Tomm Moore (born January 7, 1977) is an Irish illustrator, comics artist and filmmaker. He is co-founder of Cartoon Saloon, an animation studio and production company, based in Kilkenny, Ireland. His first feature film, The Secret of Kells, was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Animated Feature Film on February 2, 2010.

Personal life[link]

Moore, the eldest of 4 children, was born in Newry, County Down, Northern Ireland.^[1] At an early age he moved, with his parents, to Kilkenny in the Republic of Ireland where his father, Patrick, worked as an engineer. During his early to mid teens, he joined Young Irish Film Makers in Kilkenny, where he grew his knowledge and passion for film and animation. After leaving St Kieran's College secondary school, he studied classical animation at Ballyfermot College in Dublin. It was during his final year at Ballyfermot in 1998, that he co-founded the Cartoon Saloon animation studio with Paul Young, Ross Murray and Nora Twomey. Initially they set up studio alongside Tomm's alma mater Young Irish Film Makers, but the studio soon out grew the premises. The studio created the television series Skunk Fu!

Tomm is a nephew of the renowned singer/songwriter Kieran Goss.

Films[link]

Moore's first animated feature film, which he co-directed with Nora Twomey, is The Secret of Kells, written by Fabrice Ziolkowski from Moore's story. It is a co-production by the Cartoon Saloon, Les Armateurs, Vivi Film and France 2 Cinéma.^[2] The film is a hand-drawn animation, set in 9th century Ireland, and partially based on and inspired by early Christian history and legend. It premiered on February 8, 2009, at the Berlin International Film Festival. It went into wide release in Belgium and France on February 11, and in the Republic of Ireland on March 3. On February 2, 2010, it was announced that the film had been nominated for an Academy Award for Best Animated Feature Film.^[3]

Moore is working on a second feature film entitled The Song of the Sea.^[4]

Awards[link]

For The Secret of Kells

• 2008: won the Directors Finders Award at the Directors Finders Series in Ireland
• 2009: won the Audience Award at the Annecy International Animated Film Festival
• 2009: won the Audience Award at the Edinburgh International Film Festival
• 2009: won the Roy E. Disney Award at Seattle's 2D Or Not 2D Film Festival^[5]
• 2009: won the Kecskemét City Award at the 6th Festival of European Animated Feature Films and TV Specials^[6]
• 2010: won the Best Animation award at the 7th Irish Film and Television Awards^[7]
• 2010: won the Rising Star Award, sponsored by Bord Scannán na hÉireann/the Irish Film Board at the 7th Irish Film and Television Awards^[7]
• 2010: won the European Animated Feature Award at the British Animation Awards^[8]

Nominations[link]

For The Secret of Kells

• 2009: Grand Prix Award for Best Film in the Annecy International Animated Film Festival
• 2009: Best Animated Film at the European Film Awards
• 2009: Annie Award for Best Animated Feature
• 2010: Irish Film and Television Awards for Best Film
• 2010: Academy Award for Best Animated Feature Film

Comics[link]

He has drawn two Irish language graphic novels, An Sclábhaí ("the slave", 2001) and An Teachtaire ("the messenger", 2003), telling the story of St. Patrick. Both were written by Colmán Ó Raghallaigh and published in Ireland by Cló Mhaigh Eo.^[9] He has also created a two-volume graphic novel adaptation of The Secret of Kells, published in French as Brendan et le secret de Kells.^[10]

References[link]

External links[link]

• Cartoon Saloon
• The Secret of Kells official site
• The Blog of Kells - The Secret of Kells production blog
• The Blog of the Sea - The Song of the Sea production blog
• Tomm Moore at the Internet Movie Database

Matt Dillon
Dillon at the 2009 Tribeca Film Festival
Born	Matthew Raymond Dillon (1964-02-18) February 18, 1964 (age 48) New Rochelle, New York, U.S.
Occupation	Actor, director
Years active	1979–present

Matthew Raymond "Matt" Dillon (born February 18, 1964) is an Academy Award-nominated American actor and film director. He began acting in the late 1970s, gaining fame as a teenage idol during the 1980s.

Early life[link]

Matthew Raymond Dillon was born in New Rochelle, New York, to second-generation Irish American parents Mary Ellen, a homemaker, and Paul Dillon, a portrait painter and sales manager for Union Camp, a packing material manufacturer.^[1][2] He was raised in a close-knit Irish Roman Catholic family as the second of six children.^[3][4][5] Dillon's paternal grandmother was the sister of comic strip artist Alex Raymond.^[6] Dillon has one sister and four brothers, one of whom, Kevin Dillon,^[7] is also an actor, and appears on the hit TV series Entourage which has earned him several Emmy nominations in the supporting actor comedy category. Dillon grew up in Mamaroneck, New York, and before dropping out in junior year, he attended Mamaroneck High School.^{[citation needed]}

Career[link]

In 1978, Jane Bernstein and a friend were helping director Jonathan Kaplan cast the violent teen drama Over the Edge when they found Dillon cutting class at Hommocks Middle School in Larchmont. Dillon auditioned for a role and made his debut in the film.^[8] The film received a regional, limited theatrical release in May 1979, and grossed only slightly over $200,000.^[9] Dillon's performance was well-received, which led to his casting in two films released the following year; the teenage sex comedy Little Darlings, in which Kristy McNichol's character loses her virginity to a boy from the camp across the lake, played by Dillon, and the more serious teen dramedy My Bodyguard, where he played a high-school bully opposite Chris Makepeace. The films, released in March and July 1980, respectively, were box office successes^[10] and raised Dillon's profile among teenage audiences.

