The year 1998 in film involved many significant films, including Shakespeare in Love, Saving Private Ryan, Armageddon, American History X, The Truman Show, Primary Colors, Rushmore, Rush Hour, There's Something About Mary, The Big Lebowski, and Terrence Malick's directorial return in The Thin Red Line. DreamWorks SKG released its first two animated films: Antz and The Prince of Egypt. The Pokémon theatrical film series started with Pokémon: The First Movie. Warner Bros. Pictures celebrated its 75th anniversary.
Kroonstad is the third largest city in the Free State and lies two hours' drive on the N1 from Gauteng. Maokeng is an area within Kroonstad, and is occasionally used as a synonym of the town itself. It is the second-largest commercial and urban centre in the Northern Free State, and an important railway junction on the main line from Cape Town to Johannesburg. Maokeng is Sesotho and means "place of the thorn trees ".
The Protector is a 1985 Hong Kong-American action film directed by James Glickenhaus and starring Jackie Chan, Danny Aiello and Roy Chiao. It was Chan's second attempt at breaking into the American film market, after 1980 film The Big Brawl, which had moderate box office success but was considered a disappointment. Conflicts between Glickenhaus and Chan during production led to two official versions of the film: Glickenhaus' original version for American audiences and a Hong Kong version re-edited by Jackie Chan. The original Glickenhaus version was a box office failure in North America, while Chan's edited version was a moderate success in Asia; the film was also moderately successful in Europe. Chan later directed Police Story (1985) as a response to this film.
Isidingo was a South African soap opera, with dialogue mostly in English and isiXhosa. The series premiered on SABC 3 in July 1998 and was broadcast evenings on SABC 3 from Monday to Friday at 19:00. Until 2001 it was titled Isidingo: The Need.
Near Dark is a 1987 American neo-Western horror film co-written and directed by Kathryn Bigelow, and starring Adrian Pasdar, Jenny Wright, Bill Paxton, Lance Henriksen and Jenette Goldstein. The plot follows a young man in a small Oklahoma town who becomes involved with a family of nomadic American vampires.
Blacula is a 1972 American blaxploitation horror film directed by William Crain. It stars William Marshall in the title role about an 18th-century African prince named Mamuwalde, who is turned into a vampire by Count Dracula in the Count's castle in Transylvania in the year 1780 after Dracula refuses to help Mamuwalde suppress the slave trade.
Poul David Reichhardt was a Danish actor, well known for his roles in Danish 1940s/1950s comedies. Later on, he also played more serious and varied roles; he has also starred in Huset på Christianshavn, Matador and as various minor characters in the Olsen-banden films.
James Bartlett was a British-born South African actor best known for his role as the wicked puppet master, David Genaro, in Rhythm City and his theatre work.
Night World is a 1932 American pre-Code drama film featuring Lew Ayres, Mae Clarke, and Boris Karloff. The supporting cast includes George Raft and Hedda Hopper.
Satisfaction is a 1988 American comedy-drama film directed by Joan Freeman and starring Justine Bateman and Liam Neeson. Primarily known today as Julia Roberts' first credited big-screen role, Satisfaction is also one of the few theatrical productions by either Aaron Spelling or the NBC network.
Sara Canning is a Canadian actress. She co-starred on The CW television series The Vampire Diaries as Jenna Sommers, and appeared in the 2009 feature film, Black Field. She starred as Dylan Weir in the Canadian television series, Primeval: New World, and as Dr. Melissa Conner on the Global medical drama Remedy. Canning appeared in the 2017 theatrical film War for the Planet of the Apes. She is also known for her role as Jacquelyn Scieszka in the Netflix TV series A Series of Unfortunate Events.
David James is a South African film, theatre and television actor known mainly for playing the villainous Koobus Venter in the 2009 Oscar-nominated science fiction film District 9. He is also known to South African audiences for his 2004-2006 appearance as "Mad Dog" on the long-running soap opera Isidingo, for his portrayal as Joel Joffe in the large-scale and well-received 2010 and 2011 stage productions of Rivonia Trial, and for his role as radio station manager Hermanus Meyer on the soap opera Rhythm City.
