Spirit

Saturday, 23 February 2013

Spirit of Scotland pipe band at World pipe band championship 2008

Leona Lewis - Run - X Factor Live 2008 - Full!

John Bytheway - Weed Your Spirit, Grow Your Testimony, Aug 2008, BYU Education Week

Kindred Spirits - Liquid Tension Experiment [ Live in LA 2008 ]

Nirvana - Smells Like Teen Spirit (lyrics)

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Huevos
Huevos (Spanish: Eggs) is an island in the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago. The island is 1.01 km² (253 acres) in area. It is one of the "Bocas Islands", which lie in the Bocas del Dragón (Dragons' Mouth) between Trinidad and Venezuela.
Vegetation: Yellow Poui, Hog Plum, Naked Indian, Salt-fish Wood.
Places at Huevos - Cape Garlio, Raya Del Caribe, Parasol (Umbrella) Rocks, Tortue Bay, Balata Bay, Point Braba
The Parasol Rocks, also known as the Umbrella Rocks, are a series of small rock formations located less than 50 metres to the east of Huevos. On 10 August 1800 a fifth-rate Royal Navy ship, HMS Dromedary was wrecked on the rocks with 500 passengers. All passengers and crew were rescued.

Coordinates: 10°42′N 61°43′W / 10.7°N 61.717°W / 10.7; -61.717

wn.com/Huevos
New Mexico
New Mexico (ⁱ/nuː ˈmɛksɨkoʊ/) is a state located in the southwest and western regions of the United States. New Mexico is also usually considered one of the Mountain States. New Mexico is the 5th most extensive, the 36th most populous, and the 6th least densely populated of the 50 United States.
Inhabited by Native American populations for many centuries, New Mexico has also been part of the Imperial Spanish viceroyalty of New Spain, part of Mexico, and a U.S. territory. Among U.S. states, New Mexico has the highest percentage of Hispanics, including descendants of Spanish colonists and recent immigrants from Latin America. It also has the second-highest percentage of Native Americans, after Alaska, and the fourth-highest total number of Native Americans after California, Oklahoma, and Arizona. The tribes in the state consist of mostly Navajo and Pueblo peoples. As a result, the demographics and culture of the state are unique for their strong Hispanic and Native American influences. The flag of New Mexico is represented by the red and gold colors, which represent Spain, as well as the Zia symbol, an ancient Native American symbol for the sun.

wn.com/New_Mexico
The Miami Herald
The Miami Herald is a daily newspaper owned by The McClatchy Company headquartered on Biscayne Bay in the Omni district of Downtown Miami, Florida, United States. Founded in 1903, it is the largest newspaper in South Florida, serving Miami-Dade, Broward County and Monroe County, and circulates throughout Latin America and the Caribbean.
The newspaper employs over 800 people in Miami and across several bureaus, including Bogotá, Managua, Tallahassee, Vero Beach, Key West, and shared space in McClatchy's Washington bureau. Its newsroom staff of about 450 includes 144 reporters, 69 editors, 69 copy editors, 29 photographers, five graphic artists (not including page designers), 11 columnists, six critics, 48 editorial specialists, and 18 news assistants. In June 2009, The Miami Herald announced widespread layoffs in June 2008, with plans to cut 250 full-time jobs—17 percent of the newspaper's workforce.
The newspaper has been awarded 20 Pulitzer Prizes since beginning publication in 1903. Well-known columnists are Pulitzer-winning political commentator Leonard Pitts, Jr., humorist Dave Barry and novelist Carl Hiaasen. Other columnists include Fred Grimm and Edwin Pope. David Landsberg is the publisher, and Aminda Marqués Gonzalez is the executive editor.

wn.com/The_Miami_Herald

Batman
Batman is a fictional character, a comic book superhero created by artist Bob Kane and writer Bill Finger. The character first appeared in Detective Comics #27 (May 1939), and since then has appeared primarily in publications by DC Comics. Originally referred to as "The Bat-Man" and still referred to at times as "The Batman", he is additionally known as "The Caped Crusader", "The Dark Knight", and "The World's Greatest Detective," among other titles.
In the original version of the story and the vast majority of retellings, Batman's secret identity is Bruce Wayne, an American millionaire (later billionaire) playboy, industrialist, and philanthropist. Having witnessed the murder of his parents as a child, he swore revenge on criminals, an oath tempered with the greater ideal of justice. Wayne trains himself both physically and intellectually and dons a bat-themed costume in order to fight crime. Batman operates in the fictional American Gotham City, assisted by various supporting characters including his crime-fighting partner, Robin, his butler Alfred Pennyworth, the police commissioner Jim Gordon, and occasionally the heroine Batgirl. He fights an assortment of villains such as the Joker, the Penguin, the Riddler, Two-Face, Poison Ivy and Catwoman. Unlike most superheroes, he does not possess any superpowers; he makes use of intellect, detective skills, science and technology, wealth, physical prowess, martial arts skills, an indomitable will, fear, and intimidation in his continuous war on crime.

wn.com/Batman
Bill Pope
William Homer "Bill" Pope, A.S.C. (born June 19, 1952) is an award-winning American cinematographer, best known for his work on Sam Raimi's films and the Matrix trilogy.
1989 - Pet Sematary
1990 - Darkman
1991 - Closet Land
1992 - Army of Darkness
1993 - Fire in the Sky
1994 - Blank Check
1995 - Clueless
1996 - Bound
1997 - Gridlock'd
1998 - Zero Effect
1999 - Freaks & Geeks
1999 - The Matrix
2000 - Bedazzled
2003 - The Matrix Reloaded
2003 - The Matrix Revolutions
2004 - Spider-Man 2
2004 - Team America: World Police
2006 - Fur
2007 - Spider-Man 3
2008 - The Spirit
2010 - Scott Pilgrim vs. the World
2012 - Men in Black 3

wn.com/Bill_Pope
Billie Holiday
Billie Holiday (born Eleanora Harris April 7, 1915 – July 17, 1959) was an American jazz singer and songwriter. Nicknamed "Lady Day" by her friend and musical partner Lester Young, Holiday had a seminal influence on jazz and pop singing. Her vocal style, strongly inspired by jazz instrumentalists, pioneered a new way of manipulating phrasing and tempo.
Critic John Bush wrote that Holiday "changed the art of American pop vocals forever." She co-wrote only a few songs, but several of them have become jazz standards, notably "God Bless the Child", "Don't Explain", "Fine and Mellow", and "Lady Sings the Blues". She also became famous for singing "Easy Living", "Good Morning Heartache", and "Strange Fruit", a protest song which became one of her standards and was made famous with her 1939 recording.
Billie Holiday was born Eleanora Fagan on April 7, 1915, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, to Sarah Julia "Sadie" Fagan (née Harris). Her father, Clarence Halliday (Holiday), a musician, did not marry or live with her mother. Her mother had moved to Philadelphia when thirteen, after being ejected from her parents' home in Sandtown-Winchester, Baltimore for becoming pregnant. With no support from her own parents, Holiday's mother arranged for the young Holiday to stay with her older married half sister, Eva Miller, who lived in Baltimore.

wn.com/Billie_Holiday
Brad Bird
Phillip Bradley "Brad" Bird (born September 24, 1957) is a critically acclaimed American director, screenwriter, animator, voice actor and producer. He is best known for having written and directed Warner Bros.' The Iron Giant (1999), and Pixar's The Incredibles (2004) and Ratatouille (2007). He made his live-action film directing debut with Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol (2011).
All of Bird's films have received universal acclaim (or in the case of The Iron Giant, grown in popularity with time). On Rotten Tomatoes, his four films average a 95.75% rating, making him one of the most acclaimed living filmmakers, animated or otherwise.
Bird was born in Kalispell, Montana, the youngest of four children of Marjorie A. (née Cross) and Philip Cullen Bird. His father worked in the propane business, and his grandfather, Francis Wesley "Frank" Bird, who was born in Sligo, Ireland, was a president and chief executive of the Montana Power Company. On a tour of the Walt Disney Studios at age 11, he announced that someday he would become part of its animation team, and soon afterward began work on his own 15-minute animated short. Within two years, Bird had completed his animation, which impressed the cartoon company. By age 14, barely in high school, Bird was mentored by the animator Milt Kahl, one of Disney’s legendary Nine Old Men. Bird recalls Kahl's criticisms as ideal: Kahl would point out shortcomings by gently delivering thoughts on where Bird could improve. After graduating from Corvallis High School in Corvallis, Oregon in 1975, Bird took a three-year break. He was then awarded a scholarship by Disney to attend California Institute of the Arts, where he met and befriended another future animator, Pixar co-founder and director John Lasseter.

wn.com/Brad_Bird
Christina Aguilera
Christina María Aguilera (born December 18, 1980) is an American recording artist and actress. Aguilera first appeared on national television in 1990 as a contestant on the Star Search program, and went on to star in Disney Channel's television series The Mickey Mouse Club from 1993 to 1994. Aguilera signed to RCA Records after recording "Reflection", the theme song for the animated film Mulan (1998).
In 1999, Aguilera came to prominence following her debut album Christina Aguilera, which was a commercial success spawning three number one singles on the Billboard Hot 100—"Genie in a Bottle", "What a Girl Wants", and "Come On Over Baby (All I Want Is You)." Her sophomore and her debut Latin-pop album, Mi Reflejo (2000), a Christmas third studio album, My Kind of Christmas (2000), and several collaborations followed which garnered Aguilera worldwide success, though she was displeased with her lack of input in her music and image. After parting from her management, Aguilera took creative control over her fourth studio album, Stripped (2002). The album's second single, "Beautiful", was a commercial success and helped the album's commercial performance amidst controversy over Aguilera's image. Aguilera followed up Stripped with the soul, jazz and blues inspired, Back to Basics (2006), released to positive critical acclaim. The album produced three singles "Ain't No Other Man", "Hurt" and "Candyman". Four years later Aguilera released her sixth studio album, Bionic (2010), which incorporated aspects of R&B, electropop, and synthpop and was met with mixed reviews and low sales. Aguilera's seventh studio album is set to be released in 2012.

wn.com/Christina_Aguilera
Dan Lauria
Daniel Joseph "Dan" Lauria (born April 12, 1947) is an American television and film actor.
Lauria, an Italian-American, was born in Brooklyn, New York, the son of Carmela (née Luongo) and Joseph J. Lauria. He also lived in Lindenhurst, New York. He graduated from Lindenhurst High School in 1965 as a varsity football player, and he briefly taught physical education at Lindenhurst High School. A Vietnam War veteran, Lauria served as an officer in the US Marine Corps in the early 1970s, at the same point in his life that Jack Arnold, his character in The Wonder Years did during the Korean War. He got his start in acting while attending Southern Connecticut State University in New Haven, CT, on a football scholarship.
Lauria is best known for his portrayal of Jack Arnold, the intimidating and money conscious father on the TV series The Wonder Years, that ran from 1988 to 1993. He also played James Webb in the 1998 TV miniseries From the Earth to the Moon and Commanding Officer, USA in 1996's Independence Day. More recently he has appeared in a War Veterans public service announcement and as Police Commissioner Eustace Dolan in The Spirit. He appeared as Coach Hamstrung in The Three Stooges N.Y.U.K. on AMC in 2000. Lauria appeared on stage in New York in the summer of 2006 in an Off Broadway production of "A Stone Carver" by William Mastrosimone with Jim Iorio and Elizabeth Rossa. Lauria also had a small role in a Season two episode of Army Wives, as well as a season one episode of The Mentalist. In 2009, Dan has appeared as General Lee Whitworth, M.D. on T.V. series Criminal Minds Season 4. He's also appeared in an episode of Boy Meets World, starring Ben Savage, the younger brother of The Wonder Years's Fred Savage. In late 2009, Lauria returned to the Off Broadway stage, appearing as Jimmy Hoffa in Brian Lee Franklin's Good Bobby, a fictionalized account of Robert Kennedy's rise.

