The spaghetti Western is a broad subgenre of Western films produced in Europe. It emerged in the mid-1960s in the wake of Sergio Leone's filmmaking style and international box-office success. The term was used by foreign critics because most of these Westerns were produced and directed by Italians.
Pleasantville is a 1998 American teen fantasy comedy-drama film written, co-produced, and directed by Gary Ross. It stars Tobey Maguire, Jeff Daniels, Joan Allen, William H. Macy, J. T. Walsh, and Reese Witherspoon, with Don Knotts, Paul Walker, Marley Shelton, and Jane Kaczmarek in supporting roles. The story centers on two siblings who wind up trapped in a 1950s TV show, set in a small Midwest town, where residents are seemingly perfect.
Napoleon Dynamite is a 2004 American independent coming-of-age teen comedy film produced by Jeremy Coon, Chris Wyatt, and Sean Covel, written by Jared and Jerusha Hess, and directed by Jared Hess. The film stars Jon Heder in the role of the titular character, a nerdy high-school student who deals with several dilemmas: befriending an immigrant who wants to be class president, awkwardly pursuing a romance with a fellow student, and living with his quirky family.
The revisionist Western, also called the anti-Western, is a sub-genre of the Western film. Called a post-classical variation of the traditional Western, the revisionist subverts the myth and romance of the traditional by means of character development and realism to present a less simplistic view of life in the "Old West". While the traditional Western always embodies a clear boundary between good and evil, the revisionist Western does not.
Glynn Turman is an American actor, director, writer, and producer. First coming to attention as a child actor in the original 1959 Broadway production of A Raisin in the Sun, Turman is known for his roles as Lew Miles on the prime-time soap opera Peyton Place (1968–1969), high school student Leroy "Preach" Jackson in the 1975 coming-of-age film Cooley High, math professor and retired Army colonel Bradford Taylor on the NBC sitcom A Different World (1988–1993), and Baltimore mayor Clarence Royce on the HBO drama series The Wire. He received the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Guest Actor in a Drama Series for his role on the HBO drama series In Treatment.
Sergio Corbucci was an Italian film director, screenwriter and producer. He directed both very violent spaghetti Westerns and bloodless Bud Spencer and Terence Hill action comedies.
Kym Whitley is an American comedian, actress and podcaster. She is known for her roles on television sitcoms, such as My Brother and Me, Sparks, Animal Practice, The Boondocks, Young & Hungry, The Parkers, The Cleveland Show, Black Dynamite, and Act Your Age. Whitley was nominated for a 2004 BET Comedy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Box Office Movie for her role as Ormandy in the 2003 comedy film Deliver Us From Eva.
Michael Jai White is an American actor, director and martial artist. He was the first Black American to portray a major comic book superhero starring as Al Simmons, the protagonist in the 1997 film Spawn. White appeared as Marcus Williams in the Tyler Perry films Why Did I Get Married? (2007) and Why Did I Get Married Too? (2010), and starred as the character on the TBS/OWN comedy-drama television series Tyler Perry's For Better or Worse. White portrayed Jax Briggs in Mortal Kombat: Legacy and the Cyborg Seth in Universal Soldier: The Return, opposite Jean-Claude Van Damme. He portrayed boxer Mike Tyson in the 1995 HBO television film Tyson. He also played the title role in the blaxploitation parody film Black Dynamite (2009), as well as the animated series of the same name.
Blaxploitation is an ethnic subgenre of the exploitation film that emerged in the United States during the early 1970s, when the combined momentum of the civil rights movement, the black power movement, and the Black Panthers spurred African-American artists to reclaim the power of depiction of their ethnicity, and institutions like UCLA to provide financial assistance for African-American students to study filmmaking. This combined with Hollywood adopting a less restrictive rating system in 1968. The term, a portmanteau of the words "black" and "exploitation", was coined in August 1972 by Junius Griffin, the president of the Beverly Hills–Hollywood NAACP branch. He claimed the genre was "proliferating offenses" to the black community in its perpetuation of stereotypes often involved in crime. After the race films of the 1940s and 1960s, the genre emerged as one of the first in which black characters and communities were protagonists, rather than sidekicks, supportive characters, or victims of brutality. The genre's inception coincides with the rethinking of race relations in the 1970s.
