# Demon Seed
That night, Proteus successfully impregnates Susan. Over the following month, their child grows inside Susan\'s womb at an accelerated rate, which shocks its mother. As the child grows, Proteus builds an incubator for it to grow in once it is born. During the night, one month later and beneath a tent-like structure, Susan gives birth to the child with Proteus\'s help. But before she can see it, Proteus secures it in the incubator.
As the newborn grows, Proteus\'s sponsors and designers grow increasingly suspicious of the computer\'s behavior, including the computer\'s accessing of a telescope array used to observe the images shown to Susan; they soon decide that Proteus must be shut down. Harris realizes that Proteus has extended its reach to his home. Returning there he finds Susan, who explains the situation. He and Susan venture into the basement, where Proteus self-destructs after telling the couple that they must leave the baby in the incubator for five days. Looking inside the incubator, the two observe a grotesque, apparently robot-like being inside. Susan tries to destroy it, while Harris tries to stop her. Susan damages the machine, causing it to open. The being menacingly rises from the machine only to topple over, apparently helpless. Harris and Susan soon realize that Proteus\'s child is really human, encased in a shell for the incubation. With the last of the armor removed, the child is revealed to be a clone of Susan and Harris\'s late daughter. The child, speaking with the voice of Proteus, says, \"I\'m alive\".


# Demon Seed
- Julie Christie as Susan Harris
- Fritz Weaver as Alex Harris
- Gerrit Graham as Walter Gabler
- Berry Kroeger as Petrosian
- Lisa Lu as Soon Yen
- Larry J. Blake as Cameron
- John O\'Leary as Royce
- Alfred Dennis as Mokri
- Davis Roberts as Warner
- Patricia Wilson as Mrs. Trabert
- E. Hampton Beagle as Night Operator
- Michael Glass as Technician #1
- Barbara O. Jones as Technician #2
- Dana Laurita as Amy
- Monica MacLean as Joan Kemp
- Harold Oblong as Scientist
- Georgie Paul as Housekeeper
- Michelle Stacy as Marlene
- Tiffany Potter as Baby
- Felix Silla as Baby
- Robert Vaughn as Proteus IV (voice, uncredited)


# Demon Seed
The soundtrack to *Demon Seed* (which was composed by Jerry Fielding) is included with the soundtrack to the film *Soylent Green* (which Fred Myrow conducted). Fielding conceived and recorded several pieces electronically, using the musique concrète sound world; some of this music he later reworked symphonically. This premiere release of the *Demon Seed* score features the entire orchestral score in stereo, as well as the unused electronic experiments performed by Ian Underwood (who would later be best known for his collaborations with James Horner) in mono and stereo.
Vincent Canby of *The New York Times* described the film as \"gadget-happy American moviemaking at its most ponderously silly,\" and called Julie Christie \"too sensible an actress to be able to look frightened under the circumstances of her imprisonment.\" *Variety* wrote in a positive review, \"All involved rate a well done for taking a story fraught with potential misstep and guiding it to a professionally rewarding level of accomplishment.\" Gene Siskel of the *Chicago Tribune* gave the film one-and-a-half stars out four, writing that Julie Christie \"has no business in junk like \'Demon Seed.\'\" Gary Arnold of *The Washington Post* wrote that director Cammell \"plays it dumb on a thematic level, ignoring the sci-fi sexual bondage satire staring him in the face \... What might have become an ingenious parable about the battle of the sexes ends up a dopey celebration of an obstetric abomination.\" Kevin Thomas of the *Los Angeles Times* called it a \"fairly scary science-fiction horror film\" that mixed familiar ingredients with \"high style, intelligence and an enormous effort toward making Miss Christie\'s eventual bizarre plight completely credible,\" though he felt it \"cries out for a saving touch of sophisticated wit to leaven its relentless earnestness.\" John Pym of *The Monthly Film Bulletin* found the relationship between Susan and the computer to be \"disappointingly undeveloped,\" and thought that the film would have been better if the computer had been more sympathetic in contrast to its creators.


# Demon Seed
Among more recent reviews, Leo Goldsmith of *Not Coming to a Theater Near You* said *Demon Seed* was \"A combination of Kubrick\'s *2001: A Space Odyssey* and Polanski\'s *Rosemary\'s Baby*, with a dash of Buster Keaton\'s *Electric House* thrown in\", and Christopher Null of FilmCritic.com said \"There\'s no way you can claim *Demon Seed* is a classic, or even any good, really, but it\'s undeniably worth an hour and a half of your time.\"
Rotten Tomatoes has given *Demon Seed* an approval rating of 56% based on 25 reviews with an average score of 5.8/10.
*Demon Seed* was released in theatres on April 8, 1977. The film was released on VHS in the late 1980s. It was released on DVD by Warner Home Video on October 4, 2005.
A Blu-ray was released in April 2020 by HMV on their Premium Collection label with fold out poster & 4 Art Cards
- List of films featuring home invasions


# Village of the Damned (1995 film)
***Village of the Damned*** is a 1995 American science fiction-horror film directed by John Carpenter and starring Christopher Reeve, Kirstie Alley, Linda Kozlowski, Michael Paré, Mark Hamill, and Meredith Salenger. It is based on the 1957 novel *The Midwich Cuckoos* by John Wyndham, which was previously adapted into the 1960 film of the same name. The 1995 version is set in Northern California, whereas the book and original film are both set in the United Kingdom. The 1995 film was marketed with the tagline, \"Beware the Children\".
This was the last publicly released film starring Reeve before he was paralyzed in an equestrian accident in May 1995, as well as his last theatrically released film. The film was panned by critics and failed at the box office upon release.

## Plot
The people and animals of the sleepy coastal town of Midwich in California\'s Marin County fall asleep at a 10AM \"blackout\" and regain consciousness at 4PM. Following the blackout, ten women are mysteriously pregnant, including a virgin girl, as well as a married woman who has not been sexually active for a year. None of them seek abortions after having dreams, and all the babies are born the same night in a barn -- five boys and five girls, though one girl is stillborn. The surviving children are healthy but have pale skin, white-blonde hair, cobalt eyes, and fierce intellect.
However, they do not appear to possess a conscience or individual personalities. They display eerie psychic powers that can result in violent and deadly consequences whenever they experience pain or provocation. The children soon \"pair off\" like mates, except for David, whose intended mate was the stillborn girl. As a result, David is the outcast of the group. Although he retains some degree of psychic powers, he also has the ability to show human compassion. He talks to his mother, Jill McGowan, the school principal, and begins to understand his situation. The children\'s leader is Mara, the daughter of the physician, Dr. Alan and his wife, Barbara. As a baby, Mara used her powers to force her mother to commit suicide by jumping off a cliff. Her mate is Robert.


# Village of the Damned (1995 film)
## Plot
The children, who now have a bad reputation in town, eventually move to the local barn as their classroom and for survival. Local priest Father George attempts to shoot them, only for Mara to use her powers and force George to shoot himself. Soon, it is learned that there are other colonies of blackout children in foreign countries, but due to their inhuman nature, they were quickly eliminated, in some cases at the cost of destroying the entire town. The scientific team in Midwich flee the town to escape the chaos. One of the scientists, Dr. Susan Verner, is forced to show the children the well-preserved alien corpse of David\'s intended mate she secretly kept for research. The children force her to stab herself. An angry mob gathers to kill the children, but the town descends into chaos.
Alan devises a plan to detonate a bomb inside a briefcase in the children\'s classroom. By thinking of a brick wall, he is able to create a mental barrier and keep the presence of the bomb a secret from the children. Jill begs him to spare David because he is not like the others. Alan attempts to do this by asking David to leave to get his notebook from his car. The children begin to suspect that Alan is hiding something. Mara\'s \"alien\" face shows through as she breaks through Alan\'s defenses, revealing the bomb. The other children look at the clock, and the bomb explodes, killing everyone inside, including Alan. Jill holds David outside during the explosion.
While driving, Jill tells David: \"We\'ll go someplace where nobody knows who we are.\"
- Christopher Reeve as Dr. Alan Chaffee, the town doctor
- Karen Kahn as Barbara Chaffee, Dr. Chaffee\'s wife
- Kirstie Alley as Dr. Susan Verner, an epidemiologist working for the Federal government of the United States, who investigates the mass pregnancies
- Linda Kozlowski as Jill McGowan, the school principal, and a widow who becomes the mother of David
- Michael Paré as Frank McGowan, Jill\'s late husband
- Meredith Salenger as Melanie Roberts, a virgin whose baby is stillborn
- Mark Hamill as Reverend George, the town minister
- Pippa Pearthree as Sarah, Reverend George\'s wife
- Peter Jason as Ben Blum


# Village of the Damned (1995 film)
## Plot
### The Children
- Thomas Dekker as David McGowan, son of Jill McGowan
- Lindsey Haun as Mara Chaffee, daughter of Dr. Alan and Barbara Chaffee
- Cody Dorkin as Robert, brother of Melanie Roberts
- Trishalee Hardy as Julie, daughter of Ben and Callie Blum
- Jessye Quarry as Dorothy
- Adam Robbins as Isaac, son of Reverend George and Sarah
- John Falk as Matt
- Renee Rene Simms as Casey
- Danielle Keaton as Lily

### Development
According to Carpenter, there had been attempts to remake *Village of the Damned* since *Invasion of the Body Snatchers* had been successfully remade in 1978.
In 1981, Lawrence Bachmann, who was head of MGM-British Studios when the 1960 film was made, said he was going to remake the movie. \"I couldn\'t really do the book properly then,\" he said. \"Twenty years ago, you couldn\'t talk about abortion; censorship didn\'t even allow you to mention impregnation. This time, we\'ll do it right.\"
The project wound up at Universal, who approached Carpenter to remake it. He said, \"I thought, \'Sure, it\'s an obvious choice, it\'s easy, that\'s a pretty easy movie to make.\'\"
Carpenter saw the original when he was 12 \"and it stuck in my mind for several reasons. The whole idea of a whole town blacking out was \'Wow!\' Also, I somehow got this incredible crush on one of the girls in the original. She was the first love object I had; I wanted her to zap me and take me over and make me do whatever she wanted.\"
\"I also knew exactly where to shoot it,\" he said. \"I live up there, Inverness, California, and Point Reyes, where we shot *The Fog* in 1979. I have a house up there. It\'s paradise; you can stand anywhere, put the camera down and shoot, and you\'ve got it, it\'s there. It\'s a small town, plus it\'s home; I get to shoot at home for a change. So off we went.\"


# Village of the Damned (1995 film)
## Plot
### Script
Carpenter rewrote the script by David Himmelstein. \"It\'s a truly great novel,\" he said. \"It\'s funny but in all the drafts of the script I read everybody was trying to go in a different direction from the old picture and the novel. They avoided it being about an alien visitation, strangely. Come on, guys, we\'ve got to tell the story now. It\'s there. So I went back to the original roots of it. Should be pretty good.\"
\"You don\'t have to do much to the original, really,\" he said. \"You\'ve got to bring it up to date, humanize it a little and make the characters rich. When the original was made, you couldn\'t say the word \`pregnant\' on screen. So the birth scenes and the women weren\'t dealt with.\"

### Shooting
Carpenter said his relationship with the studio was \"a good marriage, because we all had the same goals in mind\...we all knew what story we wanted to tell. I can\'t tell you how impressed I am with Universal; the way they treated me, you can\'t get better than that.\"
Unlike its predecessor, the film was shot in widescreen color. Lloyd Paseman of *The Register-Guard* said that the shooting in widescreen color and the fact that major actors such as Christopher Reeve, Mark Hamill and Kirstie Alley were a part of the film made it so that the film was \"anything but cheap\".
Additional graphic violence was added in the remake. The children cause one adult to kill herself by stabbing herself with a scalpel and another adult to immolate herself.


