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Name | S1m0ne |
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Caption | Promotional poster |
Director | Andrew Niccol |
Producer | Andrew NiccolDaniel Lupi (co-producer) |
Writer | Andrew Niccol |
Starring | Al PacinoCatherine KeenerRachel RobertsWinona RyderRebecca Romijn |
Distributor | New Line Cinema |
Released | |
Runtime | 117 minutes |
Country | United States |
Language | English |
Gross | $19,576,023 (worldwide) |
S1m0ne (also spelled Simone) is a 2002 science fiction drama film written, produced and directed by Andrew Niccol. It stars Al Pacino, Catherine Keener, Rachel Roberts, Winona Ryder and Rebecca Romijn.
Viktor tries a new computer program on a hard disk he inherited from his acquaintance Hank Aleno (Elias Koteas). Viktor uses the program as a last, desperate attempt to finish the film. The system allows him to use a computer-generated woman to play the film's central character. Viktor names his synthetic actress "Simone", a name derived from the computer program's title, Simulation One. Seamlessly incorporated into the film, Simone (Rachel Roberts) gives a fantastic performance. The studio, and soon the world, starts to ask "who is Simone?"
The film is a great success, and Viktor markets her as a real person. He gives phone and camera interviews, but it becomes difficult to maintain. Two people doggedly pursue him and force him to showcase Simone "live" after they discover that he used stock photography as a background during the interview instead of being on that site as he claimed she was. Simone ascends to even greater heights, winning the Academy Award for Best Actress.
After a while, Viktor decides to kill her off. He has her star in a film of her own about zoophilia, hoping to disgust audiences. However, they continue to love her work. He then uses a computer virus to erase the program and dumps all of the DVDs and computer-related information into a trunk and throws it out to sea. During the funeral, the police arrive and open the coffin where there is only Simone's poster. He is taken to the police station and is shown a security camera video where he is seen putting the trunk into his yacht (he had sailed the boat to the middle of the sea and only then thrown the trunk into the water). He is arrested for her murder. In his defence he admits that Simone was just a computer program, and that he put all the program discs in the chest and dropped it into the sea. Viktor's wife and daughter enter his studio, find the program, and realize that Viktor's actress is only a simulation (he forgot a virus floppy disk in the computer). They revive Simone and he is freed from custody. The film ends with Simone and Viktor holding an interview about their new "baby" before a post-credits sequence shows Viktor creating fake footage of Simone in a supermarket, which one of her pursuers sees, believing it real.
The film producers thought of using an actual computer-generated character to play the part of Simone. After discussions with the Screen Actors Guild, who were worried that the replacement of all actors would be the next inevitable step, they decided to use an unknown actress in the role and make her look slightly less realistic in post-production. Pre-release publicity issued to news media actually did suggest that a completely computer-generated actress would be used. Rachel Roberts, the Canadian fashion model who played the role, was not initially credited in the film (her credit was added for the home video release; in the theatrical release "Simone" was credited as "herself"), and she worked under the pseudonym "Anna Green" during production. The actress is actually referred to by this pseudonym in a behind-the-scenes featurette included on the DVD release.
Most of the names in the film are chosen for their link with computers. The title could be interpreted as "simulation number one" and includes both numbers of the binary number system. Other characters in the film are named after computer companies: Corel, Claris, Dell, Hewlett, Mac and Lotus. Simone's co-star (Jay Mohr) is named Hal Sinclair, after the computer HAL 9000 from and Sir Clive Sinclair, the inventor of several early commercial computers. Viktor Taransky is named after the Victor 9000.
The film opened at #9 on the North American box office chart, grossing in US$3,813,463 in its opening weekend. The film grossed $19,576,023 worldwide
Category:2002 films Category:2000s drama films Category:American films Category:Films shot anamorphically Category:Films shot digitally Category:Films shot in multiple formats Category:2000s science fiction films Category:New Line Cinema films Category:English-language films Category:Films about telepresence
This text is licensed under the Creative Commons CC-BY-SA License. This text was originally published on Wikipedia and was developed by the Wikipedia community.
Caption | Ryder in September 2008 |
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Birth name | Winona Laura Horowitz |
Birth date | October 29, 1971 |
Birth place | Olmsted County, Minnesota, United States |
Occupation | Actress, producer |
Years active | 1986–present |
After playing diverse roles in numerous well-received films, Ryder won a Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress and an Academy Award nomination in the same category for her role in The Age of Innocence in 1993, as well as another Academy Award nomination for Little Women the following year for Best Actress. In 2000, Ryder received a star on the Walk of Fame in Hollywood, California.
