Name	Đorđe Petrović Karađorđe
Title	Grand Vožd of Serbia
Reign	14 February 1804 – 21 September 1813
Predecessor	First Serbian Uprising none
Successor	Second Serbian UprisingMiloš Obrenović I
Queen	Jelena Jovanović
Issue	Alexander Karađorđević
Royal house	House of Karađorđević
Birth date	November 03, 1768
Birth place	Viševac, Ottoman Empire (modern day Serbia)
Death date	July 24, 1817
Death place	Radovanjski Lug, Ottoman Empire (modern day Serbia)
Religion	Orthodox Christian

Đorđe Petrović Karađorđe ; (Serbian Cyrillic: Ђорђе Петровић Карађорђе; Anglicised: Karageorge Petrovitch), (3 November 1768 – 24 July 1817) was a Serb leader of the First Serbian Uprising against the Ottoman Empire, and the founder of the Serbian House of Karađorđević. Born as Đorđe (George) Petrović, because of his bellicosity and commoner background, the Turks nicknamed him Karađorđe (Turkish for Black George, "kara" meaning black), or Crni Đorđe (Cyrillic: Црни Ђорђе), meaning the same in Serbian.

Origin and early life

Karađorđe was born in the village of Viševac, Ottoman Empire (today's Rača municipality, Šumadija District). In 1787, Karađorđe and his family escaped to Syrmia, to avoid the Turkish kidnappings of Serbian boys ("blood tax"). Karađorđe lived and worked in the Krušedol monastery. At the end of the same year he fought in the failed Habsburg empire attack on Belgrade. During the Habsburg's war he fought in Southern Serbia, which is where he got the military experience that he later put to use during the First Serbian Uprising.

First Serbian Uprising

Ottoman repression in Serbia significantly increased in the beginning of 19th century when janissary leaders, the dahis, rebelled against the Sultan and seized the rule of the Belgrade Pashaluk. It culminated in January 1804, when dahis prepared executions of popular leaders, gentry, priests, former rebels and wealthy traders, called the Execution of the Dukes (Seča knezova in Serbian). Being notified of the ongoing executions last minute, Karađorđe escaped execution by ambushing the assassins with his men and killing them all.

As the response to the executions, Serbs rallied in Orašac, a village near modern Aranđelovac, Serbia, on 14 February 1804 (2 February on the Julian calendar), and Karađorđe was chosen to be the leader of the uprising. The rebels managed to quickly incite revolt, firstly under the pretext of liberation from dahis, but after the Battle of Ivankovac in 1805 they started open combat to end the rule of the Ottoman Sultan. In March of the same year Karađorđe was officially appointed Military leader of Serbia, the self-proclaimed Vožd (old Serbian for vođa, "leader").

Reign as Grand Vožd of Serbia

Karađorđe insisted that the dahis leave Belgrade, and in achieving this he terminated Feudalism in the liberated areas of Serbia and installed his military commanders and local leaders as governors of nahis (Turkish administrative units). (The dahis, however, refused to leave and were captured and executed after the Serbian liberation of Belgrade.) The Ottoman government did welcome the rebellion against the dahis and decided to install a new governor in Belgrade. Karađorđe and the Serbs, after tasting the fruits of liberty decided to not let the new pasha enter the liberated area and defeated his army in the Battle of Ivankovac of 1805. This battle signified a turn of events, since the uprising was not a rebellion against the dahi terror anymore, but a war of liberation against the Ottoman rule. The rebels achieved several victories, including in the Battle of Mišar in 1806, and the Battles of Deligrad and Belgrade in 1806. At the end of 1806 Belgrade was freed from Ottoman rule. In 1807 Šabac and Užice were also freed.

In 1806-1807 a Serbian envoy to the Ottoman government in Constantinople Peter Ichko managed to obtain a favourable 'Ichko's Peace'. However, Karađorđe disavowed the agreement and aligned with the Russian Empire in a war against the Ottoman Empire.

Collapse of the Uprising

In 1812, threatened by Napoleon's French Empire, Russia had to quickly sign a peace treaty with the Ottomans. In 1813, the Ottoman Empire launched a big assault on Serbia taking land all up to the rivers Morava and the river Drina, and Karađorđe, along with other rebel leaders, fled to the Austrian Empire on 21 September 1813.

