Moby-Dick; or, The Whale is an 1851 novel by American writer Herman Melville. The book is the sailor Ishmael's narrative of the maniacal quest of Ahab, captain of the whaling ship Pequod, for vengeance against Moby Dick, the giant white sperm whale that bit off his leg on the ship's previous voyage. A contribution to the literature of the American Renaissance, Moby-Dick was published to mixed reviews, was a commercial failure, and was out of print at the time of the author's death in 1891. Its reputation as a Great American Novel was established only in the 20th century, after the 1919 centennial of its author's birth. William Faulkner said he wished he had written the book himself, and D. H. Lawrence called it "one of the strangest and most wonderful books in the world" and "the greatest book of the sea ever written". Its opening sentence, "Call me Ishmael", is among world literature's most famous.
Captain Nemo is a character created by the French novelist Jules Verne (1828–1905). Nemo appears in two of Verne's science-fiction books, Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas (1870) and The Mysterious Island (1875). He also makes a brief appearance in a play written by Verne with the collaboration of Adolphe d'Ennery, Journey Through the Impossible (1882).
Ishmael is a character in Herman Melville's Moby-Dick (1851), which opens with the line, "Call me Ishmael." He is the first person narrator in much of the book. Because Ishmael plays a minor role in the plot, early critics of Moby-Dick assumed that Captain Ahab was the protagonist. Many either confused Ishmael with Melville or overlooked the role he played. Later critics distinguished Ishmael from Melville, and some saw his mystic and speculative consciousness as the novel's central force rather than Captain Ahab's monomaniacal force of will.
Leonard Michael Maltin is an American film critic and film historian, as well as an author of several mainstream books on cinema, focusing on nostalgic, celebratory narratives. He is perhaps best known for his book of film capsule reviews, Leonard Maltin's Movie Guide, published annually from 1969 to 2014. Maltin was the film critic on Entertainment Tonight from 1982 to 2010. He currently teaches at the USC School of Cinematic Arts and has appeared regularly on Turner Classic Movies, and hosts the weekly podcast Maltin on Movies. He has written articles for The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, Variety, Playboy and TV Guide. He served two terms as President of the Los Angeles Film Critics Association, and votes for films to be selected for the National Film Registry.
The Pagemaster is a 1994 American live-action/animated fantasy adventure film starring Macaulay Culkin, Christopher Lloyd, Whoopi Goldberg, Patrick Stewart, Leonard Nimoy, Frank Welker, Ed Begley Jr., and Mel Harris. The film was produced by Turner Pictures and Hanna-Barbera and released by 20th Century Fox on November 23, 1994. Culkin stars as a timid boy who uses statistics as an excuse to avoid anything he finds uncomfortable in life. But after reluctantly undertaking an errand for his father, he gets caught in a storm, which forces him to seek refuge in a library. He then finds himself trapped inside the library, where he must battle his way through literary classics come to life if he is to find his way home.
Moby Dick is a 1956 American color film adaptation of Herman Melville's 1851 novel Moby-Dick. It was directed by John Huston with a screenplay by Huston and Ray Bradbury. The film stars Gregory Peck, Richard Basehart and Leo Genn.
Infinity is a 1996 American biographical drama film about the romantic life of physicist Richard Feynman. Feynman was played by Matthew Broderick, who also directed and co-produced the film. Broderick's mother, Patricia Broderick, wrote the screenplay, which was based on the books Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman! and What Do You Care What Other People Think?, both written by Feynman and Ralph Leighton. It is the only film Broderick has ever directed.
The Three Lives of Thomasina is a 1963 fantasy film directed by Don Chaffey about a cat's influence on a family. Patrick McGoohan and Susan Hampshire star alongside child actors Karen Dotrice and Matthew Garber. Based on Paul Gallico's 1957 novel Thomasina, the Cat Who Thought She Was God, the film was shot in Inveraray, Argyll, Scotland, and Pinewood Studios, England, with a screenplay by Gallico and Robert Westerby.
20,000 Leagues Under the Sea is a 1954 American science fiction adventure film directed by Richard Fleischer, from a screenplay by Earl Felton. Adapted from Jules Verne's 1870 novel of the same name, the film was personally produced by Walt Disney through Walt Disney Productions. It stars Kirk Douglas, James Mason, Paul Lukas, and Peter Lorre. Photographed in Technicolor, the film was one of the first feature-length motion pictures to be filmed in CinemaScope. It was also the first feature-length Disney film to be distributed by Buena Vista Distribution.
