![Julie Andrews in The Sound of Music.
[Credit: Courtesy of Twentieth Century-Fox Film Corporation]](https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/blogger_img_proxy/AEn0k_v8CGfSRHxHEN2H-y4E94swDSzA0cvEXmXf0wB38ozMy0ejvdQsV33f5uBztG1pfwvP_fwrykN2QX4KuO_SgLV5zBSfBfX5auu19fXe9h16j2HzVbPIf_inwuEdCStYxUsRX79R2fFm=s0-d "Julie Andrews in The Sound of Music.
[Credit: Courtesy of Twentieth Century-Fox Film Corporation]")
The Sound of Music is one of the most commercially successful films in history. The Rodgers and Hammerstein musical (their last before Hammerstein’s death) was based on the real-life story of the von Trapp family of Austria. Like its theatrical forerunner, the movie received only modest critical notices; however, its breathtaking photography of the Austrian Alps and its many memorable songs, among them “Do-Re-Mi,” “My Favorite Things,” and the title tune, made the film a big hit with both the public and the Academy. The film won 5 of its 10 Academy Award nominations.*
The Sound of Music, produced by Robert Wise, directed by Robert Wise (AA), screenplay by Ernest Lehman based on the musical play by Richard Rodgers, Oscar Hammerstein II, Howard Lindsay, and Russel Crouse.
Trapp Family, Austrian singers whose story was made into a popular Rodgers and Hammerstein Broadway musical, The Sound of Music (1959), that proved one of the most successful in theatre history. Their story was also the basis for a film starring Julie Andrews (1965) that had a comparable success.
Maria Augusta Kutschera (b. Jan. 26, 1905, Vienna—d. March 28, 1987, Morrisville, Vt., U.S.), the best-known member of the family, wrote The Story of the Trapp Family Singers (1949). She recounted her experience as an orphan and novitiate in a Benedictine convent in Salzburg. As a governess, she won the hearts of the seven children of a widower, Freiherr (Baron) Georg von Trapp, a World War I submarine commander, and of the baron himself. She was married to Trapp in 1927, and they had three children. In the mid-1930s the family began singing German and liturgical music under the tutelage of the Reverend Franz Wasner, who continued as their director. In 1937 they made their first European tour as professional singers—the Trapp Family Choir. With Father Wasner, the family fled in 1938 from Nazi-dominated Austria to Italy (Switzerland in the play) and emigrated to the United States. As the Trapp Family Singers they developed a program of folk and other music that appealed to audiences worldwide. They toured in many countries from 1940 until 1955, when the group disbanded. Georg von Trapp died in 1947.
Maria Augusta, who with other family members became a naturalized U.S. citizen in 1948, helped manage a family lodge in Stowe, Vt., from the 1940s on. She also conducted a summer music camp there until 1956. The Trapp Family Austrian Relief, Inc., was established in 1947.
Christopher Jonathan James Nolan (/ˈnoʊlən/; born 30 July 1970) is a British-American film director, screenwriter, and producer. In his filmmaking career, Nolan has alternated between large-scale epics such as The Dark Knight Trilogy (2005–2012) and Inception (2010), and smaller psychological thrillers such as Memento (2000) and The Prestige (2006). His films are typically characterized by their complex narrative structures, morally ambiguous characters, and strong connection to film noir.
He founded the production company Syncopy Films with his wife Emma Thomas, and they have produced all of his films since The Prestige. He has frequently collaborated with a variety of talents including cinematographer and director Wally Pfister, screenwriters David S. Goyer and Jonathan Nolan, film editor Lee Smith, composers David Julyan and Hans Zimmer, production designer Nathan Crowley, casting director John Papsidera, visual effects supervisor Paul Franklin, and special effects coordinator Chris Corbould.