Exile

After some time, Karađorđe moved on to Bessarabia, where he encountered members of the Filiki Eteria, a Greek secret society which planned the liberation of all Christians from the Ottomans. Serbia, Greece and Bulgaria decided to unite to fight off Ottoman rule. Karađorđe was chosen as the leader of this uprising.

Death and aftermath

in Belgrade]] On 24 July 1817, days after he secretly crossed into Serbia to try to spearhead a new uprising, Karađorđe was assassinated in Radovanjski Lug by the men of Miloš Obrenović, Vujica Vulićević and Nikola Novaković. This happened on orders of the Ottomans, who feared the possibility of a new uprising, while Miloš feared competition by the enormously popular Karađorđe.

Some have speculated that Karađorđe had no political ambitions and simply wanted to return home from the exile and informed Miloš of this in advance, who however did not believe such protestations and had Karađorđe killed. The assassination sowed seeds of hatred between the rival dynasties Obrenović and Karađorđević, which would last until the demise of the former family in 1903.

See also

Karađorđe (film)

Karađorđević family tree

References

Karađorđe Petrović Biografia

Category:1768 births Category:1817 deaths Category:1817 crimes Category:People from Rača Category:House of Karađorđević Category:Serbian rebels Category:Serbian soldiers Category:Serbian nobility Category:Serbian revolutionaries Category:Eastern Orthodox Christians from Serbia Category:Assassinated Serbian politicians Category:Characters in Serbian epic poetry Category:People murdered in Serbia Category:19th-century Serbian people Category:People of the First Serbian Uprising

Name	Lewis Black
Caption	Lewis Black, December 2007
Birth name	Lewis Niles Black
Birth date	August 30, 1948
Birth place	Silver Spring, Maryland, U.S.
Education	University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Medium	Stand-up, television, film, theatre
Nationality	American
Active	1981 – present
Genre	Satire, news satire, political satire, observational comedy, black comedy, rant
Subject	American politics, American culture, current events, pop culture
Influences	George Carlin, Lenny Bruce, Richard Pryor, Lily Tomlin, Bill Hicks, Bob Newhart, Shelley Berman
Notable work	Back in Black on The Daily Show with Jon StewartThe Carnegie Hall PerformanceLewis Black's Root of All Evil Stark Raving Black
Website	www.lewisblack.com

}} Lewis Niles Black (born August 30, 1948) is an American stand-up comedian, author, playwright, social critic and actor. He is known for his comedy style, which often includes simulating a mental breakdown, or an increasingly angry rant, ridiculing history, politics, religion, trends and cultural phenomena. He hosted the Comedy Central series Lewis Black's Root of All Evil, and makes regular appearances on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart delivering his “Back in Black” commentary segment. When not on the road performing, he resides in Manhattan. He also maintains a residence in Chapel Hill, N.C. He is currently the spokesman for Aruba Tourism, appearing in television ads that aired in late 2009 and 2010. He was voted 51st of the 100 greatest stand-up comedians of all time by Comedy Central in 2004.

Early life

Black is the son of Jeannette, a teacher, and Sam Black, an artist and mechanical engineer. He was born and raised in a middle-class Jewish family in Silver Spring, Maryland, graduating from Springbrook High School in 1966, summa cum laude. Black says in his book that he scored highly on the math section of his SAT exam and later applied to Princeton University among others. Black enrolled at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill where he studied playwriting and was a brother of Pi Lambda Phi International fraternity and a member of Student Congress. He earned a Masters in Fine Arts at the Yale School of Drama in 1977.

Black has said that he was married for less than a year and that the death of his younger brother Ron in 1997 of cancer was one of the factors in his becoming an atheist.

Black's career began in theater as a playwright. He served as the playwright in residence and associate artistic director of Steve Olsen's West Bank Cafe Downstairs Theatre Bar in Hell's Kitchen in New York City, where he collaborated with composer and lyricist Rusty Magee and artistic director Rand Foerster on hundreds of one-act plays from 1981 to 1989. Also with Rusty Magee, Black wrote the musical The Czar Of Rock and Roll, which premiered at Houston's Alley Theatre in 1990.

Black's stand-up comedy began as an opening act for the plays as he was also the master of ceremonies. After a management change at the theater, Black left and began working as a comedian as well as finding bit parts in television and films.''