wn.com/Dan_Lauria
Darwyn Cooke
Darwyn Cooke is an Eisner Award-winning comic book writer, artist, cartoonist and animator, best known for his work on the comic books Catwoman, DC: The New Frontier, The Spirit and Richard Stark's Parker: The Hunter.
In 1985, Cooke published his first comic book work as a professional artist in a short story in New Talent Showcase #19, but economic pressure made him leave the comic book industry, and he worked in Canada as a magazine art director, graphic and product designer for the next 15 years.
In the early 1990s Cooke decided to return to comics, but found little interest for his work at the major publishers. Eventually he was hired by Warner Bros. Animation after replying to an ad placed by animator Bruce Timm.
He went on to work as a storyboard artist for Batman: The Animated Series and Superman: The Animated Series, and in 1999 he animated the main title design for Batman Beyond. He then worked as a director for Sony Animation's Men in Black: The Series for a year.
DC Comics then approached Cooke about a project which he had submitted to the publisher years earlier which eventually became Batman: Ego, a graphic novel published in 2000.

wn.com/Darwyn_Cooke
Deborah Del Prete
Deborah Del Prete is an American producer. Her son, actor and musician Terence Jay has appeared in/composed a number of films that she has produced. She is the cofounder of OddLot Entertainment.

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Denis Kitchen
Denis Kitchen (born 27 August 1946) is an American underground cartoonist, publisher, author, and agent from Wisconsin, and the founder of the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund.
Kitchen grew up in Wisconsin, attending William Horlick High School, Racine, where he cofounded and edited Klepto, an unofficial school paper, also contributing stories and illustrations to the paper. He continued this interest at the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee, where in 1967 he cofounded and served as art director for the humor magazine Snide, also supplying cartoons.
In 1969 Kitchen decided to self publish his comics and cartoons in the magazine Mom’s Homemade Comics, inspired in part by Bijou Funnies and Zap Comix. The selling out of the 4000 print run inspired him further, and in 1970 he founded Kitchen Sink Press (initially as an artists' cooperative) and launched the underground newspaper The Bugle-American, with Jim Mitchell and others. Under the name of the Krupp Syndicate, he syndicated comic strips to almost 50 other underground and college newspapers. In addition to the Milwaukee artists like himself, Mitchell, Bruce Walthers, Don Glassford and Wendel Pugh, Kitchen began to publish works by such cartoonists as Howard Cruse, Trina Robbins and S. Clay Wilson, and he soon expanded his operations, launching Krupp Comic Works, a parent organization into which he placed ownership of Kitchen Sink Press and through which he also launched such diverse ventures as a record company and a commercial art studio.

wn.com/Denis_Kitchen
Don Juan
Don Juan (Spanish, or "Don Giovanni" in Italian) is a legendary, fictional libertine whose story has been told many times by many authors. El burlador de Sevilla y convidado de piedra (The Trickster of Seville and the Stone Guest) by Tirso de Molina is a play set in the fourteenth century that was published in Spain around 1630. Evidence suggests it is the first written version of the Don Juan legend. Among the best known works about this character today are Molière's play Dom Juan ou le Festin de pierre (1665), Byron's epic poem Don Juan (1821), José de Espronceda's poem El estudiante de Salamanca (1840) and José Zorrilla's play Don Juan Tenorio (1844). Along with Zorrilla's work (still performed every year on November 2nd throughout the Spanish-speaking world), arguably the best known version is Don Giovanni, an opera composed by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart with libretto by Lorenzo da Ponte, first performed in Prague in 1787 (with Giacomo Casanova probably in the audience) and itself the source of inspiration for works by E. T. A. Hoffmann, Alexander Pushkin, Søren Kierkegaard, George Bernard Shaw and Albert Camus.

wn.com/Don_Juan
Doris Day
Doris Day (born Doris Mary Ann Kappelhoff, April 3, 1924) is an American actress, singer, and animal rights activist. With an entertainment career that spanned through almost 50 years, Day started her career as a big band singer in 1939, but only began to be noticed after her first hit recording, "Sentimental Journey", in 1945. After leaving the Les Brown & His Band of Renown to try a solo career, she started her long-lasting partnership with Columbia Records, which would remain her only recording label. The contract lasted from 1947 to 1967, and included more than 650 recordings, making Day one of the most popular and acclaimed singers of the 20th century. In 1948, after being persuaded by Sammy Cahn, Jule Styne and her agent at the time, Al Levy, she auditioned for Michael Curtiz, which led to her being cast in the female lead role in Romance on the High Seas.
With a legendary Hollywood "girl next door" image, and capable of delivering comedy and romance as well as heavy drama, she appeared in 39 films, released 29 albums, spent 460 weeks in the Top 40 charts and eventually became one of America's most beloved entertainers. She received an Academy Award nomination for her performance in Pillow Talk, won three Henrietta Awards (World Film Favorite), a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award, Presidential Medal of Freedom, Legend Award from the Society of Singers, Los Angeles Film Critics Association's Career Achievement Award and, in 1989, received the Cecil B. DeMille Award for lifetime achievement in motion pictures.

wn.com/Doris_Day
Ebony White

Ebony White is a fictional character from the 1940 comics series The Spirit, created by Will Eisner. He first appeared in the The Spirit comic strip of June 2, 1940. He is a black sidekick to Denny Colt, the title character. His age is ambiguous: sometimes he appears to be a young boy, at other times he is clearly an adult who drives a taxi. He frequently helps the Spirit out of tough situations.
The character is cited as an example of racial stereotypes in mainstream 20th century United States culture. His name is a racial pun, and his facial features - including large white eyes and thick pinkish lips - are typical of blackface caricatures. The size of a small child, he resembles a stereotypical pickaninny. As a loyal assistant to the white hero, he has been compared to the Uncle Tom stereotype. (Midnight, a character created as a substitute for the Spirit, had a talking monkey as one of his sidekicks.)
Eisner reported receiving letters of both praise and criticism for the character at the time. In a 1966 New York Herald Tribune feature by his former office manager-turned-journalist, Marilyn Mercer claimed, "Ebony never drew criticism from Negro groups (in fact, Eisner was commended by some for using him), perhaps because, although his speech pattern was early Minstrel Show, he himself derived from another literary tradition: he was a combination of Tom Sawyer and Penrod, with a touch of Horatio Alger hero, and color didn't really come into it".

wn.com/Ebony_White
Eric Balfour
Eric Salter Balfour (born April 24, 1977) is an American singer and actor of film and television. He is the lead singer of Born As Ghosts, formerly known as Fredalba. His best known roles include Milo Pressman on the action-thriller TV series 24 and Duke Crocker in the supernatural series Haven.
Balfour was born in Los Angeles, California, the son of Sharon (née Salter), who works as a marriage and family counselor, and David Balfour, a chiropractor. He has a younger sister, Tori. Both his father and maternal grandmother were Jewish, and his maternal grandfather had Lakota (Native American) ancestry.
Balfour appeared on the kids TV show Kids Incorporated for one season in 1991. In 1997, he appeared in the pilot for Buffy the Vampire Slayer, as one of the show's very first victims, Jesse McNally. He appeared as a regular cast member in three short-lived TV shows. NBC's Hawaii was canceled after seven episodes in 2004, UPN's Sex, Love & Secrets was canceled after four episodes. Also in 2005, Balfour starred in the sexually explicit Canadian drama Lie with Me opposite Lauren Lee Smith. In March 2006, Balfour debuted as Brian Peluso on producer Dick Wolf's short-lived NBC crime drama, Conviction, which lasted one season. Balfour was also a guest star on the hit show Dawson's Creek, in the ninth episode of the first season.

wn.com/Eric_Balfour
Eva Mendes
Eva Mendes (born March 5, 1974) is an American actress, model, singer and homeware designer. She began acting in the late 1990s, and after a series of roles in B movies such as Children of the Corn V: Fields of Terror (1998) and Urban Legends: Final Cut (2000), she broke into the Hollywood mainstream with an appearance in Training Day (2001). She has since starred in many films including All About The Benjamins (2002); 2 Fast 2 Furious, Once Upon a Time in Mexico and Stuck on You (2003); Hitch (2005); Ghost Rider and We Own the Night (both 2007); The Spirit (2008); Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans (2009); The Other Guys and Last Night (both 2010).
Mendes has worked as a spokesmodel for Cocio chocolate milk, Magnum ice cream, Revlon make-up, Calvin Klein underwear and perfume, Cartier jewelery, Thierry Mugler perfume, Reebok trainers, Campari apéritif, Pantene shampoo, Morgan clothes and Peek & Cloppenburg clothes. Mendes is the creator of a home decor line, Vida, sold exclusively at Macy's. She launched a bedding collection in 2008 and a dinnerware collection in 2010. Mendes is a singer: she has recorded a version of The Windmills of Your Mind and has collaborated with Cee Lo Green on a song entitled Pimps Don't Cry. She is dating Ryan Gosling and lives in the Los Feliz neighborhood of Los Angeles.

wn.com/Eva_Mendes
Frank Lovece
Frank Lovece is an American journalist, author, comedy performer and comic book writer. He was additionally one of the first professional Web journalists, becoming an editor of a Silicon Alley start-up in 1996.
For an Entertainment Weekly article on direct-to-video movies representing themselves as theatrical releases, he produced the first — and, after the article's publication, only — home video to obtain an MPAA rating.
Raised in Morgantown, West Virginia, Frank Lovece attended West Virginia University in that city, graduating with a bachelor of arts degree in communication. He was the arts/entertainment editor of the college newspaper, the Daily Athenaeum; held posts in student government; and interned with both the WWVU statewide radio news service, and, in Washington, D.C., the USDA Cooperative Extension Service.
He became a stringer for the New York City/Long Island newspaper Newsday in the late 1980s, becoming a weekly TV columnist there in 2003. Lovece's book Hailing Taxi: The Official Book of the Show, was published in 1988, the first of several books he would write on topics including the TV series The Brady Bunch and The X-Files, and on the Godzilla movie series.

