Full Metal Jacket is a 1987 war drama film directed and produced by Stanley Kubrick, who also co-wrote the screenplay with Michael Herr and Gustav Hasford. The film is based on Hasford's 1979 novel The Short-Timers and stars Matthew Modine, Lee Ermey, Vincent D'Onofrio and Adam Baldwin.
The Day the Earth Stood Still is a 1951 American science fiction film from 20th Century Fox, produced by Julian Blaustein and directed by Robert Wise. It stars Michael Rennie, Patricia Neal, Hugh Marlowe, Sam Jaffe, Billy Gray, Frances Bavier and Lock Martin. The screenplay was written by Edmund H. North, based on the 1940 science fiction short story "Farewell to the Master" by Harry Bates, and the film score was composed by Bernard Herrmann.
Wag the Dog is a 1997 American political satire black comedy film produced and directed by Barry Levinson and starring Dustin Hoffman and Robert De Niro. The film centers on a spin doctor and a Hollywood producer who fabricate a war in Albania to distract voters from a presidential sex scandal. The screenplay by Hilary Henkin and David Mamet was loosely adapted from Larry Beinhart's 1993 novel, American Hero.
"The War of the Worlds" was a Halloween episode of the radio series The Mercury Theatre on the Air directed and narrated by Orson Welles as an adaptation of H. G. Wells's novel The War of the Worlds (1898). It was performed and broadcast live at 8 pm ET on October 30, 1938 over the Columbia Broadcasting System radio network. The episode is famous for inciting a panic by convincing some members of the listening audience that a Martian invasion was taking place, though the scale of panic is disputed, as the program had relatively few listeners.
George Seaton was an American screenwriter, playwright, film director and producer, and theatre director.
Notorious is a 1946 American spy film noir directed and produced by Alfred Hitchcock, starring Cary Grant, Ingrid Bergman, and Claude Rains as three people whose lives become intimately entangled during an espionage operation.
The Last Unicorn is a 1982 American-Japanese animated fantasy film about a unicorn who, upon learning that she is the last of her species on Earth, goes on a quest to find out what has happened to others of her kind. Based on the 1968 novel The Last Unicorn written by Peter S. Beagle, who also wrote the film's screenplay, the film was directed and produced by Arthur Rankin Jr. and Jules Bass. It was produced by Rankin/Bass Productions for ITC Entertainment and animated by Topcraft.
Barry Lee Levinson is an American filmmaker, comedian and actor. Levinson's best-known works are mid-budget comedy drama and drama films such as Diner (1982); The Natural (1984); Good Morning, Vietnam (1987); Bugsy (1991); and Wag the Dog (1997). He won the Academy Award for Best Director for Rain Man (1988). In 2021, he co-executive produced the Hulu miniseries Dopesick and directed the first two episodes.
Edward Kirk Herrmann was an American actor, director, and writer. He was perhaps best known for his portrayals of Franklin D. Roosevelt in both the miniseries Eleanor and Franklin (1976) and 1982 film musical Annie, Richard Gilmore in Amy Sherman-Palladino's comedy-drama series Gilmore Girls (2000–2007), and a ubiquitous narrator for historical programs on The History Channel and in such PBS productions as Nova. He was also known as a spokesman for Dodge automobiles in the 1990s.
Postmodern literature is a form of literature that is characterized by the use of metafiction, unreliable narration, self-reflexivity, intertextuality, and which often thematizes both historical and political issues. This style of experimental literature emerged strongly in the United States in the 1960s through the writings of authors such as Kurt Vonnegut, Thomas Pynchon, William Gaddis, Philip K. Dick, Kathy Acker, and John Barth. Postmodernists often challenge authorities, which has been seen as a symptom of the fact that this style of literature first emerged in the context of political tendencies in the 1960s. This inspiration is, among other things, seen through how postmodern literature is highly self-reflexive about the political issues it speaks to.
Larry Beinhart is an American author. He is best known as the author of the political and detective novel American Hero, which was adapted into the political-parody film Wag the Dog.
