name | The Spirit |
---|---|
director | Frank Miller |
producer | Michael UslanDeborah Del PreteGigi Pritzker |
screenplay | Frank Miller |
based on | |
starring | Gabriel MachtSamuel L. JacksonScarlett JohanssonEva MendesDan LauriaSarah PaulsonPaz VegaStana KaticJaime KingLouis Lombardi |
music | David Newman |
cinematography | Bill Pope |
editing | Gregory Nussbaum |
studio | LionsgateOdd Lot Entertainment |
distributor | Lionsgate |
released | |
runtime | 103 minutes |
country | |
language | English |
gross | $39,031,337 }} |
The Spirit is a 2008 American superhero noir film, written and directed by Frank Miller and starring Gabriel Macht, Eva Mendes, Sarah Paulson, Dan Lauria, Paz Vega, Jaime King, Scarlett Johansson, and Samuel L. Jackson. The film is based on the newspaper comic strip The Spirit by Will Eisner. OddLot and Lionsgate produced the film.
The Spirit was released in the United States on December 25, 2008, and on DVD and Blu-ray on April 14, 2009. Despite being a commercial and critical failure in theatres, the film found more success on DVD and Blu-ray.
At the swampland, femme fatale Sand Saref (Eva Mendes) rises from the water and appears to shoot Sussman multiple times. The Spirit and Liebowitz find the wounded Sussman, but a flashback reveals that it was really the Octopus who shot him in an effort to recover two identical chests underwater. Sand and her husband Mahmoud (Eric Balfour) tried to flee with both chests, but the Octopus wounded Mahmoud and snapped a line connecting the two chests. Sand escaped, leaving one chest behind, which the Octopus retrieved from the murky depths.
After the Octopus kills Liebowitz by ripping his head off, he sends away his cloned henchmen, Ethos, Pathos, and Logos (all played by Louis Lombardi), to take on the Spirit alone. His accomplice Silken Floss (Scarlett Johansson) drives up, running over Pathos in the process. She departs with the cargo, taking the view that the Spirit and the Octopus will "be at it all night" as the two enemies share a connection in their ability to resist physical injury.
The Spirit is awakened by his lover Dr. Ellen Dolan (Sarah Paulson), daughter of Police Commissioner Dolan (Dan Lauria). Appearing to be in perfect health despite his gunshot wounds (something which has occurred seemingly many times before), the Spirit is shocked to notice a gold locket in Sussman's hand; a piece torn from Sand Saref’s neck earlier.
Saref's locket contains pictures of a much-younger Denny Colt (Johnny Simmons) and Sand (Seychelle Gabriel); the two grew up together in Central City where Denny bought Sand the locket as a gift to satisfy her love of "shiny things", including the Golden Fleece of Jason and the Argonauts. They lived happily until Sand's father was shot dead. Sand, who now hated cops, fled to Europe and has not been heard from for fifteen years. In a secret lair, the Octopus and Silken Floss open the chest, but discover that it does not contain the mysterious Blood of Heracles as expected and decide a trade is in order.
Sand and Mahmoud visit the office of a high-class fence named Donenfeld (Richard Portnow), whom Sand paid to locate the underwater treasure. It is implied that Donenfeld gave up the treasure's location to the Octopus to ensure his family's safety. At Alice's Hospital, the Spirit has fully regenerated and is as good as new; Commissioner Dolan angrily enters with young rookie cop Morgenstern (Stana Katic) and calls the Spirit away to a case.
Sand's history as one of the world's great jewel thieves is relayed to the Spirit. As the Spirit is about to arrest her, he is caught off-guard by her standing before him fully nude. Sand doesn't recognize the Spirit as the presumed-dead Denny. She is stunned when he reveals his knowledge of her looking for the Golden Fleece as she shoves the Spirit through a window only to see him survive the fall. Octopus and Floss's experimentation have led to the creation of a serum (something of a scientific equivalent to the Elixir of Life) that could grant immortality with which the Octopus injected himself and arch-enemies were born.
After surviving the fall, the Spirit receives a tip on the location of the Octopus's lair. Unable to break in unnoticed, he is captured and tied to a dentist's chair. The Octopus reveals his own origin as well as how he and the Spirit became arch-enemies. Eventually the Spirit manages to escape, but not without sustaining a critical blow.
The Spirit stumbles to the city docks and collapses into the water where he confronts the ethereal Angel of Death, Lorelei Rox (Jaime King), who has haunted his sleep. He becomes the only man to have ever wrongfully escaped death when he manages to gather his senses by remembering Ellen, Sand, and the city all needing him. As the Spirit swims to the surface, Lorelei vows vengeance.