Comedic style

Black's style of comedy is that of a man who, in dealing with the absurdities of life and contemporary politics, is approaching his personal limits of sanity. Sarcasm, hyperbole, profanity, shouting and trademark angry finger-shaking bring emphasis to his topics of discussion. He once described his humor as "being on the Titanic every single day and being the only person who knows what is going to happen." He claims that he doesn't write his jokes down, he merely starts talking about something that makes him angry until he has to move on before he has a stroke.

Black has described his political affiliation as: "I'm a socialist, so that puts me totally outside any concept...the Canadians get it. But seriously, most people don't get it. The idea of capping people's income just scares people. 'Oh, you're taking money from the rich.' Ooh, what a horrifying thing. These people really need $200 million".

Black lists his comedic influences as George Carlin, Lenny Bruce, Richard Pryor, Lily Tomlin, Bill Hicks, Bob Newhart and Shelley Berman.

Career

Comedy Central Presents

In 1998, Black starred in his first comedy special on the series Comedy Central Presents. He starred in two additional episodes of the series in 2000 and 2002. He starred in another special for the network in 2002, titled Taxed Beyond Belief.

Hosting

Since 2003, Black has hosted the World Stupidity Awards ceremony at Montreal's Just for Laughs comedy festival for the three years the awards have been presented.

Black hosted the Comedy Central television series The Root Of All Evil in 2008. The show pitted two people or pop-culture topics against each other as a panel of comedians argued, in the style of a court trial, which is more evil, e.g., "Paris Hilton vs. Dick Cheney" and "Internet Porn vs. YouTube". After hearing arguments from both sides, Black, acting as judge, made the final decision as to which is more evil.

Black hosted Comedy Central's Last Laugh '07, which aired on December 2, 2007 along with Dave Attell and D.L. Hughley.

On February 18, 2008, Black hosted History of the Joke with Lewis Black, a 2-hour comedy-documentary on The History Channel.

At the end of 2009, Black returned to the History Channel to host Surviving the Holidays with Lewis Black, in which he discussed the year-end pressures of Thanksgiving, Channukah, Christmas, and New Year's.

Stand-up shows

In 2004, he had an HBO stand-up special titled Black on Broadway.

On April 21, 2006, Black performed at the Warner Theatre in Washington, DC for an HBO special, Red, White, and Screwed. It aired on June 10, 2006, and a DVD was released October 3, 2006. When explaining his choice of venue, Black said that "some asshole" was paid to count the number of uses of the word "fuck" from his previous HBO special, Black On Broadway, and that the original location, the Kennedy Center, wanted him to cut back on its use. Black was told the number was 42, when actually it was approximately 78.

On February 11, 2007, Black received a Grammy award for "Best Comedy Album" for his album The Carnegie Hall Performance.

Comedy Central's "Stand-Up Month" in January 2008 features specials originally presented on HBO by Black, along with programs featuring Dane Cook and Chris Rock.

In January 2008, as part of Comedy Central's "Stand-Up Month", Black's routine finished at #5 on "Stand-Up Showdown 2008", a viewer-based countdown of the top "Comedy Central Presents" routines.

On August 2, 2009, Black filmed two shows at the Fillmore Theater in Detroit, MI. These shows were the basis for a concert film called Stark Raving Black, which appeared in theatres for a limited time in October. It will also be released as a CD or DVD June 15 th 2010 .

Film and television career

Black appeared in an episode of as a shock jock. He also released his autobiography, Nothing's Sacred, in 2005. Since November 9, 2005, Black has been making appearances in small segments on The Weather Channel. In December 2005, he appeared in an animated holiday special The Happy Elf, as the voice of the extremely tightly wound elf, Norbert.

In the film Accepted, a film about high school graduates who create a college when they fail to get accepted into any, he plays Dean Ben Lewis of the school "South Harmon Institute of Technology" or S.H.I.T.; as the Dean, he talks about his views of the world. He also appears in the 2006 films Man of the Year and Unaccompanied Minors. Black hosted Comedy Central's Last Laugh '06, which aired on December 10, 2006.