wn.com/Frank_Lovece
Gabriel Macht
Gabriel S. Macht (born January 22, 1972) is an American actor. Macht is known for playing The Spirit in the film of the same name, and lately for his role as Harvey Specter on the USA Network series Suits.
Macht was born in The Bronx, New York, the son of Suzanne Victoria Pulier, a museum curator and archivist, and actor Stephen Macht. He has three siblings, Jesse, a musician (who appeared on The Next Great American Band), Ari Serbin, and Julie. The family moved to California when Gabriel was five years old. Following high school, he attended Carnegie Mellon College of Fine Arts, graduating in 1994. During his time at Carnegie he was a member of the Delta Upsilon fraternity.
Macht married Australian-born actress Jacinda Barrett in 2004. The couple had their first child, a girl, Satine Anais Geraldine Macht, born August 20, 2007 in Los Angeles. Macht's family is Jewish.
Macht was nominated for the Best Young Motion Picture Actor Award after playing his first role at age eight in the film Why Would I Lie? under the stage name Gabriel Swann. He has appeared in many film and television roles including A Love Song for Bobby Long, Because I Said So, The Recruit, and Archangel. For the 2001 film Behind Enemy Lines, Macht spent a week at sea filming on the flight deck, corridors, and hangar bay #3 of the USS Carl Vinson. Macht played the title role in Frank Miller's 2008 adaptation of Will Eisner's comic creation The Spirit. Although the film was a failure upon theatrical release, the film and Macht himself both gained a cult following.

wn.com/Gabriel_Macht
Gary Kurtz
Gary Kurtz (born July 27, 1940 in Los Angeles, California) is an American film producer whose list of credits include American Graffiti, Star Wars and The Empire Strikes Back. He later produced The Dark Crystal and Return to Oz after departing from the Star Wars series. Kurtz also co-produced the 1989 science fiction adventure film Slipstream, which reunited him with Star Wars star Mark Hamill.
Kurtz and Lucas first collaborated on the 1973 film American Graffiti, which became a huge box office hit. Kurtz then became producer of Star Wars, released in 1977, and its sequel, The Empire Strikes Back released in 1980. Many of the more mystical and spiritual elements of Star Wars were influenced by Kurtz, who had extensively studied comparative religion. Kurtz was a Quaker at the time and is currently Buddhist.
Kurtz has claimed that he and George Lucas clashed over how to progress the Star Wars series. Kurtz recalled after Raiders of the Lost Ark in 1981, Lucas became convinced that audiences no longer cared about the story; they were simply there for thrills and entertainment, and he began to deviate from the original planned plotlines for Return of the Jedi, at which point Kurtz quit the series. Kurtz has also claimed that Lucas changed the emphasis from storytelling to one that prioritized toy merchandising. Kurtz has expressed his dissatisfaction with Return of the Jedi and Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace. Kurtz was particularly displeased with Lucas' decisions in Return of the Jedi to resurrect the Death Star and to change the plot outline from one that ended on a "bittersweet and poignant" note to one having a "euphoric ending where everyone was happy".

wn.com/Gary_Kurtz
Harlan Ellison
Harlan Jay Ellison (born May 27, 1934) is an American writer. His principal genre is speculative fiction.
His published works include over 1,700 short stories, novellas, screenplays, teleplays, essays, a wide range of criticism covering literature, film, television, and print media. He was editor and anthologist for two ground-breaking science fiction anthologies, Dangerous Visions and Again, Dangerous Visions. Ellison has won numerous awards including multiple Hugos, Nebulas and Edgars.
Ellison was born in Cleveland, Ohio, on May 27, 1934. His Jewish-American family subsequently moved to Painesville, Ohio, but returned to Cleveland in 1949, following his father's death. As a child, he had a brief career performing in minstrel shows. He frequently ran away from home, taking an array of odd jobs—including, by age 18, "tuna fisherman off the coast of Galveston, itinerant crop-picker down in New Orleans, hired gun for a wealthy neurotic, nitroglycerine truck driver in North Carolina, short order cook, cab driver, lithographer, book salesman, floorwalker in a department store, door-to-door brush salesman, and as a youngster, an actor in several productions at the Cleveland Play House".

wn.com/Harlan_Ellison
Harry Donenfeld
Harry Donenfeld (October 10, 1893 – February 1965) was an American publisher who is known primarily for being the owner of National Allied Publications, which distributed Detective Comics and Action Comics, the originator publications for the superhero characters Batman and Superman. Donenfeld was also a founder of the Albert Einstein College of Medicine.
Harry Donenfeld was born into a Jewish family in Romania, and at the age of five emigrated to the United States of America with his parents and his brother Irving. A few years later the family was joined by Harry's two elder brothers Charlie and Mike. Little is known of his early life, as is common with many people entering America during the days of mass immigration; but the family entered America via Ellis Island and took up residence in New York in the Lower East Side area.
Donenfeld spent his early life in and out of school, and later in and out of gangs, refusing to settle down and find an occupation like his brothers, who had set up a printing enterprise. Harry became a clothing salesman working in the city, and saw himself as a class above the ordinary working man, and wanted a better life, but preferably without the hard work. After he avoided the draft in 1917, he married Gussie Weinstein in 1918, and thanks to a loan from her parents he was able to open a clothing store in Newark, New Jersey.

wn.com/Harry_Donenfeld
Henry Mancini
Enrico Nicola "Henry" Mancini (April 16, 1924 – June 14, 1994) was an American composer, conductor and arranger, best remembered for his film and television scores. He won a record number of Grammy Awards (20), plus a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award posthumously in 1995. His best-known works include the jazz-idiom theme to The Pink Panther film series ("The Pink Panther Theme"), the Peter Gunn Theme from the television series, and back-to-back Academy Awards for the songs "Moon River" from the Blake Edwards film Breakfast at Tiffany's and "Days of Wine and Roses" from Edwards' film Days of Wine and Roses. He also composed the score of famous films such as Charade, The Great Race, Wait Until Dark or Silver Streak.
Mancini was born in the Little Italy neighborhood of Cleveland, and grew up near Pittsburgh, in the steel town of West Aliquippa, Pennsylvania. His parents emigrated from the Abruzzo region of Italy. Mancini's father, Quinto, (born March 13, 1893, Scanno, Italy) was a steelworker, who made his only child begin piccolo lessons at the age of eight. When Mancini was 12 years old, he began piano lessons. Quinto and Henry played flute together in the Aliquippa Italian immigrant band, "Sons of Italy". After graduating from Aliquippa High School in 1942, Mancini attended the renowned Juilliard School of Music in New York. In 1943, after roughly one year at Juilliard, his studies were interrupted when he was drafted into the United States Army. In 1945, he participated in the liberation of a concentration camp in southern Germany.

wn.com/Henry_Mancini
Jack Liebowitz
Jacob S. "Jack" Liebowitz (October 10, 1900 – December 11, 2000) was an American accountant and publisher, known primarily as the co-owner with Harry Donenfeld of National Allied Publications (later DC Comics).
Jack Liebowitz was born "Yakov" in Proskurov, present-day Ukraine in October 1900, to his Jewish mother Mindl. His mother never identified his biological father, her first husband (who had left the family), but married Yulyus Lebovitz when her son was three. Yakov soon adopted his stepfather's surname, and in 1910 the family emigrated to the United States. They arrived in the Jewish neighborhood of New York's Lower East Side and, as was common at the time, adopted Anglicized names: His parents became Julius and Minnie Liebowitz, while he became Jacob, soon shortened to Jack. Jack was a hardworking child and became a newsboy amongst other small jobs. In high school, he became adept at accountancy, a career he thought would help him escape his poor background.
By age 24, Liebowitz had earned his accounting degree from New York University, and by 1927 had married (Rose) and moved to The Bronx. Liebowitz set himself up as an accountant based in Manhattan's Union Square area, with one client, the International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union (ILGWU); his father had been a steward for that union since the early 1910s. By 1925, Liebowitz was in charge of the union's strike fund, and a year later managed to keep the fund solvent in the wake of a six-month, 50,000-worker strike. His business acumen placed Liebowitz in a position of high standing with the union officials. Toward the end of the decade, Liebowitz had taken on more clients and begun studying the stock market. His initial dealings worked well for the union, but after the Wall Street Crash of 1929, funds plummeted and Liebowitz and the ILGWU parted company.

wn.com/Jack_Liebowitz
Jaime King
Jaime King (born April 23, 1979) is an American actress and model. In her modeling career and early film roles, she used the names Jamie King and James King, which was a childhood nickname given to King by her parents, because her agency already represented another Jaime — the older, then more famous model Jaime Rishar.
King appeared in Vogue, Mademoiselle, and Harper's Bazaar, among other fashion magazines. Afterwards, she began taking small film roles. Her first major role was in Pearl Harbor (2001). Her first starring movie role was in Bulletproof Monk (2003). She has appeared as a lead in other films, gaining more note after Sin City (2005).
King was born in the suburbs of Omaha, Nebraska, the daughter of Nancy King, a former beauty queen, and Robert King. She has an older sister, Sandi and a younger brother, Barry. King was named after Lindsay Wagner's character, Jaime Sommers, of the 1970s television series The Bionic Woman. King's parents separated in 1994. King had attended Nancy Bounds' Studios, a modeling school, and in 1995 dropped out of Westside High School in order to pursue a modeling career in New York. She later enrolled in a home-study program run by the University of Nebraska.

wn.com/Jaime_King
Jeph Loeb
Joseph "Jeph" Loeb III is an American film and television writer, producer and award-winning comic book writer. Loeb was a producer/writer on the TV series Smallville and Lost, writer for the films Commando and Teen Wolf and was a writer and Co-Executive Producer on the NBC TV show Heroes from its premiere in 2006 to November 2008.
In 2010, Loeb became Head of Television for Marvel in charge of drama, comedy and animation.
A four-time Eisner Award winner and five-time Wizard Fan Awards winner, Loeb's comic book work, which has appeared on the New York Times Best Seller list, includes work on many major characters, including Spider-Man, Batman, Superman, Hulk, Captain America, Cable, Iron Man, Daredevil, Supergirl, the Avengers, and Buffy the Vampire Slayer, much of which he has produced in collaboration with artist Tim Sale.
Jeph Loeb grew up in Stamford, Connecticut. He began collecting comic books during the summer of 1970.
His later stepfather was a vice-president at Brandeis University, Waltham, Massachusetts, where Jeph met one of his mentors and greatest influences in comic book writing, the writer Elliot Maggin. Jeph however attended Columbia University. He graduated with a Bachelor of Arts and a Master's degree in Film. His instructors included Paul Schrader.

wn.com/Jeph_Loeb
Jerry Iger
Samuel Maxwell "Jerry" Iger (August 22, 1903 – September 5, 1990) was an American cartoonist. With business partner Will Eisner he co-founder of Eisner & Iger, a comic book packager that produced comics on demand for new publishers during the late-1930s and 1940s period known to fans and historians as the Golden Age of Comic Books.
Iger is not related to comic book publisher Fred Iger. Iger was inducted into the Will Eisner Comic Book Hall of Fame in 2009.
Jerry Iger was born in Idabel, Oklahoma, near the Choctaw Indian reservation. The youngest of four children of an Australian peddler who'd settled in what was then the pre-statehood Indian Territory, Iger contracted polio as a child and was cared for by his mother, Rosa. Iger had two sisters, and a brother, Joe, whose son Arthur Iger (b. 1926) would become the father of Walt Disney Pictures president and CEO Robert Iger. Arthur by the mid-1970s was vice president and publisher of the educational division of Macmillan Publishing in New York City.

