Ventriloquism, or ventriloquy, is an act of stagecraft in which a person (a ventriloquist) changes his or her voice so that it appears that the voice is coming from elsewhere, usually a puppeteered "dummy". The act of ventriloquism is ventriloquizing, and the ability to do so is commonly called in English the ability to "throw" one's voice.
Originally, ventriloquism was a religious practice. The name comes from the Latin for to speak from the stomach, i.e. venter (belly) and loqui (speak). The Greeks called this gastromancy (Greek: εγγαστριμυθία). The noises produced by the stomach were thought to be the voices of the unliving, who took up residence in the stomach of the ventriloquist. The ventriloquist would then interpret the sounds, as they were thought to be able to speak to the dead, as well as foretell the future. One of the earliest recorded group of prophets to utilise this technique was the Pythia, the priestess at the temple of Apollo in Delphi, who acted as the conduit for the Delphic Oracle.
Kevin Spacey, CBE (born Kevin Spacey Fowler; July 26, 1959) is an American actor, director, screenwriter, producer, and crooner. He grew up in California, and began his career as a stage actor during the 1980s, before being cast in supporting roles in film and television. He gained critical acclaim in the early 1990s, culminating in his first Academy Award for The Usual Suspects (Best Supporting Actor), followed by a Best Actor Academy Award win for American Beauty (1999). His other starring roles in Hollywood include Seven, L.A. Confidential, Pay It Forward, K-PAX, and Superman Returns in a career which has earned him several Emmy and Golden Globe nominations. Since 2003, he has been artistic director of the Old Vic theatre in London.
Spacey was born in South Orange, New Jersey, the son of Kathleen Ann (née Knutson; December 5, 1931 – March 19, 2003), a secretary, and Thomas Geoffrey Fowler (June 4, 1924 – December 24, 1992), a technical writer and data consultant. He has two older siblings: a sister, Julie, and a brother, Randy. He attended Northridge Military Academy, Canoga Park High School (in tenth and eleventh grades), and then Chatsworth High School in Chatsworth, Los Angeles, where he graduated valedictorian of his class. At Chatsworth High, he starred in the school's senior production of The Sound of Music, playing the part of Captain Georg von Trapp, opposite Mare Winningham's character, Maria.
The Kaleido stage shines again!
Plot
The story begins at the height of Gleason's career. He has it all: women, wealth, and extraordinary power. But he is haunted by memories of his childhood. Gleason spends his formative years entering amateur contests, performing in sleazy night spots. Along the way, he steals gags from the best comics in town and finds love with Genevieve, a dancer whom he marries. But Gleason isn't the ideal husband or even a responsible father as he abandons his family to answer the call of Hollywood. Brash, arrogant, and egotistical, he alienates his directors and the man who discovers him. When he ends up back in New York, Gleason gets one of those rare second chances in the new medium of television, creating some of its most unforgettable characters. But even as Gleason becomes the talk of the tube, his life - ruled by demons of rage, booze, and insecurity - unravels.
Keywords: brooklyn-new-york-city, character-name-in-title, comedian, irish-american, new-york-city, one-word-title, studio-logo-segues-into-film, television, womanizer
How Sweet It Was!
He made more than television. He made history.
Plot
In a post-apocalyptic underground society ruled by rival religious cults, Dakota is working as an assassin, or "Shepherd" for The Church of Miles. He has been given an assignment to take out a female Shepherd from a rival cult, but balks at completing the task when he sees that his target has a young child. The two assassins and the child all find themselves being hunted down by both cults, and so decided to stick together as they run for their lives. Along the way, they encounter several other strange religious compounds, as well as random thugs living on the outskirts of society.
Keywords: assassin, cult, independent-film, post-apocalypse, religious-cult
Boris Dakota: You should tell your mother not to pick up hitchhikers.