In total, his films have grossed approximately US$1.6 billion in North America and US$3.5 billion worldwide, making him one of the most commercially successful filmmakers of all time. He has received nominations from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (Oscars), Hollywood Foreign Press Association (Golden Globes), British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA's), the Directors Guild of America (DGA), among others. In July 2012, Christopher Nolan became the youngest director to be honoured with a hand and footprint ceremony at Grauman's Chinese Theatre in Los Angeles.
Man of Steel is a 2013 American superhero film directed by Zack Snyder, produced by Christopher Nolan, and scripted by David S. Goyer. Based on the DC Comics character Superman, the film is a reboot of the Superman film series that portrays the character's origin story. The film stars Henry Cavill in the title role with Amy Adams as Lois Lane, Michael Shannon as General Zod, Diane Lane as Martha Kent, Kevin Costner as Jonathan Kent, Laurence Fishburne as Perry White, and Russell Crowe as Jor-El. Man of Steel is intended to launch a shared fictional universe of DC Comics characters on film.
Development began in 2008 when Warner Bros. Pictures took pitches from comic book writers, screenwriters and directors, opting to reboot the franchise. In 2009, a court ruling resulted in Jerry Siegel's family recapturing the rights to Superman's origins and Siegel's copyright. The decision stated that Warner Bros. did not owe the families additional royalties from previous films, but if they did not begin production on a Superman film by 2011, then the Shuster and Siegel estates would be able to sue for lost revenue on an unproduced film. Nolan pitched Goyer's idea after story discussion on The Dark Knight Rises, and Snyder was hired as the film's director in October 2010. Principal photography started in August 2011 in West Chicago, Illinois, before moving to Vancouver and Plano, Illinois.
Man of Steel's red carpet debut in the U.S. was attended by its principal cast members in New York City on June 10, 2013. The film was released to the general public on June 14, 2013, in conventional, 3D and IMAX theaters.
Plot
The planet Krypton is facing imminent destruction due to an unstable core, and its ruling council is under the threat of rebel General Zod and his followers. Scientist Jor-El and his wife Lara launch a spacecraft carrying their newborn son Kal-El and a genetic codex. After Zod murders Jor-El, he and his followers are banished to the Phantom Zone, but manage to escape when Krypton explodes. The infant Kal-El lands on Earth in Smallville, Kansas, where he is discovered by couple Jonathan and Martha Kent, who name him Clark and raise him as their adopted son.
Clark's Kryptonian physiology affords him superhuman abilities on Earth. With Martha's support, young Clark gradually learns to hone the abilities that initially cause him confusion and discomfort. Jonathan reveals to a teenaged Clark that he is a humanoid alien from another world, and advises him to not utilize his powers publicly, fearing that society would be dangerously apprehensive of him. After Jonathan is killed by a tornado, an adult Clark spends the next several years living a nomadic lifestyle, working different jobs under false names to cover his tracks and hide his identity. He eventually discovers a Kryptonian scout ship whose technology allows him to communicate with the consciousness of Jor-El in the form of a hologram. Lois Lane, a young journalist from the Daily Planet, also discovers the ship while pursuing a story, and is rescued by Clark when she is injured. Lois's editor Perry White rejects the story she submits about her "superhuman" rescuer, whom she tracks back to Smallville.
Detecting the scout ship, Zod travels to Earth where he demands that Kal-El must surrender to him. Because Zod threatened the population if he does not comply, Clark agrees to surrender to the U.S. military, who thus hand Lois and Clark over to Zod's right hand Faora. Zod reveals that he intends to use a terraforming "world engine" in conjunction with his own spaceship to transform Earth into a more Krypton-like planet and eradicate the human population, then use the codex (which has been revealed to be located within Clark's cells) to repopulate the planet with genetically-engineered Kryptonians. After Clark and Lois escape, Zod deploys the "world engine" to the Indian Ocean and initiates the terraforming by hovering his ship over Metropolis. Clark, now dubbed "Superman", destroys the "world engine". The military then loads the spacecraft that brought Superman to Earth into a military cargo plane and flies it into Zod's ship, creating a black hole that consumes the ship and Zod's followers. Zod, having been separated from his ship earlier, still remains, and he and Superman use their powers to engage each other. After a lengthy battle, Superman is forced to snap Zod's neck to save a group of innocent civilians. Wracked with guilt, he is comforted by Lois. Superman decides to blend into the normal world by resuming the identity of Clark Kent, and is hired by White as a reporter for the Daily Planet.