Another of Dillon's early roles was in the Jean Shepherd PBS special The Great American Fourth of July and Other Disasters.^[11][12] The only available copies of this film are stored at UCLA, where a legal dispute makes it unavailable to the public.

One of his next roles was in Liar's Moon, where he played Jack Duncan, a poor Texas boy madly in love with a rich banker's daughter. In the early 1980s, Dillon also had prominent roles in three adaptations of S. E. Hinton novels: Tex (1982), The Outsiders (1983) and Rumble Fish (1983). All three films were shot in Tulsa, Oklahoma, Hinton's hometown. The Outsiders and Rumble Fish had Dillon working with Francis Ford Coppola and Diane Lane. He followed those up with The Flamingo Kid in 1984. He made his Broadway debut with the play The Boys of Winter in 1985.

Dillon did voiceover work in the 1987 documentary film Dear America: Letters Home from Vietnam. In 1989, Dillon won critical acclaim for his performance as a drug addict in Gus Van Sant's Drugstore Cowboy.

Dillon continued to work in the early 1990s with roles in movies like Singles (1992). He had somewhat of a career resurgence when he played Nicole Kidman's husband in To Die For (1995), as well as starring roles in Wild Things (1998) and There's Something About Mary (1998), for which he received an MTV Movie Award for Best Villain.

In 2002, he wrote and directed the film City of Ghosts, starring himself, James Caan and Gérard Depardieu. That same year he starred in FactotumActually 2005., a film adaptation of an autobiographical work by Charles Bukowski. Two years later he received critical praise and earned a Best Supporting Actor Golden Globe along with Oscar nominations for his role in Crash, a film co-written and directed by Paul Haggis. In 2005 Dillon co-starred in Disney's Herbie: Fully Loaded and on March 11, 2006 hosted Saturday Night Live, in which he impersonated Greg Anderson ^{[disambiguation needed ]} and Rod Serling in sketches.

Dillon starred in the comedy You, Me and Dupree, opposite Kate Hudson and Owen Wilson. The film opened on July 14, 2006. On September 29, 2006, Dillon was honored with the Premio Donostia prize in the San Sebastián International Film Festival.

Dillon contributed his voice as the narrator, Sal Paradise, in an audiobook version of Jack Kerouac's novel On the Road. In 2006, he narrated Once in a Lifetime: The Extraordinary Story of the New York Cosmos.

Dillon appeared in several music videos during his career. He made a cameo appearance as a detective in Madonna's Bad Girl music video which also stars Christopher Walken. Dillon appeared in 1987 in the music video for "Fairytale of New York" by the Irish folk-punk band The Pogues playing a cop who escorts lead singer Shane MacGowan into the drunk tank". In 2007, the band Dinosaur Jr. hired Dillon to direct the video for their single "Been There All The Time" from the album Beyond. That year, he starred in The Simpsons episode "Midnight Towboy".

Personal life[link]

Dillon had a three-year relationship with actress Cameron Diaz in the late 1990s.^[13]

On December 30, 2008, he was arrested by the Vermont State Police after he was clocked traveling at 106 miles per hour northbound on Interstate 91 near Newbury, Vermont.^[14] He was charged with negligent operation of a vehicle. His attorney, Mark Kaplan, entered a plea of not guilty on Dillon's behalf in a January appearance in Orange County Court in Chelsea, and also appeared in court on February 25, 2009.^[15] He faced a maximum of one year in jail, and a fine of $1,000. He pleaded guilty to speeding and paid a $828 fine on March 30, 2009; in return, the negligence charge was dismissed by prosecutors.^[16]

Cultural influence[link]

Dillon is mentioned on Jeff Buckley's Live at Sin-é: Legacy Edition CD. On the fifth track Buckley mentions that he cut his hair because people thought he looked like Matt Dillon. Dillon's name is dropped in the lyrics of "After the Fire", a song that Pete Townshend wrote for Roger Daltrey's solo album Under a Raging Moon:

I saw Matt Dillon in black and white/There ain't no colour in memories/He rode his brother's Harley across the TV/ While I was laughing at Dom deLuise

Dillon is also mentioned in Pencey Prep's "Don Quixote" from the album Heartbreak in Stereo.

I dance the same dance every night / It's only you you're killing / Super glue the queen of hearts and the information she's spilling / Matt Dillon.

In Nick Hornby's 1998 novel About a Boy,^[17] protagonist Will Freeman wears a black leather jacket that he liked to think made him look like Matt Dillon in Drugstore Cowboy when he goes on to meet his love interest, Rachel.