Voice acting

Black was the voice of "Manobrain" during the third season of the Cartoon Network series "Duck Dodgers". He was the inventor of a diet pill which was stolen while he was in college. He blamed the theft on his college friend Dr. I. Q. High, not realizing that the actual thief was Duck Dodgers. The theft set Manobrain on the path of evil.

Black played the character of the Deadly Duplicator in , on Adult Swim. He appeared in four episodes before the show ended. He played the part once more in the .

Black did the voice-over for an oxpecker named Ted in Cartoon Network series My Gym Partner's a Monkey, appearing in "Hornbill and Ted's Bogus Journey." The character is portrayed in the same fashion as his comedy shows, though without the profanity. In addition, the bird's clothes, looks, and mannerisms match those of Black himself. Black currently voices the central villan Mr. E in Scooby Doo: Mystery Incorporated.

Tours

On June 18, 2007 he sat in with Southern rock/Jam band Gov't Mule at the 6th annual Bonnaroo music festival, where he had performed earlier that weekend, for what was to be a quick joke. A member of the audience threw a bottle at Black, which struck him. Black was upset and he encouraged the audience to boo the heckler before leaving the stage in disgust, while shouting obscenities at the heckler. This act was seen in an episode of "Lewis Black's Root of All Evil" titled "YouTube vs. Porn".

On June 29, 2007, Black gave a benefit show at Springbrook High School, his alma mater, in the school's auditorium for 1,100 alumni, faculty, and students. He performed in his usual style, stopping at points to remark how good it felt to use that language on that particular stage. At the end of the show he was given a Springbrook football jersey, and cursed at one teacher for giving him a B and causing him not to graduate first in his class.

In mid December 2007, Black went with Robin Williams, Kid Rock, Lance Armstrong and Rachel Smith, Miss USA 2007, on a USO trip to support the troops in Iraq and Kuwait. They then wrapped it up on Dec 22nd at the U.S Naval Station in Rota, Spain.

Black helped create the annual Carolina Comedy Festival at his alma mater, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Black is currently on tour touting his latest book Me of Little Faith. He is also currently doing a stand-up tour called "Let Them Eat Cake".

Beginning in January 2010, Black embarked on a new tour called "In God We Rust".

Legal troubles

In 2000, Black and fellow comedian Jim Norton were arrested for their involvement with "The Naked Teen Voyeur Bus", a specially designed bus with acrylic glass walls containing numerous (18 and 19 year old) "teen girls". This bus rode around Manhattan while being broadcast on the "Opie and Anthony" radio show. Unfortunately, radio station management did not inform the O&A; show that the bus' route was also the route that President Clinton was taking that same day. Twenty-eight hours after the arrest, Black and Norton were released. Black appeared on The Daily Show the following night where he stated he was exercising his constitutional rights. He then joked that the location of this particular right was unclear, but that it was "between 'all men are created equal' and 'don't shit where you eat.'" Additionally, at a fundraising event for New York Attorney General candidate Mark Green on June 28, 2006, Black talked about how he was unable to attend a previous fundraising event for Green because the arrest occurred shortly before.

Published works

Nothing's Sacred (2005)

Nothing's Sacred (audio book) (2006)

Nothing's Sacred (softcover version) (2007)

Me of Little Faith (2008) (New York: Riverhead Books -- Penguin Group) 240 pages, ISBN 978-1-59449-994-5.

Me of Little Faith (paperback version with added content) (2009)

I'm Dreaming of a Black Christmas (2010)

Media releases

CDs

The White Album (2000)

Revolver (EP) (2002)

The End of the Universe (2002)

Rules of Enragement (2003)

Luther Burbank Performing Arts Center Blues (2005)

The Carnegie Hall Performance (2006)

Anticipation (2008)

Stark Raving Black (2010)

DVDs

Unleashed (compilation of his four Comedy Central specials plus his appearances on ) (2002)

Black on Broadway (2003 HBO Special) (2004)

A Pair of Lewis Black Shorts (Sidesplitters: The Burt & Dick Story and The Gynecologists) (2006)

Red, White, and Screwed (2006 HBO Special)

History of the Joke with Lewis Black (2008 History Channel special)

Surviving the Holidays with Lewis Black (2009 History Channel special)

Stark Raving Black (2010)

Filmography

Hannah and Her Sisters (1986)

Jacob's Ladder (1990)

The Days and Nights of Molly Dodd (1990–1991) (TV series)