wn.com/Jerry_Iger
Jerry Rees
Jerry W. Rees is an animator and director best known for the 1987 Emmy-nominated animated film The Brave Little Toaster. He supervised and helped create many of the visual effects for the cult classic Tron, and is also a sculptor and fine artist.
Rees was mentored as an animator from the age of 16 at Disney Studios by one of Walt Disney's Nine Old Men, trained and taught at California Institute of the Arts, and began work in 1978 as animator for the Christian children's film The Small One. He also worked on the 1981 Disney film The Fox and the Hound, and the following year served as one of the visual effects supervisors for the cutting-edge science fiction film Tron.
In 1987, Rees and science fiction writer Thomas M. Disch collaborated on adapting Disch's short story The Brave Little Toaster into an animated film. The resulting film was nominated for a Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival and nominated for Best Animated Program at the 1988 Emmys. He also teamed up with fellow CalArts alum Tim Burton to co-write and co-direct the cult classic featurettes Doctor of Doom and Luau.

wn.com/Jerry_Rees
John Turman
John Turman is an American screenwriter, film producer and storyboard artist.
Turman also wrote unproduced scripts for Silver Surfer, Iron Fist and Fantastic Four.

wn.com/John_Turman
Johnny Simmons
Johnny Simmons (born November 28, 1986) is an American actor.
Simmons was born in Montgomery, Alabama and was raised in Dallas, Texas, where he attended Nathan Adams Elementary and T. C. Marsh Middle School. He is a 2005 graduate of W. T. White High School. Simmons landed his first role in the feature film Evan Almighty, in which he plays Dylan Baxter, opposite Steve Carell and Lauren Graham.

wn.com/Johnny_Simmons
Jules Feiffer
Jules Ralph Feiffer (born January 26, 1929) is an American syndicated cartoonist, most notable for his long-run comic strip titled Feiffer. He has created more than 35 books, plays and screenplays. In 1986, he won the Pulitzer Prize for his editorial cartooning in The Village Voice.
Raised in The Bronx, New York City, New York, where he graduated from James Monroe High School in 1947, Jules Feiffer won a John Wanamaker Art Contest medal for a crayon drawing of the radio Western hero Tom Mix. Interested in an early age at cartooning, he wrote in 1965 about his childhood:
He read comic strips in the New York World-Telegram newspaper that his father brought home, including Our Boarding House, Alley Oop "and my favorite at the time, Wash Tubbs, with the 'soldier of fortune' hero, Captain Easy". When his father switched to the evening edition of the New York Post, Feiffer absorbed other strips, including Dixie Dugan, The Bungle Family, Nancy (then titled Fritzi Ritz), "and that masterpiece of sentimental naturalism, Abbie an' Slats. I studied that strip — its [Preston] Sturges-like characters, its [William] Saroyanesque plots, its uniquely cadenced dialogue. No strip other than Will Eisner's Spirit rivaled its structure. No strip, except [Milton] Caniff's Terry [and the Pirates], rivaled it in atmosphere."

wn.com/Jules_Feiffer
Louis Lombardi
Louis Lombardi (born 1968) is an American actor.
Lombardi was born in The Bronx, New York City, the son of Louis Lombardi, Sr. On television, Lombardi had a recurring role on The Sopranos as Agent Skip Lipari, and guest starred on such shows as Entourage, Heroes and CSI. He was a cast member of a 1990s revival of Fantasy Island and played Edgar Stiles on 24. Nicknamed Mowley II due to his uncanny resemblance to the music producer Gerald Mowley II.
He has had roles in films including Beer League, The Usual Suspects, Natural Born Killers, Suicide Kings, Beverly Hills Cop III, The Animal, Spider-Man 2, 3000 Miles to Graceland, and The Spirit. He also wrote and directed the film Dough Boys, released in 2008.

wn.com/Louis_Lombardi
Marlene Dietrich
Marlene Dietrich (German pronunciation: [maɐˈleːnə ˈdiːtʁɪç]; 27 December 1901 – 6 May 1992) was a German-American actress and singer.
Dietrich remained popular throughout her long career by continually re-inventing herself, professionally and characteristically. In the Berlin of the 1920s, she acted on the stage and in silent films. Her performance as "Lola-Lola" in The Blue Angel, directed by Josef von Sternberg, brought her international fame and provided her a contract with Paramount Pictures in the US. Hollywood films such as Shanghai Express and Desire capitalised on her glamour and exotic looks, cementing her stardom and making her one of the highest-paid actresses of the era. Dietrich became a US citizen in 1939, and throughout World War II she was a high-profile frontline entertainer. Although she still made occasional films in the post-war years, Dietrich spent most of the 1950s to the 1970s touring the world as a successful show performer.
In 1999, the American Film Institute named Dietrich the ninth-greatest female star of all time.

wn.com/Marlene_Dietrich
Michael Uslan
Michael E. Uslan (born June 2, 1952) is a producer of the Batman movies and was the first instructor to teach "Comic Book Folklore" at an accredited university. Uslan is a native of Cedar Grove, New Jersey.
Uslan was born in Bayonne, New Jersey and was an avid comic book collector from a very young age, owning a collection that included the second Batman and first Superman comic, among others. His collection spanned more than 25,000 comics. He attended Ocean Township High School. While still an undergraduate and a graduate at the same time at Indiana University School of Law - Bloomington, attempting to break into the film industry by sending off over 130 résumés (typed on a typewriter), Uslan "developed a course idea for the Experimental Curriculum program at I.U."
Uslan recalls that Roger Stern "has been teaching a one-hour credit experimental course on comic book history and art," while he (Uslan) was "having fun with an I.U. Free University course on "The Comic Book Hero"." Stern and Uslan discovered they shared interests, and when Stern "couldn't stand teaching the course any longer," Uslan took it over and changed it into one that took

wn.com/Michael_Uslan
Owen Gleiberman
Owen Gleiberman is an American film critic for Entertainment Weekly, a position he has held since the magazine's launch in 1990. From 1981–89, he worked at the Boston Phoenix.
Besides Entertainment Weekly, his work has been published in Film Comment, and collected in the film criticism anthology Love and Hisses. Gleiberman reviews movies for National Public Radio and for NY1, New York City's 24-hour cable news television station and is a member and former chair of the New York Film Critics Circle. He is one of the critics featured in Gerald Peary's 2009 documentary film For the Love of Movies: The Story of American Film Criticism.
Gleiberman's first foray into journalism came at Ann Arbor Pioneer High School while working as the film critic for The Optimist, the student newspaper.
Gleiberman has acknowledged that he has difficulty dealing with the grading system at EW and that it has "never been [his] favorite thing."
He is featured in For the Love of Movies: The Story of American Film Criticism, discussing the implications of being a young critic championed by Pauline Kael, and also explaining the impact on him as child watching Rosemary's Baby.

wn.com/Owen_Gleiberman
Paul Levitz
Paul Levitz (born October 21, 1956) is an American comic book writer, editor and executive. The president of DC Comics from 2002–2009, he has worked for the company for over 35 years in a wide variety of roles. Along with publisher Jenette Kahn and managing editor Dick Giordano, Levitz was responsible for hiring such writers as Marv Wolfman, John Byrne and Alan Moore, artists such as George Pérez and Keith Giffen, and editor Karen Berger, who contributed to the 1980s revitalization of the company's line of comic book heroes.
Levitz was born in Brooklyn, New York, to Hannah and Alfred Levitz. He attended Stuyvesant High School during which time he co-wrote and published a comic fan magazine, The Comic Reader, which according to Levitz, was the first regularly published comics industry news fanzine. The Comic Reader went on to win two Best Fanzine Comic Art Fan Awards. One of Levitz's teachers, the future Pulitzer Prize winner Frank McCourt, was impressed enough with Levitz's work that he arranged for Levitz to appear on McCourt's brother's radio show.

wn.com/Paul_Levitz
Paz Vega
Paz Campos Trigo (born 2 January 1976), better known as Paz Vega, is a Spanish actress.
Vega was born in Seville, Andalusia, Spain to a homemaker mother and a retired bullfighter father. Vega's younger sister has performed as a flamenco dancer. Vega has described her family as "traditional" and Catholic. She took her stage name from her grandmother. After attending a performance of Federico García Lorca's La casa de Bernarda Alba at the age of 15 she was convinced that she wanted to become an actress. After completing compulsory education at 16, she was accepted at the prestigious Centro Andaluz de Teatro stage school. After two years at the stage school and two more years studying journalism, Vega moved to Madrid.
Vega made her television debut in the Spanish TV series, Menudo es mi padre, which starred rumba singer El Fary. After appearing in two other series in 1997 - Mas que amigos and teen drama Compañeros - she went on to grace the silver screen in 1999 in Zapping. The same year she also had a minor role in the David Menkes movie I Will Survive (Sobreviviré) alongside Emma Suárez, Juan Diego Botto and a cameo from Boy George.

wn.com/Paz_Vega
Richard Portnow
Richard Portnow (born January 26, 1947) is an American actor known for such films and television shows as Good Morning, Vietnam, Barton Fink, Se7en, Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai, The Spirit, Law Abiding Citizen, Private Parts, Fallen Arches, Double Down, Spring Break '83, The Sopranos, Hannah Montana and Boston Legal.
A veteran of stage, film and television with a variety of characters to his credit, Richard Portnow was named one of the "Actors We Love" from the actors' trade newspaper Back Stage West and said, "Portnow knows exactly how to hook an audience with every character."
Portnow graduated with a BA degree as a speech and theater major from Brooklyn College.
Portnow played the role of defense attorney Harold "Mel" Melvoin on the Emmy-winning HBO series The Sopranos (1999), the lawyer for Uncle Junior, whom he is able to keep out of prison and managed to get placed under house arrest instead. His rates for defending Corrado Soprano (Uncle Juniors's full name) are astronomical, but as Uncle June has said, "Mel, you're worth every penny". He has held the role since the show's inception in 1999.

wn.com/Richard_Portnow
Rob Worley
Rob Worley is an American writer and editor. He is a co-author of Advent Rising: Rock the Planet, a comic book prequel to the Advent Rising video game.
Worley founded Comics2Film in 1997, the first website dedicated to tracking news about comic book movies.^{[citation needed]}
Worley was picked up as one of the first writers for Marvel Comics' Epic imprint when it launched in 2003, only to see his project, Young Ancient One (a Doctor Strange prequel) arrive stillborn as one third of a single-issue anthology in February 2004.
Despite the Epic disappointment, Worley caught the attention of former Marvel President and 360ep founding partner Bill Jemas. In 2005, they collaborated on Advent Rising: Rock the Planet alongside Arthur Dela Cruz, Cliff Richards, Dennis Crisotomo, Cris Delara and Simon Bowland, supervised by Advent creator Donald Mustard. The comic was published as a five-issue series which ran from October 2005 to November 2006.
From 2005 to early 2006 he contributed short comics stories to various anthologies published by Italy's Narwain publishing. From October 2005 to April 2006 Worley served as an English language translator on several titles, including Free Fall, Tales from a Forgotten Planet and Bluff.

