title: Poetry

text: Poetry can be a powerful vehicle for satire. The Romans had a strong tradition of satirical poetry, often written for political purposes. A notable example is the Roman poet Juvenal's satires.


title: Poetry

text: The same is true of the English satirical tradition. John Dryden (a Tory), the first Poet Laureate, produced in 1682 "Mac Flecknoe", subtitled "A Satire on the True Blue Protestant Poet, T.S." (a reference to Thomas Shadwell). Satirical poets outside England include Poland's Ignacy Krasicki, Azerbaijan's Sabir, Portugal's Manuel Maria Barbosa du Bocage, and Korea's Kim Kirim, especially noted for his "Gisangdo".


title: Poetry

text: An elegy is a mournful, melancholy or plaintive poem, especially a lament for the dead or a funeral song. The term "elegy," which originally denoted a type of poetic meter (elegiac meter), commonly describes a poem of mourning. An elegy may also reflect something that seems to the author to be strange or mysterious. The elegy, as a reflection on a death, on a sorrow more generally, or on something mysterious, may be classified as a form of lyric poetry.


title: Poetry

text: Notable practitioners of elegiac poetry have included Propertius, Jorge Manrique, Jan Kochanowski, Chidiock Tichborne, Edmund Spenser, Ben Jonson, John Milton, Thomas Gray, Charlotte Smith, William Cullen Bryant, Percy Bysshe Shelley, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Evgeny Baratynsky, Alfred Tennyson, Walt Whitman, Antonio Machado, Juan Ramón Jiménez, William Butler Yeats, Rainer Maria Rilke, and Virginia Woolf.


title: Poetry

text: The fable is an ancient literary genre, often (though not invariably) set in verse. It is a succinct story that features anthropomorphised animals, legendary creatures, plants, inanimate objects, or forces of nature that illustrate a moral lesson (a "moral"). Verse fables have used a variety of meter and rhyme patterns.


title: Poetry

text: Notable verse fabulists have included Aesop, Vishnu Sarma, Phaedrus, Marie de France, Robert Henryson, Biernat of Lublin, Jean de La Fontaine, Ignacy Krasicki, Félix María de Samaniego, Tomás de Iriarte, Ivan Krylov and Ambrose Bierce.


title: Poetry

text: Dramatic poetry is drama written in verse to be spoken or sung, and appears in varying, sometimes related forms in many cultures. Greek tragedy in verse dates to the 6th century B.C., and may have been an influence on the development of Sanskrit drama, just as Indian drama in turn appears to have influenced the development of the "bianwen" verse dramas in China, forerunners of Chinese Opera. East Asian verse dramas also include Japanese Noh. Examples of dramatic poetry in Persian literature include Nizami's two famous dramatic works, "Layla and Majnun" and "Khosrow and Shirin", Ferdowsi's tragedies such as "Rostam and Sohrab", Rumi's "Masnavi", Gorgani's tragedy of "Vis and Ramin", and Vahshi's tragedy of "Farhad". American poets of 20th century revive dramatic poetry, including Ezra Pound in “"Sestina: Altaforte,"” T.S. Eliot with “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock,”.


title: Poetry

text: Speculative poetry, also known as fantastic poetry (of which weird or macabre poetry is a major sub-classification), is a poetic genre which deals thematically with subjects which are "beyond reality", whether via extrapolation as in science fiction or via weird and horrific themes as in horror fiction. Such poetry appears regularly in modern science fiction and horror fiction magazines. Edgar Allan Poe is sometimes seen as the "father of speculative poetry". Poe's most remarkable achievement in the genre was his anticipation, by three-quarters of a century, of the Big Bang theory of the universe's origin, in his then much-derided 1848 essay (which, due to its very speculative nature, he termed a "prose poem"), "".