Law & Order, "Aria" (1991)

The Hard Way (1991)

, "Deception" (1997)

, "" (2004)

The Happy Elf (2005)

Accepted (2006)

Man of the Year (2006)

Unaccompanied Minors (2006)

Farce of the Penguins (2007)

Falling for Grace (2007)

History of the Joke (2008) (Documentary) History Channel

Lewis Black's Root of All Evil (2008) (TV series) Comedy Central

The Big Bang Theory, "The Jiminy Conjecture" (2009) (TV series) CBS

Scooby-Doo! Mystery Incorporated (2010) (TV Series) Cartoon Network

References

External links

Lewis Black's Official Site

Comedy Central's The Daily Show with Jon Stewart

InnerVIEWS with Ernie Manouse: Lewis Black (TV Interview)

Interview with Black on NPR's Fresh Air (April 7, 2005)

Interview with Black on NPR's Talk of the Nation (January 29, 2003)

Interview with Lewis Black with the Village Voice (September 23, 2008)

Onion A.V. Club Interview

Interview with Lewis Black by Maurie Sherman

Lewis Black MySpace Page

Stand Up! Records

Interview, Real Detroit Weekly (November 13, 2007)

"Straight Talk" Interview in Submerge Magazine, (Sept. 2008)

Lewis Black rants about Michele Bachmann, Farmville, Twitter- Citypages.com 5/4/2011

Category:1948 births Category:American Jews Category:American comedians Category:American dramatists and playwrights Category:American social commentators Category:American socialists Category:American stand-up comedians Category:American television actors Category:American voice actors Category:Grammy Award winners Category:Jewish actors Category:Jewish comedians Category:Living people Category:People from Chapel Hill, North Carolina Category:People from Silver Spring, Maryland Category:People from Washington, D.C. Category:Religious skeptics Category:University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill alumni Category:Yale School of Drama alumni

Caption	Romero in Venice, 2011
Birth name	George Andrew Romero
Birth date	February 04, 1940
Birth place	New York, NY, U.S.
Spouse	Christine Forrest (1981–2010)
Occupation	film directorscreenwritereditoractor

George Romero (; born February 4, 1940) is a American film director, screenwriter, and editor best known for his gruesome and satirical horror films about a hypothetical zombie apocalypse. He is nicknamed "Godfather of all Zombies."

Life and career

Romero was born in New York City to a Cuban-born father of Castilian Spanish parentage and a Lithuanian-American mother. His father worked as a commercial artist. Romero attended Pittsburgh's Carnegie Mellon University. After graduating in 1960, he began his career shooting short films and commercials. One of his early commercial films, a segment for Mister Rogers' Neighborhood in which Mr. Rogers underwent a tonsillectomy, inspired Romero to go into the horror film business. He, along with nine friends, formed Image Ten Productions in the late 1960s, and produced Night of the Living Dead (1968). The movie, directed by Romero and co-written with John A. Russo, became a cult classic and a defining moment for modern horror cinema.

Other inspiration for Romero's filmmaking, as told to Robert K. Elder in an interview for The Film That Changed My Life, was the film The Tales of Hoffmann.

It was the filmmaking, the fantasy, the fact that it was a fantasy and it had a few frightening, sort of bizarre things in it. It was everything. It was really a movie for me, and it gave me an early appreciation for the power of visual media—the fact that you could experiment with it. He was doing all his tricks in-camera, and they were sort of obvious. That made me feel that, gee, maybe I could figure this medium out. It was transparent, but it worked.

Three films that followed were less popular: There's Always Vanilla (1971), Jack's Wife / Season of the Witch (1972) and The Crazies (1973) were not as well received as Night of the Living Dead or some of his later work. The Crazies, dealing with a bio spill that induces an epidemic of homicidal madness, and the critically acclaimed arthouse success Martin (1977), a film that deals with the vampire myth, were the two well-known films from this period. Like many of his films, they were shot in or around Pittsburgh.

In 1978, Romero returned to the zombie genre with Dawn of the Dead (1978). Shot on a budget of just $500,000, the film earned over $55 million worldwide and was named one of the top cult films by Entertainment Weekly in 2003. Romero made a third entry in his "Dead Series" with Day of the Dead (1985).

