Heywood "Woody" Allen is an American film director, writer, actor, and comedian whose career spans more than six decades and multiple Academy Award-winning films. He began his career writing material for television in the 1950s, mainly Your Show of Shows (1950–1954) working alongside Mel Brooks, Carl Reiner, Larry Gelbart, and Neil Simon. He also published several books featuring short stories and wrote humor pieces for The New Yorker. In the early 1960s, he performed as a stand-up comedian in Greenwich Village alongside Lenny Bruce, Elaine May, Mike Nichols, and Joan Rivers. There he developed a monologue style and the persona of an insecure, intellectual, fretful nebbish. He released three comedy albums during the mid to late 1960s, earning a Grammy Award for Best Comedy Album nomination for his 1964 comedy album entitled simply, Woody Allen. In 2004, Comedy Central ranked Allen fourth on a list of the 100 greatest stand-up comedians, while a UK survey ranked Allen the third-greatest comedian.
A jazz band is a musical ensemble that plays jazz music. Jazz bands vary in the quantity of its members and the style of jazz that they play but it is common to find a jazz band made up of a rhythm section and a horn section.
Stardust Memories is a 1980 American comedy-drama film written and directed by Woody Allen and starring himself, Charlotte Rampling, Jessica Harper and Marie-Christine Barrault. Sharon Stone has a brief role, in her film debut. The film is about a filmmaker who recalls his life and his loves - the inspirations for his films - while attending a retrospective of his work. The film is shot in black and white and is reminiscent of Federico Fellini's 8½ (1963), which it parodies.
Melanie Richards Griffith is an American actress and film producer. She began her career in the 1970s, appearing in several independent thriller films before achieving mainstream success in the mid-1980s.
Sleeper is a 1973 American science fiction comedy film parodying a dystopic future of the United States in 2173, directed by Woody Allen and written by Allen and Marshall Brickman. The plot involves the misadventures of the owner of a health food store who is cryogenically frozen in 1973 and defrosted 200 years later in an ineptly led police state. Contemporary politics and pop culture are satirized throughout the film, which includes tributes to the classic comedy of Buster Keaton, Harold Lloyd, and Charlie Chaplin. Many elements of notable works of science fiction are also paid tribute to, or parodied.
Celebrity is a 1998 American comedy-drama film written and directed by Woody Allen, and features an ensemble cast. The screenplay describes the divergent paths a couple takes following their divorce.
Bullets Over Broadway is a 1994 American black comedy crime film directed by Woody Allen, written by him and Douglas McGrath and starring an ensemble cast including John Cusack, Dianne Wiest, Chazz Palminteri and Jennifer Tilly.
Pamela Reed is an American actress. She is known for playing Arnold Schwarzenegger's hypoglycemic police partner in the 1990 movie Kindergarten Cop and as 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.
A Midsummer Night's Sex Comedy is a 1982 American science fiction sex comedy film written, directed by Woody Allen and starring himself.
Woody Allen has acted in, directed, and written many films starting in the 1960s. His first film was the 1965 comedy What's New Pussycat?, which featured him as both writer and performer. Allen felt that his New Yorker humor was mismatched with the director Clive Donner's British sensibility, and decided he wished to direct all future films from his material. He was unable to prevent the production of films by other directors from previous stage plays of his to which he had already sold the film rights, notably 1972's successful film Play it Again, Sam from the 1969 play of the same title directed by Herbert Ross.
Allen Garfield was an American film and television actor.
Maitland McDonagh is an American film critic and the author of several books about cinema.
Jerry Zigmont is a New Orleans-style jazz trombonist. While growing up in Connecticut, Jerry began his musical studies at the age of 12. He performed in a variety of marching bands, drum corps, jazz bands, brass quintets, classical orchestras, and later earned degrees in Performance and Music Education at the University Of Connecticut.
Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans is a 2009 American crime drama film directed by Werner Herzog and starring Nicolas Cage, Eva Mendes, Tom Bower, Jennifer Coolidge, Alvin 'Xzibit' Joiner, Val Kilmer, and Brad Dourif. Though the film's title and story loosely resemble that of Abel Ferrara's 1992 film Bad Lieutenant, according to Herzog, it is neither a sequel nor a remake; its only commonality is a corrupt policeman as the central character. Nonetheless, the director of the original Bad Lieutenant film, Abel Ferrara, expressed dismay that the Herzog film was being made. Both Bad Lieutenant films were produced by Edward R. Pressman.
