Nick Zedd was an American filmmaker, author, and painter based in Mexico City. He coined the term Cinema of Transgression in 1985 to describe a loose-knit group of like-minded filmmakers and artists using shock value and black humor in their work. These filmmakers and artistic collaborators included Richard Kern, Tessa Hughes Freeland, Lung Leg, Kembra Pfahler, Jack Smith and Lydia Lunch. Under numerous pen names, Zedd edited and wrote the Underground Film Bulletin (1984–1990) which publicized the work of these filmmakers. The Cinema of Transgression was explored in Jack Sargeant's book Deathtripping.
An underground film is a film that is out of the mainstream either in its style, genre or financing.
Scooby-Doo 2: Monsters Unleashed is a 2004 American mystery adventure comedy horror film based on the animated franchise Scooby-Doo. The second installment in the Scooby-Doo live-action film series and the sequel to 2002's Scooby-Doo, it was directed by Raja Gosnell, from a screenplay written by James Gunn, and stars Freddie Prinze Jr., Sarah Michelle Gellar, Linda Cardellini, Matthew Lillard, Seth Green, Tim Blake Nelson, Peter Boyle and Alicia Silverstone, with Neil Fanning reprising his role as the voice of Scooby-Doo.
Michelle Leigh Calaway is an American retired professional wrestler. She is best known for her tenure in WWE, where she is a former two-time, as well as first ever WWE Divas Champion and a two-time WWE Women's Champion.
Jillian Faye Hall is an American professional wrestler. She is best known for her tenure in WWE.
Amanda Lepore is an American transgender model, singer, and performance artist. A former Club Kid, she has appeared in advertising for numerous companies. Lepore is noted as a regular subject in photographer David LaChapelle's work, serving as his muse, as well as many other photographers, such as Terry Richardson and Ruben van Schalm. She participated in LaChapelle's Artists and Prostitutes 1985–2005 exhibit in New York City, where she "lived" in a voyeuristic, life-sized set.
Robin Antin is an American dancer and choreographer. In 1995, she founded the modern burlesque troupe the Pussycat Dolls. By 2005, she diversified into various media including a pop recording group with international hits, a Las Vegas nightclub venue and floor show, various merchandise, and a reality television series. Since then, she has gone on to create other girl groups, including G.R.L., Girlicious and Paradiso Girls.
Wendy Froud is an American doll-artist, sculptor, puppet-maker, and writer. She is best known for her work fabricating Yoda for the 1980 film Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back, for which she has been called "the mother of Yoda", and creatures for the Jim Henson films The Dark Crystal and Labyrinth.
Julianne Buescher is an American actress, puppeteer and writer who performs in film, television, radio, and on stage. As a voice actress, she is known for many roles including Anko Mitarashi on Naruto. Buescher is also a puppeteer for The Jim Henson Company, appearing with CeeLo Green as "Piddles the Pug" at the 2011 Grammy Awards and as the same character among others in the improvisational adult puppet shows (Puppet Up! and Crank Yankers). She also has worked for both Sesame Street and The Muppets.
Layla El is an English retired professional wrestler, dancer and model. She is best known for her tenure in WWE, under the mononymous ring name Layla. She danced for Carnival Cruise Lines, the Miami Heat franchise of the National Basketball Association, and Kanye West during his performance at the MTV Video Music Awards before becoming a contestant on the 2006 edition of WWE's Diva Search, which she won to earn a contract with the company.
Big Brother 8 is the eighth season of the American reality television series Big Brother It is based upon the Netherlands series of the same name, which gained notoriety in 1999 and 2000. The season premiered on CBS on July 5, 2007 and lasted eleven weeks until the live finale on September 18, 2007. The eighth season saw little to no change in ratings. The season premiered to 7.40 million viewers, the lowest premiere numbers for any season at the time. The season finale had 8.51 million viewers, making it the second lowest rated finale at the time. In total, the series averaged 7.52 million viewers, only 0.4 behind the previous edition. Big Brother 8 featured 14 HouseGuests, the same amount that was featured in the previous season. The series ended after 81 days, in which HouseGuest Dick Donato was crowned the winner, and his daughter Daniele Donato the runner-up.
Francis "Faceboy" Hall is an American actor, producer, and activist working in the New York City arts community. Hall, the younger brother of poet and King Missile frontman John S. Hall, is one of the founding members of the Art Stars. Hall has appeared in numerous stage productions and several films, including Robert Downey Sr.'s Too Much Sun and the television series 'Electra Elf'. In addition, Hall was a founding member of the Dance Liberation Front where he has worked to overturn New York City's "no dancing" cabaret laws. A poet and performer himself, Faceboy is best known as the host of the weekly Faceboyz Open Mic, which is now considered to be the longest continually running open mic in New York. He hosted 'Faceboyz Folliez', a monthly show that took place at the Bowery Poetry Club.
Carmen Electra is an American actress, model, singer, and media personality. She began her career as a singer after moving to Minneapolis where she met Prince who produced her self-titled debut studio album, which was released in 1993. Electra began modeling in 1996 with appearances in Playboy magazine, before relocating to Los Angeles, where she had her breakthrough portraying Lani McKenzie in the action drama series Baywatch (1997–1998), which further cemented her status as a sex symbol.
Charlotte Dawson was a New Zealand–Australian television personality. She was known in New Zealand for her roles as host of Getaway, and in Australia as a host on The Contender Australia and as a judge on Australia's Next Top Model. In 2014, her death by suicide attracted Australasian-wide news coverage.
Chrystal Neria, known professionally as Kaya Jones, is a Canadian-born American singer and model. She originally became known in 2003 for performing with the American girl group the Pussycat Dolls. Since 2004, she has pursued a solo career in music.
Carrie Cracknell is a British theatre and film director.
The Elf on the Shelf is the name of a 2005 American picture book for children, written by Carol Aebersold and her daughter Chanda Bell, and its accompanying toy elf. The book was illustrated by Coë Steinwart and tells a Christmas-themed story, written in rhyme, that explains how Santa Claus knows who is naughty and nice. It describes elves visiting children from Thanksgiving to Christmas Eve, after which they return to the North Pole until the next holiday season. It came in a keepsake box that featured a hardbound picture book and a small scout elf. The story was inspired by a family tradition that started with Carol Aebersold when she was a child, in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, and which she later carried on with her twin daughters, Chanda Bell and Christa Pitts, in Georgia.
Marguerite Van Cook is an English artist, writer, musician/singer and filmmaker. She was born in Portsmouth, England and now resides in New York City on the Lower East Side, in the East Village. She attended Portsmouth College of Art and Design, Northumbria University Graphic and Fine Arts programs, BMCC, and Columbia University for English (BA) and Modern European Studies (MA). She holds a PH.D in French on eighteenth century political economics in the work of women writers from CUNY Graduate Center. She has also served as an adjunct professor at Columbia University and currently at the Fashion Institute of Technology (FIT) in New York.
Dora and Friends: Into the City! is an American children's animated television series. The sequel to the original Dora the Explorer series, this series premiered on Nickelodeon on August 18, 2014 and ended on February 5, 2017 in the United States, followed by its Canadian premiere on September 6, 2014 on Treehouse TV.
Julia Rachel Harden Cumming is an American singer-songwriter who is the frontwoman and bass player of the Brooklyn-based band Sunflower Bean. Cumming models occasionally, and has modeled for several well known designers and has appeared in global campaigns for H&M and Diesel. Cumming is also a political activist and is active in the Model Alliance. She has produced and directed a video featuring her fellow models, encouraging young people to become politically active.