Between these two films, Romero shot Knightriders (1981), another festival favorite about a group of modern-day jousters who reenact tournaments on motorcycles, and the successful Creepshow (1982), written by Stephen King, an anthology of tongue-in-cheek tales modeled after 1950s horror comics.

From the latter half of the 1980s and into the 1990s came Monkey Shines (1988), about a killer helper monkey, Two Evil Eyes (1990), an Edgar Allan Poe adaptation in collaboration with Dario Argento, the Stephen King adaptation The Dark Half (1993) and Bruiser (2000), about a man whose face becomes a blank mask.

Romero updated his original screenplay and executive produced the remake of Night of the Living Dead directed by Tom Savini for Columbia/TriStar in 1990. Romero had a cameo appearance in Jonathan Demme's Academy Award-winning The Silence of the Lambs in 1991 as one of Hannibal Lecter's jailers.

In 1998, he directed the live-action commercial promoting the videogame Resident Evil 2 in Tokyo, Japan. The 30-second advertisement featured the game's two main characters, Leon S. Kennedy and Claire Redfield, fighting a horde of zombies while in Raccoon City's Police Station. The project was obvious territory for Romero; the Resident Evil series has been heavily influenced by Romero's "Dead" projects. The commercial was rather popular and was released in the weeks before the game's actual release, although a contract dispute prevented the commercial from being shown outside Japan. Capcom was so impressed with Romero's work, it was strongly indicated that Romero would direct the first Resident Evil film. He declined at first — "I don't wanna make another film with zombies in it, and I couldn't make a movie based on something that ain't mine" — although in later years, he reconsidered and wrote a script for the first movie. It was eventually rejected in favor of Paul W. S. Anderson's version.

Universal Studios produced and released a remake of Dawn of the Dead in 2004, with which Romero was not involved. Later that year, Romero kicked off the DC Comics title Toe Tags with a six-issue miniseries titled The Death of Death. Based on an unused script that Romero had previously written as a sequel to his "Dead Trilogy," the comic miniseries concerns Damien, an intelligent zombie who remembers his former life, struggling to find his identity as he battles armies of both the living and the dead. Typical of a Romero zombie tale, the miniseries includes ample supply of both gore and social commentary (dealing particularly here with corporate greed and terrorism — ideas he would also explore in his next film in the series, Land of the Dead). Romero has stated that the miniseries is set in the same kind of world as his 'Dead' films, but featured other locales besides Pittsburgh, where the majority of his films take place.

Romero, who lives in Toronto, Ontario, filmed a fourth "Dead" movie in that city titled Land of the Dead. The movie's working title was "Dead Reckoning". Its $16 million production budget was the highest of the four movies in the series. Actors Simon Baker, Dennis Hopper, Asia Argento, and John Leguizamo star in the film. It was released on June 24, 2005 to generally positive reviews.

, 2005]]

Some critics have seen social commentary in much of Romero's work. They view Night of the Living Dead as a film made in reaction to the turbulent 1960s, Dawn of the Dead as a satire on consumerism, Day of the Dead as a study of the conflict between science and the military, and Land of the Dead as an examination of class conflict.

Romero collaborated with the game company Hip Interactive in creating a game called City of the Dead, but the game was canceled midway due to the financial problems of the company.

In June 2006, Romero began his next project, called Zombisodes. Broadcast on the Web, they are a combination of a series of "Making of" shorts and story expansion detailing the work behind the film George A. Romero's Diary of the Dead. Shooting began in Toronto in July 2006.

In August 2006, The Hollywood Reporter made two announcements about Romero, the first being that he will write and direct a film based on a short story by Koji Suzuki, author of Ring and Dark Water, called Solitary Isle and the second announcement pertaining to his signing on to write and direct George A. Romero's Diary of the Dead, which follows a group of college students making a horror movie in the woods, who stumble on a real zombie uprising. When the onslaught begins, they seize the moment as any good film students would, capturing the undead in a cinema verite style that causes more than the usual production headaches. The film was independently financed, making it the first indie zombie film Romero has done in years.

After a limited theatrical release, Diary of the Dead was released on DVD by Dimension Extreme on May 20, 2008, and later to Blu-ray Disc on October 21, 2008.