Cast
- A Kryptonian sent to Earth by his parents as an infant to survive the destruction of his homeworld Krypton. He is raised in Smallville, by Kansas farmers Martha and Jonathan Kent, and becomes Earth's greatest protector, Superman. Cavill was cast as Superman, making him the first non-American actor to be cast in the role. Cavill was one of the actors that was considered for the role of Superman for the 2006 film Superman Returns, but lost the part to Brandon Routh. According to Zack Snyder, Cavill was "the perfect choice to don the cape and S shield." Cavill has stated that "There's a very real story behind the Superman character", explaining that everyone's goal has been to explore the difficulties his character faces as a result of having multiple identities -- including his birth name, Kal-El, and his alter ego, Clark Kent. Cavill has also stated that "He's alone and there's no one like him," stating of Superman's vulnerabilities. "That must be incredibly scary and lonely, not to know who you are or what you are, and trying to find out what makes sense. Where's your baseline? What do you draw from? Where do you draw a limit with the power you have? In itself, that's an incredible weakness." In an interview with Total Film magazine, Cavill stated that he had been eating nearly 5,000 calories, training for over two hours and plowing protein to pack on the muscle mass. Dylan Sprayberry was cast as 13-year-old Clark Kent while 11-year-old Cooper Timberline was cast as the 9-year-old Clark Kent in June.
After Earth is a 2013 American science fiction adventure drama film directed by M. Night Shyamalan that he co-wrote with Gary Whitta based on an original story idea by Will Smith, about a military father and son crash landed on Earth one thousand years after cataclysmic events forced humanity to abandon it for a new home planet. The teenage son must save his dying father by trekking alone across the hostile terrain, encountering highly evolved creatures and a ruthless alien beast along the way, to recover their rescue beacon and also prove that he can live up to his father's reputation as a legendary soldier. It stars Smith and his son Jaden as Cypher and Kitai Raige, with Will Smith also acting as producer, and is distributed by Columbia Pictures and available on IMAX. It is the first movie from Sony Pictures to be both shot and presented in 4K resolution. Upon early release in North America and Korea on May 31, 2013, the film was panned by most film critics and declared a U.S. box office failure by most film industry observers. Surveyed opening-day audiences graded it as satisfactory. The film will be released world-wide in 60 countries on June 7, 2013.
Plot
In the near future, an environmental cataclysm forces the human race to abandon Earth and venture beyond the Solar System in search of a new home. The exodus ends when humanity settles a new pristine world they call Nova Prime.
One thousand years later, The Ranger Corps, a peacekeeping organization commanded by General Cypher Raige (Will Smith), comes into conflict with the S'krell, alien creatures who intended to conquer Nova Prime. Their secret weapons are the Ursas, large predatory creatures that hunt by "sensing" fear. The Rangers struggle against the Ursas until Cypher learns how to completely suppress his fear, a technique called "ghosting". After teaching this technique to the other Rangers, he leads the Ranger Corps to victory.
Meanwhile, Cypher's son Kitai Raige (Jaden Smith) blames himself for the death of his sister Senshi (Zoë Kravitz) at the hands of an Ursa. Not wanting to fail his father again because of her death, Kitai trains hard to become a Ranger just like Cypher. His application for the Ranger Corps is rejected due to his recklessness and Cypher views him as a disappointment. Kitai's mother Faia (Sophie Okonedo) convinces Cypher to take Kitai on his last voyage before retirement.