Wag the dog is, as a political term, the act of creating a diversion from a damaging issue usually through military force. It stems from the generic use of the term to mean a small and seemingly unimportant entity controls a bigger, more important one. It is usually used by a politician when they are in a scandal, in hopes that people forget about the scandal and focus on the more important issue. The phrase originates in the saying "a dog is smarter than its tail, but if the tail were smarter, then it would wag the dog." The concept has strong intersections with many other aspects of Diversionary foreign policy, particularly the Rally 'round the flag effect, as wag the dog actions tend to both distract and seek to bolster support through these actions.
Jane Eyre is a 1943 American film adaptation of Charlotte Brontë's 1847 novel of the same name, released by 20th Century Fox. It was directed by Robert Stevenson and produced by the uncredited Kenneth Macgowan and Orson Welles; Welles also stars in the film as Edward Rochester, with Joan Fontaine playing the title character.
Son of Dracula is a 1943 American horror film directed by Robert Siodmak with a screenplay based on an original story by his brother Curt Siodmak. The film stars Lon Chaney, Jr., Louise Allbritton, Robert Paige, Evelyn Ankers, and Frank Craven. The film is set in the United States, where Count Alucard has just taken up residence. Katherine Caldwell (Allbritton), a student of the occult, becomes fascinated by Alucard and eventually marries him. Katherine begins to look and act strangely, leading her former romantic partner Frank Stanley (Paige) to suspect that something has happened to her. He gets help from Dr. Brewster (Craven) and psychologist Laszlo who come to the conclusion that Alucard is a vampire.
Mickey, Donald, Goofy: The Three Musketeers is a 2004 American animated direct-to-video musical adventure comedy film based on original characters of the Mickey Mouse universe by Walt Disney and film adaptations of the 1844 novel The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas, père. As the title suggests, it features Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, and Goofy as the three musketeers in their first full length feature film together. This film was directed by Donovan Cook, produced by Walt Disney Pictures and the Australian office of DisneyToon Studios. It was released directly to VHS and DVD on August 17, 2004 by Walt Disney Home Entertainment, and was later re-released on Blu-ray Disc on August 12, 2014, coinciding with the film's 10th anniversary. The film received mixed to positive reviews from critics, who praised its musical numbers, action sequences and faithfulness to the original material, but were mixed on certain aspects and elements.
Pandora's Clock is a 1996 NBC miniseries based on a novel by John J. Nance about a deadly virus on a Boeing 747-200 from Frankfurt to John F. Kennedy International Airport. Directed by Eric Laneuville, the film stars Richard Dean Anderson, Stephen Root, Jane Leeves, Robert Loggia and Daphne Zuniga and the script closely follows the book.
The Devil and Daniel Webster is a 1941 fantasy film based on the 1938 play adaptation of Stephen Vincent Benét's 1936 short story "The Devil and Daniel Webster". The play by Benét was in turn based on the libretto created by Benét for an opera adaptation of his short story with composer Douglas Moore, a project he began writing in 1937. Benét and Dan Totheroh adapted the play into the film's screenplay. The film's title was changed to All That Money Can Buy to avoid confusion with another film released by RKO that year, The Devil and Miss Jones, but later had the title restored on some prints. It has also been released under the titles Mr. Scratch, Daniel and the Devil and Here Is a Man. The film stars Edward Arnold, Walter Huston, James Craig, and Simone Simon.
A Farewell to Arms is a 1957 American drama film directed by Charles Vidor. The screenplay by Ben Hecht, based in part on a 1930 play by Laurence Stallings, was the second feature film adaptation of Ernest Hemingway's 1929 semi-autobiographical novel of the same name. It was the last film produced by David O. Selznick.
Bombardier is a 1943 film war drama about the training program for bombardiers of the United States Army Air Forces. The film stars Pat O'Brien and Randolph Scott. Bombardier was nominated for an Oscar in 1944 for the special effects used in the film. It was largely filmed at Kirtland Army Air Field, New Mexico, site of the first bombardier training school.
Undercover is a 1943 British war film produced by Ealing Studios, originally titled Chetnik. It was filmed in Wales and released on 27 July 1943. Its subject is a guerrilla movement in German-occupied Yugoslavia, loosely based on Draza Mihailovich's Chetnik resistance movement.
