A soap opera, daytime drama, or soap for short, is typically a long-running radio or television serial, frequently characterized by melodrama, ensemble casts, and sentimentality. The term "soap opera" originated from radio dramas originally being sponsored by soap manufacturers. The term was preceded by "horse opera", a derogatory term for low-budget Westerns.
The Young and the Restless is an American television soap opera created by William J. Bell and Lee Phillip Bell for CBS. The show is set in fictional Genoa City. First broadcast on March 26, 1973, The Young and the Restless was originally broadcast as half-hour episodes, five times a week. The show expanded to one-hour episodes on February 4, 1980. In 2006, the series began airing previous episodes weeknights on SOAPnet until 2013, when it moved to TVGN. From July 1, 2013 until 2019, Pop aired previous episodes on weeknights. The series is also syndicated internationally.
Ishmael Scott Reed is an American poet, novelist, essayist, songwriter, composer, playwright, editor and publisher known for his satirical works challenging American political culture. Perhaps his best-known work is Mumbo Jumbo (1972), a sprawling and unorthodox novel set in 1920s New York.
Eric Braeden is a German film and television actor, known for his roles as Victor Newman on the CBS soap opera The Young and the Restless, as Hans Dietrich in the 1960s TV series The Rat Patrol, Dr. Charles Forbin in Colossus: The Forbin Project, as Dr. Otto Hasslein in Escape from the Planet of the Apes, and as John Jacob Astor IV in the 1997 film Titanic. He won a Daytime Emmy Award in 1998 for Lead Actor in a Drama Series for the role of Victor Newman on The Young and the Restless.
Andrea Lynn Evans was an American actress. She was most recognized for her portrayal of Tina Lord on the ABC soap opera One Life to Live, a role she played from 1978 to 1981 and from 1985 to 1990, returning in 2008 and 2011. Evans also appeared on the soap operas The Young and the Restless as Patty Williams, The Bold and the Beautiful as Tawny Moore and Passions as Rebecca Hotchkiss.
Mark Derwin is an American film and television actor. Derwin began his career on Days of Our Lives in 1987 with a minor role as Jeremiah Brown. In 1988, Derwin appeared in the role of Adrian Hunter on The Young and the Restless. Derwin was featured in a high-profile storyline: the elaborate George Rawlins murder mystery as the scheming psychotic serial killer. Derwin is also known for numerous other soap opera roles. From 2008-2013 Derwin was a lead on the ABC Family teen drama the Secret Life of the American Teenager as George Juergens, a furniture store owner married to Molly Ringwald's character Ann, and the father of the main character Amy played by Shailene Woodley. The main plot of the show is Derwin's character's 15-year old daughter having a child after a one night stand at a summer band camp and the developments this event has on those around her.
Pamela Reed is an American actress. She is known for playing Arnold Schwarzenegger's hypoglycemic police partner in the 1990 film Kindergarten Cop and portraying the matriarch Gail Green in Jericho. She appeared as Marlene Griggs-Knope on the NBC sitcom Parks and Recreation. She is also well known as the exasperated wife in Bean.
Q – The Winged Serpent is a 1982 American monster horror film written, co-produced and directed by Larry Cohen and starring Michael Moriarty, Candy Clark, David Carradine and Richard Roundtree. The film follows a petty swindler (Moriarty) who accidentally intrudes in a case involving a winged deity monster that poses a threat to New York City. He is the only person who has information that can help the police to stop the creature.
Ganja & Hess is a 1973 American black horror film written and directed by Bill Gunn and starring Marlene Clark and Duane Jones. The film follows the exploits of anthropologist Dr. Hess Green (Jones), who becomes a vampire after his intelligent but unstable assistant (Gunn) stabs him with an ancient cursed dagger. Green falls in love with his assistant's widow, Ganja (Clark), who learns Green's dark secret.
Marla Vene Adams was an American actress. She was best known for playing the roles of Belle Clemens on the CBS soap opera The Secret Storm and Dina Abbott Mergeron on the CBS soap opera The Young and the Restless. She won a Daytime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama Series for her role on The Young and the Restless in 2021. She had been nominated in the same category in 2018.
S&Man is a 2006 American pseudo-documentary film that examines the underground subculture of horror films. It contains interviews with filmmakers and other participants in the low budget indie horror scene, as well as film professor and author Carol J. Clover. The second half of the film also features a scripted plot, which stars comedian Erik Marcisak as the fictional filmmaker Eric Rost.
William Harrison Gunn was an American playwright, novelist, actor and film director. His 1973 cult classic horror film Ganja & Hess was chosen as one of ten best American films of the decade at the Cannes Film Festival, 1973. In The New Yorker, film critic Richard Brody described him as being "a visionary filmmaker left on the sidelines of the most ostensibly liberated period of American filmmaking." Filmmaker Spike Lee had said that Gunn is "one of the most under-appreciated filmmakers of his time." Gunn's drama Johnnas won an Emmy Award in 1972.
Glenn Kenny is an American film critic and journalist. He writes for The New York Times and RogerEbert.com.
In film and television, drama is a category or genre of narrative fiction intended to be more serious than humorous in tone. The drama of this kind is usually qualified with additional terms that specify its particular super-genre, macro-genre, or micro-genre, such as soap opera, police crime drama, political drama, legal drama, historical drama, domestic drama, teen drama, and comedy-drama (dramedy). These terms tend to indicate a particular setting or subject matter, or they combine a drama's otherwise serious tone with elements that encourage a broader range of moods. To these ends, a primary element in a drama is the occurrence of conflict—emotional, social, or otherwise—and its resolution in the course of the storyline.
My Reincarnation is a 2011 documentary film directed by Jennifer Fox. It is a drama between father and son, spanning two decades and three generations. The film addresses spirituality, cultural survival, identity, heritage, family, growing into maturity, aging, Buddhism, and past and future lives.
28 Hotel Rooms is an American film written and directed by Matt Ross and starring Chris Messina and Marin Ireland. It is Matt Ross' first feature film.
The Departure is a 2017 American documentary by Lana Wilson. It concerns suicide in Japan. The film premiered at the 2017 Tribeca Film Festival in New York. It was nominated for a 2018 Independent Spirit Award for Best Documentary.
Japanese by Spring is a 1993 novel by American author Ishmael Reed. It is a campus novel and satire of American university culture, particularly the culture wars. It was reviewed in several major national newspapers and magazines, and its themes of multiculturalism and multilingualism have been the subject of academic analysis.
Souls of Sin is a 1949 American race film written and directed by Powell Lindsay, and produced by William D. Alexander.
Jimmy Wright was an American stage and film actor. A member of the all-black cast of the Voodoo Macbeth production directed by Orson Welles in 1936, Wright went on to star as 'Dollar Bill' Burton in Souls of Sin, a 1949 feature directed by Powell Lindsay and produced by William D. Alexander that has been described as the last race film from a black producer. In 1980, credited as "Jim Wright," he played Father Brown in Personal Problems, a "meta soap opera" directed by Bill Gunn and written by Ishmael Reed, but died between production of the first and second episodes.