Ryder's personal life has been widely reported by the media. Her relationship with actor Johnny Depp in the early 1990s was highly publicized and received much scrutiny by the media and tabloid press. A much talked about 2001 shoplifting incident led to a four-year hiatus from acting. She has also revealed her personal struggle with anxiety and depression, briefly checking into a clinic. In 2006, Ryder returned to the screen, and some media outlets called her performance "a remarkable comeback" to acting, having appeared in high-profile films such as Star Trek. In 2010, she was nominated for two Screen Actors Guild Awards, as the lead actress of , and as part of the cast of Black Swan.
Ryder landed the role of Veronica Sawyer in the 1989 independent film Heathers. The film, a satirical take on teenage life, revolves around Veronica, who is ultimately forced to choose between the will of society and her own heart after her boyfriend, played by Christian Slater, begins killing off popular high school students. Ryder's agent initially begged her to turn the role down, saying the film would "ruin her career." but Ryder's performance was critically embraced, with The Washington Post stating Ryder is "Hollywood's most impressive inge'nue [sic] ... Ryder ... makes us love her teen-age murderess, a bright, funny girl with a little Bonnie Parker in her. She is the most likable, best-drawn young adult protagonist since the sexual innocent of Gregory's Girl." The film was a box office flop, yet achieved status as a predominant cult film. Later that year, she starred in Great Balls of Fire!, playing the 13-year-old bride (and cousin) of Jerry Lee Lewis. The film was a box office failure and received divided reviews from critics. In April 1989, she played the title role in the music video for Mojo Nixon's "Debbie Gibson Is Pregnant with My Two-Headed Love Child".
In 1990, Ryder was selected for four film roles. She played the leading female role alongside her then-boyfriend Johnny Depp in the fantasy film Edward Scissorhands. The film reunited Tim Burton and Ryder, who had previously worked together on Beetlejuice in 1988. Edward Scissorhands was a significant box office success, grossing US$56 million at the United States box office and receiving much critical devotion. Later that year, she withdrew from a role in Francis Ford Coppola's The Godfather Part III (after traveling to Rome for filming) due to exhaustion. Eventually, Coppola's daughter Sofia Coppola was cast in the role. Ryder's third role was in the family comedy-drama Mermaids (1990), which co-starred Cher and Christina Ricci. Mermaids was a moderate box office success and was embraced critically. Ryder's performance was acclaimed; critic Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times wrote: "Winona Ryder, in another of her alienated outsider roles, generates real charisma." For her performance, Ryder received a Golden Globe nomination for Best Actress in a Supporting Role. Ryder then performed alongside Cher and Christina Ricci in the video for "The Shoop Shoop Song", the theme from Mermaids.
Following Mermaids she had the lead role in Welcome Home, Roxy Carmichael, a film about an adopted child Dinky Bossetti played by Ryder. The film co-starred Jeff Daniels and was deemed a flop due to its poor showing at the box office.
Ryder starred in The Age of Innocence with Michelle Pfeiffer and Daniel Day-Lewis, a film based on a novel by Edith Wharton and helmed by director Martin Scorsese, whom Ryder considers "the best director in the world." In the film, Ryder plays May Wellend the fiancée of Newland Archer (Day-Lewis). The film, based in the 1870s, was principally filmed in New York and Paris. Her role in this movie won her a Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress Although not a commercial success, it received critical praise. Vincent Canby in the New York Times wrote; ‘Ms Ryder is wonderful as this sweet young thing who's hard as nails, as much out of ignorance as of self-interest.’
Ryder's next role was in the Generation X drama Reality Bites (1994), directed by Ben Stiller, playing a young woman searching for direction in her life. Her performance received acclaim and the studio hoped the film would gross a substantial amount of money, yet it flopped. Bruce Feldman, Universal Pictures' Vice-President of Marketing said: "The media labeled it as a Generation X picture, while we thought it was a comedy with broad appeal." She received a Best Actress Oscar nomination the following year.
In December 1996, Ryder accepted a role as an android in Alien Resurrection (1997), alongside Sigourney Weaver, who had appeared in the entire Alien trilogy. Ryder's brother, Yuri, was a major fan of the film series, and when asked, she took the role. The film became one of the least successful entries in the Alien film series, but was considered a success as it grossed $161 million worldwide. Weaver's and Ryder's performances drew mostly positive reviews, and Ryder won a Blockbuster Entertainment Award for Best Actress. Ryder then starred in Woody Allen's Celebrity (1998), after Drew Barrymore turned down Ryder's role, in an ensemble cast. who won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her performance. Jolie thanked Ryder in her acceptance speech. The same year, Ryder was parodied in .