Shooting began in Toronto in September 2008 for Romero's newest zombie film. The title was Survival of the Dead and the production company was called Blank of the Dead. Originally, the film was reported to be a direct sequel to Diary of the Dead, but the film features a new cast of characters, and did not retain the first-person camerawork of Diary of the Dead. Filming commenced on the movie, with Alan Van Sprang starring who featured in Romero's Land of the Dead and Diary of the Dead, and the majority of the story taking place on an island. The film premiered at the 2009 Toronto International Film Festival. Prior to the May 28, 2010 theatrical release in the United States, Survival of the Dead was made available to Video On Demand and a special one-night-only sneak preview was aired May 26, 2010 on HDNet.

Romero is featured in a downloadable feature of popular video game "Call Of Duty: Black Ops" called Escalation (the second map pack) in a zombie map called 'Call of the Dead' as an NPC (Non-playable character). He is featured alongside famous actors Sarah Michelle Gellar, Danny Trejo, Michael Rooker, and Robert Englund.

In 2010 Romero was contacted by Claudio Argento to direct a 3D remake of the Dario Argento film, Deep Red. Claudio was expected to write the screenplay and told Romero that his brother Dario would also be involved. Romero, who showed interest in the project decided to contact his longtime friend Dario only to find out that Dario knew nothing about the remake so Romero ended up to declining Claudio's offer. Romero says he has plans for two more Dead movies which will be connected to Diary Of The Dead and they will be made depending on how successful Survival of the Dead was. Romero however said that his next project would not involve zombies and he's going for the scare factor but wouldn't mention anything else about his next film.

Personal life

Romero is currently separated from his wife, Christine Forrest, whom he met on the set of Season of the Witch. They have two children together. Romero became a Canadian Citizen in 2009.

Influences

Romero ranked his top ten films of all time for the 2002 Sight & Sound Greatest Films Poll (2002). They are The Brothers Karamazov, Casablanca, Dr. Strangelove, High Noon, King Solomon's Mines, North by Northwest, The Quiet Man, Repulsion, Touch of Evil and The Tales of Hoffman. Romero listed the films in alphabetical order, with special placement given to The Tales of Hoffman, which he cites as "my favourite film of all time; the movie that made me want to make movies."

Filmography

Awards and nominations

On October 27, 2009, Romero was honored with the Mastermind Award at Spike TV's Scream 2009. The tribute was presented by longtime Romero fan Quentin Tarantino, who stated in his speech that the "A" in George A. Romero stood for "A fucking genius."

Legacy

In 2010, writer and actor Mark Gatiss interviewed Romero for his BBC documentary series A History of Horror, in which he appears in the third episode.

In 2011, George is featured in 's Zombies map "Call of the Dead" in the map pack Escalation.

Books

# Dawn of the Dead (with Susan Sparrow; movie tie-in), 1979 # Bizarro! by Tom Savini (foreword), 1984 # Martin (with Susan Sparrow; movie tie-in), 1984 # Book of the Dead edited by John Skipp and Craig Spector (foreword), 1989 # Toe Tags #1-6 ("The Death of Death"; DC Comics), 2004–2005 # ZOMBIES! An Illustrated History of the Undead Foreword Written by George A. Romero

Critical studies

Gagne, Paul R. The Zombies That Ate Pittsburgh: the Films of George A. Romero (New York: Dodd, Mead 1987)

Newman, Kim. Nightmare Movies: A Critical History of the Horror Film 1968–1988 (1988)

Williams, Tony. Knight of the Living Dead: The Cinema of George A. Romero (London: Wallflower Press 2003)

References

External links

New York Times short bio

Senses of Cinema: Great Directors Critical Database

George Romero @ THE DEUCE: Grindhouse Cinema Database

; Interviews

Short interview with George A. Romero about 'Diary of the Dead' in Sitges Festival

Simon Pegg interviews George A. Romero

The Onion A.V. Club interview

"Speaking of the Dead" - An interview with George A Romero (Jul-2009)

Category:1940 births Category:Naturalized citizens of Canada Category:American film directors Category:American people of Cuban descent Category:American people of Lithuanian descent Category:Living people Category:People from New York City Category:People from Manhattan Category:Carnegie Mellon University alumni Category:Horror film directors Category:Canadian film directors Category:Canadian people of Lithuanian descent Category:Canadian people of Cuban descent Category:American immigrants to Canada