title: Poetry

text: Prose poetry is a hybrid genre that shows attributes of both prose and poetry. It may be indistinguishable from the micro-story ( the "short short story", "flash fiction"). While some examples of earlier prose strike modern readers as poetic, prose poetry is commonly regarded as having originated in 19th-century France, where its practitioners included Aloysius Bertrand, Charles Baudelaire, Stéphane Mallarmé, and Arthur Rimbaud. Since the late 1980s especially, prose poetry has gained increasing popularity, with entire journals, such as "The Prose Poem: An International Journal", "Contemporary Haibun Online", and "Haibun Today" devoted to that genre and its hybrids. Latin American poets of the 20th century who wrote prose poems include Octavio Paz and Alejandra Pizarnik.


title: Poetry

text: Light poetry, or light verse, is poetry that attempts to be humorous. Poems considered "light" are usually brief, and can be on a frivolous or serious subject, and often feature word play, including puns, adventurous rhyme and heavy alliteration. Although a few free verse poets have excelled at light verse outside the formal verse tradition, light verse in English usually obeys at least some formal conventions. Common forms include the limerick, the clerihew, and the double dactyl.


title: Poetry

text: While light poetry is sometimes condemned as doggerel, or thought of as poetry composed casually, humor often makes a serious point in a subtle or subversive way. Many of the most renowned "serious" poets have also excelled at light verse. Notable writers of light poetry include Lewis Carroll, Ogden Nash, X. J. Kennedy, Willard R. Espy, Shel Silverstein, and Wendy Cope.


title: Poetry

text: Slam poetry as a genre originated in 1986 in Chicago, Illinois, when Marc Kelly Smith organized the first slam. Slam performers comment emotively, aloud before an audience, on personal, social, or other matters. Slam focuses on the aesthetics of word play, intonation, and voice inflection. Slam poetry is often competitive, at dedicated "poetry slam" contests.


title: Poetry

text: Performance poetry, similar to slam in that it occurs before an audience, is a genre of poetry that may fuse a variety of disciplines in a performance of a text, such as dance, music, and other aspects of performance art.


title: Poetry

text: The term "happening" was popularized by the avante garde movements in the 1950s and regard spontaneous, site-specific performances. "Language happenings", termed from the poetics collective in 2018, are events which focus less on poetry as a prescriptive literary genre, but more as a descriptive linguistic act and performance, often incorporating broader forms of performance art while poetry is read or created in that moment.


title: Unitarianism

text: Unitarianism (from Latin "unitas" "unity, oneness", from "unus" "one") is a nontrinitarian branch of Christian theology. Most other branches of Christianity and the major Churches accept the doctrine of the Trinity which states that there is one God who exists in three coequal, coeternal, consubstantial divine persons: God the Father, God the Son (Jesus Christ) and God the Holy Spirit. Unitarian Christians believe that Jesus was inspired by God in his moral teachings and that he is a savior, but not God himself.


title: Unitarianism

text: Unitarianism was established in order to restore "primitive Christianity before [what Unitarians saw as] later corruptions setting in"; Unitarians generally reject the doctrine of original sin. The churchmanship of Unitarianism may include liberal denominations or Unitarian Christian denominations that are more conservative, with the latter being known as biblical Unitarians.


title: Unitarianism

text: The movement is proximate to the radical reformation, beginning almost simultaneously among the protestant Polish Brethren in the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth and in Transylvania in the mid-16th century; the Christian denomination that emerged is known as the Unitarian Church of Transylvania. Among the adherents were a significant number of Italians who took refuge in Poland. In the 17th century, significant repression in Poland led many Unitarians to flee or be killed for their faith, notably Katarzyna Weiglowa. From the 16th to 18th centuries, Unitarians in Britain often faced significant political persecution, including John Biddle, Mary Wollstonecraft, and Theophilus Lindsey. In England, the first Unitarian Church was established in 1774 on Essex Street, London, where today's British Unitarian headquarters is still located.


title: Unitarianism

text: As is typical of dissenters, Unitarianism does not constitute one single Christian denomination; rather, it refers to a collection of both existing and extinct Christian groups (whether historically related to each other or not) that share a common theological concept of the unitary nature of God. Unitarian communities have developed in Britain, Ireland, South Africa, Central Europe, India, Canada, the United States, Jamaica, Nigeria, and Japan.