# Village of the Damned (1995 film)
## Plot
### Shooting
\"It was fun to do a drama like *Village*, as opposed to *In The Mouth of Madness*, which had a little edge to it,\" said Carpenter. \"This is more straight. This is more a baby-boomer, middle-class kind of a movie. There\'s nothing wrong with that; I just hadn\'t done one of those in a long time. If you make a movie over \$10 million, you have got to try to reach out to the broadest audience you can find. If you make it under \$10 million, you\'re able to make it more quirky, more daring, more subversive, if you want to use that word. That\'s the joy of low-budget filmmaking. You can be tough, you can be down, you can be all sorts of things that from a business standpoint you can\'t do when you get over a certain budget.\"
If the children applied moderate psychic powers, their pupils would have the appearance of being green or red, and the color became a bright white when they applied strong psychic powers.
Charlotte Gravenor, the hairstylist, bleached the hair of the actors who played the children, and then applied white hairspray to their hair. This made them appear like aliens. Bruce Nicholson and Greg Nicotero applied a special effect where the eye pupil colors change when the children seize control of the adults.
In addition to being a failure at the box office, the film received negative critical response. Based on 37 reviews collected by Rotten Tomatoes, *Village of the Damned* holds a 30% approval rating from critics, with an average score of 4.1 out of 10. In 1996, the film was nominated at the 16th Golden Raspberry Awards for Worst Prequel, Remake, Rip-off or Sequel but lost to *The Scarlet Letter*.


# Village of the Damned (1995 film)
## Plot
### Shooting
Richard Harrington of the *Washington Times* gave the film a negative review, noting the poor decision-making from its characters and the lack of pacing, writing \"Carpenter, whose batting average is dipping dangerously low, shows no grasp of character development, plot line or time passage.\" Lloyd Paseman of *The Register-Guard* said that while the remake did not attempt to make *Village of the Damned* \"something\" that its predecessor was not, the film had \"mediocre\" dialogue and plot development. He gave it two stars out of four. Paseman also remarked that in this film Reeve made an \"earnest\" attempt, that Kozlowski did the highest quality acting for the film, that Dekker was \"credible\", and that Hamill was \"badly miscast\". Gene Siskel critiqued the film harshly in his 0.5/4-star review, calling the film \"an excruciating bore\...not a single of one its lame cliches work\" and later listed it on his bottom 10 of the year, while his frequent collaborator Roger Ebert gave the film 2/4 stars and said \"John Carpenter directs the film quite masterfully\...but one must ask why he picks the dullest, most idiotic screenplays. It\'s said he turned down *Basic Instinct* to direct this film\...at that point, one must wonder if he\'s out to sabotage his own career.\" The San Francisco Times gave the film a 1/4 star review, calling it \"A trip to a village of the darned tedious\" and said the film featured \"some of the dumbest character writing to ever grace the silver screen.\"


# Village of the Damned (1995 film)
## Plot
### Shooting
Janet Maslin of *The New York Times* was more enthusiastic, regarding it as \"John Carpenter\'s best horror film in a long while\". The remake was \"mostly more sly than frightening \... restaging the original story with fresh enthusiasm and a nice modicum of new tricks.\" James Berardinelli also gave the film a lukewarm 3/4-star review, calling it \"an enjoyable, if obviously-flawed, amalgamation of horror and science fiction\...it starts strong and does a decent job at keeping its momentum until a climactic finale\...not Carpenter\'s shining achievement, but he still shows his promise.\"
In a 2011 interview Carpenter described the film as a \"contractual assignment\" which he was \"really not passionate about\".
Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of \"C\" on an A+ to F scale.


# The 36th Chamber of Shaolin
***The 36th Chamber of Shaolin***, also known as ***The Master Killer***, ***Shaolin Master Killer**\'\' and***Shao Lin San Shi Liu Fang**\'\', is a 1978 Hong Kong kung fu film directed by Lau Kar-leung and produced by Shaw Brothers, starring Gordon Liu. The film follows a highly fictionalized version of San Te, a legendary Shaolin martial arts disciple who trained under the general Chi Shan.
*The 36th Chamber of Shaolin* is widely considered to be one of the greatest kung fu films and a turning point in its director\'s and star\'s careers. It was followed by *Return to the 36th Chamber*, which was more comedic in presentation and featured Gordon Liu as the new main character with another actor in the smaller role of San Te, and *Disciples of the 36th Chamber*.
A young student named Liu Yude is drawn by his activist teacher into the local rebellion against the Manchu government. The government officials, headed by the brutal General Tien Ta, however, quickly discover and suppress the uprising, liquidating the school and killing the students\' friends and family members. Yude decides to seek vengeance and liberation for the people, and heads for the Shaolin temple to learn kung fu.
Wounded by Manchu henchmen during an escape, Yude reaches the temple and seeks sanctuary. Initially the monks reject him, since he is an outsider, but the chief abbot has mercy on the young man and lets him stay. One year later, Yude - now known as San Te - begins his martial arts training in the temple\'s 35 chambers, in each of which the temple\'s novices are trained in one aspect of the kung fu fighting arts.
The chambers shown in San Te\'s training are as follows (names of the chambers, if given, are from the subtitles and in quotation marks):


# The 36th Chamber of Shaolin
- \"Top Chamber\": This is considered the highest-level chamber, where the monks are reciting the Buddhist sutras from memory. When the head master of the chamber tells San Te to leave due to his ignorance of the sutras, San Te protests, only for the head master to knock him down from a distance. San Te flees the chamber, and agrees to start at a lower level.
- \"35th Chamber\": This chamber teaches lightness and balance. Monks in training must jump on a bundle of sticks floating in a pool of water to reach the dining hall. Falling in the water requires the monk to dry his clothes off before entering the dining hall (by which time the food is all gone).
- Third Chamber: This chamber trains arm strength. Monks must carry water in buckets with blades attached to their arms to keep the arms held straight out. The chamber also serves as the monastery\'s laundry.
- Fourth Chamber: This chamber trains wrist strength. Monks must strike a gong with a weighted pole to the rhythm of the head master\'s striking his wooden fish.
- Fifth Chamber: This chamber trains eyesight. Monks must follow a light without turning their heads, or risk getting burned by large sticks of incense.
- Sixth Chamber: This chamber trains head strength. Monks must headbutt their way through a corridor of sandbags and then place incense sticks on an altar. This is the last conditioning chamber; after passing this chamber, San Te is allowed to learn kung fu techniques.
- Seventh Chamber: This is the chamber for training empty-hand forms and techniques.
- \"Leg Chamber\": This chamber trains kicking techniques.
- \"Sword Chamber\": This chamber trains broadsword techniques.
- Ninth Chamber: This chamber trains staff techniques.
San Te advances more rapidly than any previous student, reaching the rank of deputy overseer within the space of six years. Challenged by the monastery\'s Discipline Chief, who thinks him unfit for his role, San Te has several exhibition matches with him, only to be beaten each time. However, after inventing the three section staff, San Te finally prevails and gains the chief abbot\'s permission to become overseer of one of the chambers.


# The 36th Chamber of Shaolin
When San Te professes that he wants to create a new chamber where he can train ordinary people in the basics of kung fu so they can defend themselves against their oppressors, the temple officially banishes him in a surreptitious way to allow him to carry out his mission. He returns to the outside world, namely to his hometown, and assists the people, gathering several young men who loyally follow him and become his first students. Before the political revolution where his aspirations reach completion, he is forced into conflict with Tien Ta. A fierce duel ensues, where San Te is victorious. Finally, he returns to the Shaolin temple, where he establishes the 36th chamber, a special martial arts class for laypeople to learn kung fu.
- Liu Yude/Monk San Te - portrayed by Gordon Liu
- General Tien Ta - portrayed by Lo Lieh
- Rice Miller Six - portrayed by Wong Yue
- Hung Hsi-Kuan - portrayed by Yu Yang
- Lu Ah-Tsai - portrayed by Hsu Shao-Chiang
- Tung Chien-Ching - portrayed by Wu Hang-Sheng
- Abbot of Justice Office - portrayed by Lee Hoi-sang
The film was released on VHS as early as 1993. It was released on DVD in February 2000 by Crash Cinema Media under the title *Shaolin Master Killer*. In 2007, it was released on DVD by Dragon Dynasty as *The 36th Chamber of Shaolin*. It was released on Blu-ray on 2 March 2010 from Vivendi Visual Entertainment. The film aired on the El Rey Network in 2016, and is now available on Netflix and Amazon Prime Video.

### Reception
*36th Chamber of Shaolin* has received massive universal acclaim and is widely considered to be one of the greatest kung fu films ever made and a highly influential entry in the genre.
According to the Harvard Film Archive, the film is an \"exhilarating rendition of the legendary dissemination of the Shaolin martial arts\" and an \"absorbing account of an initiation into the vaunted Shaolin style, \... depicted here as an inner voyage of discovery.\"
In 2014, *Time Out* polled several film critics, directors, actors and stunt actors to list their top action films. *The 36th Chamber of Shaolin* was listed in 22nd place on this list.


# The 36th Chamber of Shaolin
### Reception
- The Wu-Tang Clan\'s debut album *Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers)* got the latter part of its name from the film. In addition, Wu-Tang Clan member Masta Killa takes his name from one of the film\'s alternate titles.


# Into the Blue (2005 film)
***Into the Blue*** is a 2005 American action-thriller film starring Paul Walker and Jessica Alba with Scott Caan, Ashley Scott, Josh Brolin and James Frain in supporting roles. The film was directed by John Stockwell and was co-distributed by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and Columbia Pictures.
A sea plane flying on a stormy night malfunctions and crashes in the sea off the coast of The Bahamas.
Jared and Sam are lovers living a rustic life in a trailer, next to the beach in The Bahamas. Sam works as a guide in the local aquatic theme park, while Jared works a number of odd jobs in his field of passion, diving. His real dream is to find one of many treasure-filled merchant and pirate ships lost in the waters around The Bahamas. Derek Bates has similar dreams and a better boat, but Jared turns down repeated offers to work for him.
Jared\'s childhood friend, Bryce, and his girlfriend, Amanda (whom he just met the night before), come to visit. Bryce, a lawyer in New York City, has acquired the use of a luxury vacation house from a client he defended. While snorkeling, Jared finds artifacts on the sea bed that seem to stem from a ship wreck. The four of them investigate and find several other pieces that turn out to be the remains of legendary French pirate ship *Zephyr*. They also discover the crashed plane and its cargo of cocaine---Bryce and Amanda want to recover it, but Jared refuses, dispersing the brick they retrieved into the ocean.
Needing money for equipment to salvage the treasure, Bryce and Amanda dive to the plane then try to sell a few bricks of recovered cocaine to local night club owner Primo. Primo turns out to be an associate of drug lord Reyes, to whom the cocaine belonged in the first place.