Plot
Two teenagers on neighboring farms steal glances and hide their romance from their feuding fathers. Little do these love-birds know, however, that their fathers are actually good friends who've hatched a plan - with the help of a mystical roving side-show and its equally mysterious ring master - to get these two lovers down the aisle! But be careful what you wish for. Because to bring these families together... they must first be torn apart!
Keywords: abduction, actor, based-on-stage-musical, carnival, carnival-wagon, coming-of-age, countryside, curtain-call, dancer, dancing
Try To Remember The First Time The Magic Happened.
One Of Broadway's Legendary Musicals Comes To The Big Screen.
Amos Babcock Bellamy: You see! Whenever you have a problem, the United States Postal Service comes to the rescue.::Ben Hucklebee: Yeah, they run a tight ship.
El Gallo: There is a curious paradox that no one can explain: who understands the secrets of the reaping of the grain? Who understands why spring is born out of winter's laboring pain, or why we all must die a bit before we grow again?
Luisa Bellamy: Papa I got to take wing.::Amos Babcock Bellamy: Well be careful, it's duck season.
Ben Hucklebee: We got your advertisment in the mail and we got a little problem.::Amos Babcock Bellamy: A love problem.::El Gallo: You two have a love problem? And you seek sympathy from our little band of outcasts? Well, what would you two be willing to do in front of an audience?::Amos Babcock Bellamy: We're not talking about us. We're talking about our kids.::Ben Hucklebee: Who happen to be a boy and a girl.::El Gallo: [chuckles] Less challenging. Follow me.
Ben Hucklebee: [holds out money] Would sixty dollars be an insult?::El Gallo: Yes but I'm used to abuse. [grabs the money]
Plot
Woody Allen's sentimental reminiscence about the golden age of radio. A series of vignettes involving radio personalities is intertwined with the life of a working class family in Rockaway Beach, NY circa 1942.
Keywords: 1930s, 1940s, accidental-shooting, adolescent, adolescent-romance, alien-invasion, americana, amputee, anti-religion, automat
Rocco: It's nothin' personal. It's just bad luck you were a witness.::Sally: My whole life, I had bad luck.::Rocco: Me too.::[pause]::Sally: Where are you from?::Rocco: Brooklyn.::Sally: Yeah? Me too.
Rocco: This is a coincidence. I meet nobody from the old neighbourhood in years. I finally do, and I gotta kill her.
Rabbi Baumel: Radio... It's all right once in a while. Otherwise it tends to induce bad values, false dreams, lazy habits. Listening to these stories of foolishness and violence... this is no way for a boy to grow up.::Joe: You speak the truth, my faithful Indian companion.::Rabbi Baumel: To a rabbi you say "my faithful Indian companion"? [hits him in a head]
Joe: [as he realizes the substitute teacher is the woman he and his friends saw dancing naked in the window] Oh God, we're all going straight to hell!
Mother: [as she watches anti-aircraft searchlights with husband during a World War II black-out] It's so beautiful. Boy, what a world... it could be so wonderful, if it wasn't for certain people.
Arnold: [presenting a condom to a class] I found this on my parents' night table.
Sally: Who is Pearl Harbor?
Narrator: For some miraculous reason, it's a wonderful feeling having a teacher you've seen dance naked in front of a mirror.
Diction Student: Hark! I hear the cannons roar! Is it the King approaching?::Diction Student: Hark! I hear the cannons roar! Is it the King approaching?::Sally: [in a very thick New York accent] Hahk! I hear the cannon's raw! Is it the King approaching?
[Last lines]::Narrator: I never forgot that New Year's Eve when Aunt Bea awakened me to watch 1944 come in. I've never forgotten any of those people or any of the voices we would hear on the radio. Though the truth is, with the passing of each New Year's Eve, those voices do seem to grow dimmer and dimmer.
Plot
Woody Allen's sentimental reminiscence about the golden age of radio. A series of vignettes involving radio personalities is intertwined with the life of a working class family in Rockaway Beach, NY circa 1942.
