documentary film about the use of animals by human beings, directed by Victor Schonfeld and Myriam Alaux, and narrated by actress Julie Christie.
Synopsis.
"The Animals Film" presents a survey of the uses of animals in factory farming, as pets, for entertainment, in scientific and military research, hunting, etc. The film also profiles the international animal rights movement. The film incorporates secret government footage, cartoons, newsreels, and excerpts from propaganda films.
Release.
"The Animals Film" was distributed in cinemas in Britain, Australia, Germany, Austria, Canada and the United States, and was broadcast on numerous television networks. The British network, Channel Four, transmitted the film during the Channel's third night on air in November 1982. It generated front page news in Britain at the time because Channel 4 broadcast a two-hour version of the film shorn of seven minutes of its concluding sequence. The original 136 minute film released in cinemas had been approved with no cuts by the British Board of Film Censors, but the Independent Broadcasting Authority instructed Channel 4 that certain scenes in the film could 'incite crime or lead to civil disorder.' Jonathon Porritt and David Winner write that, with over one million viewers, the screening is regarded as "an important moment in the growth of public awareness of animal exploitation." Channel Four screened it again during its Banned series in 1991.
Reception.
Alan Brien, film critic of the UK "Sunday Times", wrote of the film: "The most impressive film maudit, possibly too hot to handle... stuffed with footage never before shown, and a wealth of newly-shot material often taken undercover, which documents... mankind's degradation, exploitation, and often pointless torture, of the creatures who share our planet. ...Proves, beyond contradiction, that this behaviour is not just random or personal but part of our organised society, with drug companies, government departments, scientists, military authorities, factory farmers, university research laboratories, for their own selfish ends, for profit in money or prestige. I do not know when I have come out of a screening so moved by the power of the cinema as a medium to transform the entire sensibility of an audience."
British singer-songwriter Elvis Costello says he was moved to reject meat after seeing the film.
Soundtrack.
Robert Wyatt composed an original soundtrack for the film, released in 1982 on Rough Trade Records. The film also features music from Talking Heads and ex-Audience frontman, Howard Werth. Critical reception of the soundtrack was mixed. Ted Mills of album database Allmusic described the soundtrack as "moody" and filled with "tasty-sounding analog synths from the late '70s", but ultimately it "disappoint[s] fans of Wyatt's vocals." It was later issued in a heavily edited form (losing more than 10 minutes, with no explanation given) as a Japanese CD, and all later CD reissues have been cloned from this master.
Home media.
In 2007 a DVD of "The Animals Film" was released with a new director's cut (running time 120 minutes), via Beyond the Frame. In 2008 the British Film Institute released a remastered DVD in the UK, incorporating both the original uncensored cinema version and the director's cut.
In 2010 the BBC World Service broadcast One Planet: Animals & Us, a radio documentary series in which Victor Schonfeld investigates why little has changed since the making of "The Animals Film".


Stomach Trouble

Stomach Trouble is a 1927 silent animated short starring the comic strip character Krazy Kat. The short was released by Winkler Pictures.
Plot.
The cartoon starts in a house where Krazy wakes up from his bed. He then heads to the refrigerator to get some breakfast. To his surprise, he finds his refrigerator empty, and notices he desperately needs to fill his belly.
Krazy goes outside to look for anything to satisfy his hunger. He spots a pie placed on a window sill of another house but the owner removes it before Krazy could get near. He tries to take sausages from a basket carried by a hound but the long meats are too tricky to handle. He then attempts to take a sandwich from a steamer owned by a mime but the mime notices this immediately before taking back the cookware and fleeing.
While still looking for ways to obtain food, Krazy sees a chef carrying a platter with a roasted turkey on top, heading towards a prison. As he follows the chef, the cat sips the sauce that drips from the plate. Looking through a prison window, Krazy sees the turkey being served to a prisoner, giving him the notion that he too should be a prisoner. Krazy goes on to annoy the prison guard, even breaking the officer's billy club, until he is finally thrown into a cell. Inside his cell, Krazy is excited that he prepares some utensils. To his dismay, the guard only offers him tea. Krazy complains to the guard, who discloses that the other prisoner will be executed tomorrow, and therefore deserves some special treatment. Krazy faints in embarrassment.