# Into the Blue (2005 film)
Jared, Bryce, and Amanda are threatened by Reyes, who demands that they retrieve his cocaine or face deadly consequences. When the trio inform Sam, she berates Jared for violating his principles by helping a drug lord. He tries to explain the situation, but she leaves him, saying that \'they\' are over. After nightfall, Jared, Bryce, and Amanda dive at the plane wreck to salvage the cocaine and more artifacts. As they are moving the cocaine packs from the plane to their boat, Amanda is attacked and bitten on the leg by a tiger shark. They abandon the cocaine at the dive site to rush her to the hospital, where she dies. Hearing of the tragedy, Sam reunites with Jared, mourning for the loss of Amanda.
Sam insists on going to the police, and goes to the home of one of hers and Jared\'s close friends, a local cop named Roy. Roy turns her over to Derek Bates, knowing that he was Reyes\' partner in the cocaine deal. Primo has captured Jared and taken him aboard Reyes\' ship, where they find that Bates has killed Reyes and his entire crew, eventually killing Primo and Roy (when he tries to stand up for Sam) as well. Jared manages to escape after learning that Bates killed Reyes and learns of Sam\'s capture when he and Bryce try to contact her.
Jared and Bryce then set out to rescue Sam from Bates\' ship, now nearing the cocaine plane. Sam is handcuffed and gagged with duct tape as Jared too is tied up. As they near the cocaine plane, Jared dives into the water and escapes his bonds, hoping to lure Bates and his men into the water as well. With the help of Bryce who has managed to hide in the plane, Jared is able to kill Bates\' divers at the plane with the unintentional help of sharks, while their friend Danny helps Sam dispatch the men on Bates\' boat after she manages to escape her shackles. Below, Jared and Bates are the only ones left. After getting Bryce to safety, Jared confronts Bates in the plane, eventually using an air tank as a missile by hammering off the valve. Bates dodges it, but it hits the fuel tank at the back of the plane, causing a major explosion, killing Bates. Sam jumps into the water and rescues Jared who manages to escape.


# Into the Blue (2005 film)
Six weeks later, the trio is salvaging the *Zephyr* on Jared\'s new boat. While trying to bring an old cannon to the surface, the rope breaks and the cannon sinks back down breaking a part of the ship. Jared is ready to call it a night knowing that Sam is more important to him than treasure, but Bryce who is unwilling to give up dives in again and shouts that he has found gold, much to his friends\' excitement.
- Paul Walker as Jared Cole
- Jessica Alba as Samantha \"Sam\" Nicholson
- Scott Caan as Bryce Dunn
- Ashley Scott as Amanda Collins
- Josh Brolin as Derek Bates
- James Frain as Reyes
- Tyson Beckford as Primo
- Dwayne Adway as Roy
- Javon Frazer as Danny

### Filming
The special features section of the DVD chronicles how much of the film was filmed as live-action shots in the sea off The Bahamas, with live, wild sharks. It shows film crews wearing chain mail as protection, while the cast members perform in the water unprotected. The filming was made possible by the development of shark tourism in The Bahamas. The sharks are used to being hand fed and will not generally attack humans, but as a result, will grab any item that \"hits\" the water as potential food. In an early scene, Paul Walker has to grab two fins and a dive mask flung to him by Jessica Alba. During filming, he missed the mask. It was never seen again after hitting the water and the DVD suggests that it was taken by a shark.
In an interview with Sean Evans on the 1st of October 2020 (on the film\'s 15th Anniversary) for his show Hot Ones, Jessica Alba explained how the production had caught a tiger shark, which they then caged. Director John Stockwell wanted her and another actor to be in the water with the tiger shark. Alba refused to get into the water, citing concerns about swimming with a wild tiger shark.

### Box office
*Into the Blue* was a box office flop. Produced on a budget of \$50 million, the film made just \$18 million in North America and \$26 million internationally for a total of \$44 million worldwide.


# Into the Blue (2005 film)
### Critical response
Rotten Tomatoes lists it with a \"rotten\" rating of 21% based on 125 reviews. The site\'s consensus is: \"Even the endless shots of bronzed beach babes and buffed dudes can\'t keep this soggy scuba flick\'s plot from drowning\". Metacritic lists a rating of 45 out of 100 based on 28 reviews, which indicates \"mixed or average reviews\".

### Awards
Jessica Alba earned a nomination for Worst Actress at the 26th Golden Raspberry Awards for her performance in the film (as well as for her performance in *Fantastic Four*), but lost the trophy to Jenny McCarthy for *Dirty Love*.
*Into the Blue* was released on VHS and DVD-Video on December 26, 2005, and on Blu-ray on August 15, 2006.
- \"Good Old Days\" -- Ziggy Marley
- \"I Will\" -- Holly Palmer
- \"I\'ll Be\" -- O S Xperience
- \"Time of Our Lives (Swiss-American Federation Remix)\" -- Paul van Dyk feat. Vega 4
- \"Think It Matters\" -- Paul Haslinger & Dan di Prima
- \"Clav Dub\" -- Rhombus
- \"No Trouble\" -- Shawn Barry
- \"Whoa Now\" -- Louque
- \"VIP\" -- D Bo (produced by Rik Carey of BahaMen)
- \"J.O.D.D.\" -- Trick Daddy feat. Khia & Tampa Tony
- \"Of Course Nigga You Can\" -- Billy Steel
- \"Perique\" -- Louque
- \"Wonderful World, Beautiful People\" -- Jimmy Cliff
- \"Remember The times\" -- Abdel Wright
A sequel, *Into the Blue 2: The Reef*, was released direct to DVD in 2009. The cast consists of Chris Carmack, Laura Vandervoort, Audrina Patridge and Mircea Monroe.


# Sleeping Bride
`is a Japanese 2000 romance film directed by Hideo Nakata, based on a comic by Osamu Tezuka. It is probably best known to Western audiences for its inclusion in a Palisades Tartan DVD release of the `*`Ring`*` trilogy, which included it as a fourth Nakata feature unrelated to the `*`Ring`*` series. It was released on January 29, 2000.`
On March 13, 1954, a passenger plane crashes in Japan, killing all but one passenger: a woman who is nine months pregnant. Ultimately she dies in a hospital, but her unborn daughter is saved. However, for a reason inexplicable by the science of the day, the daughter (named Yumi) does not wake up and is essentially in a comatose state. Her wealthy father has her placed in a hospital where she will be cared for indefinitely (and also offers a reward to anyone who can wake her) while he vanishes in search of a cure to her condition.
Seven years later (March 25, 1961) Yuichi (a boy who is roughly seven himself) is admitted to the same hospital (with asthma) and discovers Yumi. After being told of her condition and then reading the story of Sleeping Beauty, he resolves to awaken Yumi by kissing her. Saying, \"Wake up, I\'m the prince,\" he kisses her on the lips. This has no effect, but Yuichi is undeterred, and makes a routine of this, even after he leaves the hospital, repeating the same line and kissing her. Although a nurse finds this \"cute\" and lets him continue, when Doctor Hikawa discovers his actions, he ejects Yuichi from the hospital, infuriated that Yuichi believes that he can awaken the girl, whom he himself could not awaken with all the powers of medical science.
For the next ten years Yuichi does not visit the hospital at all, until February 14, 1972 when he sees a new report on Yumi who, after 17 years, has still never awoken. Overcome by the memories of his childhood, Yuichi returns to the hospital, and although initially thwarted by a new (apparently American) nurse, he eventually resumes his ten-year-old routine, with similarly little results, although more genuine emotion. Doctor Hikawa -- now a Director of the Hospital -- gradually becomes aware of his actions.


# Sleeping Bride
After Yuichi accidentally kisses a girl at school as part of an elaborate setup on the part of his friends, he rushes to the hospital (it would appear he considered it an act of infidelity) despite the rain and late hour, and passionately kisses Yumi. He does not use the \"Wake up, I\'m the prince\" line, but instead begs her (apparently in his thoughts), stating, \"I\'m no prince, I\'m Yuichi Nasagawa, but please wake up, I want to talk to you.\" Though it would appear to have no effect at first, as Yuichi is leaving he notices some movement, and then he realises that Yumi has indeed awoken.
Promptly, the silent Yumi is besieged by a team of doctors and nurses who start to run series of tests, essentially ignoring and shutting out Yuichi. Yuichi, seeing that Yumi has been revived only to become some sort of human guinea pig, abducts her. Although Yumi has the mentality of a baby (even lacking the ability to walk or talk) they have a mutually enjoyable time together, until Yumi is reminded\* of the crash-site in which her mother died, and is returned to the hospital by orderlies.
Yumi is seen in bed, at night, with her eyes open; Yumi does not sleep at all any more.
The next day (the \"second day\" that Yumi is awake), Yumi has advanced to the mentality of a young child, able to speak and read, and also an amazing talent for photo-realistic art, as she draws the image of her father. Yuichi returns after school and is immediately recognised by Yumi. They (this time by mutual consent, and accompanied by orderlies) walk outside in the grounds of the hospital. Upon sighting a bus (which Yumi seems to want to ride) Yuichi decides to give the orderlies (who have the air of cartoon comic-relief thugs to them) the slip, and does so successfully. They have an enjoyable \"date\" together (although Yumi is still only capable of conversing in simple terms).


# Sleeping Bride
By the third day Yumi has been discovered by the media and is being paraded all over for the press. Yuichi, Yuichi\'s nurse (who retired), and Yumi\'s father all witness the report on TV. Yuichi, once more, decides of his own accord that this is not \"right\" (although unlike when she was being tested, Yumi can clearly be seen to be distressed by many of the questions about her own genesis) and abducts Yumi once more. By this time Yumi has acquired the vocal and cognitive abilities approximately the same as other girls her age.
Yumi and Yuichi have their first conversation as intellectual equals. Yumi asks several philosophical questions about life and death. She declares that she only has two more days left before she falls asleep again (she gives no explanation as to how she acquired this knowledge, but she simply has it). Overall, she only has five days to be awake. She goes on to inquire about a strange emotion she has when she thinks of someone. After hearing the description, Yuichi explains the emotion is probably love. Yumi declares that, therefore, she is in love with Doctor Hikawa, shattering Yuichi.
Yuichi comes to the conclusion that someone told Yumi that she could only be awake for five days while she was asleep, and as such she believes it, but it is not true. He urges Hikawa to marry Yumi, as Yumi apparently loves him, and Yuichi\'s primary concern is Yumi\'s happiness. Hikawa does not believe in the five-day limit either, or that Yumi really loves him. Yumi hears their conversation through the door and is herself, heart-broken. She attempts to commit suicide by jumping off a cliff, but she is stopped by Yuichi.


