Nim's Island is a 2008 Australian adventure-fantasy film directed by Jennifer Flackett and Mark Levin and starring Abigail Breslin, Jodie Foster, and Gerard Butler. The story is based on the book Nim's Island by Wendy Orr. A young girl, Nim, seeks help from the author of her favorite adventure series when her scientist father goes missing. Nim, though, lives on an island in the South Pacific. The author, Alexandra Rover, is an agoraphobic living in San Francisco. While Rover attempts to overcome her agoraphobic fears in order to set out in search of her, Nim tries to overcome her fear of losing her father. In the meantime, a cruise ship company attempts to invade Nim's island with uncouth tourists.

Plot[link]

Nim (Abigail Breslin) is an 11-year-old girl, whose mother, Emily, has died. Her father Jack Rusoe (Gerard Butler), a marine biologist, said she was swallowed by a blue whale after it was scared by a ship called the Buccaneers. Nim lives on an island in the South Pacific and has some local animals for company: Selkie the sea lion, Fred the lizard, and Galileo the pelican. Jack goes by boat on a scientific mission of two days to find protozoa nim (a new species of plankton); he wants to take his daughter along, but she convinces him that she needs to stay to oversee the imminent hatching of Chicca's eggs and can manage on her own; they will be able to communicate by satellite phone.

Nim, who is fond of Alex Rover adventure books written by Alexandra Rover (Jodie Foster), receives an email addressed to her father with an inquiry about his field of knowledge. The sender "Alex Rover" seems to be the explorer, but is actually Alexandra, a neurotic San Franciscan who constantly sees her character Alex Rover (also Gerard Butler). An email conversation follows, where Nim first poses as her father's assistant and then goes to the volcano on the island to see what's inside it and is hurt in the process.

Jack suffers a shipwreck, which makes it impossible for Nim and Jack to communicate. Also, he does not return on the planned date. Throughout the movie, Galileo brings Jack things he needs to fix his ship. Nim explains the situation to "Alex". Although Alexandra suffers from agoraphobia and therefore never leaves the house or even opens the door, she travels to the island to rescue Nim.

The island is visited by tourists, taken by Nim to be pirates. Without exposing herself, she scares them away by catapulting lizards at them and making it look like a volcano is about to erupt. One of the tourists, a young rich boy named Edmund, follows her and sees her. He is confused by her presence, and believes her to be another tourist. But when he tells the others they all don't believe him.

The tourists leave. Alex arrives by helicopter at the tourists' boat and tells them about her rescue mission. The tourists do not believe that a girl is on the island, but Edmund tells her what he had seen. Encouraged, Alex goes to the island and is saved by Nim from drowning when her boat gets trapped in a large monsoon rainstorm and is wrecked. When the storm clears up, at the island, Alex introduces herself. At first Nim doesn't want her to stay, but eventually allows her. Later Jack arrives on a raft still holding Protozoa Nim, and falls in love with Alexandra.

Cast[link]

• Abigail Breslin as Nim Rusoe^[1]
• Jodie Foster as Alexandra Rover^[1]
• Gerard Butler as Jack Rusoe / Alex Rover^[2][3]
• Anthony Simcoe as First Mate
• Alphonso McAuley as Russell^[4]
• Morgan Griffin as Alice^[5]
• Michael Carman as Captain
• Christopher Baker as Ensign
• Maddison Joyce as Edmund
• Peter Callan as Edmund's Father

Critical reception[link]

The film received mixed reviews from critics. As of July 31st, 2011, the review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes reported that 51% of critics gave the film positive reviews, based on 80 reviews.^[6] Metacritic reported the film had an average score of 55 out of 100, based on 23 reviews.^[7]

Box office performance[link]

In its opening weekend, Nim's Island grossed $13.3 million in 3,513 theaters in the United States and Canada, ranking #2 at the box office behind 21.^[8] The film had a domestic box office gross of $48,006,762 surpassing its $37 million budget, according to Box Office Mojo and a foreign gross of 52,069,700 and total of $100,076,342 worldwide.