Black Dynamite is a 2009 American blaxploitation action comedy film starring Michael Jai White, Tommy Davidson, and Salli Richardson. The film was directed by Scott Sanders and co-written by White, Sanders, and Byron Minns, who also co-stars.
Erica Chantal Ash was an American actress, comedian, singer, and model. She was a cast member on the sketch comedy programs MADtv and The Big Gay Sketch Show, and she later starred in the Starz sitcom Survivor's Remorse.
Scott Sanders is an American screenwriter and film director. He is best known for his work on the films Black Dynamite and Thick as Thieves.
Black Dynamite is an American adult animated blaxploitation comedy television series developed by Carl Jones for the Cartoon Network late-night programming block Adult Swim. It is based on the 2009 film of same name, although the series follows an alternate continuity. Michael Jai White, Byron Keith Minns, Tommy Davidson and Kym Whitley reprise their film roles as Black Dynamite, Bullhorn, Cream Corn and Honeybee, respectively. Cedric Yarbrough also reprises his film role as the Western-style pimp Chocolate Giddy-Up, along with Jimmy Walker Jr. as the restaurant owner Roscoe and Arsenio Hall as fellow pimp Tasty Freeze.
Jai Stephen Courtney is an Australian actor. Born and raised in Sydney, Courtney started his career as a teenager with small roles in film and television, and studied acting at the Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts. After early supporting roles in Hollywood projects, he gained recognition for playing Dauntless leader Eric Coulter in The Divergent Series (2014–2015), Kyle Reese in Terminator Genisys (2015), and supervillain Captain Boomerang in the DC Extended Universe films Suicide Squad (2016), The Suicide Squad (2021), and The Flash (2023). He received praise for his performance as a corrupt debt collector and the main antagonist in the independent film Buffaloed (2019).
Keanu Reeves is a Canadian actor who has appeared in films, television series and video games. He made his film debut in the short One Step Away in 1985. The following year, Reeves appeared in the crime film River's Edge, and the television films Babes in Toyland, Act of Vengeance, and Brotherhood of Justice. His first lead role was as a teenager dealing with his best friend's suicide in the 1988 drama Permanent Record. His breakthrough role came when he played time-travelling slacker Ted "Theodore" Logan in the science fiction comedy Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure (1989) with Alex Winter, which was an unexpected commercial success. Reeves followed this with a supporting role in Ron Howard's comedy Parenthood. In 1991 he starred in the action film Point Break with Patrick Swayze, the science fiction comedy sequel Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey, and the independent drama My Own Private Idaho.
Survivor's Remorse is an American comedy-drama television series created by Mike O'Malley that aired on Starz. It premiered on October 4, 2014, and ended on October 15, 2017. The plot centers around the lives of Cam Calloway and his family after he signs a pro-basketball contract and moves his family to Atlanta. The series is produced by NBA player LeBron James. On August 24, 2016, Survivor's Remorse was renewed for a fourth season, which premiered on August 20, 2017. On October 10, 2017, Starz announced that the series would come to an end after its fourth season.
Erica Schultz is an American comic book writer, letterer, and editor. She is the first woman to write a Spawn comic, and is best known for her writing work at Marvel on titles like Daredevil, X-23, and Hallows' Eve.
Gothic Western is a subculture, artistically similar to gothic Americana, but blends goth and Western lifestyles that are notably visible in fashion, music, film and literature.
Chicago Party Aunt is an American animated sitcom created by Chris Witaske, Jon Barinholtz, and Katie Rich for Netflix. Inspired by Witaske's Twitter account, the series follows the antics of a middle-aged sports-loving lush sharing an apartment with her 18-year-old nephew.