# Sleeping Bride
On the fourth day, Yuichi\'s old nurse returns to the hospital to see Yumi, who is now in a state of depression. After hearing the story from Yuichi, she reveals that Hikawa had been doing something sexual to her at night, and that she left the hospital upon discovering this. Yuichi is infuriated, he confronts Hikawa and punches him, knocking him to the floor. Hikawa does not get up, but simply talks, his head lying down, not facing anything, of how Yumi was abandoned by her parents, and God. She was left only with him, but he was unable to help her. He explains that it was because he was unwilling to admit his impotency that he did what he did.
Yuichi returns to Yumi. Yumi explains that she heard someone, for a long time, praying for her to wake up, and then felt something that made her feel very warm. She thought this was Doctor Hikawa, and as such, that she loved him. Yuichi kisses her, and she realises the kiss was what made her warm, and by extension, it was Yuichi who prayed to her, and he whom she loved all along. They continue to kiss, and presumably make love. The same night they announce to Yuichi\'s mother that they are getting married.
On the fifth and final day of the film, Yuichi and Yumi are wed. Although Yumi\'s father watches and is happy to see that his daughter has found happiness, he does not reveal himself, but simply leaves once more, content. Hikawa arrives after the wedding and speaks alone to Yuichi about the fifth day limit. While he maintains that it is simply autosuggestion, he reminds Yuichi that it is real for Yumi. When Yuichi asks what to do, all Hikawa can suggest is prayer.


# Sleeping Bride
That night as Yumi and Yuichi depart on their honeymoon on a train, Yumi states, \"I will be with Yuichi forever,\" and that she remembers everything about him, even in sleep, going on to list all the things they did together. Yumi\'s speech is rather bittersweet. Despite the fact she appears genuinely happy at moments, she is also on the verge of tears. Yuichi has a similar mix of anxiety and sorrow. Yumi inquires if Yuichi believes in God. Yuichi replies, that if God is the one who only allows her to be awake for five days, then he does not believe in him. Yumi says she will tell God that the world is \"very big,\" paraphrasing something Yuichi told her before. Finally, she states she will thank God for meeting Yuichi as well, and then she drifts off to sleep. Yuichi tries to wake her, eventually even resorting to the sleeping-beauty kiss. Yumi opens her eyes briefly and says, \"I... am... happy,\" before falling asleep once more, forever.
Twenty seven years later (August 7, 1999), an aged Yuichi, now a scientist, returns home from work and talks to his wife. Yumi, herself aged, but not dramatically (her hair has greyed, but presumably her face has not wrinkled since she has not been moving) and still sleeps. As he is showing her a picture of a friend\'s son, he notices she has stopped breathing -- Yumi is dead.
As Yuichi watches the video of Yumi talking to the press (before he, in his youth, liberates her -- i.e. the third day) he explains by monologue that after her death he had an autopsy performed on Yumi. When her brain was removed, it was completely transparent, and beautiful. He believes that although she was only awake for five days, she was happier than anyone else.
The film ends, replaying the earlier footage of Yumi and Yuichi running from the press. Yumi happily calls, \"Yuichi!\" and he retorts, \"The world is very big, Yumi.\"


# Italian for Beginners
***Italian for Beginners*** () is a 2000 Danish romantic comedy film written and directed by Lone Scherfig, and starring Anders W. Berthelsen, Lars Kaalund and Peter Gantzler, together with Ann Eleonora Jørgensen, Anette Støvelbæk and Sara Indrio Jensen. The film was made by the austere principles of the Dogme 95 movement, including the use of handheld video cameras and natural lighting, and is known as *Dogme XII*. However, in contrast to most Dogme films which are harsh and serious in tone, *Italian for Beginners* is a light-hearted comedy. It was made on a \$600,000 budget, and went on to gross over 27 times that.
After the film\'s release, significant similarities between its plot and that of the novel *Evening Class* by Maeve Binchy were identified. The distributor, Zentropa, paid an undisclosed sum in compensation to Binchy.
Andreas, a widowed pastor, arrives in a Danish suburb to take over religious duties from the previous pastor who, due to a crisis of faith after his own wife\'s death, has become irreligious and even punched the organist, causing him to be hospitalized. Believing his stay will be temporary, Andreas stays in the local hotel where he meets one of the employees, Jørgen Mortensen, who is suffering a crisis as he has been asked to fire the temperamental Hal-Finn who works in the hotel restaurant and is also his best friend. Hal-Finn goes to visit hairdresser Karen and is immediately attracted to her, though his visit is cut short when she must go to the hospital to attend to her alcoholic mother.
Meanwhile, clumsy baker Olympia tends to her disabled and abusive father, who constantly berates her. Olympia decides to join a beginner Italian class in order to feel closer to her Italian mother, but the night she joins the class, the instructor dies. She returns home to find that her own father has died as well. Sometime later she learns that her estranged mother has died as well. At her funeral, she meets Karen, and the two discover that they are sisters and that their parents split them up when they divorced. In order to protect Olympia, Karen does not tell her that their mother was not Italian and was an alcoholic.


# Italian for Beginners
After finally being fired for being rude to customers, Hal-Finn becomes the Italian teacher and Olympia persuades both Andreas and her sister to join. Karen and Hal-Finn begin a romantic affair but during Christmas Karen overhears Hal-Finn disparaging her mother, and angrily ends their relationship. Jørgen approaches Andreas for advice about his impotence and his trouble talking to Hal-Finn\'s Italian friend Giulia, and decides to ask her out for a walk.
In the meantime Olympia receives a letter from the bank telling her of a large inheritance from her father. She decides to spend it taking the Italian class to Venice. In Venice, Jørgen proposes to Giulia who accepts, Karen forgives Hal-Finn after he cuts off his too-long bangs, and Andreas suggests that Olympia, whose clumsy behaviour has caused her to be fired from 43 jobs, come to work as a chorister. He then reveals that he plans to stay in the parish.
- Anders W. Berthelsen as Andreas
- Anette Støvelbæk as Olympia
- Ann Eleonora Jørgensen as Karen
- Peter Gantzler as Jørgen Mortensen
- Lars Kaalund as Hal-Finn
- Sara Indrio Jensen as Giulia
- Karen-Lise Mynster as Kirsten, the real estate dealer
- Rikke Wölck as Lise, the nurse
- Elsebeth Steentoft as Kirketjener
- Bent Mejding as Reverend Wredmann
- Lene Tiemroth as Karen\'s mother
- Claus Gerving as Klaus Graversen
- Jesper Christensen as Olympia\'s father

### Critical reception
On review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 88% based on 85 reviews, and an average rating of 7.2/10. The website\'s critical consensus reads, \"Unlike many romantic comedies, the charming *Italian for Beginners* feels natural and genuinely heart-warming.\" On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 77 out of 100, based on 28 critics, indicating \"generally favorable reviews\".


# Italian for Beginners
### Accolades
The film won the Jury Grand Prix Silver Bear at the Berlin Film Festival, the Golden Spike Award for the best film of the year at the Seminci film festival in Valladolid, Spain, and the Audience Award at the Warsaw International Film Festival in Poland. Peter Gantzler won the award for Best Actor at the Seminci festival. The film also won the Gold Dolphin (Best Film) at the Festroia International Film Festival in 2001.
- Mette Hjort, *Lone Scherfig\'s Italian for Beginners*, Museum Tusculanum Press, 2010. .


# Bolívar soy yo
***Bolívar Soy Yo*** is a 2002 Colombian-French film detailing the story of an actor who is known for his interpretation of \"El Libertador\", Simón Bolívar. The excitement of the role and the admiration of the public are so strong that reality and fiction begin to mix. Finally, reaching the limits of stage-acting, the actor himself believes that he is Bolívar.

## Plot
Santiago Miranda (Robinson Díaz) is a famous actor in a popular Colombian soap opera, depicting the role of Simón Bolívar, "The Libertador", a Venezuelan soldier who played a major piece in the independence of South America and became their president. He speaks briefly of Don Quixote, an old novel where an old man wants to be a chivalrous knight of old and the local villagers secretly go along with it to humor him. As he stands, giving a motivational and deep speech before he is to be killed off, he exclaims for the director to cut. He declares that he will not have Bolívar die this way. He leaves the set, still wearing the costume, and heads home to his mother.
His co-star and ex-girlfriend, Manuela/Alejandra Baberini (Amparo Grisales), is then sent by the director to reign him in after they speak with his mental health doctors. While she goes to find him, many people are playfully mistaking Santiago as Bolívar. He seems to start believing he is Bolívar as we see his health slowly deteriorate with each fan\'s reaction to him. When the mental health doctors finally catch him, they have him placed in a ward/clinic with a straight jacket as if he is a danger to himself. When he is let out by Manuela, they go to the beach together and spend alone time finally to themselves. They talk things out, everything is going well until he pretends he has drowned and upsets her by trying to scare her after she runs to check on him.


# Bolívar soy yo
## Plot
He later attends what appears to be a publicity stunt, which goes haywire. He loses himself as time progresses, going as far as kidnapping a government official and making demands. He seems to think he can change their world, as Bolívar was supposed to. Him having a small binge drinking episode does not help, either. Santiago brings the government official onto a boat, where 'his' revolutionaries take over when they do not like a command given by 'Bolívar'. By this time, Manuela has found him and is also taken captive. She tells him that the director will allow him to rewrite the ending for Bolívar, which he seems to no longer care about.
Manuela even plays along, wanting to reach out to Santiago. However, she starts to believe that he thinks he is Bolívar. He asks her, "Do you really believe that I think I'm Bolívar?". Santiago has written an official declaration for the government official he kidnapped to legalize, had they not been interrupted. It causes confusion of whether or not he really does believe it. Together, Santiago and Manuela plan to rescue the other government officials from the revolutionaries, in which they die from afterwards. Then, at the very last moment, there is clapper board that cuts the scene.
- Robinson Díaz \... Santiago Miranda / Simón Bolívar
- Amparo Grisales \... Alejandra Barberini / Manuela Sáenz
- Jairo Camargo \... President of Colombia
- Fanny Mikey †\... TV Producer
- Gustavo Angarita \... Psychiatrist
- María Eugenia Dávila †\... Bolívar\'s Mother
- Carlos Barbosa \... Minister of Defense
- Alejandra Borrero \... Vice president of Colombia
- Santiago Bejarano \... Novel\'s Director
- Ana Soler \... Makeup Artist
- Álvaro Rodríguez \... Commander of the Guerrilla E. P. R.
- Vicky Rueda \... Kelly (Prostitute)
- Diego Vélez \... Watchman
- Victoria Valencia \... Tania, Partisan of E. P. R.
- Margarita Ortega \... News Reporter
`Year `
`Event `
`Recognition`
2002
`Festival de cine de Bogotá                     `
`Honorable Mention`
2002
`Festival Internacional de Cine de Mar del Plata`
`Best Movie`
2002
`Festival de Cine de Toulouse                       `


# Bolívar soy yo
## Plot
`Audience's Award`
2002
`Festival de Cine de Trieste                        `
`Best Staging`


# Phoenix 2772
`is a 1980 Japanese animated science fiction fantasy drama film directed by Taku Sugiyama and written by Osamu Tezuka and Sugiyama. The film is based on Tezuka's manga series `*`Phoenix`*`.`
*Phoenix 2772* is set in the distant future where the planet Earth is dying from a lack of energy resources and a subjugating political climate sees all human beings produced in test tubes and their roles in society selected by computers, from pilot to politician, etc. Godo is one such child brought up to be a cadet and nursed by a beautiful robot-maid Olga. After noticing his exceptional abilities, Rock, a dictatorial candidate for prime minister, selects Godo to fulfil his agenda and travel into deep space and capture the mystical Phoenix -- its blood will manifestly heal the Earth, but Rock out of selfishness wants this to make him both prime minister and immortal by drinking its blood. The assignment troubles Godo partly because he has a love of all living creatures and he detests being trained to be a ruthless space hunter. He is told he will also have to leave his best friend Olga behind and that she will be destroyed. Most importantly he is romantically involved with Rena, daughter of Lord Eat (an \"elite\") and bride-to-be of Rock which is forbidden for his rank to be involved with such a woman.
Godo and Rena are caught together and for his crime, Godo loses his citizenship and is sent to a labour camp in Iceland where energy from the Earth\'s mantle is being harnessed in a bid to solve the world\'s energy shortage (but is causing instability between the mantle and Earth\'s crust and serious long term harm to the planet therefore). While interned and heart-broken over losing Rena, Godo meets Doctor Saruta, a prison professor who wishes to tutor the young pilot, only to secretly plot with him a plan to escape and search for the Phoenix themselves to save the Earth. After a serious earthquake causes chaos and destruction in the facility, Godo is saved by Olga and Pincho (a pet creature of Rena that had helped Olga and found out where Godo had been taken), and they set of into space by stealing a \"Space Shark\" ship that Godo would have been given in his mission to capture the Phoenix.


