David Giancola | |
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Born | Rutland, Vermont, U.S. | June 24, 1969
Occupation(s) | Film Director, Screenwriter, Producer, Cinematographer |
David Giancola (born June 24, 1969) is a Vermont-based American filmmaker. [1] Born in Rutland, Vermont, he has directed, produced, and/or functioned as director of photography on over 35 feature films as of December 2019.
Giancola's first short film was an adaptation of the comic book The Spirit , made with the blessing of comic book legend Will Eisner and featuring original artwork from the master cartoonist. At age 21, with no film school training, he wrote and directed his first feature, the meager-budget (now cult) sci-fi film Time Chasers . Giancola then directed over twenty feature films and TV movies, including Icebreaker , Lightning - Fire From The Sky, Moving Targets, Landslide, and Moonlight & Mistletoe . He was elected an IATSE 600 cinematographer in 2002 and ran both the boutique editing facility Post Monsters as well as the lighting/grip rental company New England Light & Grip.
Giancola cast the likes of Jesse Eisenberg, Chris Evans, Kate Bosworth, Paul Dano, Josh Peck, Todd G. Hutchinson, and Billy Ray Cyrus in their first starring roles. He has also directed the likes of Bruce Campbell, Stacy Keach, Sean Astin, Morgan Fairchild, James Coburn, and Tim Blake Nelson. In 2005, he attempted to continue his out-of-the-box casting style with the campy comedy Illegal Aliens , starring WWF wrestler Chyna and Anna Nicole Smith in her last performance. The film was a disaster due to the overdose deaths of Smith and her son (who is credited as a co-producer) and flopped badly. Later, using extensive behind-the-scenes footage, Giancola turned his ill fortune into the critically acclaimed documentary Addicted to Fame , which the late Roger Ebert called, “Probably the best movie about the making of a B-Movie ever made”.[ citation needed ]
Giancola’s first film, Time Chasers, garnered him his largest fan base. The film continues to be popular around the world as T-shirts, soundtrack CDs, DVDs and other merchandise continue to be gobbled up by fans of the cult favorite, which has been featured on Mystery Science Theater 3000 and on 1600 screens theatrically on RiffTrax. The film was re-released digitally in HD and on Blu-ray in 2020.
Giancola operates the production company Edgewood Studios, which released the award-winning sci-fi/action feature Axcellerator in 2020, which stars Ryan Wesen, Sam J. Jones, Sean Young, John James, Maxwell Caulfield, and Laura James. Giancola is also a co-owner of numerous businesses in central Vermont, including ventures in commercial and residential real estate.
Destroy All Monsters is a 1968 Japanese epic kaiju film directed by Ishirō Honda, with special effects directed by Sadamasa Arikawa and supervised by Eiji Tsuburaya. The film, which was produced and distributed by Toho Co., Ltd, is the ninth film in the Godzilla franchise, and features eleven monster characters, including Godzilla, Mothra, Rodan, King Ghidorah, Anguirus, and Minilla. The film stars Akira Kubo, Jun Tazaki, Yukiko Kobayashi and Yoshio Tsuchiya.
Galaxy Quest is a 1999 American satirical science fiction comedy film directed by Dean Parisot and written by David Howard and Robert Gordon. A parody of and homage to science-fiction films and series, especially Star Trek and its fandom, the film depicts the cast of a fictional cult television series, Galaxy Quest, who are drawn into a real interstellar conflict by actual aliens who think the series is an accurate documentary. It stars Tim Allen, Sigourney Weaver, Alan Rickman, Tony Shalhoub, Sam Rockwell, and Daryl Mitchell. The film was a modest box office success and positively received by critics: It won the Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation and the Nebula Award for Best Script. It was also nominated for 10 Saturn Awards, including Best Science Fiction Film and Best Director for Parisot, Best Actress for Weaver, and Best Supporting Actor for Rickman, with Allen winning Best Actor.
Rockne S. O'Bannon is an American television writer, screenwriter and producer, working primarily in the science fiction genre. O'Bannon has created five original television series.
Time Chasers is a 1994 science fiction film directed by David Giancola and starring Matthew Bruch, George Woodard, and Bonnie Pritchard. The film premiered in Rutland, Vermont on March 16, 1994 to three invitation-only showings, and in open release in Rutland theatres the next day. The film follows the adventures of an amateur inventor who goes through time with his female accomplice to stop an evil megacorporation intent on changing history for profit. The film was lampooned on Mystery Science Theater 3000 in 1997, and by Rifftrax in a live event broadcast on May 5, 2016.