Whittington (novel)

Whittington is a children's fantasy novel by Alan Armstrong, published by Random House in 2005 with illustrations by S. D. Schindler. It was a 2006 Newbery Honor Book (Newbery Medal finalist) and an ALA Notable Book for Children.
Plot introduction.
The story is about a cat named Whittington that goes to live in a barn that is owned by a man named Bernie. Ben and Abby, Bernie's grandchildren, come to the barn. Ben struggles with reading in school. Ben has dyslexia and is struggling to learn how to read. He has been told by the school principal that if his reading skills do not improve, he will not advance to the next grade. Whittington tells the story of his namesake, a man named Dick Whittington, which encourages Ben.
The three stories in "Whittington".
Three stories merge in the novel. The first is about Whittington, a scruffy tomcat, descended from Dick Whittington's legendary cat, who wants to become part of the community in a barn full of animal outcasts kept by the kindly Bernie and his grandchildren, Ben and Abby.
The second is the cat's retelling of the story of his famous ancestor, Dick Whittington's cat. The story of Dick and his cat, based in reality but told in legends dating back to the early 17th century and recounted in several modern books listed in the Endnote, is a rags-to-riches tale of a poor boy led to fame and fortune by an unusual pet with a knack for killing rats.
The third is about dyslexic Ben's efforts to learn to read before he is held back and placed in Special Ed.
The last two parallel each other to a certain extent, as Dick struggles to make his way in the world and Ben struggles with his frustration and fear. Dick is helped by his cat, who steers him to both fortune and love. Ben is helped by all the barn animals, who convince his sister to set up lessons in the barn, and get him to try out the Reading Recovery program at school, despite the teasing of his classmates.


The Egg Collector

The Egg Collector is a 1940 Warner Bros. "Merrie Melodies" directed by Chuck Jones. The short was released on July 20, 1940, and stars Sniffles.
Plot.
Late one night in a bookstore, Sniffles the mouse is reading the book "Egg Collecting For Amateurs". According to the book, a good specimen for beginners is the egg of a great barn owl. Sniffles' friend, a bookworm, takes him to the top of an old church tower where they find an owl egg. Sniffles snatches the egg from its cradle, but the father owl stops them before they can escape. Sniffles learns from the owl that he is a rodent and that owls eat rodents. And worms. The bookworm faints and Sniffles flees madly, taking the worm with him.


Dynomite!

Dynomite! is a PC game developed by Raptisoft Games and published by PopCap Games. Its gameplay is largely similar to that of the "Puzzle Bobble" series, but it has several unique differences.
Gameplay.
There are four game modes: Endless, Stomped, Fossil, and Time Trial.
Endless Puzzle.
Rows of eggs of various colors descend from the top of the screen. The player must use their slingshot to shoot their own supply of eggs up at them. When three or more eggs of the same color match, they will explode. If the mass of eggs descend to the bottom of the screen, an alarm will sound and the player will have three seconds to break any eggs that reached the bottom, or else the entire screen will be crushed by the foot of Mama Brontosaurus, and the game will end.
An interesting aspect to make the game increasingly difficult as the player plays a single game for a longer amount of time is the inclusion of Whirley. Every minute or so during gameplay, a dinosaur will announce "Whirley's coming!", and soon after, Whirley (a purple pterodactyl) will fly across the screen carrying an egg of a color not yet on their screen. If Whirley is allowed to fly across the screen untouched, the color of his egg will be added to the palette of colors in the egg mass, and the rate of the eggs' descent will reset to the default slow speed. However, if players shoot and hit Whirley, the color will not be added, but the rate at which the eggs descend will increase.
Some eggs in an egg mass will occasionally vibrate for a short period of time. If they are made to explode while still vibrating, a player soon receives a special egg for the slingshot that offers some form of bonus when shot and eventually forced to explode: the play area either narrows or widens to increase/decrease the speed of the dropping egg mass, the play area raises upward (only given when the eggs are very close to the warning line), the player receives a one-time bonus of (50, 100, or 200) points, an automatic score multiplier (2x, 3x or 4x) for 30 seconds, or the ability to see the full trajectory (including rebounds) of the egg to be shot for one minute.
Stomped.
A puzzle arrangement appears on the screen. The goal is to clear the arrangement by shooting matching eggs of the corresponding colour next to it. However, every egg the player shoots will increase Mama Bronto's anger meter. Every time the meter gets full, Mama Bronto pushes the puzzle down one notch with her foot, making the board more difficult to accomplish. There are 30 stomped puzzles, and after completing all 30, level 31 will start the puzzles from the beginning again.
Fossil.
A piece of a dinosaur fossil is surrounded by eggs, and the player must shoot matching eggs to break the piece free and add it to a collection of completed fossils. There are 15 fossils, each having three fragments, for a total of 45 levels in this mode. Like Endless Puzzle, if the eggs and fossil piece reach the bottom of the screen, Mama Bronto will crush the screen and the game is over.
Time Trial.
A multi-layered arrangement of eggs (60 rows and five colors in Easy mode, 30 rows and seven colors in Normal mode, and 15 rows and nine colors in Hard mode) must be cleared by shooting the correctly colored eggs at the ones on screen. If there are 90 rows, trying to add an egg to make the 91st row will break the egg instead. Unlike the other games, this one does not have a time limit; instead, it keeps a record of the player's five fastest clearances across all difficulties.
Versions.
There are two versions of this game: the Java applet-based web version, and the downloadable version (called "Dynomite Deluxe"). "Dynomite Deluxe" includes enhanced graphics, a musical soundtrack by Skaven, the ability to upload high scores, and full functionality for all game modes. "Dynomite Deluxe" is available to purchase either from PopCap's website, Origin, or through Steam.