Less than Zero is a 1987 American drama film directed by Marek Kanievska, loosely based on the 1985 novel of the same name by Bret Easton Ellis. The film stars Andrew McCarthy as Clay, a college freshman returning home for Christmas to spend time with his ex-girlfriend Blair and his friend Julian, both of whom have become drug addicts. The film presents a look at the culture of wealthy, decadent youth in Los Angeles.
Moby-Dick is an 1851 novel by Herman Melville that describes the voyage of the whaleship Pequod, led by Captain Ahab, who leads his crew on a hunt for the whale Moby Dick. There have been a number of adaptations of Moby-Dick in various media.
The Sea Beast is a 1926 American silent drama film directed by Millard Webb, starring John Barrymore, Dolores Costello and George O'Hara. The film was a major commercial success and one of the biggest pictures of 1926 becoming Warner Brothers' highest grossing film. The Sea Beast is the first adaptation of Herman Melville's 1851 novel Moby-Dick, a story about a monomaniacal hunt for a great white whale. However, the film alters the novel's plotline by establishing prequel and sequel elements that are not in the original story—such as the romancing of Esther and Ahab's safe return, respectively—and substitutes a happy ending for Melville's original tragic one. Some of the characters in the film do not appear in Melville's original novel. The film was so successful that in 1930 Warner Bros redid it in English and German, under the title Moby Dick, with Joan Bennett taking the role of Ahab's love because Dolores Costello was pregnant at the time.
Surf II is a 1984 American comedy film written and directed by Randall M. Badat and starring Eddie Deezen, Linda Kerridge, Eric Stoltz and Jeffrey Rogers. The plot follows two dim-witted surfers attempting to thwart the plans of a mad scientist attempting to rid the beaches of surfers by turning them into zombie punks through chemically-altered soda pop.
Lt. Robin Crusoe U.S.N. is a 1966 American comedy film released and scripted by Walt Disney, and starring Dick Van Dyke as a U.S. Navy pilot who becomes a castaway on a tropical island. Some filming took place in San Diego, while a majority of the film was shot on Kauai, Hawaii.
Escape from Fort Bravo is a 1953 American Anscocolor Western film set during the American Civil War. Directed by John Sturges it stars William Holden, Eleanor Parker, and John Forsythe.
Moby Dick is a Canadian-German television miniseries based on Herman Melville's 1851 novel of the same name, produced by Tele München Gruppe, with Gate Film, In association with RTH/ORF. Starring William Hurt as Captain Ahab, it was directed by Mike Barker with a screenplay by Nigel Williams. The cast also includes Ethan Hawke as Starbuck, Charlie Cox as Ishmael, Eddie Marsan as Stubb, Gillian Anderson as Ahab's wife, Elizabeth and Donald Sutherland as Father Mapple.
Moby Dick is a 1998 American television miniseries directed by Franc Roddam, written by Roddam, Anton Diether, and Benedict Fitzgerald, and executive produced by Francis Ford Coppola. It is based on Herman Melville's 1851 novel of the same name. It was filmed in Australia in 1997 and first released in the United States in 1998. The miniseries consisted of two episodes, each running two hours with commercials on March 15 and 16 of 1998 on the USA Network. This is Gregory Peck's final on-screen role.
Howard A. Rodman is a screenwriter, author and professor. He is the former President of the Writers Guild of America, West, professor and former chair of the writing division at the USC School of Cinematic Arts, alumnus of Telluride Association Summer Program and an artistic director of the Sundance Institute Screenwriting Labs.
Captain Ahab is a fictional character and one of the protagonists in Herman Melville's Moby-Dick (1851). He is the monomaniacal captain of the whaling ship Pequod. On a previous voyage, the white whale Moby Dick bit off Ahab's leg, and he now wears a prosthetic leg made out of whalebone. The whaling voyage of the Pequod ends up as a hunt for revenge on the whale, as Ahab forces the crew members to support his fanatical mission. When Moby Dick is finally sighted, Ahab's hatred robs him of all caution, and the whale drags him to his death beneath the sea and sinks the Pequod.
Father Mapple is a fictional character in Herman Melville's novel Moby-Dick (1851). A former whaler, he has become a preacher in the New Bedford Whaleman's Chapel. Ishmael, the narrator of the novel, hears Mapple's sermon on the subject of Jonah, who was swallowed by a whale but did not turn against God.