wn.com/Rob_Worley
Roger Ebert
Roger Joseph Ebert ( /ˈiːbərt/; born June 18, 1942) is an American journalist, film critic and screenwriter. He is the first film critic to win a Pulitzer Prize for Criticism.
Ebert is known for his film review column (appearing in the Chicago Sun-Times since 1967, and later online) and for the television programs Sneak Previews, At the Movies with Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert, and Siskel and Ebert and The Movies, all of which he co-hosted for a combined 23 years with Gene Siskel. After Siskel's death in 1999, Ebert teamed with Richard Roeper for the television series Ebert & Roeper & the Movies, which began airing in 2000. Although his name remained in the title, Ebert did not appear on the show after mid-2006 after he suffered post-surgical complications related to thyroid cancer, leaving him unable to speak. Ebert ended his association with the show in July 2008, but in February 2009 he stated that he and Roeper would continue their work on a new show. Ebert's current show, Ebert Presents: At the Movies, premiered on January 21, 2011, with Ebert contributing a review voiced by someone else in a brief segment called "Roger's Office".

wn.com/Roger_Ebert
Russians
The Russian people (Russian: русские, russkiye) are an East Slavic ethnic group native to Russia, speaking the Russian language and primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries.
The English term Russians is also used to refer to the citizens of Russia, regardless of their ethnicity; the demonym Russian is translated into Russian as rossiyanin (россиянин, plural rossiyane), while the ethnic Russians are referred to as russkiye (sg. русский, russkiy).
According to the 2010 census, ethnic Russians make up about 81% of the population of Russia.
The modern Russian is formed from two groups, Northern and Southern, which were made up of Kriviches, Ilmen Slavs, Radimichs, Vyatiches and Severians East Slavic tribes. Genetic studies show that modern Russians do not differ significantly from Poles or Slovenians or Ukrainians. Some ethnographers, like Zelenin, affirm that Russians are more similar to Belarusians and Ukrainians than southern Russians to northern Russians. Russians in northern European Russia share moderate genetic similarities with Uralic peoples, who lived in modern north central European Russia and were partly assimilated by the Slavs as the Slavs migrated northeastwards. Among those peoples were Merya and Muromian.

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Sammy Lerner
Samuel "Sammy" Lerner (January 28, 1903 - December 13, 1989) was a Romanian-born songwriter for American and British musical theatre and film.
Lerner emigrated with his parents into the United States at age seven, and the family settled in Detroit, Michigan. After graduating from Wayne State University, Lerner moved to New York City, where he began writing songs for vaudeville performers such as Sophie Tucker. Lerner also contributed lyrics to the Ziegfeld Follies.
With the coming of sound film, Lerner began writing songs for motion pictures, including several for use in the Paramount Pictures cartoons produced by Fleischer Studios. Two of these included signature songs for Max Fleischer's most successful cartoon stars, Betty Boop ("Don't Take My Boo-oop-a-doop Away", co-written with Sammy Timberg) and Popeye the Sailor ("I'm Popeye the Sailor Man"). Mr. Lerner composed I'm Popeye the Sailor Man in less than two hours for the cartoonist Dave Fleischer. The lyrics included the line, I'm strong to the finich 'cause I eats me spinach. Lerner's Popeye theme is particularly well known, and has followed the character into television, feature films, and video games.

wn.com/Sammy_Lerner
Sarah Paulson
Sarah Catharine Paulson (born December 17, 1975 or December 17, 1974) is an American actress.
She was a series regular on the cult television show American Gothic and The WB series Jack & Jill (1999), playing the character "Elisa Cronkite". In addition, she had a minor role in the HBO series Deadwood and was a focal character in an episode of the critically acclaimed FX series Nip/Tuck.
Paulson appeared on the short-lived NBC series Leap of Faith (2002) as the main character. In 2004, she had a supporting role in the ABC series The D.A., but that show also ended after a few episodes.
Paulson starred in a revival of The Glass Menagerie on Broadway and has appeared Off-Broadway in Killer Joe, Talking Pictures, and Colder Than Here. Paulson's movie credits include Down with Love, What Women Want, The Other Sister, Levitation, and Serenity.
In the 2006-07 television season, Paulson co-starred in NBC's Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip playing Harriet Hayes, one of the stars of the show-within-a-show. To date, this is her most notable role, earning her a nomination for Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress – Series, Miniseries or Television Film. In December 2008, Paulson appeared in the screen adaptation of Will Eisner's comic book The Spirit, playing an updated version of the character Ellen Dolan.

wn.com/Sarah_Paulson
Scarlett Johansson
Scarlett Johansson (born November 22, 1984) is an American actress, model and singer.
Johansson made her film debut in North (1994) and was later nominated for the Independent Spirit Award for Best Female Lead for her performance in Manny & Lo (1996). She rose to further prominence with her roles in The Horse Whisperer (1998) and Ghost World (2001). She shifted to adult roles with her performances in Girl with a Pearl Earring (2003) and Sofia Coppola's Lost in Translation (2003), for which she won a BAFTA award for Best Actress in a Leading Role. Both films earned her Golden Globe Award nominations.
A role in A Love Song for Bobby Long (2004) earned Johansson a third Golden Globe for Best Actress nomination. Johansson garnered another Golden Globe nomination for Best Supporting Actress with her role in Woody Allen's Match Point (2005). She went on to star in two further Allen movies: Scoop (2006) and Vicky Cristina Barcelona (2008). Johansson has appeared in other successful films, such as Christopher Nolan's The Prestige (2006). Johansson played popular Marvel comic book character Black Widow/Natasha Romanoff in the films Iron Man 2 (2010) and The Avengers (2012).

wn.com/Scarlett_Johansson
Seychelle Gabriel
Seychelle Suzanne Gabriel (born March 25, 1991) is an American film and television actress. She is best known for roles in the feature films The Spirit (2008) and The Last Airbender (2010). She currently co-stars as Lourdes in the TNT series Falling Skies.
Gabriel was born in Burbank, California and is of Mexican descent. She graduated from Burbank High School.
Gabriel appeared as Princess Yue in the film The Last Airbender (2010), directed by M. Night Shyamalan. The film was based on Avatar: The Last Airbender, an animated children's television series.
Gabriel appeared in Honey 2 (2011), directed by Bille Woodruff, produced by Universal Studios Home Entertainment.
Gabriel also appeared in the films The Spirit (2008), as Young Sand Saref. She has performed on The Tonight Show, a late-night talk show, and had a recurring role on the comedy-drama television series Weeds. She has also appeared in one episode of Zoey 101.
It was announced on March 7, 2011 that Gabriel was to voice the character Asami Sato in the Nickelodeon series The Legend of Korra.

wn.com/Seychelle_Gabriel
Stana Katic
Stana Katic (English pronunciation: /ˈstɑːnə ˈkætɨk/; born April 26, 1978) is a Canadian film and television actress. She is best known for her portrayal of Detective Kate Beckett on ABC's Castle.
Katic was born in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada, to a Serbian father and Croatian mother, who both immigrated from Yugoslavia. Her father is from Vrlika, and her mother is from the surrounding area of Sinj. Katic later moved with her family to Aurora, Illinois. She spent the following years moving back and forth between Canada and the United States. After graduating from West Aurora High School in 1996, she studied acting at Chicago's Goodman School of Drama. She has four brothers and one sister.
Katic played the character of Hana Gitelman in Heroes, Collette Stenger in 24 's season 5, and Jenny in the film Feast of Love starring Morgan Freeman. She also played Morgenstern in Frank Miller's film The Spirit, Corrine Veneau in the Bond movie Quantum of Solace (though she was originally up for the role of Strawberry Fields in the film), and Simone Renoir in the third installment of The Librarian franchise, The Librarian: Curse of the Judas Chalice.

wn.com/Stana_Katic
Steve Ditko
Stephen J. "Steve" Ditko (born November 2, 1927) is an American comic book artist and writer best known as the artist and co-creator, with Stan Lee, of the Marvel Comics heroes Spider-Man and Doctor Strange.
Ditko studied under Batman artist Jerry Robinson at the Cartoonist and Illustrators School in New York City. He began his professional career in 1953, working in the studio of Joe Simon and Jack Kirby, beginning as an inker and coming under the influence of artist Mort Meskin. During this time, he then began his long association with Charlton Comics, where he did work in the genres of science fiction, horror, and mystery. He also co-created the superhero Captain Atom in 1960.
Ditko then drew for Atlas Comics, the 1950s forerunner of Marvel Comics. He went on to contribute much significant work to Marvel, including co-creating Spider-Man, who would become the company's flagship character. Additionally, he co-created the supernatural hero Doctor Strange and made important contributions to the Hulk and Iron Man. In 1966, after being the exclusive artist on The Amazing Spider-Man and the "Doctor Strange" feature in Strange Tales, Ditko left Marvel for reasons never specified.

wn.com/Steve_Ditko
Will Eisner
William Erwin "Will" Eisner (March 6, 1917 – January 3, 2005) was an American comics writer, artist and entrepreneur. He is considered one of the most important contributors to the development of the medium and is known for the cartooning studio he founded; for his highly influential series The Spirit; for his use of comics as an instructional medium; for his leading role in establishing the graphic novel as a form of literature with his book A Contract with God and Other Tenement Stories.
The comics community paid tribute to Eisner by creating the Will Eisner Comic Industry Awards, more commonly known as "the Eisners", to recognize achievements each year in the comics medium. Eisner enthusiastically participated in the awards ceremony, congratulating each recipient. In 1987, with Carl Barks and Jack Kirby, he was one of the three inaugural inductees of the Will Eisner Comic Book Hall of Fame.

wn.com/Will_Eisner
William Friedkin
William Friedkin (born August 29, 1935) is an American film director, producer and screenwriter best known for directing The French Connection in 1971 and The Exorcist in 1973; for the former, he won the Academy Award for Best Director. His film, Bug (2006) won the FIPRESCI prize at the Cannes Film Festival.
Friedkin was born in Chicago, Illinois, the son of Rae (née Green) and Louis Friedkin, a semi-professional softball player, merchant seaman, and men's clothing salesman. After seeing the movie Citizen Kane as a boy, Friedkin became fascinated with movies. He began working for WGN-TV immediately after high school. He eventually started his directorial career doing live television shows and documentaries, including The People vs. Paul Crump which won several awards and contributed to the commutation of Crump's death sentence. As mentioned in Friedkin's voice-over commentary on the DVD re-release of Alfred Hitchcock's Vertigo, Friedkin also directed one of the last episodes of The Alfred Hitchcock Hour in 1965, called "Off Season".

wn.com/William_Friedkin

Spirit of Scotland pipe band at World pipe band championship 2008

MSR and Medley...

published: 26 Aug 2010

author: AndrewYUpiper

Leona Lewis - Run - X Factor Live 2008 - Full!

