Eugene Allen Hackman is an American retired actor. In a career that spanned more than six decades, he received two Academy Awards, two BAFTA Awards, four Golden Globes, a Screen Actors Guild Award, and the Silver Bear. Hackman's two Academy Award wins included one for Best Actor for his role as Jimmy "Popeye" Doyle in William Friedkin's acclaimed thriller The French Connection (1971) and the other for Best Supporting Actor for his role as "Little" Bill Daggett in Clint Eastwood's Western film Unforgiven (1992). His other Oscar-nominated roles were in Bonnie and Clyde (1967), I Never Sang for My Father (1970), and Mississippi Burning (1988).
The Graduate is a 1967 American independent romantic comedy-drama film directed by Mike Nichols and written by Buck Henry and Calder Willingham, based on the 1963 novel of the same name by Charles Webb, who wrote it shortly after graduating from Williams College. The film tells the story of 21-year-old Benjamin Braddock, a recent college graduate with no well-defined aim in life who is seduced by an older married woman, Mrs. Robinson, but then falls for her daughter, Elaine.
Dustin Lee Hoffman is an American actor. As one of the key actors in the formation of New Hollywood, Hoffman is known for his versatile portrayals of antiheroes and emotionally vulnerable characters. His accolades include two Academy Awards, four BAFTA Awards, five Golden Globe Awards, and two Primetime Emmy Awards. Hoffman has received numerous honors, including the Cecil B. DeMille Award in 1997, the AFI Life Achievement Award in 1999, and the Kennedy Center Honors Award in 2012. Actor Robert De Niro has described him as "an actor with the everyman's face who embodied the heartbreakingly human".
The French Connection is a 1971 American neo-noir action thriller film directed by William Friedkin and starring Gene Hackman, Roy Scheider, and Fernando Rey. The screenplay, by Ernest Tidyman, is based on Robin Moore's 1969 nonfiction book. It tells the story of fictional New York Police Department detectives Jimmy "Popeye" Doyle and Buddy "Cloudy" Russo, whose real-life counterparts were narcotics detectives Eddie Egan and Sonny Grosso, in pursuit of wealthy French heroin smuggler Alain Charnier.
Rachel Hannah Weisz is an English actress. Known for her roles in independent films and blockbusters, she has received several awards, including an Academy Award, a BAFTA Award, a Golden Globe Award, and a Laurence Olivier Award.
John Paul Cusack is an American actor. He began acting in films during the 1980s, starring in coming-of-age dramedies such as Sixteen Candles (1984), Better Off Dead (1985), The Sure Thing (1985), Stand by Me (1986), and Say Anything... (1989). In the 1990s, he then started appearing in independent films and had leading men roles in Bullets Over Broadway (1994), Con Air (1997), Grosse Pointe Blank (1997), Anastasia (1997), The Thin Red Line (1998), Being John Malkovich (1999), High Fidelity (2000), America's Sweethearts (2001), Max (2002), and Runaway Jury (2003).
The Runaway Jury is a legal thriller novel written by American author John Grisham. It was Grisham's seventh novel. The hardcover first edition was published by Doubleday Books in 1996 (ISBN 0-385-47294-3). Pearson Longman released the graded reader edition in 2001 (ISBN 0-582-43405-X). The novel was published again in 2003 to coincide with the release of Runaway Jury, a movie adaptation of the novel starring Gene Hackman, Dustin Hoffman, John Cusack and Rachel Weisz. The third printing (ISBN 0-440-22147-1) bears a movie-themed cover, in place of the covers used on the first and second printings.
Finding Neverland is a 2004 biographical film directed by Marc Forster and written by David Magee, based on the 1998 play The Man Who Was Peter Pan by Allan Knee. The film stars Johnny Depp, Kate Winslet, Julie Christie, Radha Mitchell, and Dustin Hoffman, with Freddie Highmore in a supporting role.
Hero is a 1992 American comedy-drama film directed by Stephen Frears. It was written by David Webb Peoples, from a story written by Peoples, Laura Ziskin and Alvin Sargent, and stars Dustin Hoffman, Geena Davis, Andy García and Joan Cusack. Following the critically acclaimed The Grifters (1990), it was the second American feature film by British filmmaker Frears.
Welcome to Mooseport is a 2004 American political satire comedy film directed by Donald Petrie, and starring Ray Romano and Gene Hackman in his final film role before his retirement. It was filmed in Jackson's Point, Ontario and Port Perry, Ontario.
Jury Duty is a 1995 American legal comedy film directed by John Fortenberry, written by Neil Tolkin, Barbara Williams, and Adam Small, and starring Pauly Shore, Tia Carrere, Stanley Tucci, Brian Doyle-Murray, Shelley Winters, and Abe Vigoda.
Scientific jury selection, often abbreviated SJS, is the use of social science techniques and expertise to choose favorable juries during a criminal or civil trial. Scientific jury selection is used during the jury selection phase of the trial, during which lawyers have the opportunity to question jurors. It almost always entails an expert's assistance in the attorney's use of peremptory challenges—the right to reject a certain number of potential jurors without stating a reason—during jury selection. The practice is currently unique to the American legal system.
Gary Fleder is an American film director, screenwriter, and producer. His most recently completed film, Homefront, was released by Open Road Films and Millennium Films in November 2013. In recent years he has been a prolific director of television pilots.
Trial film is a subgenre of the legal/courtroom drama that encompasses films that are centered on a civil or criminal trial, typically a trial by jury.
Marc Moss is an American screenwriter raised in Norfolk, Virginia. He received his BA from the University of Chicago and his MFA from Columbia University School of the Arts.
Hot Tub Time Machine 2 is a 2015 American science-fiction comedy film directed by Steve Pink and written by Josh Heald. The film stars Rob Corddry, Craig Robinson, Clark Duke, Adam Scott, Chevy Chase, and Gillian Jacobs. It is the sequel to the 2010 film Hot Tub Time Machine. The film was released on February 20, 2015. John Cusack, who played Adam Yates and produced the first film, does not return in the theatrical cut, but has a brief cameo in the unrated version. The film grossed $13 million against a budget of $14–18 million, and reviews were generally unfavorable, deeming it "unfunny" and "unoriginal".
Roald Dahl's Esio Trot, or simply Esio Trot, is a British comedy drama television film directed by Dearbhla Walsh and written by Richard Curtis and Paul Mayhew-Archer, based on the 1990 novel, Esio Trot, by Roald Dahl. In the film, a retired bachelor falls in love with his neighbour, a widow who keeps a tortoise as a companion after the death of her husband.
The Program is a 2015 biographical drama film about Lance Armstrong directed by Stephen Frears, starring Ben Foster as Armstrong and Chris O'Dowd as journalist David Walsh.
Wendell H. Gauthier was an attorney known for a variety of major class action lawsuits. He is best known for his leading role in Castano v. American Tobacco Company which established that large tobacco companies could be liable for injury to its users. The dramatic case was fictionalized into John Grisham's bestselling novel Runaway Jury and directly led to numerous other "Son of Costano" suits and the $246 billion Tobacco Master Settlement Agreement, the largest settlement in history.
Lex Luthor is a supervillain portrayed by American actor Gene Hackman in the Warner Bros. Superman film series produced by Ilya and Alexander Salkind, and is an adaption of the original DC Comics character, Lex Luthor. Luthor's girlfriend, film-original character Eve Teschmacher, was later adapted to comic books and other media.
