Dr. Strangelove, Or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964) is producer/director Stanley Kubrick's brilliant, satirical, provocative black comedy/fantasy regarding doomsday and Cold War politics that features an accidental, inadvertent, pre-emptive nuclear attack. The undated, landmark film - the first commercially-successful political satire about nuclear war, has been inevitably compared to another similar suspense film released at the same time - the much-more-serious and melodramatic Fail-Safe (1964). However, this was a cynically objective, Monty Python-esque, humorous, biting response to the apocalyptic fears of the 1950s.

The witty screenplay, co-authored by the director (with Terry Southern), was based on Peter George's novel Red Alert (the U.S. title). [George's work, under his pseudonym Peter Bryant, was first published in England with the title Two Hours to Doom. Early drafts of the script were titled Edge of Doom and The Delicate Balance of Terror.] The novel's primary concern was the threat of an accidental nuclear war. Dr. Strangelove himself did not appear in the novel, however - he was added by Kubrick and co-screenwriter Southern.

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The action/adventure film first became popular with weekly Saturday serials, running in installments that often had 'cliff-hanging' endings to entice viewers to return for the next show. Heroine Pearl White in the 20-episode The Perils of Pauline (1914) was the first major super-star of the silent serials. Besides Pearl White, there were other queens of the sound serials, including Kay Aldridge (as jungle Queen Nyoka in Nyoka and the Tigermen (1942)) and Linda Stirling (in the 12 part serial Zorro's Black Whip (1944) and as the "Tiger Woman" in another 12-episode serial, Perils of the Darkest Jungle (1944)).

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Biopic Films (or biographical pictures) are a sub-genre of the larger drama and epic film genres, and although they reached a hey-day of popularity in the 1930s, they are still prominent to this day. 'Biopics' is a term derived from the combination of the words "biography" and "pictures." These films depict and dramatize the life of an important historical personage (or group) from the past or present era. Sometimes, historical biopics stretch the truth and tell a life story with varying degrees of accuracy.

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the mid-1930s, three honored Warner Bros. historical/biographical films (all by director William Dieterle) starred Paul Muni - the archetypal portrayer of "Great Men" in engrossing character studies:
The Story of Louis Pasteur (1936) about the famous French scientist who attempted to find a cure for anthrax and hydrophobia, with Muni honored as Best Actor
the fictionalized Best Picture-winning The Life of Emile Zola (1937) about the famous French writer and court defender
Juarez (1939) with Muni as Mexican President Benito Pablo Juarez opposite Bette Davis as Empress Carlotta von Habsburg

Download Paul Muni as "Great Men" in Warner Bros. Prestige Pictures in the 30s

Poltergeist (1982) is a memorable supernatural horror film from co-producer/co-writer Steven Spielberg who teamed with director Tobe Hopper (known for his cult horror classic The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974)). It was Spielberg's first smash hit as a co-producer, who was paired with Frank Marshall (who later produced Who Framed Roger Rabbit? (1988)).

This classic 'haunted house ghost story' is fascinating to watch, with its extraordinary special effects created by George Lucas' Industrial Light and Magic team, and a screenplay by Spielberg, Michael Grais, and Mark Victor. However, in the early 80s, it was criticized for only receiving a PG rating, given its intense scenes of horror - accentuated by the new Dolby sound system technology. In reaction (in part), the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) in 1984 created a new ratings category - PG-13.

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A controversial, explicitly racist, but landmark American film masterpiece - these all describe ground-breaking producer/director D. W. Griffith's The Birth of a Nation (1915). The domestic melodrama/epic originally premiered with the title The Clansman in February, 1915 in Los Angeles, California, but three months later was retitled with the present title at its world premiere in New York, to emphasize the birthing process of the US. The film was based on former North Carolina Baptist minister Rev. Thomas Dixon Jr.'s anti-black, 1905 bigoted melodramatic staged play, The Clansman, the second volume in a trilogy:

* The Leopard's Spots: A Romance of the White Man's Burden, 1865-1900
* The Clansman: An Historical Romance of the Ku Klux Klan
* The Traitor


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Starring
Cameron Diaz
Justin Timberlake
Jason Segel

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Cast:

Mel Gibson, Maria Bello, Gregg Henry, James Coburn, Kris Kristofferson, William Devane, David Paymer, Deborah Kara Unger


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In the early summer of 1956, 23 year-old Colin Clark, just down from Oxford and determined to make his way in the film business, worked as a lowly assistant on the set of The Prince and the Showgirl, the film that famously united Sir Laurence Olivier and Marilyn Monroe, who was also on honeymoon with her new husband, the playwright Arthur Miller.

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Enchanted director Kevin Lima signed on to helm the DreamWorks Animation musical Monkeys of Mumbai; joining an impressive pool of talent.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, Lima joined producers Lisa Stewart and Chris Chase as well as writers Gurinder Chadha and Paul Berges (Bride & Prejudice and Bend It Like Beckham), lyricist Stephen Schwartz (Wicked) and composer A.R. Rahman (Slumdog Millionaire) on the tale based on the Indian epic Ramayana, about a man battling a demon who’s kidnapped his wife.

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