This was Leona Lewis performing her newest single Run, which was released in 2008 :) .. No...

published: 19 Jun 2011

author: EastendersVideo14

Sam and Esther

One of two scenes....watch the follow up entitled "Sam and Esther Follow Up Story." This i...

published: 14 Mar 2008

author: SanDamianoFilms

John Bytheway - Weed Your Spirit, Grow Your Testimony, Aug 2008, BYU Education Week

John Bytheway - Weed Your Spirit, Grow Your Testimony, Aug 2008, BYU Education Week. Power...

published: 21 Feb 2013

author: nzchrisvaughan

Rush - Spirit of Radio

Performed live at Toronto Rocks 2003....

published: 13 Jun 2008

author: gvbezoff

Rush The Spirit Of The Radio

Rush The Spirit Of The Radio...

published: 21 May 2008

author: bryant313

NBC Beijing 2008 closing credits

Music: Images of the athletes: Stephen Warbeck, The Beggining of a Partnership from Shakes...

published: 07 Apr 2012

author: SteveJonesWilliams

Spirit Wolves II - Adiemus

OK! two things! 1.) The song is called "Adiemus" by Adiemus. (Or it's by Enya, I don't kno...

published: 16 Jan 2008

author: thewolfpoet

Moby - Spirit

From "Play: The B-Sides"...

published: 22 Jun 2008

author: KazuoKiriyama666

Kindred Spirits - Liquid Tension Experiment [ Live in LA 2008 ]

...

published: 16 Jul 2011

author: gitaroland2010

Nirvana - Smells Like Teen Spirit (lyrics)

These are the lyrics to Smells Like Teen Spirit. I noticed how lots of people were getting...

published: 25 Nov 2008

author: zibzib20

Wayra The Wind--- Great Spirit

from the dvd Wayra The Wind...

published: 24 Mar 2008

author: Gerard Beverwijk

Spirit of God - Michael Gungor

Spirit of God - Michael Gungor...

published: 26 Nov 2008

author: thatcherpoe

Spirit Fall -Phil Wickham

This is for my sister, she wants to marry Phil Wickham. It's the last song on his record C...

published: 19 Jun 2008

author: leahlizard

SILVER & LIGHT

This project was created with the same spirit that america was founded on. Our intentions...

published: 01 Apr 2012

author: Ian Ruhter : Alchemist

The Art of Making, Alma Flamenca

Pieces of wood, love, knowledge and 299 hours of work, condensed in a 3 minute film. The ...

published: 28 May 2012

author: Deep Green Sea

The Art of Making, The Carpenter

The ‘Art of Making’ series aspires to display and highlight certain people, which go again...

published: 17 Oct 2011

author: Deep Green Sea

The Most Astounding Fact

Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: http://www.youtube.com/user/MaxSchlick?feature=mhee Astr...

published: 07 Mar 2012

author: Max Schlickenmeyer

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photo: AP / Photo

Villagers view the bodies of suspected attackers from the Pokomo tribe, following tribal clashes in Kipao village in the Tana River Delta region of southeastern Kenya Friday, Dec. 21, 2012.

Neighbors Kill Neighbors in Kenya as Election Tensions Stir Age-Old Grievances

The New York Times

22 Feb 2013

MALINDI, Kenya — In a room by the stairs, Shukrani Malingi, a Pokomo farmer, writhed on a metal cot, the skin on his back burned off. Down the hall, at a safe distance, Rahema Hageyo, an Orma girl, stared blankly out of a window, a long scar above her thimble-like neck. She was nearly decapitated by a machete chop — and she is only 9 months old. Connect With Us on Twitter ... Twitter List. Reporters and Editors ...   ... Op-Ed ... N.Y ... ....(size: 6.3Kb)

photo: AP

Olympic athlete, Oscar Pistorius , in court Friday Feb. 22, 2013 in Pretoria, South Africa, for his bail hearing charged with the shooting death of his girlfriend, Reeva Steenkamp.

Pistorius ’knows jail almost guaranteed’

Canberra Times

22 Feb 2013

Oscar Pistorius appears at the Magistrate Court in Pretoria on day four of his bail hearing. Photo. AFP. The lead lawyer prosecuting Oscar Pistorius on murder charges has told a Pretoria bail hearing the sprinter knows a long spell in jail is ‘‘almost guaranteed’’ and is a flight risk ... ‘‘He must realise that a long term of imprisonment is almost guaranteed ... AFP/AAP . ....(size: 3.0Kb)

photo: AP / Aijaz Rahi

An official of India's National Investigation Agency looks for evidence in the debris at one of the two bomb blast sites, in Hyderabad, India, Friday, Feb. 22, 2013.

Hyderabad bomb investigators examine links with Islamist militant group

The Guardian

22 Feb 2013

Indian Mujahideen group reported to have ties to Pakistan and may be behind dual bomb attack that killed 15. Officials look for evidence in the debris of one of the two bomb blast sites in Hyderabad, India. Photograph. Aijaz Rahi/AP ... India's recent execution of an Islamic militant is being examined as a possible motive for the bombings, he said ... They had also visited various spots in New Delhi, Mumbai and Pune ... ....(size: 4.8Kb)

photo: Creative Commons / Strike Eagle

Police investigation at the area of the first blast at Hyderabad-India.

Hyderabad bomb blasts: Five young students among 14 dead

The Times of India

22 Feb 2013

HYDERABAD. A trip to purchase books for the exam of sub-inspector in excise department proved to be the last outing of Vijay Kumar, who was among the five students killed in the twin blasts in the city. Among the other students killed was Rajasekhar, who was pursuing MBA, Harish, an engineering student from Kottapet locality in the city, and Swapna, another MBA student ... ....(size: 2.0Kb)

photo: UN / UNICEF, Marco Domino

File - Children read a cholera prevention poster in Cite L'Eternel a poor neighborhood of Port au Prince, Haiti, where the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) is working to contain the cholera outbreak, 16 November, 20110.

UN 'will not pay' for Haiti cholera

Irish Times

22 Feb 2013

The United Nations has said it will not pay hundreds of millions of dollars in compensation claimed by cholera victims in impoverished Haiti, where an epidemic has killed thousands of people and been blamed on UN peacekeepers. Cholera - an infection causing severe diarrhoea that can lead to dehydration and death - has killed some 7,750 Haitians and sickened almost 620,000 since October 2010. It occurs in places with poor sanitation ... ....(size: 3.4Kb)

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It's Indie Vets Vs. Upstarts at a Varied Independent Spirit Awards

Yahoo Daily News

23 Feb 2013

LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) - After finding the Oscars encroaching on their territory for a number of years, have the Film Independent Spirit Awards finally gotten a little space from their bigger, flashier weekend neighbor? ... Russell's "Silver Linings Playbook," will be competing for five Indie Spirit Awards on Saturday, the day before it takes its eight nominations to the Oscars....(size: 5.5Kb)

Montalvo Tequila’s Reposado Wins Best of Class at the 2013 Spirits of the Americas Competition

San Francisco Chronicle

23 Feb 2013

Montalvo Spirits, Inc ... ACSRD) (“Montalvo” or, the “Company”) announced today that their flagship product, Montalvo Tequila’s Reposado, was named Best of Class in the Reposado Tequila category during the 2013 Spirits of the Americas Competition ... The Spirits of the Americas competition, part of the IWSC Group, celebrates the diversity and innovation of distilling in North, South and Central America ... About Montalvo Spirits, Inc....(size: 4.4Kb)

The law of sin and death separates us from God (Photos)

The Examiner

23 Feb 2013

Romas 8.1-2 There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made me free from the law of sin and death ... Jesus teaches us in His Word about the law of sin and death and the Spirit of life ... The Spirit is the Holy Spirit of God; the third person of the Holy Trinity....(size: 7.1Kb)

Fest a national heritage

New Straits/Business Times

23 Feb 2013

IN February last year, the King Barge, better known as the Wangkang Festival, an age-old tradition of the Hokkien community to cleanse the place of evil spirits, was held here for only the seventh time in the past 150 years ... The Wangkang procession's mission is to capture "evil spirits" roaming the streets by enticing them into the barge and later sending them away into the unknown....(size: 2.8Kb)

Audrey Hepburn to front advertising campaign

m&c;

23 Feb 2013

'Our mother often spoke about her love of chocolate and how it lifted her spirit so we're sure she would have been proud of her role as the face of Galaxy. The advert perfectly captures her playful spirit and ......(size: 1.1Kb)

Father Joe is leaning to an imported stayer in Vatican Stakes

Canberra Times

23 Feb 2013

However, he issued a warning ... At the time Ron Taylor, a great racing writer, turf editor of Truth and later the author of Father Joe Giacobbe's The Spirit Of Racing (Wilkinson Publishing) was asked about the possibility of the Winning Post venture surviving ... ... According to The Spirit Of Racing.it was traded to the owner of Best Bets for $2.5 million in 2006-07 ... In The Spirit Of Racing, regarding subsequent requests, he commented ... ....(size: 4.5Kb)

Versace brings UK anarchy to Italy

The Guardian

23 Feb 2013

Milan show lends a fur trim to the spirit of the 70s as Donatella suggests it's time for modern women to rebel again ... The punk spirit has also run through other catwalk shows this season ... It is not just this latest Versace punk collection that has seen the designer tap into a younger spirit for her mainline collection – last season she offered a ......(size: 4.6Kb)

Expect carry-on baggage fees across all airlines in 2013 (Photos)

The Examiner

23 Feb 2013

After Spirit Airlines of Florida and Allegiant Air of Las Vegas began charging for carry-on bags last year, all major airlines in the U.S ... Spirit Airlines jacked its carry-on fees up to $100 per bag in November 2012 – for those who wait at the last minute (at the boarding gate) to pay ... “Our goal is for no customer ever to pay the $100 fee," said Spirit Chief Operating Officer Tony Lefebvre in a statement ... Photo credit.  ... Tweet ... ....(size: 5.5Kb)

Purveying pleasure

Irish Times

23 Feb 2013

1234. JOHN WILSON ... Whatever claims wine, beer and spirits make as to health, in reality they all have but one purpose in life – to bring enjoyment to those that drink them ... It forms an important social function ... That doesn’t mean that various social occasions are not improved greatly by a few glasses of wine, beer or a spirit of some kind ... For me wine, and to a lesser extent, beer and spirits, certainly provides some of these....(size: 5.2Kb)

Conn. women's dance group channels Duncan

Newsday

23 Feb 2013

WATERBURY, Conn ... Today, Kiva spans generations. Real-life daughters and sisters have since joined the group that formed 14 years ago by six women ... To explain what this was, we must momentarily digress to understand the dramatic life led by the free-spirited-Duncan ... In that context, the Furies embody spirits from the underworld, "women who were wronged somehow in life, so they're sort of an avenging spirit," explained McLain ... ....(size: 6.0Kb)

Church needs saving from its dysfunctional structure

Irish Times

23 Feb 2013

DIARMAID MACCULLOCH. The Catholic Church, aka the western church of the Latin rite, trades on tradition. That is what so fascinates many people ... If you like to call that the work of the Holy Spirit, then fine, but do note that the Holy Spirit delights in confounding human expectations and going its own way ... The revolution dealt them a devastating blow ... But it is just possible that the Holy Spirit might seize them afresh ... His book Silence ... ....(size: 6.5Kb)

Kennedale rolls into 3A regional title game

Star Telegram

23 Feb 2013

Special to the Star Telegram. LUBBOCK — The Kennedale Wildcats advanced to the Class 3A Region I final for a third consecutive year with a 66-50 victory Friday night against Lubbock Cooper at United Spirit Arena ... Guard Katy Boren (11 points) knocked down two 3-pointers during the run ... “One more, man. One more,” Hughes said ... to overcome in the first half ... today in the 3A Region I final at United Spirit ... NOTE ... Game of the week....(size: 3.2Kb)

Liquor store privatization bill ready for launch

MSNBC

23 Feb 2013

Proponents say you want it ... Advertise ... The legislation would add dozens of pages to the liquor code and are included under what is being called “Article III-A, Wine and Spirits Distribution .” ... Stores selling wine and spirits could be open from 9 a.m ... HB790 would create 800 Class A licenses that would be available to stores that are at least 15,000 square feet and dedicate a minimum of 600 linear feet to the sale of wine and spirits ... ....(size: 6.9Kb)

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For 2002 Western film or its musical soundtrack, see Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron and Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron (soundtrack).