Forced together by the mission, father and son start to bond during the trip. However, their spaceship is caught by an asteroid shower forcing them to crash-land on Earth, now a Class-1 quarantined planet. Both of Cypher's legs are broken and the main emergency beacon has been damaged. Cypher instructs Kitai to locate the tail section of the ship which broke off during the plunge to the surface. Inside is the backup beacon which they can use to signal Nova Prime. Kitai is given Cypher's Ranger weapon, a wrist communicator and six oxygen capsules so he can breathe since human lungs can no longer tolerate Earth's air. Cypher warns him to avoid the fauna and flora which has mutated since humans left and be careful with the planet's thermal shifts. Kitai sets off to find the tail section, with Cypher guiding him through the communicator.
Kitai is soon attacked by giant baboons and ends up being bitten by a poisonous leech after going against Cypher's orders in an attempt to escape. Although Kitai successfully administers an antidote, two of his oxygen capsules are damaged and his nervous system shuts down for hours. When Kitai awakens, he narrowly escapes one of the planet's thermal shifts. Upon discovery of his damaged capsules, Kitai lies to Cypher. That night, Kitai listens to Cypher tell him a story of when he was attacked by an Ursa, how he realized that fear is merely an illusion created by the mind's thoughts of the future, and thus he first began to "ghost" himself from the Ursas, choosing to live rather than to let his enemies, both fear and the Ursas, decide his fate.
The following day, Kitai reaches a mountaintop, and Cypher learns about Kitai's broken oxygen capsules. Concluding that Kitai won't have enough oxygen, Cypher orders Kitai to abort the mission. Believing his father still sees him as a disappointment, Kitai blames Senshi's death on Cypher who had been away from Nova Prime the day they were attacked. Determined to prove his father wrong, Kitai skydives from the mountaintop, but is captured by a massive condor which damages his forewam/wrist communicator in the process.
The condor takes a liking to Kitai, who is forced to flee when the condor's nest is attacked by tigers. Using a makeshift raft he continues his trek, during which Kitai has a dream about his sister. Senshi reassures him that Cypher's bitterness is just his own anger for not saving her. When Kitai wakes, he is surprised by another thermal shift, loses Cypher's weapon and nearly freezes to death. Fortunately, Kitai is rescued by the condor, which sacrifices itself for him.
Kitai reaches the tail section and retrieves the emergency beacon along with another communicator, another weapon, and more oxygen capsules. The communicator only allows Cypher to hear and see Kitai, but not for Kitai to hear him. Kitai is shocked to learn the ship was carrying an Ursa meant to teach the cadets how to "ghost" themselves. The creature has escaped in the crash and killed the remnants of the crew. When the emergency beacon does not activate, Cypher realizes that the atmosphere is blocking the signal, and that Kitai must get to higher ground. Kitai heads to a nearby volcano from which he can launch the beacon where he is attacked by the Ursa and injured. However, remembering both Cypher's instructions, focusing on the moment rather than the outcome, and the words of encouragement Senshi whispered in his dream, Kitai is able to control his fear and "ghost" himself from the Ursa enough to kill it with his weapon. Kitai then launches the beacon and a rescue team soon arrive.
Cypher recovers from his injuries and salutes Kitai for his bravery. At the end, they travel back to Nova Prime.
The Great Gatsby is a 1925 novel written by American author F. Scott Fitzgerald that follows a cast of characters living in the fictional town of West Egg on prosperous Long Island in the summer of 1922. The story primarily concerns the young and mysterious millionaire Jay Gatsby and his quixotic passion for the beautiful Daisy Buchanan. Considered to be Fitzgerald's magnum opus, The Great Gatsby explores themes of decadence, idealism, resistance to change, social upheaval, and excess, creating a portrait of the Jazz Age that has been described as a cautionary tale regarding the American Dream.
Fitzgerald, inspired by the parties he had attended while visiting Long Island's north shore, began planning the novel in 1923 desiring to produce, in his words, "something new—something extraordinary and beautiful and simple and intricately patterned." Progress was slow with Fitzgerald completing his first draft following a move to the French Riviera in 1924. His editor, Maxwell Perkins, felt the book was too vague and convinced the author to revise over the next winter. Fitzgerald was ambivalent about the book's title, at various times wishing to re-title the novel Trimalchio in West Egg.