Keywords: 1930s, 1940s, accidental-shooting, adolescent, adolescent-romance, alien-invasion, americana, amputee, anti-religion, automat
Rocco: It's nothin' personal. It's just bad luck you were a witness.::Sally: My whole life, I had bad luck.::Rocco: Me too.::[pause]::Sally: Where are you from?::Rocco: Brooklyn.::Sally: Yeah? Me too.
Rocco: This is a coincidence. I meet nobody from the old neighbourhood in years. I finally do, and I gotta kill her.
Rabbi Baumel: Radio... It's all right once in a while. Otherwise it tends to induce bad values, false dreams, lazy habits. Listening to these stories of foolishness and violence... this is no way for a boy to grow up.::Joe: You speak the truth, my faithful Indian companion.::Rabbi Baumel: To a rabbi you say "my faithful Indian companion"? [hits him in a head]
Joe: [as he realizes the substitute teacher is the woman he and his friends saw dancing naked in the window] Oh God, we're all going straight to hell!
Mother: [as she watches anti-aircraft searchlights with husband during a World War II black-out] It's so beautiful. Boy, what a world... it could be so wonderful, if it wasn't for certain people.
Arnold: [presenting a condom to a class] I found this on my parents' night table.
Sally: Who is Pearl Harbor?
Narrator: For some miraculous reason, it's a wonderful feeling having a teacher you've seen dance naked in front of a mirror.
Diction Student: Hark! I hear the cannons roar! Is it the King approaching?::Diction Student: Hark! I hear the cannons roar! Is it the King approaching?::Sally: [in a very thick New York accent] Hahk! I hear the cannon's raw! Is it the King approaching?
[Last lines]::Narrator: I never forgot that New Year's Eve when Aunt Bea awakened me to watch 1944 come in. I've never forgotten any of those people or any of the voices we would hear on the radio. Though the truth is, with the passing of each New Year's Eve, those voices do seem to grow dimmer and dimmer.
Plot
Bored Roberta spots a regular personal ad in the paper titled 'Desperately Seeking Susan'. She heads off to New York, following one of the ads, and finds Susan. When Susan sells her jacket, Roberta - trying to emulate her mystery ad writer - buys the jacket and wears it. Little does she know someon is looking for the jacket - and its owner...
Keywords: affair, amnesia, amnesiac, atlantic-city, automobile, bare-chested-male, bathroom, beauty-parlor, black-bra, blow-to-head-cures-amnesia
Roberta is desperate to be Susan. Susan is wanted by the mob. The mob finds Roberta instead...
A life so outrageous it takes two women to live it
Cigarette Girl: Susan! My God, we thought you were dead.::Susan: No, just in New Jersey.
Leslie: I can't believe the two of you are eating in the middle of a crisis like this.::Gary: We're nervous, what do you want...::Leslie: Then take a Valium like a normal person.
Leslie: I can't believe Roberta's a prostitute.::Gary: Roberta's not a prostitute.::Leslie: I saw this thing on television about this woman who turned tricks in the city from nine until noon, then went shopping all afternoon. It was years before her husband found out about it. Oh, my God, I've heard that four out of five prostitutes are lesbians.::Gary: Don't you think I would know if my wife was a lesbian?::Leslie: Why? You didn't know she was a prostitute!
Gary: Are you a lesbian? Leslie says that nine out of ten prostitutes are lesbians.::Roberta: Gary, you're not listening to me. I'm not a prostitute or a lesbian!
Gary: What are you wearing?::Roberta: A jacket. It used to belong to Jimi Hendrix.::Gary: You bought a used jacket? What are we, poor?
Gary: Susan! What are you doing?::Susan: I've got good news and bad news. Which do you want to hear first?::Gary: You said you were going to leave!::Susan: All right, good news first. Roberta's not working with the greaseball.::Gary: My wife just got picked up on the lower east side escaping from her gun-toting pimp.::Susan: He's not a pimp. Problem is, he's probably going to try to kill her because he thinks she's me.