Daniel Thomas O'Bannon was an American film screenwriter, director and visual effects supervisor, most closely associated in the science fiction and horror genres.
John James Anderson is an American actor and producer widely known to television audiences for his roles as Jeff Colby in both the prime-time soap opera Dynasty and its spin-off series The Colbys throughout the 1980s.
The Man Who Fell to Earth is a 1976 British science fantasy drama film directed by Nicolas Roeg and adapted by Paul Mayersberg. Based on Walter Tevis's 1963 novel of the same name, the film follows an extraterrestrial named Thomas Jerome Newton who crash-lands on Earth seeking a way to ship water to his planet, which is suffering from a severe drought, but finds himself at the mercy of human vices and corruption. It stars David Bowie, Candy Clark, Buck Henry, and Rip Torn. It was produced by Michael Deeley and Barry Spikings. The same novel was later adapted as a television film in 1987. A 2022 television series with the same name serves as a continuation of the film 45 years later, including featuring Newton as a character and showing archival footage from the film.
Neill Blomkamp is a South African and Canadian film director and screenwriter. He is known as the co-writer and director of the science fiction action film District 9 (2009), for which he was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay, and the director of the dystopian science fiction action film Elysium (2013), which garnered moderately positive reviews. He also directed the science fiction action film Chappie (2015) and the sports drama film Gran Turismo (2023).
Full Moon Features is an American independent motion picture production and distribution company headed by B-movie veteran Charles Band. It is known for the direct-to-video series Puppet Master, Trancers, and Subspecies, as well as the film Castle Freak and the VideoZone featurette through 1989 to 2013.
Illegal Aliens is a 2007 sci-fi/comedy B-movie starring Anna Nicole Smith and former professional wrestler Joanie Laurer. It was Smith's final film. The film received negative reviews at the time of its release.
Toronto After Dark Film Festival is a showcase of horror, sci-fi, action and cult cinema held annually in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. The festival premieres a diverse selection of feature-length and short-films from around the world including new works from Asia, Europe and North America.
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Moonlight and Mistletoe is a 2008 Christmas television film directed by Karen Arthur.
Remote Control is a 1988 American science fiction romantic comedy film written and directed by Jeff Lieberman, and starring Kevin Dillon as a Los Angeles video rental clerk who discovers that his store is circulating a VHS tape of a 1950s sci-fi film programmed by aliens to brainwash viewers, causing them to commit murders.
Event Horizon is a 1997 science fiction horror film directed by Paul W. S. Anderson and written by Philip Eisner. It stars Laurence Fishburne, Sam Neill, Kathleen Quinlan and Joely Richardson. Set in 2047, it follows a crew of astronauts sent on a rescue mission after a missing spaceship, the Event Horizon, spontaneously appears in orbit around Neptune, only to discover that a sinister force has come back with it.
Jeff Nichols is an American film director and screenwriter. His films are characterized by their Southern United States backdrop and ambience. He is also known for his longstanding collaboration with actor Michael Shannon, who has appeared in all of his feature films to date.
Absolutely Anything is a 2015 British science fantasy comedy film directed by Terry Jones, and written by Terry Jones and Gavin Scott. It stars Simon Pegg, Kate Beckinsale, Sanjeev Bhaskar, Rob Riggle, Eddie Izzard and Joanna Lumley, with the nonhuman characters' voices provided by John Cleese, Terry Gilliam, Eric Idle, Jones, Michael Palin and Robin Williams. It was the first movie to feature all living Monty Python members since Monty Python's The Meaning of Life (1983), and the first without Graham Chapman, who died in 1989. Principal photography and production began on 24 March 2014 and ended on 12 May that year. The film was released in the United Kingdom on 14 August 2015 by Lionsgate UK, and in the United States on 12 May 2017, grossing $6.3 million worldwide.
Icebreaker is a 2000 action film starring Sean Astin, Stacy Keach and Bruce Campbell and written and directed by David Giancola. It was filmed at the Killington Ski Resort in Killington, Vermont.
Jason Eisener is a Canadian filmmaker and film editor.