First published by Scribner's in April 1925, The Great Gatsby received mixed reviews and sold poorly; in its first year, the book only sold 20,000 copies. Fitzgerald died in 1940, believing himself to be a failure and his work forgotten. His work, spearheaded by The Great Gatsby, experienced a revival during World War II, and the novel became a part of high school curriculum in the following decades. The book has remained popular since, leading to numerous stage and film adaptations. The Great Gatsby is widely considered to be a literary classic and a contender for the title "Great American Novel". The book is consistently ranked among the greatest works of American literature.
Plot summary
The main events of the novel take place in the summer of 1922, narrated by Nick Carraway, a Yale graduate and World War I veteran from the Midwest who takes a job in New York as a bond salesman. He rents a small house on Long Island, in the (fictional) village of West Egg, next door to the lavish mansion of Jay Gatsby, a mysterious millionaire who holds extravagant parties. Nick drives across the bay to East Egg for dinner at the home of his cousin, Daisy Buchanan, and her husband, Tom, a college acquaintance of Nick's. They introduce Nick to Jordan Baker, an attractive, cynical young golfer with whom Nick begins a romantic relationship. She reveals to Nick that Tom has a mistress, Myrtle Wilson, who lives in the "valley of ashes": an industrial dumping ground between West Egg and New York City. Not long after this revelation, Nick travels to New York City with Tom and Myrtle to an apartment they keep for their affair. At the apartment, a vulgar and bizarre party ends with Tom breaking Myrtle's nose after she taunts Tom about Daisy.
As the summer progresses, Nick eventually receives an invitation to one of Gatsby's parties. Nick encounters Jordan Baker at the party, and they meet Gatsby himself, an aloof and surprisingly young man who recognizes Nick from their same division in the war. Through Jordan, Nick later learns that Gatsby knew Daisy from a romantic encounter in 1917 and is deeply in love with her. He spends many nights staring at the green light at the end of her dock, across the bay from his mansion, hoping to one day rekindle their lost romance. Gatsby's extravagant lifestyle and wild parties are an attempt to impress Daisy in the hopes that she will one day appear again at Gatsby's doorstep. Gatsby now wants Nick to arrange a reunion between himself and Daisy. Nick invites Daisy to have tea at his house, without telling her that Gatsby will also be there. After an initially awkward reunion, Gatsby and Daisy reestablish their connection. They begin an affair and, after a short time, Tom grows increasingly suspicious of his wife's relationship with Gatsby. At a luncheon at the Buchanans' house, Gatsby stares at Daisy with such undisguised passion that Tom realizes Gatsby is in love with her. Though Tom is himself involved in an extramarital affair, he is outraged by his wife's infidelity. He forces the group to drive into New York City, where he confronts Gatsby in a suite at the Plaza Hotel. Tom asserts that he and Daisy have a history that Gatsby could never understand, and he announces to his wife that Gatsby is a criminal whose fortune comes from bootlegging alcohol and other illegal activities. Daisy realizes that her allegiance is to Tom, and Tom contemptuously sends her back to East Egg with Gatsby, attempting to prove that Gatsby cannot hurt him.
When Nick, Jordan, and Tom drive through the valley of ashes, however, they discover that Gatsby's car has struck and killed Myrtle, Tom's lover. Nick later learns from Gatsby that Daisy was driving the car at the time of the accident, but that Gatsby intends to take the blame. The next day, Tom tells Myrtle's husband, George, that Gatsby was the driver of the car. George, who has leapt to the conclusion that the driver of the car that killed Myrtle must have been her lover, tracks Gatsby to his mansion and fatally shoots both Gatsby and himself. Nick stages an upsettingly small funeral for Gatsby, ends his relationship with Jordan, and moves back to the Midwest to escape the disgust he feels for the people surrounding Gatsby's life and for the moral emptiness of the wealthy American lifestyle and the pursuit of the American Dream.