Roberta: Here it is, a message from Jim. [Reading from newspaper] "Desperately seeking Susan. Meet me, four o'clock, Battery Park. Keep the faith. Love, Jim."::Leslie: Jim? Susan? Do you know these people?::Roberta: They send messages through the personal ads, that's how they hook up. Last year she was in Mexico City, then Los Angeles, now New York. Desperate. I love that word.::Leslie: Everybody I know is desperate, except for you.::Roberta: I'm desperate.::Leslie: Ha!::Roberta: Well, sort of.
Susan: Roberta kept a diary. Great stuff. [Reading] "Couldn't sleep. Went into kitchen. Gary came in, turned on light. Gary left. Finished birthday cake." Pages of it. It's got to be a cover, nobody's life could be this boring!::Gary: You shouldn't be reading that, it's personal.::Susan: Yeah, well it's not about her, it's about me. [Reading] "He's looking for Susan again. This is the fifth ad he's run. Why does he want to see her so badly? Who is she?" And here's my picture.
Gary: I didn't know about all this.::Susan: Between you and me, how much do you really know about Roberta? Why didn't you tell me she read the personals? We could have settled this yesterday.::Gary: She read them all the time. I didn't think...::Susan: Yeah, well, fortunately for everyone, I'm here and I'm thinking.
Dez: Some guy grabbed you?::Roberta: Yes, he was after me. Well, not me exactly. He was after Susan, who he thinks I am, but I'm not!
Plot
A destitute mother and child move into the stooge's vacant lot home and the boys decide to help them. They steal the kids piggy bank and sneak into the race track. They bet on a long shot that wins and then are gypped out of their winnings by two con men who sell them a washed up race horse. Everything turns out happily when Curly swallows horse vitamins and gives birth to a colt!
Keywords: animal-bite, betting-on-a-horse, billboard, colt, derby, doll, fish-dinner, foot-chase, glass-of-milk, goat
A 1000 to 1 howler!
Motorist: Just a second, these horses ran yesterday!::Curly: They won, didn't they!
Seabasket, the Horse: I beat Filet Mignon, in the Porterhouse Stakes.
Born amongst beauty, O' Beloved
Grandeur of the mountains
Where my eyes were harlots
His eyes were steel
He wanted everyone to be as perfect as them
Such tormented perfection
When everyone spoke
Steel spoke his word
When everyone spoke
Only steel was heard
Blind diary love rotting in his heart
Vomiting to sleep, martyrs of his praise
They wanted everyone to be as perfect as him
Such tormented perfection
When everyone spoke
Razors cut open ears
When everyone spoke
Deafness mumbled the years
Never was there perfection
The mountains are so ashamed
Beauty is a stranger
You think you've seen it all before?
I'll claim the broken, wretched, and poor.
I preach prosperity,
To those in search of more!
And I will stay! (And I will stay)
This is not who I am!
And I will guide them through the night.
This is not who I am!
I am just,
I'm just a man!
Now I am in power,
My plans to devour are a mystery!
Let's start a dynasty!
We preach the same old message,
You teach the same old lies.
Your bitter actions are
A pitiful disguise!
You think you've seen it all before?
I'll claim the broken, wretched, and poor.
I preach prosperity,
To those in search of more! (Those in search of more!)
Follow me I'm never wrong,
I speak of change, yet I'm,
Singing the same old song! (I'm singing the same old song!)
I will lead them with one hand!
I will lead the nations with one hand!
I will lead the nations with one hand!
As the grain sifts through my fingers,
With the errors we have made!
And I will stay! (And I will stay!)
And I will never leave your side!
And I will guide them through the night!
This is not who I am.
And I will stay! (And I will stay)
And I will never leave your side!
But in the end it's all a lie.
This is not who I am!
I am just,
I'm just a man!
I know it seems so wrong,
I need a day to rest.
I'm falling faster now.
But we can look towards tomorrow,
To fix all our mistakes.
As the grain sifts through my fingers,
With the errors we have made!
We have made!
What are we waiting for?
We've been here once before!
We have made!
We have made!