Filmography[link]

Dillon at the 2005 Cannes Film Festival.

Awards and nominations[link]

Matt Dillon has won several awards in his career including Screen Actors Guild Award, MTV Movie Award and Independent Spirit Award. He was also nominated for many awards which includes Academy Award, Golden Globe and BAFTA with the film Crash. He was also honored in the San Sebastián International Film Festival where he received the "Donostia Lifetime Archievement Award." This list includes awards and nominations for his work. In the "Best Ensemble" category, he shared the award with the rest of the ensemble cast.

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Matt Dillon

• Matt Dillon at the Internet Movie Database
• Matt Dillon at the Internet Broadway Database
• Scotsman.com interview (November 13, 2005)
• About. com interview (May 3, 2005)
• BeliefNet interview (2003)
• Cigar Aficionado interview (October 31, 1996)
• Mug Shot at The Smoking Gun (March 6, 2009)

This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (April 2012)

"The Man" is a slang phrase that may refer to the government or to some other authority in a position of power. In addition to this derogatory connotation, it may also serve as a term of respect and praise.

The phrase "the Man is keeping me down" is commonly used to describe oppression. The phrase "stick it to the Man" encourages resistance to authority, and essentially means "fight back" or "resist", either openly or via sabotage.^[1]

History[link]

The earliest recorded use^{[citation needed]} of the term "the Man" in the American sense dates back to a letter written by a young Alexander Hamilton in September 1772, when he was 15. In a letter to his father James Hamilton, published in the Royal Dutch-American Gazette, he described the response of the Dutch governor of St. Croix to a hurricane that raked that island on August 31, 1772. "Our General has issued several very salutary and humane regulations and both in his publick and private measures, has shewn himself the Man." ^{[2][dubious – discuss]} In the Southern U.S. states, the phrase came to be applied to any man or any group in a position of authority, or to authority in the abstract. From about the 1950s the phrase was also an underworld code word for police, the warden of a prison or other law enforcement or penal authorities.

It was also used as a term for a drug dealer in the 1950s and 1960s and can be seen in such media as Curtis Mayfield's "No Thing On Me", William Burroughs's novel Naked Lunch, and in the Velvet Underground song "I'm Waiting for the Man", in which Lou Reed sings about going to Uptown Manhattan, specifically Lexington Avenue and 125th Street, to buy heroin.

The use of this term was expanded to counterculture groups and their battles against authority, such as the Yippies, which, according to a May 19, 1969 article in U.S. News and World Report, had the "avowed aim ... to destroy 'The Man', their term for the present system of government". The term eventually found its way into humorous usage, such as in a December 1979 motorcycle ad from the magazine Easyriders which featured the tagline, "California residents: Add 6% sales tax for The Man."

In present day, the phrase has been popularized in commercials and cinema, featuring particularly prominently as a recurring motif in the 2003 film School of Rock.^[3][4][5][6]

Use as praise[link]

The term has also been used as an approbation or form of praise. This may refer to the recipient's status as the leader or authority within a particular context, or it might be assumed to be a shortened form of a phrase like "He is the man (who is in charge)." One example of this usage dates to 1879 when Otto von Bismarck commented, referring to Benjamin Disraeli's pre-eminent position at the Congress of Berlin, "The old Jew, he is the man."^{[7][dubious – discuss]}

In more modern usage, it can be a superlative compliment ("you da man!") indicating that the subject is currently standing out amongst his peers even though they have no special designation or rank, such as a basketball player who is performing better than the other players on the court. It can also be used as a genuine compliment with an implied, slightly exaggerated or sarcastic tone, usually indicating that the person has indeed impressed the speaker but by doing something relatively trivial.

See also[link]

• Absentee landlord
• Big Brother (Nineteen Eighty-Four)
• New World Order (conspiracy theory)
• Ruling class
• The Establishment
• Power elite
• Corrections officer
• YTMND

Notes[link]

References[link]

• Lighter, J.E. (Ed.). (1997). Random House Dictionary of American Slang. New York: Random House.

Nora Twomey (born October 31, 1971, in Cork City, Ireland) is an Irish animator and filmmaker. She is a partner in Cartoon Saloon, an animation studio and production company, based in Kilkenny City, Ireland.

Early life[link]

She was educated at St. Mary's High School in Midleton, Co.Cork. Later she studied animation at Ballyfermot College in Dublin.^[1]

Career[link]

In 1998 she helped found Cartoon Saloon, along with Tomm Moore, Paul Young and Ross Murray. In 2002 she directed the award-winning short animated film From Darkness.^[2] She also worked on the successful animated TV series Skunk Fu!. She co-directed, with Tomm Moore, The Secret of Kells, an animated feature film.^[3] The film is set in 9th century Ireland, at the time when the Book of Kells was written. The film premiered at the Berlin International Film Festival in February 2009. The Secret of Kells has been nominated in the category of Best Animated Feature Film at the 82nd Academy Awards.^[4]

References[link]

External links[link]

• nora twomey.com