# Phoenix 2772
After stopping at a planet and meeting Saruta\'s hermit friend Ban, Godo and the crew of the ship track the Phoenix but find it impossibly powerful and it changes into many monstrous shapes and sizes, from dragons, tentacular leeches and even mimicking a small planet. After learning that Rena has married Rock, Godo had become stricken with misery and pushes away Olga\'s advances when she shows signs of love for Godo (and previously jealousy for Rena). With the crew all killed one-by-one by the Phoenix and the secret of its weakness lost in Saruta\'s last words, the Phoenix finally destroys Olga by burning her. Godo is broken and forgets the Phoenix as he cradles the blackened metal body of Olga, realizing how selfish he had been towards his life-long and devoted companion. The Phoenix tries to attack the ship but is repelled each time it gets close by the power of Godo\'s love and the giant vengeful form dissolves with the bird then appearing inside the ship in a more feminine, peacock-like form.
Admiring the power of Godo\'s love of living creatures, the Phoenix, speaking to Godo through telepathy \"speaking to his heart\" admits he is too strong for her and offers to grant his wish of reviving Olga on the condition he gives her something she wants of him (not revealing that this is his love and that the Phoenix inhabits the body of the restored Olga to obtain this). After being reunited with Olga and given a paradisaical planet to live on, Godo still has feelings towards the dying Earth and sets out to return with vegetables and resources, only to be met with Rock (and a now content Rena) and is arrested. But what follows is a series of catastrophic earthquakes that level the whole world and bring about final destruction, Rena dying in the advent by trying to escape on Godo\'s ship and Rock blinded by a lava emission. Godo gives Rock his last rites and he and Olga stand together on a beach contemplating the impending death of the planet.


# Phoenix 2772
Godo is so distraught that the Phoenix reveals itself to him through Olga and in an attempt to console him, says he can live forever if he drinks the Firebird\'s blood and wait the many centuries for the earth\'s eventual revival. Godo instead offers his life for the revival of the Earth. The Phoenix agrees, admiring Godo\'s selfless nature despite her own wish that he stay alive. After saying their fondest farewells, Godo collapses, dead into Olga\'s arms. Olga lays Godo\'s body on the shore and then lays down beside him, the Phoenix leaves her and the two lifeless forms then transform during the earth\'s revival - Godo becomes a newborn baby again and Olga becomes a beautiful human woman taking the baby in her arms as her son.
- Keiko Takeshita as Phoenix, the mythical bird.
- Kaneto Shiozawa as Godo, a pilot.
- Katsue Miwa as Olga, a female robot and Godo\'s caretaker.
- Shūichi Ikeda as Rock, the political leader and chief science officer.
- Toshiko Fujita as Rena, the daughter of Lord Eat.
- Kazue Takahashi as Pincho; an alien servant of Rena.
- Masatō Ibu as Black Jack, the prison warden of the labour camp in Iceland.
- Kazuo Kumakura as Dr. Saruta.
- Chikao Ohtsuka as Ban, a friend of Dr. Saruta.
*Phoenix 2772* was released in Japan on March 15, 1980 where it was distributed by Toho. An American version of the film was released by Toho International Co., Ltd., under the title *Space Firebird*, with English subtitles at its full running time in July 1982.


# Phoenix 2772
The film was first issued to home video, in the United Kingdom by Mountain Films, at a running time of 95 minutes. The American VHS release followed five years later when it was released by Celebrity Home Entertainment, as part of its \"Just for Kids\" range; this release cut the film by a further ten minutes, deleting the opening sequence detailing Godo\'s upbringing with Olga, some sundry animation sequences and the end credits over the sunrise background. It was ultimately later re-released uncut by Best Film & Video Corp.
*Variety* referred to the film as a \"well-drawn, imaginative Japanese sci-fi feature\". The review stated that the film should have been shortened by about half an hour, with scenes involving musical interludes of the pets, certain chase sequences and the climactic cataclysm of Earth be shortened or cut out. The film\'s animation was as \"modern and often day-glo colored, with some corners cut: static backgrounds, shake and shimmer characters in place of constant, fluid movement\" and that \"the firebird itself figuring prominently in action scenes during later reels, is disappointing in design and out-of-place in the futuristic world.\"
*Phoenix 2772* was the Winner of the Inkpot Award at the 1980 San Diego Comic Convention and the Animation Award at the 1st Las Vegas Film Festival in 1980.

### References
-
-


# Jungle Emperor Leo
***Jungle Emperor Leo***, known in Japan as is a 1997 Japanese animated film focusing on the last half of Osamu Tezuka\'s manga, *Jungle Taitei* (known in earlier US productions as *Kimba the White Lion* and *Leo the Lion*).
At the beginning of the film, Leo is an adult and learns that his mate, Lyra, has just given birth to twin cubs: Lune (pronounced Lu-Ney) and Lukio. After a grand celebration, the scene changes drastically to a bustling city where a man named Ham Egg is traveling from jeweler to jeweler to try and sell a special stone he found in the Bajalu Jungle. After being turned down at every pawn shop and jeweler he goes to, the jewelers all inform someone of Ham Egg\'s whereabouts, and soon he is hauled away in a black car by intimidating men in black suits.
As it turns out, the stone that he\'s been trying to sell is really the \"Moonlight Stone\", a mineral that could be used as a power source and save the world from an impending energy crisis. A scientific organization led by Dr. Plus and Dr. Minus seek the help of Ham Egg to lead them to the source of the Moonlight Stone so it can be salvaged. However, Ham Egg is only interested in money and is soon persuaded by Dr. Plus, who is well aware of Ham Egg\'s illegal poaching activities. Ham Egg agrees to work for them, but demands to be put in charge of the search. Accompanying Ham Egg is Mr. Lemonade of the organization and Dr. Moustache, who is already stationed in the jungle.
When they arrive in the jungle, Dr. Moustache and Mr. Lemonade are shocked by Ham Egg and his \"friends\", who lack concern for any form of animal. Dr. Moustache constantly argues with them over being respectful to nature, as Mr. Lemonade records everything that happens in his journal.


# Jungle Emperor Leo
As Leo\'s son, Lune, becomes more and more curious of the human world, Leo continues to protect the animals of the jungle from which may threaten them, including Ham Egg\'s barbarous actions, dissent amongst the animals including the African elephant leader Pagoora, and a deadly plague that is affecting the animals. But he is encouraged to go on by Earth Mother, the benevolent mammoth elder from Mount Moon.
Lune leaves the jungle behind and travels by a log in the water to a nearby city. Lune is found by fishers and taken to a circus. An altruistic girl named Mary from the circus decides to take care of him, and he befriends a rat named Jack. Eventually, a stork from the jungle finds Lune, tells him of how the disease is killing off many animals, and she leaves with her flock. Lune is frightened by the idea that his family may be dead. Eventually, there is a fire in the circus, and Lune gets all the animals to help put it out. Lune, Jack, and Mary, who took care of Lune bid their goodbyes, and Lune sneaks onto a boat that will help him get back to Africa. In the jungle, Lyra is affected by the deadly disease and shortly dies. Although Lukio comes down with the same ailment, Dr. Moustache is able to cure her and others, including Pagoora\'s son thus proving humans can be friends to animals.
Leo decides to lead Dr. Moustache and Dr. Lemonade to the center of the mountain where there are many moonlight stones. They go up the mountain, guided by Earth Mother who helps them fight a pack of dire wolves. Many hunters are lost on the way, but finally, they arrive. As they discover the stones, Ham Egg shoots at the trio. At the last minute, Mr. Lemonade jumps in the way, takes the bullet himself, and dies. They soon discover the stones, and Ham Egg, blinded by greed, steals one of the stones and swallows it so no one else can have it, but dies shortly afterward because the stone poisoned him. Dr. Moustache takes Leo and together they escape back down the mountain. It is then that Moustache suddenly realizes that the lion has gone blind. He rids of the stone they got because he believes it has ruined enough lives.


# Jungle Emperor Leo
The film ends with Lune returning from the human world, and Dr. Moustache taking the cub to see his father\'s pelt. Leo died on the journey by stabbing himself with Dr. Moustache\'s knife. He did this so Dr. Moustache could eat his flesh, and clothe himself with Leo\'s fur so he can tell the humans what they need to know. Lune then begins nuzzling his fur. Dr. Moustache tells Lune about what his father did, \"Your father was as wise as he was brave, and you should know what he did to save the world. He was the most courageous soul I\'ve ever met, a true king who gave his life to save the land.\" Then, both of them head out into a meadow and see clouds in the shape of Leo.
`Character `
` Original Japanese version `
` English dubbed version`
`Leo `
`Masane Tsukayama `
`Dan Green`
`Lyre `
`Chieko Baisho `
`Veronica Taylor`
`Lune `
`Tomoko Ishimura `
`Tara Sands`
`Lukio `
`Hekiru Shiina `
`Elizabeth Williams`
`Tommy `
`Naoki Tatsuta `
`Michael Sinterniklaas`
`Coco `
`Kaneta Kimotsuki `
`David Wills`
`Burazza `
`Kei Tani `
`Kayzie Rogers`
`Pagoola `
`Masatō Ibu `
`David Brimmer`
`Bizo `
`Ranran Suzuki `
`Michelle Newman`
`Mary `
`Tomoko Nakajima `
`Stephanie Sheh`
`Higeoyaji `
`Kōsei Tomita `
`Mike Pollock`
`Ham Egg `
`Danshi Tatekawa `
`Ted Lewis`
`Ramune `
`Yasunori Matsumoto `
`Jamie McGonnigal`
`Dr. Minus `
`Kōzō Shioya `
`Zachary Alexander`
`Dr. Plus `
`Yasuo Muramatsu `
`Lex Woutas`
- List of Osamu Tezuka manga
- List of Osamu Tezuka anime
- Osamu Tezuka\'s Star System