The spirit
File:Thespiritposter.jpg Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Frank Miller
Produced by	Michael Uslan Deborah Del Prete Gigi Pritzker
Screenplay by	Frank Miller
Based on	The Spirit by Will Eisner
Starring	Gabriel Macht Samuel L. Jackson Scarlett Johansson Eva Mendes Dan Lauria Sarah Paulson Paz Vega Stana Katic Jaime King Louis Lombardi
Music by	David Newman
Cinematography	Bill Pope
Editing by	Gregory Nussbaum
Studio	Lionsgate Odd Lot Entertainment
Distributed by	Lionsgate
Release date(s)	December 25, 2008 (2008-12-25)
Running time	103 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English
Box office	$39,031,337^[1]

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.^[2]

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.^[3]

1 Plot
2 Cast
3 Production
4 Marketing
5 Reception
- 5.1 Box office
- 5.2 Critical reception
6 Footnotes
7 References
8 External links

Plot [link]

In a cat-filled mausoleum in Central City, Denny Colt (Gabriel Macht), also known as The Spirit, receives a call from Detective Sussman (Dan Gerrity) about a major case that could involve the Spirit's arch-nemesis, The Octopus (Samuel L. Jackson). The Spirit dons his costume and travels across rooftops while delivering a voice-over soliloquy about the city being his one true love. A woman (Kimberly Cox) is being mugged in an alley below. He manages to save her, receiving a knife wound that he barely seems to notice. The woman asks, "What are you?" The Spirit runs away, catching a ride from Officer Liebowitz (Frank Miller) and heading toward the flats.

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 on the Spirit, apparently killing him off, but Dolan's SWAT team storms the area and opens fire right after. Morgenstern blows the Octopus' arm up with a handcannon, to recover from the damage, the Octopus gets to the Blood of Heracles and prepares to drink it, but Sand shoots the vase just in time as the Spirit comes back from the dead, having used a bulletproof vest, and attach a grenade to the Octopus' chest, blowing him up into pieces, with Sand protecting the two of them with the Golden Fleece. 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.

Cast [link]

Gabriel Macht as Denny Colt / The Spirit: An ambitious and formerly eager young cop killed on the job, who under mysterious circumstances is reborn as a masked crimefighter with an eye for the ladies.^[4] Determined to still keep his beloved city safe, he works with Central City's police force from the shadows. Miller had required actors who wanted the starring role to audition, and Macht was able to attain the role in August 2007.^[5]
Samuel L. Jackson as The Octopus: A former coroner turned psychotic supervillain who plans to bring all of Central City to its knees and will kill without discretion anyone unlucky enough to stand in his way. Jackson was Miller's first choice for the role and was cast in May 2007.^[6] Jackson, Miller, and the costume designer went through the various scenes of the film to design elaborate costumes for the Octopus to wear—to the point that in every scene he appears in his look is different than the one before. They include a samurai robe complete with a wig, a full Nazi SS uniform, a Western duster influenced outfit with a ludicrously out-of-proportion cowboy hat, and a costume consisting of a Russian-esque hat and a fur-lined coat influenced by 1970's blaxploitation pimps. When asked about the change from the Octopus just being recognized by a pair of gloves in the comics to the various costumes, Jackson stated "It's just an opportunity to be larger than life to take the Octopus's theme of dressing the way he feels everyday, or having a theme to his day to day life and making some sense with it. And hopefully the audience will take the ride with us."^[7]
Scarlett Johansson as Silken Floss: A femme fatale secretary and perversely innocent accomplice to the Octopus, only slightly more sane than he is.^[8]
Eva Mendes as Sand Saref:^[9] The Spirit's childhood sweetheart, who perennially seduces and marries wealthy men, has them killed, and uses their money to fund criminal exploits in a constant pursuit of a life of the highest luxury and influence over the criminal underworld. She is also a tragic anti-heroine, with her policeman father accidentally murdered, causing her to have a hatred of police and Central City, and break up with aspiring cop Denny Colt. In the movie her character shares characteristics with P'Gell from The Spirit comics. The actress told director Frank Miller that she wanted to work with him on The Spirit before she had seen a script for the film.^[10]
Sarah Paulson as Ellen Dolan: The police commissioner's daughter and a top surgeon who considers it her duty as the Spirit's current flame to keep him healthy and alive (much to her father's chagrin).^[4]
Dan Lauria as Commissioner Eustace Dolan: The hard-boiled and commanding police commissioner of Central City and the Spirit's father figure.^[4]
Stana Katic as Morgenstern: A spunky rookie officer and skilled sharpshooter who idolizes the Spirit.^[4]
Louis Lombardi as Phobos, Logos, Pathos, Ethos, Bulbos, Huevos and Rancheros, Mangos, Adios and Amigos, etc.: The Octopus's thuggish and moronic, yet highly resilient cloned henchmen.^[4]
Jaime King as Lorelei: A phantasmic siren and the Angel of Death waiting to take the Spirit, who must continually force himself to resist her.^[11]
Paz Vega as Plaster of Paris: A sexy French belly dancer and assassin in the employ of the Octopus, she wields tri-pronged throwing knives and a sword.^[11]
Seychelle Gabriel as Young Sand Saref
Johnny Simmons as Young Denny Colt^[4]
Eric Balfour as Mahmoud

Frank Miller and DC Comics president Paul Levitz also have cameo roles in the film. ^[3]

Production [link]

Development [link]

In the 1970s, director William Friedkin obtained the rights to The Spirit and contacted Will Eisner to write a script for him. Eisner declined but recommended Harlan Ellison, who wrote a two-hour live-action script for the filmmaker. Friedkin and Ellison afterward had an unrelated argument, and the project was abandoned.^[12] During the 1980's, Brad Bird, Jerry Rees, and producer Gary Kurtz attempted to get an animated adaptation off the ground, though studio executives praised the screenplay, they thought the film would be unmarketable, and this version was scrapped.^[13]

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.^[14] Screenwriter John Turman, a comic book fan, expressed interest in writing the script.^[15]

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.^[16] In April 2005, comic book writer Jeph Loeb was hired to adapt The Spirit for the big screen,^[17] 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.^[18] Miller had initially hesitated, doubting his skill in adapting The Spirit, but ultimately embraced his first solo project as writer-director.^[14] 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".^[3]

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.^[19] 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".^[19] Miller plans to film The Spirit using the same digital background technology that was used for Sin City and 300.^[20] The film would also copy specific shots from the comic, similar to Sin City.^[21]

In February 2007, Miller completed the first draft of the screenplay, and began work on a second draft.^[22] Principal photography was initially slated to begin in late spring 2007.^[19] Miller also planned to begin filming Sin City 2 in spring 2009,^[23] but Uslan indicated that filming for The Spirit would begin before Miller started Sin City 2.^[18] Following the casting of Gabriel Macht as the Spirit in August 2007, filming was re-slated for the following October.^[5]

Filming [link]

Filming began in October 2007. Filming took place in Albuquerque Studios in New Mexico.^[4] The Spirit was shot using Panavision's Genesis digital camera.^[24] The films release was originally scheduled for January 16, 2009, but on May 6, 2008, it was announced that the release date would be moved up to December 25, 2008.^[18]

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.^[25]

Music [link]

The Spirit's mysterious Henry Mancini-like soundtrack is by David Newman. Producer Deborah Del Prete said in the movie's production and press notes, "We were very fortunate to have a wealth of choices. After seeing samples of the footage literally everyone we wanted to meet with was very excited about taking on the film. The hardest part was having to say no to so many really great music makers. After consideration, the highly accomplished multiple Academy Award nominee David Newman joined the team. Frank wanted elements of the ‘40s jazz sound married with iconic heroic music and even a touch of the spaghetti western. David was able to bring it all home for us."^[26] Newman explained, "It's Sand Saref (Eva Mendes) who has the most elaborate of all the themes, because it's based on her relationship with Denny Colt when they were in their teens, well before he became the Spirit. Saref's music ultimately becomes the love theme of the movie. It’s very romantic, almost old fashioned, especially when they finally kiss. Frank Miller and I talked about that scene quite a bit. He really wanted me to 'go for it' – to make their music as romantic as possible. In the end, the Spirit is like a modern day Don Juan, without the psychological ambivalence towards women. He truly loves every woman he meets. It’s part of his makeup. He has a certain naiveté in this respect."^[27]

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.^[28]

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.

Marketing [link]

Gabriel Macht, Frank Miller, Deborah Del Prete, Samuel L. Jackson, and Jaime King at the 2008 Comic-Con promoting the film

At the New York Comic Con on February 24, 2007, director-screenwriter Frank Miller and producer Michael Uslan were scheduled to present a panel for The Spirit,^[29] though Miller was unable to attend due to recuperation from hip and leg injuries.^[22] Instead, Uslan, fellow producer F.J. DeSanto, and former The Spirit publisher Denis Kitchen presented a panel at which they described the history of the film and the film's progress.^[18]

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.^[30]

The film was released on Christmas Day 2008.