Will Smith is an American actor and producer. His breakthrough came when he played a fictionalised version of himself in the 1990s television sitcom The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air. The role brought him international recognition and two Golden Globe Award nominations for Best Actor – Television Series Musical or Comedy. He also served as an executive producer on 24 episodes of the series. Two years later, Smith made his film debut in the drama Where the Day Takes You, where he appeared as a disabled homeless man. In 1995, he starred as a police officer with Martin Lawrence in Michael Bay's Bad Boys. The following year, Smith appeared as a Marine Corps pilot with Jeff Goldblum in Roland Emmerich's science fiction film Independence Day. The film grossed over $817 million at the worldwide box office and was the highest grossing of 1996. In 1997, he starred as Agent J in the science fiction film Men in Black, a role he reprised in its sequels Men in Black II (2002) and Men in Black 3 (2012).
Denzel Washington is an American actor who made his feature film debut in Carbon Copy (1981). In 1982, Washington made his first appearance in the medical drama St. Elsewhere as Dr. Philip Chandler. The role proved to be the breakthrough in his career. He starred as Private First Class Melvin Peterson in the drama A Soldier's Story (1984). The film was an adaptation of the Off-Broadway play A Soldier's Play (1981–1983) in which Washington had earlier portrayed the same character. In 1987, he played Steve Biko, an anti-apartheid activist in the Richard Attenborough-directed drama Cry Freedom, for which he received his first nomination for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor. Two years later, Washington won the award for playing Trip, a former slave-turned-soldier in Civil War film Glory (1989). In 1990, he played the title character in the play The Tragedy of Richard III, and starred in Spike Lee's comedy-drama Mo' Better Blues. Washington received the Silver Bear for Best Actor at the Berlin International Film Festival, for playing the eponymous civil rights activist in Lee's Malcolm X (1992).
Scarlett Johansson is an American actress who has appeared in films, television series, video games and stage plays. Johansson made her debut in the 1994 comedy-drama North. Her first lead role was as the 11-year-old sister of a pregnant teenager in Manny & Lo (1996), for which she received a nomination for the Independent Spirit Award for Best Female Lead. Johansson starred in Robert Redford's drama The Horse Whisperer (1998), and appeared with Thora Birch and Steve Buscemi in the black comedy Ghost World (2001). Two years later, Johansson played a woman in her 20s stuck in a listless marriage who befriends an aging American actor in Japan in the Sofia Coppola-directed Lost in Translation, and also played a servant in Dutch painter Johannes Vermeer's household in Girl with a Pearl Earring with Colin Firth. She was nominated at the 61st Golden Globe Awards for both films, and received the BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role for the former.
Irrational Man is a 2015 American crime mystery drama film written and directed by Woody Allen, and starring Joaquin Phoenix, Emma Stone, Parker Posey and Jamie Blackley. The film was released on July 17, 2015, by Sony Pictures Classics in a limited release, later expanding wider.
Keanu Reeves is an actor who has appeared in films, television series and video games. He made his film debut in the short One Step Away in 1985. The following year, Reeves appeared in the crime film River's Edge, and the television films Babes in Toyland, Act of Vengeance, and Brotherhood of Justice. His first lead role was as a teenager dealing with his best friend's suicide in the 1988 drama Permanent Record. His breakthrough role came when he played time-travelling slacker Ted "Theodore" Logan in the science fiction comedy Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure (1989) with Alex Winter, which was an unexpected commercial success. Reeves followed this with a supporting role in Ron Howard's comedy Parenthood. In 1991 he starred in the action film Point Break with Patrick Swayze, the science fiction comedy sequel Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey, and the independent drama My Own Private Idaho.
Werner Herzog is a German filmmaker. Part of the New German Cinema, Herzog's films often feature ambitious protagonists with impossible dreams, people with unique talents in obscure fields, or individuals who are in conflict with nature.