title: Unitarianism

text: In the United States, different schools of Unitarian theology first spread in New England and the mid-Atlantic states. The first official acceptance of the Unitarian faith on the part of a congregation in America was by King's Chapel in Boston, from where James Freeman began teaching Unitarian doctrine in 1784 and was appointed rector. Later in 1786, he revised the Book of Common Prayer according to Unitarian doctrines.


title: Unitarianism

text: Unitarianism is a proper noun and follows the same English usage as other theologies that have developed within a religious movement (Calvinism, Anabaptism, Adventism, Wesleyanism, Lutheranism, etc.). The term existed shortly before it became the name of a religious movement, thus occasionally it is used as a common noun to describe any understanding of Jesus Christ that denies the Trinity or believes that God is only one person. In that case, it would be a nontrinitarian belief system not necessarily associated with the Unitarian religious movement. For example, the Unitarian movement has never accepted the Godhood of Jesus, and therefore does not include those "nontrinitarian" belief systems that do, such as Oneness Pentecostalism, United Pentecostal Church International, the True Jesus Church, and the writings of Michael Servetus (all of which maintain that Jesus is God as a single person). Recently, some religious groups have adopted the 19th-century term "biblical unitarianism" to distinguish their theologies from Unitarianism.


title: Unitarianism

text: The term "Unitarian" is sometimes applied today to those who belong to a Unitarian church but do not hold a Unitarian theological belief. In the past, most members of Unitarian churches were Unitarians also in theology. Over time, however, some Unitarians and Unitarian Universalists moved away from the traditional Christian roots of Unitarianism. For example, in the 1890s the American Unitarian Association began to allow non-Christian and non-theistic churches and individuals to be part of their fellowship. As a result, people who held no Unitarian belief began to be called "Unitarians" because they were members of churches that belonged to the American Unitarian Association. After several decades, the non-theistic members outnumbered the theological Unitarians. For a more specific discussion of Unitarianism as it evolved into a pluralistic liberal religious movement, see Unitarian Universalism (and its national groups the Unitarian Universalist Association in the United States, the Canadian Unitarian Council in Canada, the General Assembly of Unitarian and Free Christian Churches in the United Kingdom, and the International Council of Unitarians and Universalists).


title: Unitarianism

text: Unitarianism, both as a theology and as a denominational family of churches, was defined and developed in Poland, Transylvania, England, Wales, India, Japan, Jamaica, the United States, and beyond in the 16th century through the present. Although common beliefs existed among Unitarians in each of these regions, they initially grew independently from each other. Only later did they influence one another and accumulate more similarities.


title: Unitarianism

text: The "Ecclesia minor" or "Minor Reformed Church of Poland", better known today as the Polish Brethren, was born as the result of a controversy that started on January 22, 1556, when Piotr of Goniądz (Peter Gonesius), a Polish student, spoke out against the doctrine of the Trinity during the general synod of the Reformed (Calvinist) churches of Poland held in the village of Secemin. After nine years of debate, in 1565, the anti-Trinitarians were excluded from the existing synod of the Polish Reformed Church (henceforth the "Ecclesia maior") and they began to hold their own synods as the "Ecclesia minor". Though frequently called "Arians" by those on the outside, the views of Fausto Sozzini (Faustus Socinus) became the standard in the church, and these doctrines were quite removed from Arianism. So important was Socinus to the formulation of their beliefs that those outside Poland usually referred to them as Socinians. The Polish Brethren were disbanded in 1658 by the Sejm (Polish Parliament). They were ordered to convert to Roman Catholicism or leave Poland. Most of them went to Transylvania or Holland, where they embraced the name "Unitarian". Between 1665 and 1668 a grandson of Socinus, Andrzej Wiszowaty Sr., published "Bibliotheca Fratrum Polonorum quos Unitarios vocant" ("Library of the Polish Brethren who are called Unitarians" 4 vols. 1665–1669).


title: Unitarianism

text: The Unitarian Church in Transylvania was first recognized by the Edict of Torda, issued by the Transylvanian Diet under Prince John II Sigismund Zápolya (January 1568), and was first led by Ferenc Dávid (a former Calvinist bishop, who had begun preaching the new doctrine in 1566). The term "Unitarian" first appeared as "unitaria religio" in a document of the Diet of Lécfalva, Transylvania, on 25 October 1600, though it was not widely used in Transylvania until 1638, when the formal "recepta Unitaria Religio" was published.