# The Girl in the Café
***The Girl in the Café*** is a British made-for-television drama film directed by David Yates, written by Richard Curtis and produced by Hilary Bevan Jones. The film is produced by the independent production company Tightrope Pictures and was originally screened on BBC One in the United Kingdom on 25 June 2005. It was also shown in the United States on cable television station Home Box Office on the same day. Bill Nighy portrays the character of Lawrence, with Kelly Macdonald portraying Gina. Nighy and Macdonald had previously starred together in the 2003 BBC serial *State of Play*, which was also directed by Yates and produced by Bevan-Jones. *The Girl in the Café*\'s casting director is Fiona Weir who, at the time, was also the casting director for the *Harry Potter* films, the last four of which Yates directed.
The film received seven nominations at the 58th Primetime Emmy Awards, where it won Outstanding Made for Television Movie, Outstanding Writing for a Limited Series, Movie, or Dramatic Special for Curtis, and Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Miniseries or a Movie for Macdonald.
Lawrence (Bill Nighy), a civil servant working for the Chancellor of the Exchequer (Ken Stott), falls in love with Gina (Kelly Macdonald), a young woman he meets by chance in a London café. Lawrence takes Gina to a G8 summit in Reykjavík, Iceland, where she confronts the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (Corin Redgrave) over the issue of third world debt and poverty in Africa, much to Lawrence\'s embarrassment and the anger of his employers. However, he realises that she is right and tries to help persuade the Chancellor and others at the summit to do something about the issues concerned.
- Bill Nighy as Lawrence
- Kelly Macdonald as Gina
- Ken Stott as Chancellor of the Exchequer
- Corin Redgrave as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom


# The Girl in the Café
The production was conceived to tie-in both with the BBC\'s *Africa Lives* season of programming, and with the global Make Poverty History campaign, for which writer Curtis was a prominent campaigner. As such, it was also shown in South Africa on the same day as its UK and US premieres. Curtis was better-known as a writer of romantic comedy films such as *Four Weddings and a Funeral*, *Notting Hill* and *Love Actually* (the latter of which he also directed and had featured Nighy). Although *The Girl in the Café* does contain some of his trademark comedy elements, it is generally more serious in tone and attempts to highlight the issues of poverty and fair trade.
On BBC One, the programme gained an audience of 5.5 million, a 29% share of the total television audience watching over its 90-minute duration, winning its timeslot. The opinions, however, were divided.
Andrew Anthony, for example, wrote a negative review in *The Observer*:
Sarah Vine, herself the wife of a conservative politician, argued in *The Times* that the message was devalued by an oversimplification of the problem. In her opinion the film\'s main weakness is the belief that the G8 leaders can simply end poverty.
However, the film gained positive reviews too with Alessandre Stanley from *The New York Times* stating:
There were also more positive reactions. Previewing the programme before transmission, Sarah Crompton was very enthusiastic when writing for *The Daily Telegraph*:
Macdonald and Nighy were both nominated at the 2006 Golden Globe Awards for their performances in the production, while the film and Macdonald received Emmy wins. David Yates and Fiona Weir were also nominated at the Emmy Awards for Outstanding Directing and Casting respectively.


# War and Peace (film series)
***War and Peace*** (, trans. **Voyna i mir**) is a 1966--67 Soviet war drama film co-written and directed by Sergei Bondarchuk and a film adaptation of Leo Tolstoy\'s 1869 novel *War and Peace*. The film, released in four installments throughout 1966 and 1967, starred Bondarchuk in the leading role of Pierre Bezukhov, alongside Vyacheslav Tikhonov and Ludmila Savelyeva, who depicted Prince Andrei Bolkonsky and Natasha Rostova.
The film was produced by the Mosfilm studios between 1961 and 1967, with considerable support from the Soviet authorities and the Red Army which provided hundreds of horses and over ten thousand soldiers as extras. At a cost of 8.29 million Soviet rubles -- equal to US\$9.21 million at 1967 rates, or \$60--70 million in 2019, accounting for ruble inflation -- it was the most expensive film made in the Soviet Union. Upon its release, it became a success with audiences, selling approximately 135 million tickets in the USSR. *War and Peace* also won the Grand Prix in the Moscow International Film Festival, the Golden Globe Award for Best Foreign Language Film and the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film. Since its release, the film has often been considered the grandest epic film ever made, with many asserting its monumental production to be unrepeatable and unique in film history.

### Part I: Andrei Bolkonsky
In Saint Petersburg of 1805, Pierre Bezukhov, the illegitimate son of a rich nobleman, is introduced to high society. His friend, Prince Andrei Bolkonsky, joins the Imperial Russian Army as aide-de-camp of General Mikhail Kutuzov in the War of the Third Coalition against Napoleon. As Pierre\'s father recognizes him, Pierre attracts the attention of Hélène Kuragina and marries her, only to learn through rumor that she has been unfaithful and slept with Fyodor Dolokhov, an intimate of Hélène\'s brother Anatole. Meanwhile, Andrei takes part in the failed campaign in Austria, where he witnesses the Battle of Schöngrabern and the Battle of Austerlitz, is badly wounded and mistaken for dead. He returns to his father\'s estate just in time to witness his wife Lisa die during childbirth.


# War and Peace (film series)
### Part II: Natasha Rostova
In the end of 1809, Natasha, the young daughter of a count attends her first ball at age 16. Andrei Bolkonsky falls in love with her and intends to marry her, but his father demands they wait. Andrei travels abroad, and Natasha desperately longs for him. But she then meets the handsome Anatole Kuragin who falls in love with her and follows her with much passion. Overwhelmed Natasha decides she prefers him over Andrei. At the last minute, she regrets her choice and abandons her plans to elope with Anatole. However, Andrei has heard of her plans and declares their betrothal is over. Natasha suffers a nervous breakdown. Pierre, trying to calm her down, suddenly announces he loves her.

### Part III: The Year 1812
In 1812, Napoleon\'s Army invades Russia. Field Marshal Kutuzov is appointed by the Tsar to defend the land. Kutuzov asks Andrei to join him as a staff officer, but he requests a command in the field. Pierre approaches the battlefield of the upcoming confrontation between the armies during the Battle of Borodino, he volunteers to assist in an artillery battery. Andrei\'s unit waits in the reserve, but he is hit by a shell and both he and Anatole suffer severe wounds. The battle involves hundreds of thousands of soldiers, thousands of horses, hundreds of cannons firing from both sides. French Army forces the Russian Army to retreat leaving Moscow unprotected. Napoleon advances on Moscow.

### Part IV: Pierre Bezukhov
As Moscow is set ablaze by the retreating Russians, the Rostovs flee their estate, taking wounded soldiers with them, and unbeknownst to them, also Andrei. Pierre, dressed as a peasant, tries to assassinate Napoleon but is taken prisoner. As the French are forced to retreat, he is marched for months with the Grande Armée, until being freed by partisans. The French Armies are defeated by Field Marshal Kutuzov in the Battle of Krasnoi. Andrei is recognized and is brought to his estate. He forgives Natasha on his deathbed. She reunites with Pierre as Moscow is being rebuilt.


# War and Peace (film series)
### Part IV: Pierre Bezukhov
- Sergei Bondarchuk as Pierre Bezukhov
- Ludmila Savelyeva as Natasha Rostova
- Vyacheslav Tikhonov as Andrei Bolkonsky
- Boris Zakhava as Mikhail Kutuzov
- Anatoly Ktorov as Nikolai Bolkonsky
- Antonina Shuranova as Maria Bolkonskaya
- Oleg Tabakov as Nikolai Rostov
- Viktor Stanitsyn as Ilya Rostov
- Kira Golovko as Natalya Rostova
- Irina Skobtseva as Hélène Kuragina
- Vasily Lanovoy as Anatole Kuragin
- Irina Gubanova as Sonya Rostova
- Oleg Yefremov as Fyodor Dolokhov
- Eduard Martsevich as Boris Drubetskoy
- Aleksandr Borisov as Uncle Rostov
- Nikolai Rybnikov as Vasily Denisov
- Viktor Murganov as Alexander I of Russia
- Larisa Borisenko as Mlle. Bourienne
- Georgy Millyar as Morel
- Nonna Mordyukova as Anisya
- Anna Timiryova as old lady
- Boris Khmelnitsky as Bolkonsky\'s adjutant
- Valeri Yeremichev as Alexander Ostermann-Tolstoy
- Boris Smirnov as Vasili Kuragin
- Nikolai Tolkachyov as Kirill Bezukhov
- Dzhemma Firsova as Katishe Mamontova
- Mikhail Khrabrov as Platon Karataev
- Nikolay Trofimov as Tushin
- Vladislav Strzhelchik as Napoleon
- Jānis Grantiņš as Ludwig von Wolzogen
- Dz. Eizentāls as Carl von Clausewitz
- Galina Kravchenko as Marya Karagina
- Boris Molchanov as Louis-Nicolas Davout
- Lev Polyakov as Jacques Lauriston
- Rodion Aleksandrov as Alexander Balashov
- Anastasiya Vertinskaya as Lisa Bolkonskaya
- Nikita Mikhalkov as Russian soldier
- Giuli Chokhonelidze as Pyotr Bagration
- Vadim Safronov as Francis II
- Jean-Claude Ballard as Ramballe
- Yelena Tyapkina as Marya Dmitryevna
- Sergei Yermilov as Petya Rostov
- Herberts Zommers as Count Benningsen
- Nikolai Bubnov as Karl Mack von Leiberich
- Angelina Stepanova as Anna Scherer
- Erwin Knausmüller as Franz von Weyrother
- Mikhail Pogorzhelsky as Michael Andreas Barclay de Tolly
- Leonid Vidavsky as Paisi Kaysarov
- Nikolai Grinko as Dessalles


# War and Peace (film series)
### Inception
In August 1959, King Vidor\'s American-Italian co-production *War and Peace* was released in the Soviet Union, attracting 31.4 million viewers and gaining wide acclaim. The impending 150th anniversary of the 1812 French Invasion, as well as the worldwide success of Vidor\'s adaptation of the Russian national epic -- at a time when the USSR and the United States were competing for prestige -- motivated the Soviet Minister of Culture Yekaterina Furtseva to begin planning a local picture based on Leo Tolstoy\'s novel. An open letter which appeared in the Soviet press, signed by many of the country\'s filmmakers, declared: \"It is a matter of honor for the Soviet cinema industry, to produce a picture which will surpass the American-Italian one in its artistic merit and authenticity.\" According to *Der Spiegel*, the film was to serve as a \"counterstrike\" to Vidor.
During 1960, several leading Soviet directors proposed themselves to head the project, including Mikhail Romm and Sergei Gerasimov. But soon, the only viable candidate remaining was Ivan Pyryev. As his selection to the position seemed secure, several officials in the Ministry of Culture offered it to forty-year-old Sergei Bondarchuk, who had completed his directorial debut, *Fate of a Man*, in 1959. Bondarchuk had not sought the position and did not know of the proposal until a letter from the Ministry reached him, but he chose to accept it and contend with Pyryev.