At the projects, Sand and her latest henchman fly in with the Blood of Heracles to meet Floss and a clone carrying the Golden Fleece. After a four-way Mexican standoff, Sand attempts to convince Floss to get out of serving the Octopus before she is killed by the Octopus himself. He asks Floss for the vase. Unable to take a side, Floss drives off as the Spirit suddenly materializes. The Octopus unloads with progressively bigger guns until Dolan's SWAT team storms the area and opens fire. The Octopus gets to the Blood of Heracles and prepares to drink it, but Sand shoots the vase just in time as Morgenstern blows the Octopus up with a handcannon.
Showdown over, the Spirit gives Sand her locket back. They kiss as Ellen looks on, feeling betrayed. The old flames bid each other goodbye and the Spirit convinces Dolan to let Sand go in gratitude for saving the world. Elsewhere, Floss discovers the Octopus’s severed finger crawling toward her. She picks it up and departs saying, "Who knows what I'll do". At dawn, the Spirit stands triumphant on a rooftop with his cat.
Frank Miller and DC Comics president Paul Levitz also have cameo roles in the film.
In the early 1990s, producer Michael Uslan and Executive Producers Benjamin Melniker and Steven Maier subsequently obtained the rights for a live-action film adaptation. The producer promised Eisner that he would not permit anyone who "didn't get it" to work on the project. Two ideas pitched to Uslan were to put the Spirit in a costume and to have the Spirit be a resurrected dead man who possessed supernatural powers. Screenwriter John Turman, a comic book fan, expressed interest in writing the script.
In July 2004, financier OddLot Entertainment acquired the rights to the film. OddLot's producers Gigi Pritzker and Deborah Del Pete began a collaboration with Uslan, Melniker and Maier working at Batfilm Productions, to adapt the story. Eisner, who was protective of the rights to his creations, said that he believed in the producers to faithfully adapt The Spirit. In April 2005, comic book writer Jeph Loeb was hired to adapt The Spirit for the big screen, but the writer eventually left the project. Later in April, Uslan approached Frank Miller at Will Eisner's memorial service in New York City several weeks after Miller's Sin City was released in theaters, interested in initiating the adaptation technique with Miller's film for The Spirit. Miller had initially hesitated, doubting his skill in adapting The Spirit, but ultimately embraced his first solo project as writer-director. As Miller described his decision-making, "The only thought in my mind was, 'It's too big—I can't possibly do it.' And I refused. And about three minutes later as I was at the doorway, I turned around and said, 'Nobody else can touch this,' and I agreed to the job on the spot".
In July 2006, the film trade press reported Miller would write and direct the film adaptation for The Spirit ; Miller and the producers publicly announced this at the 2006 Comic-Con International in San Diego, California. Miller said that he was putting together a film treatment that included large parts of The Spirit strip panels. As Miller described the project, "I intend to be extremely faithful to the heart and soul of the material, but it won't be nostalgic. It will be much scarier than people expect". Miller plans to film The Spirit using the same digital background technology that was used for Sin City and 300. The film would also copy specific shots from the comic, similar to Sin City.
In February 2007, Miller completed the first draft of the screenplay, and began work on a second draft. Principal photography was initially slated to begin in late spring 2007. Miller also planned to begin filming Sin City 2 in spring 2009, but Uslan indicated that filming for The Spirit would begin before Miller started Sin City 2. Following the casting of Gabriel Macht as the Spirit in August 2007, filming was re-slated for the following October.
The film contains a number of references to Eisner collaborators and other comics personae. These include "Feiffer Industrial Salt", alluding to Spirit ghost writer Jules Feiffer; "Iger Avenue", named for Eisner & Iger partner S.M. "Jerry" Iger; "Ditko's Speedy Delivery", named for Steve Ditko, a comic book artist and writer; and the characters Donenfeld and Liebowitz, played by Richard Portnow and Frank Miller, respectively, who are named for two of DC Comics' founders, Harry Donenfeld and Jack Liebowitz.
There is an eerie, wordless soprano for Lorelei (Jaime King) that is performed by Newman's 19-year-old daughter Diana, a vocal major at USC.
Christina Aguilera sings a cover of the classic "Falling in Love Again" in the closing credits of The Spirit. The song dates to 1930, written by Frederick Hollander, with lyrics written by Sammy Lerner. The song was originally sung, and popularized, by Marlene Dietrich in the film The Blue Angel (1930). The song was covered by Billie Holiday (1940), Doris Day (1961), Sammy Davis Jr. (1962), and many others.
Titan Books produced a making-of book, The Spirit: The Movie Visual Companion by Mark Cotta Vaz, featuring interviews with the cast and crew, photos, storyboards, and production art. It was released November 25, 2008.
The film was rated PG-13 by the MPAA for "intense sequences of stylized violence and action, some sexual content, and brief nudity" making it Miller's first film to be PG-13.
