Richard Martini | |
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Born | March 12, 1955 69) | (age
Richard Martini (born 12 March 1955) is an American film director, producer, screenwriter and freelance journalist.
Martini was born in 1955 and grew up in Northbrook, Illinois. He attended local public schools. He graduated magna cum laude from Boston University with a degree in Humanities, attended University of Southern California Film School and is a 2008 graduate of the Master of Professional Writing Program at USC. His student short film, Lost Angels, was the film debut of fellow Chicago native, actress Daryl Hannah. [1] He took improv classes at Second City in Chicago under Jo Forsberg, and with the Harvey Lembeck Workshop in Los Angeles.
His first documentary film, Special Olympians, [2] won the top prize at the 1980 Mexico City International Film Festival. He made his feature film directorial debut with You Can't Hurry Love, [3] which featured the debut of Bridget Fonda. TNT described it as the "quintessential 80's comedy."
Martini left USC to work for writer/director Robert Towne (Chinatown,Mission: Impossible); he served as an acting coach for Robert Evans on the original The Two Jakes. [4] After that Martini wrote his first feature My Champion, [5] which starred Christopher (son of Robert) Mitchum and Yoko Shimada (Shogun). He wrote the comedy Three For the Road for Vista Films, which starred Charlie Sheen. [6]
Martini directed a comedy short, "Video Valentino," [7] shot by fellow USC alum John Schwartzman (DP of The Amazing Spider-Man ) and produced by Jonathan D. Krane. The short led to a deal with Vestron Pictures, where he made You Can't Hurry Love starring Bridget Fonda, Charles Grodin and Kristy McNichol based on the short. [8]
Martini co-wrote and directed two films for producer Jonathan D. Krane: the Faustian comedy Limit Up , set in Chicago, starring Nancy Allen and blues icon Ray Charles, [9] and Point of Betrayal (1996) starring Dina Merrill, Rod Taylor and Rebecca Broussard, which won the Palm Beach International Film Festival as Best Film. [10] [11] Martini then co-wrote and co-directed Cannes Man (released on iTunes in 2010) starring Francesco Quinn and Seymour Cassel, with appearances by Johnny Depp and the "cast of characters who inhabit the film festival each year." [12]
Martini wrote and directed the Dogme 95 film Camera – Dogme #15,shot on digital video; it follows the life of a video camera around the world. [13] [14]
He has also directed documentaries: Tibetan Refugee [15] explores the Tibetan community in Dharamsala, White City/Windy City explores the relationship between Chicago and Casablanca in the Eisenhower "Sister Cities" program, [16] and Journey Into Tibet, follows Buddhist scholar and author Robert Thurman on a sacred journey around Mount Kailash in western Tibet. [17] [18]
Martini co-wrote and produced My Bollywood Bride [19] starring Jason Lewis and Sanjay Suri (released as My Faraway Bride).
Martini's television credits include producing segments and appearing on the award-winning Charles Grodin Show on CNBC. He wrote an upcoming miniseries for HBO about the notorious House of Medici. He has also written freelance articles for Variety , Premiere , Inc.com, edited and wrote Epicurean Rendezvous' "Best 100 Restaurants in Los Angeles" and appeared in USA Today as a commentator about "American Idol." [20] He also contributed a chapter to Charles Grodin's book "If I Only Knew Then... Learning from our mistakes." (Springboard Press.)
He worked on the films Amelia and Salt as a digital media curator, pioneering a method of pre-visualizing a film online. Film director Phillip Noyce hired him to work on both films.
Based on his documentary about hypnotherapy and between life therapist Michael Newton's work Destiny of Souls, Martini's book on the afterlife, Flipside: A Tourist's Guide on How To Navigate the Afterlife, [21] has become a best seller at Amazon. The documentary based on the book was picked up by Gaiam TV for distribution in 2014. [22] The book went to #1 at Amazon in all its genres twice. [23] The series It's a Wonderful Afterlife: Further Adventures into the Flipside Volume One [24] and Volume Two [25] includes interviews with Dr. Bruce Greyson on consciousness and the near-death experience, Gary Schwartz on his research into consciousness, and Mario Beauregard on his research in neurotheology. Martini compares accounts of near-death experiences with transcripts of hypnotherapy sessions of people under deep hypnosis to highlight their similarities. His book "Hacking the Afterlife," [26] examines mediumship claims of "new information" from people no longer on the planet and compares these accounts to the near death experiences and afterlife reports from subjects under hypnosis. He also penned "Backstage Pass to the Flipside: Talking to the Afterlife with Jennifer Shaffer" [27] which includes a foreword by Luana Anders.
Martini has taught film directing at Loyola Marymount University, the Maine Media Workshops, and the John Felice Rome Center.
He is married and has two children. The family lives in Santa Monica, California.
Roger Vadim Plemiannikov was a French screenwriter, film director and producer, as well as an author, artist and occasional actor. His best-known works are visually lavish films with erotic qualities, such as And God Created Woman (1956), Blood and Roses (1960), Barbarella (1968), and Pretty Maids All in a Row (1971).
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Gurinder Chadha, is a Kenyan-born Indo-British film director of Indian origin. Most of her films explore the lives of Indians living in England. The common theme in her work showcases the trials of Indian women living in the UK and how they must reconcile their converging traditional and modern cultures. Although many of her films seem like simple quirky comedies about Indian women, they actually address many social and emotional issues, especially ones faced by immigrants caught between two worlds.
Midnight Run is a 1988 American action comedy film directed by Martin Brest and starring Robert De Niro and Charles Grodin. Yaphet Kotto, John Ashton, Dennis Farina, Joe Pantoliano, and Philip Baker Hall play supporting roles.
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Luana Anders was an American film and television actress and screenwriter.
Newsfront is a 1978 Australian drama film starring Bill Hunter, Wendy Hughes, Chris Haywood and Bryan Brown, directed by Phillip Noyce. The screenplay is written by David Elfick, Bob Ellis, Philippe Mora, and Phillip Noyce. The original music score is composed by William Motzing. This film was shot on location in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. Incorporating much actual newsreel footage, the film is shot in both black and white and colour.
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Maximilian Carlo Martini is an American actor, writer, and director known for his roles as Corporal Fred Henderson in Saving Private Ryan, Wiley in Level 9, First Sergeant Sid Wojo in The Great Raid, and as Master Sergeant Mack Gerhardt in the CBS military drama television series The Unit. He also starred in the film 13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi as Mark Geist.
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You Can't Hurry Love is a 1988 American romantic comedy film written and directed by Richard Martini and starring David Leisure, Scott McGinnis, Anthony Geary, and Bridget Fonda. A man moves to Los Angeles and hears that "the only way to be successful in Los Angeles is to pretend to be someone else." He goes on a series of video dates and learns that everyone he meets is pretending to be someone else except for the girl who works at the dating service; he realizes the only way to find love is to be himself.
Limit Up is a 1989 comedy film starring Nancy Allen as Chicago commodities trader Casey Falls. The film was directed by Richard Martini and produced by Jonathan D. Krane. It was filmed through Chicago and prominently features scenes at the Chicago Board of Trade and Wrigley Field.
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Point of Betrayal is a 1995 American thriller film about a man trying to drive his mother insane in order to get her money. The film was directed by Richard Martini and produced by Jonathan D. Krane.
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