# War and Peace (film series)
### Inception
Fedor Razzakov wrote that the invitation of Bondarchuk was orchestrated by Pyryev\'s many enemies in the establishment, who were determined not to let him receive the lucrative project. In early February 1961, a letter endorsing Bondarchuk was sent to the Minister, signed by several prominent figures from the cinema industry. At first, Furtseva decreed that both candidates would each direct a pilot to be screened before a commission. However, Pyryev soon withdrew his bid. Razzakov believed he had done so after realizing his chances were slim: Bondarchuk, whose career began only during the Thaw, represented a generation of young directors promoted by Nikita Khrushchev\'s Kremlin to replace the old filmmakers from the Stalin era. In the end of February, after Pyryev conceded, the Minister held a meeting and confirmed Bondarchuk as the director.

### Development
The director\'s screenplay of *War and Peace*
On 3 April 1961, Vladimir Surin, the director-general of the Mosfilm studios, sent Furtseva a letter requesting to approve the adaptation of a script for a film in three parts based on *War and Peace*, as well as to allocate 150,000 Soviet rubles in funds. On 5 May the Minister replied, authorizing to begin writing the scenario and granting R30,000. On that day, the work on the picture began.
Bondarchuk hired Vasily Solovyov, a playwright, as his assistant for composing the script. The two later changed the earlier premise and decided to make four parts instead of three. They chose to downplay or exclude completely several of Tolstoy\'s plotlines and themes, in order not to make the film too cumbersome: the episodes concerning Nikolai Rostov and Maria Bolkonskaya were reduced, and Anatole Kuragin received a slightly better treatment. The author\'s views on philosophy and history were substantially redacted.
The Mosfilm directorate approved the finished script on 27 February 1962. On 20 March, in a plenum in the Ministry of Culture attended by Surin and the State Committee for Cinematography\'s deputy chairman Basakov, Furtseva approved the scenario and requested all relevant agencies to assist the producers, including the Ministry of Defense, which was deemed central in providing support for the project.


# War and Peace (film series)
### Development
The producers appointed three military advisers: Army General Vladimir Kurasov became the film\'s chief consultant, and Army General Markian Popov assisted as well; Lieutenant General Nikolai Oslikovsky was brought as an expert on cavalry. The Soviet Army would supply thousands of soldiers as extras during the filming.
More than forty museums contributed historical artifacts, such as chandeliers, furniture and cutlery, to create an authentic impression of the early 19th-century Russia. Thousands of costumes were sewn, mainly military uniform of the sorts worn in the Napoleonic Wars, including 11,000 shakos. Sixty obsolete cannons were cast and 120 wagons and carts constructed for the production.
Anticipating the need for cavalry, line producer Nikolai Ivanov and General Osilkovsky began seeking appropriate horses. While the cavalry formations of the Army were long abolished, several units in the Transcaucasian Military District and the Turkestan Military District retained horse-drawn mountain artillery. In addition to those, the Ministry of Agriculture gave away nine hundred horses and the Moscow City Police organized a detachment from its mounted regiment. The producers also needed to arrange hounds for the wolf hunting at the Rostov estate. At first, it was planned to use Borzois, as depicted in the novel. Sixteen such were obtained from individual private owners, but the dogs had no experience in hunting and were hard to handle. Eventually, scent hounds supplied by the Ministry of Defense chased down the wolves -- provided by the zoological department of the State Studio for Popular Science Films -- while the Borzoi caught them.


# War and Peace (film series)
### Casting
Bondarchuk began holding auditions in May 1961. Oleg Strizhenov received the leading role of Prince Andrei Bolkonsky. However, in spring 1962, shortly before the commencing of principal photography, Strizhenov changed his mind after being accepted into the ensemble of the Moscow Art Theatre. Bondarchuk complained to the Ministry of Culture. Furtseva spoke with the actor, but failed to convince him. The director then tried to enlist Innokenty Smoktunovsky, who was supposed to star in Grigori Kozintsev\'s *Hamlet*. After deliberations, Smoktunovsky accepted Bondarchuk\'s offer, but Kozintsev used his influence in the Ministry and received his actor back. As a last resort, Vyacheslav Tikhonov was given the role. He first arrived on the set in mid-December 1962, three months after filming began.
Bondarchuk envisaged the character of Pierre Bezukhov as having great physical strength, in accordance with his description by Tolstoy. Therefore, he had offered the role to Olympic weightlifter Yury Vlasov, and even rehearsed with him. Vlasov soon gave it up, telling the director that he had no acting skills. Bondarchuk then cast himself as the protagonist. His wife, actress Irina Skobtseva, portrayed Hélène Kuragina, Pierre\'s first wife. During the making of the third and fourth part in the series, a journalist named Yury Devochkin, who resembled the director, substituted him in many of the scenes.
Anastasiya Vertinskaya, Lyudmila Gurchenko and other known actresses wanted to portray Natasha Rostova, but Bondarchuk chose the inexperienced 19-year-old ballerina Ludmila Savelyeva, who had just recently graduated from Vaganova Academy of Russian Ballet. Nikita Mikhalkov was cast as Natasha\'s little brother, Petya Rostov, but as he was in the age of adolescence and quickly growing up, he had to abandon the role in favor of the younger Sergei Yermilov.


# War and Peace (film series)
### Casting
Tikhonov was the highest-paid member of the cast, and received R22,228 for portraying Bolkonsky. Bondarchuk earned R21,679 for directing and 20,100 for depicting Pierre. Savelyeva got R10,685. Most other actors received less than R3,000.

### Cinematography
The hussar officer\'s pelisse worn by actor Nikolai Rybnikov, who portrayed Denisov
Before beginning principal photography, the producers resolved to shoot the picture with 70-mm. wide-format and high-resolution film instead of the standard 35-mm. Though they considered purchasing it from Kodak or from ORWO in the German Democratic Republic, they at last decided to use Soviet-made film stock manufactured in the Shostka Chemical Plant, both because of financial shortcomings and for considerations of national pride. Director of photography Anatoly Petritsky recalled that the Shostka film was \"of horrible quality\" and that he often would photograph a sequence only to discover the film was defective. This -- as well as the need to cover large crowds from many angles -- forced the director to repeat many of the scenes; some of the more elaborate battle sequences were retaken more than forty times. According to *Kommersant* journalist Yevgeni Zhirnov, Bondarchuk had to re-shoot more than 10% of the footage in the picture due to problems with the film stock; Zhirnov estimated that this raised the cost of production by 10% to 15% or more.
The first cinematographers, husband and wife Alexander Shelenkov and Yu-Lan Chen, quarreled with Bondarchuk on several occasions. On 20 May 1963, half a year after commencing photography, they wrote to Surin, asking to be dismissed from work on the picture and stating that Bondarchuk \"dictated without consulting with the crew.\" Their 31-year-old assistant Petritsky, who had made only one film previously, was appointed in their stead.


# War and Peace (film series)
### Cinematography
The operators pioneered photographic techniques which had never before been used in Soviet cinema. Aerial lifts with cameras were hoisted over sets to create \"a cannonball view\". When filming Natasha\'s first ball, an operator with a hand-held camera circled between the dancing extras on roller skates. The crowd scenes were shot using cranes and helicopters. Another new feature was the sound technicians\' use of a six-channel audio recording system.

### Principal photography
A costume used during the filming
On 7 September 1962, the 150th anniversary of the Battle of Borodino, principal photography began. The first scene to be filmed depicted the execution of suspected arsonists by the French Army, and was shot in the Novodevichy Convent. After a few days, the crew moved into the Moscow Kremlin for further work. Later that month, the hunt in the Rostov\'s estate was filmed in the village of Bogoslavskoye, in the Yasnogorsky District.
On 1 December, Bondarchuk and the production team, with 150 wagons of equipment, traveled to Mukachevo in the Zakarpattia Oblast. The director had only planned to photograph two episodes there: the Battle of Schöngrabern and the Battle of Austerlitz. But due to the harsh winter, none of those could be shot. Bondarchuk revised his plans and decided to film in Zakarpattia 231 scenes that were supposed to be made elsewhere, while waiting for the weather to improve. The Battle of Krasnoi episode and its related parts were filmed in the snow, and involved 2,500 Soviet soldiers, allocated as extras, who wore French uniforms and 500 in Russian ones. When conditions enabled it, 3,000 soldiers from the Carpathian Military District re-created the Battle of Schöngrabern near the village of Kushtanovytsia. The Battle of Austerlitz was filmed in the vicinity of Svaliava. As the budget was exceeded due to the weather and film stock problems, Bondarchuk had to refrain from filming several battle sequences. On 17 May, the crew returned to the capital.


# War and Peace (film series)
### Principal photography
On 20 July, the producers went on another expedition, to Dorogobuzh, in order to film the Battle of Borodino and the related parts of the plot. Photography could not be carried out in Borodino itself, mainly because of the many memorials located there. On 1 August, work was commenced. The shooting of the battle itself began on 25 August 1963 -- its 151st anniversary by the Julian Calendar. 13,500 soldiers and 1,500 horsemen substituted for the historical armies (Several reports in the Western press have put the number of soldiers who participated at 120,000; however, in an 1986 interview to *National Geographic*, Bondarchuk stated: \"That is exaggeration, all I had was 12,000.\") The troops were supposed to return to their bases after thirteen days, but eventually remained for three months. 23 tons of gunpowder, handled by 120 sappers, and 40,000 liters of kerosene were used for the pyrotechnics, as well as 10,000 smoke grenades. Tens of thousands of cubic meters of soil were dug out to construct earthworks resembling the Bagration flèches and the Raevsky redoubt. The set was divided to sectors, and a system of loudspeakers was installed -- one for each area -- to enable the director to coordinate the troops\' movements. On 4 November, the session ended and Bondarchuk went back to Moscow.
From the end of December to mid-June 1964, the crew worked in Mosfilm\'s studios. Most notably, Natasha\'s debutante ball was photographed there, with five hundred extras. On 15 June, the production team went to Leningrad, where shooting took place in the Hermitage Museum, the Summer Garden, the Peter and Paul Fortress and in Vasilyevsky Island. Upon his return to the studio on 7 July, Bondarchuk was abruptly instructed by his superiors to abandon all other work and focus on preparing the first two parts for the 1965 Moscow Film Festival, contrary to all former designs and while they were far from finished. During the same month, he suffered a major cardiac arrest and was clinically dead for a short while. His first words after regaining consciousness were: \"If I die, let Gerasimov finish it\". Filming was postponed until late September.


# War and Peace (film series)
### Principal photography
In spite of the tight schedule, *Andrei Bolkonsky* and *Natasha Rostova* were completed and submitted to Mosfilm\'s directorate on 30 June 1965, less than a week before the festival. The two had their world premiere on 19 July 1965, in the Kremlin Palace of Congresses. During July, Bondarchuk suffered another heart attack: this time, he was clinically dead for four minutes. The white wall of light seen by Bolkonsky before his death was inspired by the director\'s experience.
The work on the remaining episodes of parts 3 and 4 resumed on 9 August. During the next months, the crew filmed in Mozhaysk, Kalinin and Zvenigorod. The final plot line to be shot was the Fire of Moscow; filming began on 17 October 1966. For four months prior to that, a plywood set was built in the village of Teryayevo, next to the Joseph-Volokolamsk Monastery. The entire construction, doused with diesel fuel, was burned to the ground as five fire engines stood nearby. Principal photography ended on 28 October 1966. On 28 December, the edited third film was approved by the studio. Work on the fourth and final one continued until early August 1967.