The film was released on Christmas Day 2008.
Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times said, "There is not a trace of human emotion in it. To call the characters cardboard is to insult a useful packing material". Ricky Bentley of The Miami Herald said, "Macht manages to meld macho with melodrama to make the Spirit come to life."
Frank Lovece of Newsday, a one-time comic book writer, found that "gorgeous cinematography and design can't mask the hollow core and bizarre ugliness of this mishandled comics adaptation", and noted that while Eisner's own Spirit was "an average-Joe [...] in a rumpled suit—a vulnerable but insouciant everyman in humanist fables", Miller's Spirit "now has a superpower—a healing factor. Eisner's own spirit must be spinning in its grave".
Chris Barsanti of Filmcritic.com stated, "It's a frankly gorgeous effect, liberated by the fact that Miller adapted freely from Eisner's panels—the two were longtime friends—to create an organic story instead of slavishly following the master's work", and calling it "one of the year's most refreshingly fun films." Owen Gleiberman of Entertainment Weekly, found the movie a "ludicrously knowing and mannered noir pastiche, full of burnt-end romance and 'style', but robotic at its core".
Ken Hanke of Mountain Xpress observed, "The film may not move smoothly—Miller’s too fond of 'just damn weird' digressions for that—but it does move and isn’t hard to follow. Its screwiness is deliberate and it’s all a matter of taste."
Jason Heck of The Kansas City Star summed up, "The Spirit is terrific entertainment. It’s a better and a more complete film than Sin City or 300. Having a comic book genius create a comic book movie is a very, very good idea indeed."
A.O. Scott in The New York Times summed up, "To ask why anything happens in Frank Miller's sludgy, hyper-stylized adaptation of a fabled comic book series by Will Eisner may be an exercise in futility. The only halfway interesting question is why the thing exists at all."
Category:2008 films Category:American films Category:English-language films Category:Neo-noir Category:2000s crime films Category:Detective films Category:Films directed by Frank Miller Category:Films based on comic strips Category:Films shot digitally Category:Satirical films Category:Superhero films Category:Screenplays by Frank Miller Category:Lions Gate Entertainment films Category:Columbia Pictures films Category:Warner Bros. films Category:Films shot in New Mexico Category:Vigilante films
ca:The Spirit (pel·lícula) de:The Spirit (Film) es:The Spirit (película) fr:The Spirit (film) id:The Spirit (film) it:The Spirit (film) nl:The Spirit ja:ザ・スピリット no:The Spirit (film) pl:Spirit - Duch Miasta pt:The Spirit (filme) ru:Мститель (фильм, 2008, США)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 | Leona Lewis |
---|---|
background | solo_singer |
birth name | Leona Louise Lewis |
born | April 03, 1985Islington, London, England |
genre | Pop, R&B; |
occupation | Singer |
years active | 2006–present |
label | Syco, J |
website | }} |
Her debut single, a cover of Kelly Clarkson's "A Moment Like This", was released on CD on 20 December 2006, and was available as a digital download from midnight on 17 December. It broke a world record after it was downloaded 50,000 times in thirty minutes. On 24 December, "A Moment Like This" was crowned the 2006 UK Christmas number-one single, having sold 571,253 copies, outselling the rest of the Top 40's sales combined. The single became the most downloaded song in 2006; it stayed at number one for four weeks and stayed at the top spot in the Irish Singles Chart for six weeks.
Lewis's second single, "Bleeding Love", produced by Ryan Tedder and written by Tedder and Jesse McCartney, was released in October 2007 in the UK, where it sold 218,805 copies in its first week, giving it the biggest first-week sales of 2007 to date. It entered the UK Singles Chart at number one, where it stayed for seven weeks, and in the Irish Singles Chart it remained at number one for eight weeks. It reached number one in the singles charts of New Zealand, Australia, France, Germany, Norway, Switzerland, Belgium, The Netherlands, Austria, Canada and the United States. "Bleeding Love" won The Record of the Year in December 2007. In February 2008, "Bleeding Love" entered the Billboard Hot 100 at number 85 and then went on to peak at number one for four non-consecutive weeks. The song became the first track by a UK female to reach number one since Kim Wilde's "You Keep Me Hangin' On" in 1987. Lewis's third single, a double A-side featuring "Better in Time" and "Footprints in the Sand", was released in the United Kingdom in March 2008, in aid of Sport Relief, and she visited South Africa for the charity. The single reached a peak of number two in the UK singles chart selling over 40,000 copies in its first week of physical release. "Better in Time" was released as Lewis's second single in the US, where it peaked at number 11 in the Billboard Hot 100. "Forgive Me" was released as Lewis's fifth single in November 2008; it reached number five in the UK. "Run" was released as a download-only single in the UK, reaching number one, and becoming the UK's fastest-selling download-only single with 69,244 copies sold in two days. Lewis's last single from Spirit, "I Will Be", was released in January 2009, only in North America; it peaked at number 66 on the Billboard Hot 100. In August 2008, she performed "Whole Lotta Love" with guitarist Jimmy Page of Led Zeppelin at the 2008 Summer Olympics closing ceremony in Beijing, representing the handover to London as the host of the 2012 Summer Olympics. In September 2008, she joined several female singers to perform a single for the anti-cancer campaign Stand Up to Cancer. The single, titled "Just Stand Up!", was performed live during the one-hour telethon that aired on all major US television networks. Lewis received three nominations for the 51st Grammy Awards in December 2008. "Bleeding Love" was nominated for Record of the Year and Best Female Pop Vocal Performance and Spirit was nominated for Best Pop Vocal Album. She was nominated for four BRIT Awards, in the categories British Female Solo Artist, British Breakthrough Act, British Album for Spirit, and British Single for "Bleeding Love", but despite being the favourite to win the most awards, she received none. She won two awards at the 2008 MOBO Awards: Best Album for Spirit and Best Video for "Bleeding Love". In December 2008 Lewis was named 'Top New Artist' by Billboard magazine.