Home media release[link]

Nim's Island was released on DVD on August 5, 2008. It opened at #1 at the DVD sales chart, selling 466,326 DVD units which translates to $8,389,200 in revenue. As per the latest figures, 1,013,100 DVD units have been sold, acquiring revenue of $18,188,600.^[9]

Soundtrack[link]

The score to Nim's Island was composed by award-winning composer Patrick Doyle. He recorded his score with the Hollywood Studio Symphony at the Sony Scoring Stage during the week of February 3, 2008. This marked the first time in a decade that he has recorded a score in Los Angeles.^[10]

The song playing over the closing credits is "Beautiful Day" by U2.

The film's soundtrack CD was released on April 8, 2008 from Varèse Sarabande.^[11]

References[link]

External links[link]

• Official site and trailer
• WendyOrr.com Official website of the author of Nim's Island
• Nim's Island at the Internet Movie Database
• Nim's Island at Rotten Tomatoes
• Nim's Island at Metacritic
• Nim's Island at Box Office Mojo
• Nim's Island at AllRovi
• Nim's Island Full Production Notes for Nim's Island

Jennifer Flackett is an American film director and screen/television writer.

In television, she has written for series Beverly Hills, 90210, L.A. Law and Earth 2.

As a screenwriter, she worked on the films Madeline (1998), Wimbledon (2004), Little Manhattan (2005), Nim's Island (2008) and Journey to the Center of the Earth (2008).^[1] All of the aforementioned films, she worked with her husband, fellow director and screenwriter Mark Levin.^[2]

Both Flackett and Levin made their directorial debut with the film Little Manhattan, although Flackett was not formally credited for her directing work on the film, she was only credited as a writer.^[2]

Flackett grew up in New York City,^[2] and graduated from Wesleyan University in 1986.^[3][4]

References[link]

External links[link]

• Jennifer Flackett at the Internet Movie Database

Mark Levin
Levin speaks at an Americans for Prosperity conference in 2011
Birth name	Mark Reed Levin
Born	(1957-09-21) September 21, 1957 (age 54) Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, U.S.
Show	The Mark Levin Show
Station(s)	WABC
Network	Cumulus Media Networks
Time slot	6-9 p.m. EST
Style	Talk radio
Country	United States
Website	marklevinshow.com

Mark Reed Levin (born September 21, 1957) is a lawyer, author and the host of American syndicated radio show The Mark Levin Show. Levin served in the administration of President Ronald Reagan and was a chief of staff for Attorney General Edwin Meese. He is president of the Landmark Legal Foundation, has authored bestselling books and contributes commentary to various media outlets such as National Review Online.^[1]

Biography[link]

Mark Reed Levin was born to a Jewish family in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and grew up in Cheltenham Township, Montgomery County, Pennsylvania. He graduated from Cheltenham High School after three years.^[2][3] After high school, Levin enrolled at Temple University Ambler including summer classes and graduated in 1977 at age 19, magna cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa.^[4] He also earned a juris doctorate from Temple University Beasley School of Law in 1980.^[5]

Beginning in 1981, Levin served as advisor to several members of President Ronald Reagan's cabinet, eventually becoming Associate Director of Presidential Personnel and ultimately Chief of Staff to Attorney General Edwin Meese; Levin also served as Deputy Assistant Secretary for Elementary and Secondary Education at the U.S. Department of Education, and Deputy Solicitor of the U.S. Department of the Interior.

He practiced law in the private sector and is president of Landmark Legal Foundation, a public interest law firm founded in 1976 and based in Leesburg, Virginia.