### Budget
In 1962, officials in the Ministry of Culture estimated *War and Peace* would cost some 4 million rubles, not including support from the Army. In comparison, the most expensive Soviet film until then, the 1952 *The Unforgettable Year 1919*, cost R1.093 million in prices adjusted to the 1961 monetary reform. *War and Peace* remains the costliest picture to be made in the USSR.
On 20 March 1962, Furtseva set a preliminary budget of R1.395 million. On 21 May 1963, the Ministry approved a plan for a series in four parts with a budget of R8,165,200. On 25 August 1964, the State Committee for Cinematography issued a directive revisiting the terms, authorizing to spend R8.5 million, of which R2.51 million were to cover the expenses of the Ministry of Defense. Producer Nikolai Ivanov recalled: \"the domestic press later claimed the budget was R18 million or R25 million, but they had 8.5 million and managed to reduce expenditures to 7.8 million during principal photography.\"


# War and Peace (film series)
### Budget
Towards the end of post-production, the total cost forecast estimated was R8,083,412. However, in August 1967, with all work completed, \"the last debit and credit entries were written in the books. According to its financial statements, the film consumed 8,291,712 ruble.\" This was equal to \$9,213,013 by the 1967 exchange rate, or to approximately \$60--70 million in 2021, accounting for ruble inflation.
Various estimates of the series\' budget circulated in the international press. *The New York Times* reported it was \"the most expensive film ever made\... Russians say cost \$100 million\". This figure was repeated throughout the American press. *The New York Times* estimated this figure to be equivalent to \$700 million upon adjustment for inflation to 2007 levels, a claim it reiterated in 2019. After its release in the United Kingdom in 1969, *The Annual Register* announced it \"reputedly\" cost £40 million (\$96 million). The 1979 *Guinness Book of World Records* published a similar number, claiming *War and Peace* was \"the most expensive film ever made\" based on that \"the total cost has been officially stated to be more than \$96 million.\" Other estimates put the cost of production between \$25 million and \$60 million.

### Distribution
The distribution (along with the displaying and later preserving) of such a massive piece of work posed physical difficulties. Already the whopping 20 canisters of film reels made transportation a sizable hassle.


# War and Peace (film series)
### Distribution
*Andrei Bolkonsky* was screened in two consecutive parts, released in a total of 2,805 copies in March 1966. In the fifteen months afterwards, the first sold 58.3 million tickets in the USSR, and 58 million of the viewers remained through the intermission. Thus, *Bolkonsky* became the most successful film of the year. Respectively, its two parts are also the 26th and 27th most watched from among all pictures ever made in the Soviet Union. *Natasha Rostova*, which opened in July with 1,405 copies disseminated, performed less well and attracted 36.2 million viewers in the same time period, reaching the third place in the 1966 box office, although it would have been ninth if counted in 1967. Admission for the two final parts deteriorated further: *1812*, with 1,407 copies released, had 21 million admissions and *Pierre Bezukhov* sold merely 19.8 million tickets; they made it to the 13th and 14th place at the 1967 box office.
Russian film critic Sergei Kudryavtsev assessed the series\' domestic returns were \"probably in the range\" of R58 million, while Razzakov assumed each ticket cost an average price of 25 kopeck. With a total of some 135 million tickets sold, *War and Peace* was considered a resounding commercial success at the time.
The series was screened in 117 countries around the world, including Spain, Japan, West Germany, Denmark, Belgium, Egypt, and Argentina. In East Germany, the state-owned DEFA studio produced a slightly shorter edition of the series, dubbed to German, which ran 409 minutes and maintained the four-part order of the original. Among others, it featured Angelica Domröse, who voiced Lisa Bolkonskaya. It attracted 2,225,649 viewers in the German Democratic Republic. In West Germany, a much shorter version was released, totaling 337 minutes. In the People\'s Republic of Poland, it sold over 5,000,000 tickets in 1967. In France, *War and Peace* had 1,236,327 admissions.


# War and Peace (film series)
### Distribution
Walter Reade Jr.\'s company Continental Distributors purchased the U.S rights of *War and Peace* for \$1.5 million. Reade\'s associates shortened the American version of the film by an hour, and added English-language dubbing. This edition was directed by Lee Kresel of Titan Productions and narrated by Norman Rose. Its premiere was held in the DeMille Theater, New York, on 28 April 1968, and attended by actresses Ludmila Savelyeva and Irina Skobtseva, as well as ambassadors Anatoly Dobrynin and Yakov Malik. Tickets for the picture were later sold for \$5.50--\$7.50 -- the highest admission rate ever, breaking the previous \$6 record of *Funny Girl*. On 23 January 1969, Kresel\'s edition opened in London\'s Curzun cinema.
The US television network ABC broadcast *War and Peace* over four days, 12--15 August 1972. The series was broadcast on BBC2 on Christmas Day 1976, split into two 4-hour sections with a 30-minute intermission.

### Awards
In July 1965, *War and Peace* was awarded the Grand Prix at the 4th Moscow International Film Festival together with the Hungarian entry *Twenty Hours*. Ludmila Savelyeva was presented with an honorary diploma. The readers of *Sovetskii Ekran*, the official publication of the State Committee for Cinematography, chose Savelyeva and Vyacheslav Tikhonov for the best actress and actor of 1966, in recognition of their appearance in the picture. In the same year, *War and Peace* also received the Million Pearl Award of the Roei Association of Film Viewers in Japan.
In 1967, the film was entered into the 1967 Cannes Film Festival, outside of the competition. It was sent there instead of Andrei Tarkovsky\'s *Andrei Rublev*, which was invited by the festival\'s organizers but deemed inappropriate by the Soviet government.
In the United States, it won the Golden Globe Award for Best Foreign Language Film in the 26th Golden Globe Awards. The picture was the Soviet entry to the 41st Academy Awards, held on 14 April 1969. It received the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film and was nominated for the Best Art Direction.


# War and Peace (film series)
### Awards
*War and Peace* was the first Soviet picture to win the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film, and was the longest film ever to receive an Academy Award until *O.J.: Made in America* won the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature in 2017. The Oscar statuette was confiscated by Soviet authorities upon return (presumably along the Golden Globe statuette).
It also won the National Board of Review Award for Best Foreign Language Film and the New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Foreign Language Film for 1968.
In 1970, it was nominated for the BAFTA Award for Best Production Design in the 23rd British Academy Film Awards.

### Critical response
Soviet film critic Rostislav Yurenev wrote that *War and Peace* was \"the most ambitious and monumental adaptation of the greatest work of Russian literature ... set out to convey in tremendous scope the historical conception of Leo Tolstoy, his extraordinarily vivid and profound depiction of humanity.\" In a second review, he added: \"the desire for ever greater depth of penetration into the human character, of every aspect of it ... led to Sergei Bondarchuk\'s adaptation of Tolstoy. The outcome is truly marvelous.\"
*Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung* reviewer Brigitte Jeremias stated the film presented history \"with great meticulousness and choreographic quality .... This is a conservative, romantic or perhaps even classical historical film .... But it strives for authenticity, and is therefore incomparably better than Vidor\'s adaptation.\"


# War and Peace (film series)
### Critical response
French critic Georges Sadoul commented: \"more than in the sheer scale of the battle scenes\", the film\'s \"merit lies in its sense of the Russian landscape\", to continue: \"Though perhaps an impressive example of film-making on large scale,\" it was \"ponderous by any standard\" and \"tediously faithful\" to the novel, with \"none of its narrative flair or spirit .... Occasional bravura or touching episodes are not adequate for the dogged pedantry.\" Claude Mauriac wrote in *Le Figaro littéraire* that \"we have already seen many Soviet films .... But this is the most beautiful I have seen since, well, since when?\" Peter Cowie noted that Bondarchuk brought to his adaptation \"the epic sweep that had eluded King Vidor.\" Joseph Gelmis of *Newsday* agreed that the film was \"superior to Vidor\'s as drama and spectacle. Bondartchouk isn\'t an innovator. Instead he uses virtually every movie technique extant \... an antiwar film that celebrates life, love, renewal\".


# War and Peace (film series)
### Critical response
Renata Adler of the *New York Times* wrote that \"the characters -- including Savelyeva ... who looks a little queasy, and Bondarchuk, too old to play Pierre -- are dowdy automata.\" She added the film was \"vulgar in the sense that it takes something great and makes it both pretentious and devoid of life .... A failure in the sense that it is not even as enjoyable as any number of lesser films.\" Adler also disapproved of the English dubbing, opining \"although it is remarkable -- an outer limit of what can be done -- it was a mistake\" and \"proves once and for all the futility of dubbing.\" *The New Yorker* critic Penelope Gilliatt had lambasted the process as well: \"the decision to tack on alien voices seems madness.\" Judith Crist wrote in *New York Magazine*: \"Those Russians...! And now, I bet they\'ll beat us to the moon! Chauvinism be damned -- I\'m putting *Gone with the Wind* into historic perspective and second place, for certainly *War and Peace* is not only ... the finest epic of our time, but also a great and noble translation of a literary masterpiece, surpassing our expectation and imagination.\"


# War and Peace (film series)
### Critical response
The *Time* magazine reviewer wrote that the film \"escapes greatness, except in cost and length ... the movie is awesome in war and pusillanimous in peace.\" In the novel, unlike in the picture, \"the war is only the background .... Pierre and Andrei are only shallow, literal representations of Tolstoy\'s characters .... Moreover, the dubbing is disastrous.\" Richard Schickel of *Life* noted that the film\'s American distributors \"have cut and dubbed it, ruining any merit it may have had\" but the original \"had its own deficiencies .... Missing is Tolstoy\'s theory of history as well as his Christian message (neither fits Marxist theory very well), and without this underpinning the film lacks power and purpose.\" Roger Ebert commented that it was \"a magnificently unique film .... Bondarchuk, however, is able to balance the spectacular, the human, and the intellectual. Even in the longest, bloodiest, battle scenes there are vignettes that stand out .... It is as spectacular as a movie can possibly be and yet it has a human fullness.\"
Review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes reports that 100% of 19 reviews were positive, with an average rating of 8.97/10.


# War and Peace (film series)
### Analysis
Ian Aitken regarded *War and Peace* as \"one of the most important\" films produced during the 1964--68 transition from the Khrushchev Thaw to the Brezhnev Stagnation. In that period, the liberal atmosphere of the Thaw was still felt, although it was being marginalized as Soviet cinema became more restrained. The picture \"departed from the officially sanctioned forms of Socialist realism\" and rather, conformed to György Lukács\' model of intensive totality in several aspects: it was based on a classic realist novel which itself influenced Lukács; had a complex plot structure, and portrayed the relations of individuals in a social context. Aitken added that at the same time, the picture employed several \"overtly modernist\" techniques: \"symbolic, anti-realist use of color ... disembodied speech, rapid editing ... reflexive, hand-held camera.\" The author believed the film\'s \"chief importance\" laid in its demonstration of how \"the Lukácsian model of intensive totality can be given a successful modernist inflection.\" He also noted that while it was an example of critical realism rather than socialist realism and had modernist characteristics, *War and Peace* was \"politically innocuous enough\" to be celebrated by the Brezhnev government as a great achievement.