Deep Sea 3D

Deep Sea 3D is a 3D IMAX documentary film about sea life. The documentary is directed by Howard Hall who has also directed other undersea films such as "Into the Deep" and "Island of the Sharks". The film is narrated by Johnny Depp and Kate Winslet. It also features music by Danny Elfman. The film is 40 minutes long.
The film shows various sea animals, such as jellyfish, octopus and turtles as well as coral reef life.


Pantry Panic

Pantry Panic is the third animated cartoon short in the "Woody Woodpecker" series. Released theatrically on November 24, 1941, the film was produced by Walter Lantz Productions and distributed by Universal Pictures.
Plot.
Woody stays behind to swim while the other birds in the forest migrate south for the winter. Just after the other birds leave, the cold of winter sets in instantly, to the point that Woody's swimming hole freezes solid after he jumps in ("Must be hard water", he remarks). Woody does not worry, because he has stored up plenty of food. However, a snow storm enters his house and makes off with all of his possessions, food included.
Two weeks later, Woody is delusional and literally staring starvation, personified as something vaguely resembling the Grim Reaper, in the face. A month later, a hungry cat happens upon Woody's cabin, and conspires to eat the woodpecker. The famished Woody, however, plans just as quickly to eat the cat, and the two have at it. Eventually a moose appears at Woody's open door, and the starving cat and woodpecker chase after it to capture and eat it. Afterwards, however, the meal proves not to be enough to satisfy both Woody (whose voice is suddenly much different) and the cat, who instantly resume their game of trying to eat each other.
Voices.
Danny Webb was the voice of Woody Woodpecker; Korny Kat and the Moose, and bird voices were likely done by Sara Berner, Bernice Hansen, Jack Mercer, Pinto Colvig, and Mel Blanc.
Production notes.
Like most of the early 1940s Lantz cartoons, "Pantry Panic" carried no director's credit. Lantz himself has claimed to have directed this cartoon, which features animation by Alex Lovy and LaVerne Harding, a story by Ben Hardaway and Lowell Elliott, and music by Darrell Calker.
"Pantry Panic" was the third cartoon in the Woody Woodpecker series, featuring an early, garish Woody Woodpecker design. It was the first short with Danny Webb as Woody's voice. However, the woodpecker's famous laugh (provided by Mel Blanc) would continue to be recycled until 1951, when Grace Stafford rerecorded a softer version. Woody's "Guess Who?" (also Blanc), however, would continue to be used in the opening titles until the end of the series in 1972.
"Pantry Panic" would be reworked in 1946 as "Who's Cookin' Who?". The starvation personification would also reappear in the remake as well as 1951's "The Redwood Sap". As of 2021, this entry is the only "Woody Woodpecker" cartoon in the public domain. As such, it is freely distributed, and can be downloaded from the Internet Archive and seen on YouTube.
A 1080 HD version of this cartoon was created using artificial intelligence (AI), released in 2021 by Cartoon Renewal Studios.