Reception [link]

Box office [link]

The Spirit fared poorly in the box office. Released in 2,509 theaters,^[1] The Spirit grossed $10.3 million in its opening four days, placing 9th in the box-office ranking for the weekend.^[31] As of May 2009, the film had grossed $19,806,188 domestically and $18,588,842 internationally for a worldwide total of $38,395,030.^[1] It was rumored that the movie's poor performance at the box office cost Odd Lot Entertainment tens of millions of dollars in losses as well as causing the demise of the Frank Miller "Buck Rogers" movie, although Odd Lot Entertainment's CEO Gigi Pritzker denied such rumors.^[32]

Critical reception [link]

The Spirit was almost universally panned by critics. It received a 14% rating at the movie-review aggregate site Rotten Tomatoes,^[33] and a Metacritic aggregate rating of 30 out of 100, denoting "generally negative reviews", from 24 reviewers.^[34]

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".^[35] Ricky Bentley of The Miami Herald said, "Macht manages to meld macho with melodrama to make the Spirit come to life."^[36]

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".^[37]

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."^[38]
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".^[39]

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."^[40]

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."^[41]

Empire Magazine listed the film as #32 on their Top 50 Worst Movies Of All Time list.

Footnotes [link]

^ ^a ^b ^c Box Office Mojo: "The Spirit", accessed May 24, 2009
^ "Lionsgate conjures 'The Spirit' with Odd Lot Entertainment and visionary filmmaker and graphic novelist Frank Miller". Comics2Film. May 16, 2007. http://www.comics2film.com/b/index.php?blog=17&title=lionsgate_conjures_the_spirit_with_odd_l&more=1&c=1&tb=1&pb=1. Retrieved 2008-09-18. (no longer links to article)
^ ^a ^b ^c CD Computing News. "Lionsgate Debuts Frank Millers's Action Film 'The Spirit'", Entrepreneur, June 1, 2009
^ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e ^f ^g Kit, Borys (2007-09-25). "Miller's 'Spirit' finds love with Paulson". The Hollywood Reporter. Archived from the original on 2007-10-11. http://web.archive.org/web/20071011201532/http://hollywoodreporter.com/hr/content_display/news/e3ib429a97580f60ae2166395f1268d6bf8. Retrieved 2007-09-25.
^ ^a ^b Fleming, Michael; Diane Garrett (2007-08-02). "Gabriel Macht to star in ‘Spirit’: Sony picks up rights to comicbook adaptation". Variety. http://www.variety.com/article/VR1117969608.html?categoryid=13. Retrieved 2007-08-03.
^ Siegel,Tatiana; Borys Kit (2007-05-18). "Miller sees Jackson as evil 'Spirit'". The Hollywood Reporter. Archived from the original on 2007-05-20. http://web.archive.org/web/20070520052817/http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/hr/content_display/news/e3ie62938636be2f71fecac797ed78e3302. Retrieved 2007-05-18.
^ Adler, Shawn. "Samuel L. Jackson Takes Us through His 'Spirit' Wardrobe", MTV.com "Splashpage", July 26, 2008
^ Kit, Borys; Tatiana Siegel (2007-08-17). "It's a triple feature for Johansson". The Hollywood Reporter. Archived from the original on 2007-09-30. http://web.archive.org/web/20070930231849/http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/hr/content_display/film/news/e3ided21673370e52a3d7c4c2e9e6e6674d. Retrieved 2007-08-17.
^ Kit, Borys (2007-08-22). "Mendes moved to join 'Spirit'". The Hollywood Reporter. Archived from the original on 2007-09-30. http://web.archive.org/web/20070930230456/http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/hr/content_display/film/news/e3ia314015383aee6d14c4065f49edf632c. Retrieved 2007-08-22.
^ Carroll, Larry (2007-10-10). "Eva Mendes Has 'The Spirit'". MTV. http://moviesblog.mtv.com/2007/10/10/eva-mendes-has-the-spirit/. Retrieved 2007-10-10.
^ ^a ^b McNary, Dave (2007-10-08). "Pair joining 'Spirit' squad". Variety. http://www.variety.com/article/VR1117973594.html?categoryid=13&cs=1. Retrieved 2007-10-08.
^ Phegley, Ken. "Ellison Gets In 'The Spirit', Comic Book Resources, May 21, 2010
^ Paul Leiva, Steven. "Ellison Gets In 'The Spirit', Los Angeles Times - Hero Complex, Dec. 12, 2008
^ ^a ^b Jordan, Justin (2007-02-25). "NYCC, XTRA: "Will Eisner's The Spirit" Panel". Comic Book Resources. http://www.comicbookresources.com/news/newsitem.cgi?id=9802. Retrieved 2007-02-26.
^ Worley, Rob (2003-06-01). "Countdown To Hulk: John Turman talks about Hulk and other heroes". Comic Book Resources. http://www.comicbookresources.com/?page=article&id=2196. Retrieved 2008-06-13.
^ Michael, Fleming (2004-07-22). "Odd Lot, Batfilm join forces for 'Spirit'". Variety. http://www.variety.com/article/VR1117908165.html?categoryid=1238&cs=1. Retrieved 2007-02-13.
^ Mohr, Ian (2005-04-05). "Loeb will get into 'The Spirit'". Variety. http://www.variety.com/article/VR1117920635.html?categoryid=1350&cs=1. Retrieved 2007-02-13.
^ ^a ^b ^c ^d McClintock, Pamela (2008-05-06). "Christmas gets Frank Miller's 'Spirit'". Variety. http://www.variety.com/article/VR1117985199.html?categoryId=13&cs=1&query=The+Spirit. Retrieved 2008-05-.
^ ^a ^b ^c McClintock, Pamela; Ben Fritz (2006-07-18). "Odd job for Miller". Variety. http://www.variety.com/article/VR1117947038.html?categoryid=13&cs=1. Retrieved 2007-02-13.
^ Moro, Eric (2006-11-09). "Exclusive: Frank Miller Talks The Spirit". IGN. http://movies.ign.com/articles/745/745055p1.html. Retrieved 2007-02-13.
^ Carle, Chris (2007-02-24). "NYCC 07: The Spirit". IGN. http://movies.ign.com/articles/767/767757p1.html. Retrieved 2007-02-25.
^ ^a ^b Gopalan, Nisha (2007-02-23). "With NY Comic Con kicking off, it's (Frank) Miller time". Entertainment Weekly. http://popwatch.ew.com/popwatch/2007/02/its_been_the_ca.html. Retrieved 2007-02-24.
^ Spelling,Ian (2007-02-23). "Miller: Sin 2 Is Ready To Go". Sci Fi Wire. Archived from the original on 2007-02-25. http://web.archive.org/web/20070225084539/http://www.scifi.com/scifiwire/index.php?category=0&id=40259. Retrieved 2007-02-26.
^ "The Orphanage Brings VFX And DI Processes Together With Film Master". broadcastbuyer.tv. 2008-04-09. http://www.broadcastbuyer.tv/publish/New_Contracts_24/The_Orphanage_Brings_VFX_And_DI_Processes_Together_With_Film_Master_15639.shtml. Retrieved 2008-04-10.
^ "Lovece, FilmJournal.com sidebar: "The Annotated Spirit: A Guide to the Movie's In-joke References"". Filmjournal.com. 2008-12-22. http://www.filmjournal.com/filmjournal/content_display/esearch/e3i8a7ba6d185c56a44dde220cb5168caff. Retrieved 2011-01-31.
^ Cochran, Jay. The Spirit Production Notes & Images, ENI, November 8, 2008
^ "E-Notes: Composer David Newman Is Visited By The Ghost Of 'The Spirit' Past", iFMagazine, January 1, 2009
^ Burlingame, Jon. Sound bites: David Newman, Variety, December 17, 2008
^ "NYCC Announces More Special Guests; Important Deadlines". Comic Book Resources. 2007-01-29. http://www.comicbookresources.com/news/newsitem.cgi?id=9495. Retrieved 2007-02-13.
^ "Latest MPAA Ratings: #119". 2008-08-27. http://www.ropeofsilicon.com/article/latest_mpaa_ratings_119. Retrieved 2008-08-29.
^ Gnerre, Andrew. "Marley & Me Enjoys a Record-Breaking Christmas", Movie Maker, December 29, 2008
^ . http://www.variety.com/index.asp?layout=cannes2007&jump=story&articleid=VR1118003505&cs=1. ^{[dead link]}
^ ""The Spirit"". Rotten Tomatoes.com. http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/the_spirit/. Retrieved 2011-01-31.
^ "''The Spirit''". Metacritic.com. 2008-12-25. http://www.metacritic.com/film/titles/spirit2008. Retrieved 2011-01-31.
^ Ebert, Roger. The Spirit (review), Chicago Sun-Times, December 23, 2008
^ Ricky Bentley. "The Spirit | Treatment does comics crimefighter justice", The Miami Herald, December 24, 2008
^ Lovece, Frank. The Spirit (review), Newsday, December 24, 2008
^ Chris Barsanti. "The Spirit", Filmcritic.com, December 25, 2008
^ Gleiberman, Owen. The Spirit (review), Entertainment Weekly, December 23, 2008
^ Ken Hanke. The Spirit, Mountain Xpress, December 31, 2008
^ Scott, A.O. "Returned From the Dead, Ducking Villains and Vixens", The New York Times, December 25, 2008

References [link]

External links [link]

The Spirit at the Internet Movie Database
The Spirit at AllRovi
The Spirit at Metacritic
The Spirit at Rotten Tomatoes
The Spirit at Box Office Mojo

v t e The Spirit

Creator	Will Eisner

Characters	Ellen Dolan · Ebony White · Dr. Cobra · P'Gell · Sand Saref · Silken Floss · Lorelei Rox · The Octopus · Mr. Carrion

Related articles	Batman/The Spirit · Darwyn Cooke · The Spirit (film) · First Wave (comics)

Live-action films based on DC Comics

Serials

Single films

Film franchises

Batman

1966	Batman

1989	Batman Batman Returns Batman Forever Batman & Robin

2005	Batman Begins The Dark Knight The Dark Knight Rises

Superman

1951	Superman and the Mole Men

1978	Superman Superman II (The Richard Donner Cut) Superman III Supergirl Superman IV: The Quest for Peace Superman Returns

2013	Man of Steel

Swamp Thing

Frank Miller

Batman comics

Other comics
(written)

Other comics
(written and drawn)

Other comics
(drawn)

Film

RoboCop 2 (1990)
RoboCop 3 (1993)
Elektra (2005)
Sin City (2005)
Batman Begins (2005)
300 (2007)
The Spirit (2008)
Batman: Year One (2011)

Television and
video games

RoboCop Versus The Terminator (1993)
The Big Guy and Rusty the Boy Robot (1999–2001)
300: March to Glory (2007)

Authority control: LCCN: n85347650 | WorldCat

This page contains text from Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Spirit_(film)

This article is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License, which means that you can copy and modify it as long as the entire work (including additions) remains under this license.

Playlist

Film Summary

Spirit Filmography

Spirit Filmography

Spirit, The Filmography

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Contents

Plot [link]

Cast [link]

Production [link]

Development [link]

Filming [link]

Music [link]

Marketing [link]

Reception [link]

Box office [link]

Critical reception [link]

Footnotes [link]

References [link]

External links [link]

http://wn.com/The_Spirit_(film)

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http://fr.wn.com/The Spirit (film)

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http://it.wn.com/The Spirit (film)

http://pl.wn.com/Spirit - Duch Miasta

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