Levin is married to Kendall Levin.^[6] They have two children, Lauren (born 1988) and Chase (born 1991).^[7]

Levin has participated in Freedom Concerts, an annual benefit concert to aid families of fallen soldiers, and he uses his radio program to promote same.^[8][9] Levin is also involved with Troopathon, a charity which sends care packages to soldiers serving overseas.^[10]

In 2001, the American Conservative Union awarded Levin its Ronald Reagan Award.^[11]

Radio broadcasting[link]

Levin began his broadcast career as a guest on conservative talk radio programs. For many years he was a frequent contributor of legal opinions to The Rush Limbaugh Show, where Limbaugh referred to him on-air as "F. Lee Levin," a tongue-in-cheek reference to the famous defense attorney F. Lee Bailey. He was also a contributor to The Sean Hannity Show and eventually got a radio slot of his own on WABC, following Sean Hannity's program. Hannity has nicknamed Mark Levin "The Great One".^[12] Levin and Hannity remain frequent contributors to each other's programs.

Writer[link]

[edit] Men In Black: How The Supreme Court is Destroying America

Levin authored the 2005 book Men In Black: How The Supreme Court Is Destroying America, in which he advanced his thesis that activist judges on the Supreme Court (from all parts of the political spectrum) have "legislated from the bench." In her review of Men in Black, Slate magazine's legal correspondent and journalist Dahlia Lithwick wrote that "no serious scholar of the court or the Constitution, on the ideological left or right, is going to waste their time engaging Levin's arguments once they've read this book."^[13] In contrast, a review in the Defense Counsel Journal described Men in Black as "a forceful indictment of what Levin identifies as an increasingly 'activist' court for amending our national Constitution in the guise of construing it."^[14]

[edit] Rescuing Sprite: A Dog Lover's Story of Joy and Anguish

In 2007, Levin released a book about his dogs, Pepsi and Sprite. Specifically, the book was about Sprite, a Spaniel mix that his wife and son persuaded him to adopt from the local shelter in 2004. The book was titled Rescuing Sprite: A Dog Lover's Story of Joy and Anguish. Rescuing Sprite chronicles Sprite’s health deterioration in 2006 and how Levin and his family dealt with their loss.

[edit] Liberty and Tyranny: A Conservative Manifesto

Liberty and Tyranny: A Conservative Manifesto was released on March 24, 2009, and became a No. 1 New York Times best seller for eleven of twelve weeks,^[15] as well as No. 1 on Nielsen's BookScan.^[16] It comes in at No. 2 on Amazon.com's list of bestselling books of 2009.^[17] The book includes discussion of a variety of issues that, according to Levin, need to be addressed in the United States. Liberty and Tyranny has sold over one million copies according to Threshold Editions, the book's publisher.^[18] Former federal prosecutor and fellow National Review Online author Andrew C. McCarthy wrote of Liberty and Tyranny in The New Criterion:

We are in the high tide of America’s Leftist ascendancy: the Obama evisceration of individual freedom and installation of authoritarian collectivism—at warp speed, driven by an ambition that would have made Woodrow Wilson and FDR blush. Against this tidal wave, Levin offers not so much a defense as a plan of attack, a clarion call to roll back the seas of Change.^[19]

Taking a contrary view, Steve Almond of Salon wrote that

... the tantalizing beauty of a Mark Levin text resides precisely in this ability to attribute any crisis of State to its nefarious indulgences. The current economic meltdown, for instance, should not be blamed on the psychotic greed of Wall Street, but on the State's deranged need to throw money at the poor and undeserving.^[20]

[edit] Ameritopia: The Unmaking of America

Ameritopia: The Unmaking of America was released January 17, 2012. Amazon's publication notes describe this book as exploring "the psychology, motivations, and history of the utopian movement, its architects, and its modern day disciples – and how the individual and American society are being devoured by it."^[21]

References[link]

External links[link]

• Mark Levin Show, The Official Mark Levin Website
• marklevinshow Twitter feed
• Mark Levin on Facebook
• The Official Mark Levin Show Audio Rewind
• Landmark Legal Foundation
• Mark Levin is on the air from NationalReview.com
• C-SPAN Q&A interview with Levin, October 19, 2008

Bindi Irwin
Bindi in May 2011
Born	Bindi Sue Irwin (1998-07-24) 24 July 1998 (age 13) Nambour, Queensland, Australia
Occupation	Actress Television presenter
Years active	2006–present
Parents	Steve Irwin Terri Irwin
Awards	Silver Logie Daytime Emmy

Bindi Sue Irwin (born 24 July 1998 in Nambour,^[1] Queensland, Australia) is the daughter of The Crocodile Hunter star Steve Irwin, and mother Terri Irwin. Bindi is a child celebrity who has been involved in acting, singing, songwriting, dancing, rapping, and a fitness DVD. She espouses the same conservationist philosophy as her parents.