Hollywood, district within the city of Los Angeles, California, U.S., whose name is synonymous with the American film industry. Lying northwest of downtown Los Angeles, it is bounded by Hyperion Avenue and Riverside Drive (east), Beverly Boulevard (south), the foothills of the Santa Monica Mountains (north), and Beverly Hills (west). Since the early 1900s, when moviemaking pioneers found in southern California an ideal blend of mild climate, much sunshine, varied terrain, and a large labour market, the image of Hollywood as the fabricator of tinseled cinematic dreams has been etched worldwide. The first house in Hollywood was an adobe building (1853) on a site near Los Angeles, then a small city in the new state of California. Hollywood was laid out as a real-estate subdivision in 1887 by Harvey Wilcox, a prohibitionist from Kansas who envisioned a community based on his sober religious principles. Real-estate magnate H.J. Whitley, known as the “Father of Hollywood,” subsequently transformed Hollywood into a wealthy and popular residential area. At the turn of the 20th century, Whitley was responsible for bringing telephone, electric, and gas lines into the new suburb. In 1910, because of an inadequate water supply, Hollywood residents voted to consolidate with Los Angeles.
In 1908 one of the first storytelling movies, The Count of Monte Cristo, was completed in Hollywood after its filming had begun in Chicago. In 1911 a site on Sunset Boulevard was turned into Hollywood’s first studio, and soon about 20 companies were producing films in the area. In 1913 Cecil B. DeMille, Jesse Lasky, Arthur Freed, and Samuel Goldwyn formed Jesse Lasky Feature Play Company (later Paramount Pictures). DeMille produced The Squaw Man in a barn one block from present-day Hollywood Boulevard and Vine Street, and more box-office successes soon followed. Hollywood had become the centre of the American film industry by 1915 as more independent filmmakers relocated there from the East Coast. For more than three decades, from early silent films through the advent of “talkies,” figures such as D.W. Griffith, Goldwyn, Adolph Zukor, William Fox, Louis B. Mayer, Darryl F. Zanuck, and Harry Cohn served as overlords of the great film studios—Twentieth Century-Fox, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Paramount Pictures, Columbia Pictures, Warner Brothers, and others. Among the writers who were fascinated by Hollywood in its “golden age” were F. Scott Fitzgerald, Aldous Huxley, Evelyn Waugh, and Nathanael West.
After World War II, film studios began to move outside Hollywood, and the practice of filming “on location” emptied many of the famous lots and sound stages or turned them over to television show producers. With the growth of the television industry, Hollywood began to change, and by the early 1960s it had become the home of much of American network television entertainment.
Among the features of Hollywood, aside from its working studios, are the Hollywood Bowl (1919; a natural amphitheatre used since 1922 for summertime concerts under the stars), the Greek Theatre in Griffith Park (also a concert venue), Mann’s (formerly Grauman’s) Chinese Theatre (with footprints and handprints of many stars in its concrete forecourt), and the Hollywood Wax Museum (with more than 350 wax figures of celebrities). The Hollywood Walk of Fame pays tribute to many celebrities of the entertainment industry. The most visible symbol of the district is the Hollywood sign that overlooks the area. First built in 1923 (a new sign was erected in 1978), the sign originally said “Hollywoodland” (to advertise new homes being developed in the area), but the sign fell into disrepair, and the “land” section was removed in the 1940s when the sign was refurbished.
Many stars, past and present, live in neighbouring communities such as Beverly Hills and Bel Air, and the Hollywood Forever Cemetery contains the crypts of such performers as Rudolph Valentino, Douglas Fairbanks, and Tyrone Power. Hollywood Boulevard, long a chic thoroughfare, became rather tawdry with the demise of old studio Hollywood, but it underwent regeneration beginning in the late 20th century; the Egyptian Theatre (built in 1922), for example, was fully restored in the 1990s and became the home of the American Cinematheque, a nonprofit organization dedicated to the presentation of the motion picture.