Sniper: Reloaded is a 2011 American direct to video action film which was directed by Claudio Fäh and was the fourth installment in the Sniper film series and a sequel to Sniper 3 (2004). This film is the first in the series of Sniper that does not feature the character of Thomas Beckett, who was portrayed by Tom Berenger.
Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter is a 2012 American supernatural horror action film directed by Timur Bekmambetov and based on the novel of the same name by Seth Grahame-Smith, depicting a fictionalized history of the American Civil War with the eponymous 16th president of the United States reimagined as having a secret identity as a lifelong vampire hunter fighting against a caste of vampiric slave owners. Benjamin Walker stars as Abraham Lincoln with supporting roles by Dominic Cooper, Anthony Mackie, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Rufus Sewell, and Marton Csokas.
Winnie Mandela is a 2011 South African-Canadian historical drama film starring Jennifer Hudson and Terrence Howard as Winnie and Nelson Mandela. Based on Anne Marie du Preez Bezrob's biography Winnie Mandela: A Life, the film is directed by Darrell Roodt and co-stars Wendy Crewson, Elias Koteas and Justin Strydom. Image Entertainment released the film in theaters on September 6, 2013. It received generally negative reviews.
Late Nite News with Loyiso Gola is a South African late-night satirical news television series that aired weekly on e.tv and eNCA from September 2010 to April 2015. The show, featuring a variety of local stand-up comedians, was created by comedians Loyiso Gola and Kagiso Lediga, and Producer Tamsin Andersson. It was launched in 2010. It is a collaboration between private broadcaster eNCA and production company Diprente.
Madiba is a three-part American biographical drama television miniseries documenting the true lifelong struggle of Xhosa human rights activist, lawyer, political prisoner, and eventual president of South Africa Nelson Mandela to overthrow the oppressive regime of institutionalized racism and segregation known as apartheid. The series stars Laurence Fishburne, Orlando Jones, David Harewood, Michael Nyqvist, Terry Pheto, Jason Kennett and Kate Liquorish. The three-part miniseries made its debut on BET on February 1, 2017, concluding on February 15, 2017.
Daniel Robitaille, colloquially known as Candyman, is a fictional character and the main antagonist of the Candyman film series. The character originated in Clive Barker's 1985 short story, "The Forbidden". In the film series, he is depicted as an African-American man who was brutally murdered for a forbidden 19th-century interracial love affair; he returns as an urban legend, and kills anyone who summons him by saying his name five times in front of a mirror. The character is played by Tony Todd in Candyman (1992), Candyman: Farewell to the Flesh (1995), and Candyman: Day of the Dead (1999); Todd reprises the role in Candyman (2021), a sequel of the original 1992 film, with additional forms – souls brought into the Candyman "hive" – Sherman Fields, William Bell, Samuel Evans, George Stinney, James Byrd Jr., Gil Cartwright, and Anthony McCoy.
Siyabonga Thwala is a South African television and stage actor, television host, producer and businessman. He is most well known for his role of Mpiyakhe Zungu on Mzansi Magic's Isibaya. Siyabonga Thwala has starred and appeared in a number of high profile television shows in South Africa winning multiple awards for his acting.
Blade, born Eric Cross Brooks and also known as The Daywalker, is a fictional character primarily portrayed by Wesley Snipes and Sticky Fingaz in the New Line Cinema Blade franchise, based on the Marvel Comics character of the same name created by writer Marv Wolfman and illustrator Gene Colan. Unlike the comics, in which Blade was depicted as a green-suited human immune to vampire bites, Blade is depicted as a sunglasses and leather-wearing dhampir, who gained his abilities after his mother was bitten by a vampire while giving birth to him. A variation of this storyline was integrated into Spider-Man: The Animated Series by John Semper in 1995 ahead of the first Blade (1998) film being made, adapted from an early script for the film by David S. Goyer, and was ultimately integrated into comics as well in 1999, retconning Blade's original origin; Blade's redesigned costume was also integrated. Following two further sequel films starring Snipes: Blade II (2002) and Blade: Trinity (2004), Fingaz was cast to replace him in Blade: The Series in 2006. After discussions to have Snipes reprise the role in a crossover film with the Underworld film series and the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) fell through, Mahershala Ali took over the role. In October 2021, Marvel Comics writer Daniel Kibblesmith wrote one-shot The Darkhold: Blade which follows Snipes' version of the character.