Her first name comes from the name of her father's favourite female crocodile at the Australia Zoo, and her middle name is from the family's dog Sui, Sue. According to her father, Bindi is an Australian Aboriginal word that means "young girl."^[2]

Life[link]

Bindi began appearing on television shows as early as age two.^[3] She appeared regularly in her father's television shows, including The Crocodile Hunter Diaries, and also appeared in the 2002 film The Wiggles: Wiggly Safari in a credited cast role.^[4]

Irwin was the presenter of a 26-part wildlife documentary kids show called Bindi the Jungle Girl, a production of the Discovery Kids television network.^[5][6][7] Her father was filmed in many of the early shows before his death in 2006, when production was temporarily put on hold.^[8] The series premiered in June 2007 on Discovery Kids.

Post Steve Irwin's death[link]

Bindi's father, Steve Irwin, was killed by a stingray on 4 September 2006 while setting up to shoot ocean reef footage for a show that would include segments with Bindi, because weather prevented him from filming footage for a different show.^[9][10] Bindi and her mother announced that Bindi would continue her late father's conservation and television work.^[11] Steve Irwin had always said he supported Bindi's rise to fame, claiming "I just want to be co-star to my daughter".^[12]

On 20 September 2006, Bindi eulogized her father by delivering a speech in front of a crowd of 5,000 and a worldwide television audience of more than 300 million viewers, which received a standing ovation and was voted the television moment of the year by readers of the Australia TV Week Reader Poll 2006. Bindi's speech received 43 percent of the votes from the poll. Her mother stated that Bindi had written the speech herself, apart from some assistance with typing.^{[13][14][15][16]}

In June 2007, she hosted a US TV special about her father called My Daddy the Crocodile Hunter.^[17] She also starred in a child fitness DVD in which she sang and danced with a group called Bindi Kidfitness. She made a hip-hop album called Trouble In The Jungle. Bindi and The Crocmen sang "Trouble In The Jungle" on The Today Show in November 2007. Bindi is currently learning how to play the piano.^[18][13]

Bindi and Terri Irwin at Edwards USAFB to film a segment for Bindi the Jungle Girl.

In September 2006, at age 8, Bindi Irwin appeared on the cover of the Australian magazine New Idea, the youngest person to have done so in the magazine's 104-year history.^[19]

In early January 2007, she appeared on The Ellen DeGeneres Show. At that time, she was also scheduled for appearances on the Late Show with David Letterman and in attendance with Russell Crowe at a major dinner. She was promoting her new video, Bindi Kidfitness, and fulfilling her role as a newly-appointed "tourism ambassador" for Australia.^[20]

Irwin appeared on Larry King Live on 11 January 2007. She said that creative writing was her favourite subject and math is her least favourite. She also said that she enjoys being homeschooled because she and her teachers were such good friends.

Posing for the TV camera with Terri Irwin.

At the 2007 Kids' Choice Awards, Irwin presented the award for "Favorite Male Singer", with help from George Lopez and Tyler James Williams, which was won by Justin Timberlake. She also presented at the TV Week Logies Awards 2007, with help from Glenn Robbins for 'Most Outstanding Children's Show', which was won by The Upside Down Show.^[21]

On 22 November 2007, Bindi appeared with her mother Terri in the 81st Annual Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade and performed songs from her album Trouble in the Jungle with The Crocmen on their jungle animal float.^[22][23][24]

In 2008, Irwin won a Daytime Emmy Award as Outstanding Performer in a Children's Series. At age nine, she became the youngest performer ever to win a Daytime Emmy, beating the previous record held by Camryn Grimes, who won a Daytime Emmy as Outstanding Younger Actress in a Drama Series at age ten for The Young and the Restless.