On 14 July 2011, it was confirmed that "Collide" would be the first track to be taken from Lewis's third studio album, Glass Heart. The dance-pop anthem, written by Autumn Rowe and produced by Sandy Vee, had its first UK radio play on The Scott Mills Show on BBC Radio 1 on 15 July 2011. It will be released in the UK on 4 September 2011 and Germany on 9 September 2011. The single courted controversy after it was claimed to have plagiarised Swedish musician Avicii's 2010 song "Penguin". Berg took the case to the British High Court.
For the album, Lewis has worked with numerous writers and producers including: Ammo, Jonas Quant, Chuck Harmony, Claude Kelly, Ryan Tedder, Fraser T. Smith, Al Shux, Steve Robson, Dallas Austin, Rico Love and Ne-Yo. In May 2011, it was reported that Lewis had recorded a track called "Trouble" written by Emeli Sandé and Naughty Boy. Lewis also recorded a track called "Mountains" written by Sandé, Naughty Boy and Blazin' Squad members Flava (James Murray) and Mus (Mustafa Omer).
It has been confirmed that the album is entitled Glass Heart and to be released in the UK on 28 November 2011.
Lewis signed a book deal in January 2009 to release an illustrated autobiography in October 2009. The book, entitled Dreams, contains mostly pictures taken by photographer Dean Freeman. In 2010, it was reported Lewis was offered a cameo role in the second series of the American television programme Glee.
At a book signing for Dreams on 14 October 2009 at the Piccadilly branch of Waterstone's book store in central London, Lewis received a punch to the head from Peter Kowalczyk, a 29-year-old man from south London. Kowalczyk was arrested at the scene, and Lewis suffered bruising. She later released a statement thanking fans for their support. Kowalczyk was sectioned under the Mental Health Act and was charged with common assault, which he admitted to. He was ordered to remain in hospital for an indeterminate period.
Category:1985 births Category:Living people Category:Alumni of the Sylvia Young Theatre School Category:English crime victims Category:English female singers Category:English-language singers Category:English people of Guyanese descent Category:English people of Irish descent Category:English people of Italian descent Category:English people of Welsh descent Category:English pop singers Category:English rhythm and blues singers Category:English singer-songwriters Category:English soul singers Category:English vegetarians Category:People educated at the BRIT School Category:Ivor Novello Award winners Category:J Records artists Category:Singers from London Category:People from Islington Category:Sony BMG artists Category:The X Factor (UK) contestants Category:World Music Awards winners Category:X Factor series winners
ar:ليونا لويس az:Leona Lewis bs:Leona Lewis bg:Леона Луис ca:Leona Lewis cs:Leona Lewis cy:Leona Lewis da:Leona Lewis de:Leona Lewis el:Λεόνα Λιούις es:Leona Lewis eo:Leona Lewis fa:لیونا لوئیس fr:Leona Lewis ko:리오나 루이스 id:Leona Lewis it:Leona Lewis he:ליאונה לואיס lv:Leona Luisa lt:Leona Lewis hu:Leona Lewis mk:Леона Луис mn:Леона Льюис nl:Leona Lewis ja:レオナ・ルイス no:Leona Lewis pl:Leona Lewis pt:Leona Lewis ro:Leona Lewis rm:Leona Lewis ru:Льюис, Леона simple:Leona Lewis sl:Leona Lewis sr:Лиона Луис fi:Leona Lewis sv:Leona Lewis th:เลโอนา ลูวิส tr:Leona Lewis uk:Леона Льюїс vi:Leona Lewis zh:利昂娜·刘易斯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.
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