The following year, she starred in the romantic comedy Autumn in New York, alongside Richard Gere. The film revolves around a relationship between an older man (Gere) and a younger woman (Ryder). Autumn in New York received mixed reviews, but was a commercial success, grossing $90 million at the worldwide box office. Ryder then played a nun of a secret society loosely connected to the Roman Catholic Church and determined to prevent Armageddon in Lost Souls (2000), which was a commercial failure. Ryder refused to do commercial promotion for the film.
In 2002, Ryder appeared in two films. The first was a romantic comedy titled Mr. Deeds with Adam Sandler. This was her most commercially successful movie to date, earning over $126 million in the United States alone. The film was not a critical success, however, film critic Philip French regards it a terrible film, saying that "remakes are often bad, but this one was particularly bad."
Ryder reunited with Heathers screenwriter Daniel Waters for the surreal black comedy Sex and Death 101 (2007). The story follows the sexual odysseys of successful businessman Roderick Blank, played by Simon Baker, who receives a mysterious e-mail on the eve of his wedding, listing all of his past and future sex partners. "We will be doing a sequel to Heathers next." Ryder stated. "There's Heathers in the real world! We have to keep going!"
Ryder appeared in David Wain's comedy The Ten. The film centers around ten stories, each inspired by one of the Ten Commandments. The film debuted at the 2007 Sundance Film Festival on January 10, 2007, with a theatrical release on August 3, 2007. Ryder played the female lead opposite Wes Bentley and Ray Romano in Geoffrey Haley's 2008 offbeat romantic drama The Last Word. In 2009, she starred as a newscaster in the movie version of The Informers.
Ryder appeared in a cameo role for director J. J. Abrams's Star Trek, as Spock's human mother Amanda Grayson, a role originally played by Jane Wyatt. Several media outlets have noted her return to the box office and upcoming roles as a remarkable comeback. In 2010, Ryder starred alongside Natalie Portman and Mila Kunis in Darren Aronofsky's Black Swan. She also was cast in an independent film, 'Stay Cool,' alongside Hilary Duff, Mark Polish and Chevy Chase. The same year, she also starred as Lois Wilson in the TV movie, for which she has received leading female Screen Actors Guild Award and Satellite Award nominations.
Ryder later appeared in a leading role in the Ron Howard-directed film, The Dilemma, previously called Cheaters and What You Don't Know. The film, which also stars Vince Vaughn and Kevin James, began filming in Chicago in May 2010 and is scheduled for release in January 2011. It was recently announced that she will be reunited with Tim Burton for a role in his upcoming animated 3D feature film Frankenweenie. It is scheduled for a March 9, 2012 release date.
During the trial, she was accused of using drugs without valid prescriptions. Ryder was convicted of grand theft, shoplifting and vandalism, but was acquitted on the third felony charge, burglary. In December 2002, she was sentenced to three years' probation, 480 hours of community service, $3,700 in fines, $6,355 in restitution to the Saks Fifth Avenue store, and ordered to attend psychological and drug counseling. After reviewing Ryder's probation report, Superior Court Judge Elden Fox noted that Ryder served 480 hours of community service and on June 18, 2004, the felonies were reduced to misdemeanors. Ryder remained on probation until December 2005.
Category:1971 births Category:Living people Category:Best Supporting Actress Golden Globe (film) winners Category:American film actors Category:American child actors Category:American Jews Category:Actors from California Category:Jewish actors Category:Actors from Minnesota Category:American people of Russian descent Category:American people of Romanian descent Category:People convicted of theft Category:People_from_Olmsted_County,_Minnesota Category:People from Sonoma County, California
This text is licensed under the Creative Commons CC-BY-SA License. This text was originally published on Wikipedia and was developed by the Wikipedia community.
Name | Leann Hunley |
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Birth date | February 25, 1955 |
Birth place | Forks, Washington, U.S. |
Years active | 1977–present |
Occupation | Actress |
Spouse | Bill Sheridan (1980-2001) (Divorced) | emmyawards = Won: Outstanding Supporting Actress 1986 Days of our Lives}} |
Hunley is currently a recurring actor on Days of our Lives. After a 21 year absence from playing the role, Hunley returned on June 21, 2007 as Anna Fredericks DiMera. Hunley still recurs on Days.
Category:1955 births Category:Living people Category:Daytime Emmy Award winners Category:American film actors Category:American television actors Category:American soap opera actors Category:People from Forks, Washington Category:People from Clallam County, Washington
This text is licensed under the Creative Commons CC-BY-SA License. This text was originally published on Wikipedia and was developed by the Wikipedia community.