On 26 December 2009 Bindi appeared live on stage at Australia Zoo with new backup singers/dancers The Jungle Girls.

Bindi commits 10% of her wage to Wildlife Warriors, the charity founded by her family in 2002.^[25]

She starred as Kirra in Free Willy: Escape from Pirate's Cove, which was released on 23 March 2010.^[26]

In 2012, Bindi will be hosting a 26 part wildlife-themed game show called Bindi's Bootcamp. The contestants will be put through "adventure challenges" that will educate and test their wildlife knowledge.^[27]

Notes[link]

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Bindi Irwin

• Forever Bindi fansite
• Bindi's Say
• Animal Planet profile
• Bindi's Profile from Australia Zoo
• Totally Bindi fansite
• Bindi Irwin at the Internet Movie Database

Patrick Doyle
Background information
Birth name	Patrick Doyle
Born	(1953-04-06) 6 April 1953 (age 59)
Origin	South Lanarkshire, Scotland
Genres	Film scores
Occupations	Composer and actor
Years active	1989–present

Patrick Doyle (born 6 April 1953, South Lanarkshire, Scotland) is a classically trained composer. A longtime collaborator of actor/director Kenneth Branagh, Doyle is known for his work scoring such critically acclaimed films as Henry V (1989), Sense and Sensibility (1995), Hamlet (1996), and Gosford Park (2001), as well as such noteworthy blockbusters as Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (2005), Eragon (2006), Rise of the Planet of the Apes and Thor (both 2011). Doyle has been nominated for two Academy Awards and two Golden Globe Awards.

Life and career[link]

Doyle was born on 6 April 1953 in Scotland and graduated from the Royal Scottish Academy of Music & Drama in 1975. He was made a Fellow of the Royal Scottish Academy of Music & Drama in 2001. He joined the Renaissance Theatre Company in 1987 as composer and musical director creating scores for highly successful productions of such plays as Hamlet, As You Like It, and Look Back in Anger.^[1] Doyle's film score debut occurred in 1989 when actor/director Kenneth Branagh commissioned Doyle to compose a score for the Renaissance Film's production of Henry V. The song "Non Nobis, Domine" from the film was subsequently awarded the 1989 Ivor Novello Award for Best Film Theme.^[2] He has since scored nine Kenneth Branagh films including Dead Again (1991), Much Ado About Nothing (1993), Mary Shelley's Frankenstein (1994), Hamlet (1996), Love's Labour's Lost (2000), As You Like It (2006), Sleuth (2007), and Thor (2011).

In October 1997, shortly after scoring Great Expectations, directed by Alfonso Cuarón, Doyle was diagnosed with leukemia. He managed to complete his score for the animated fantasy Quest for Camelot (1998) in hospital whilst undergoing treatment. Doyle made a full recovery.^[3][4]

In 1998 Patrick Doyle’s Music from the Movies concert, sponsored by Leukaemia Research UK was staged at the Royal Albert Hall. It was directed by Kenneth Branagh and starred a host of international stars including Emma Thompson, Sir Derek Jacobi, Dame Judi Dench, Alan Rickman, Imelda Staunton, Richard E. Grant, Adrian Lester, and Robbie Coltrane.^[5]

He has composed a series of classical works outside of films that include "The Thistle and the Rose", commissioned in 1990 by Prince Charles in honor of the 90th Birthday of Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother (the mother of the current Queen Elizabeth II); the violin romance "Corarsik", written for Emma Thompson's birthday; the album "Impressions of America: A Suite for Orchestra"; and the symphonic tone poem "Tam O Shanter", commissioned by the Scottish Schools Orchestra Trust.

Doyle has recently completed the scores for Marvel Studios Thor (2011) and the 20th Century Fox film Rise Of The Planet Of The Apes (2011). He is currently working on the upcoming Pixar film Brave (2012), directed by Mark Andrews, after which he will be working on the Sovereign Films film Effie directed by Richard Laxton.

Filmography[link]

Awards[link]

See also[link]

• Harry Potter music

References[link]