title: Unitarianism

text: The word "Unitarian" had been circulating in private letters in England, in reference to imported copies of such publications as the "Library of the Polish Brethren who are called Unitarians" (1665). Henry Hedworth was the first to use the word "Unitarian" in print in English (1673), and the word first appears in a title in Stephen Nye's "A brief history of the Unitarians, called also Socinians" (1687). The movement gained popularity in England in the wake of the Enlightenment and began to become a formal denomination in 1774 when Theophilus Lindsey organised meetings with Joseph Priestley, founding the first avowedly Unitarian congregation in the country. This occurred at Essex Street Church in London. Official toleration came in 1813.


title: Unitarianism

text: The first official acceptance of the Unitarian faith on the part of a congregation in America was by King's Chapel in Boston, which settled James Freeman (1759–1835) in 1782, and revised the Prayer Book into a mild Unitarian liturgy in 1785. In 1800, Joseph Stevens Buckminster became minister of the Brattle Street Church in Boston, where his brilliant sermons, literary activities, and academic attention to the German "New Criticism" helped shape the subsequent growth of Unitarianism in New England. Unitarian Henry Ware (1764–1845) was appointed as the Hollis professor of divinity at Harvard College, in 1805. Harvard Divinity School then shifted from its conservative roots to teach Unitarian theology (see Harvard and Unitarianism). Buckminster's close associate William Ellery Channing (1780–1842) was settled over the Federal Street Church in Boston, 1803, and in a few years he became the leader of the Unitarian movement. A theological battle with the Congregational Churches resulted in the formation of the American Unitarian Association at Boston in 1825. Certainly, the unitarian theology was being "adopted" by the Congregationalists from the 1820s onwards. This movement is also evident in England at this time.


title: Unitarianism

text: Unitarians charge that the Trinity, unlike unitarianism, fails to adhere to strict monotheism. Unitarians maintain that Jesus was a great man and a prophet of God, perhaps even a supernatural being, but not God himself. They believe Jesus did not claim to be God and that his teachings did not suggest the existence of a triune God.


title: Unitarianism

text: Unitarian Christology can be divided according to whether or not Jesus is believed to have had a pre-human existence. Both forms maintain that God is one being and one "person" and that Jesus is the (or a) Son of God, but generally not God himself.


title: Unitarianism

text: In the early 19th century, Unitarian Robert Wallace identified three particular classes of Unitarian doctrines in history:


title: Unitarianism

text: Unitarianism is considered a factor in the decline of classical deism because there were people who increasingly preferred to identify themselves as Unitarians rather than deists.


title: Unitarianism

text: Several tenets of Unitarianism overlap with the predominant Muslim view of Jesus and Islamic understanding of monotheism.


title: Unitarianism

text: The Christology commonly called "Socinian" (after Fausto Sozzini, one of the founders of Unitarian theology) refers to the belief that Jesus Christ began his life when he was born as a human. In other words, the teaching that Jesus pre-existed his human body is rejected. There are various views ranging from the belief that Jesus was simply a human (psilanthropism) who, because of his greatness, was adopted by God as his Son (adoptionism) to the belief that Jesus literally became the son of God when he was conceived by the Holy Spirit.


title: Unitarianism

text: This Christology existed in some form or another prior to Sozzini. Theodotus of Byzantium, Artemon and Paul of Samosata denied the pre-existence of Christ. These ideas were continued by Marcellus of Ancyra and his pupil Photinus in the 4th century AD. In the Radical Reformation and Anabaptist movements of the 16th century this idea resurfaced with Sozzini's uncle, Lelio Sozzini. Having influenced the Polish Brethren to a formal declaration of this belief in the Racovian Catechism, Fausto Sozzini involuntarily ended up giving his name to this Christological position, which continued with English Unitarians such as John Biddle, Thomas Belsham, Theophilus Lindsey, Joseph Priestley, and James Martineau. In America, most of the early Unitarians were "Arian" in Christology (see below), but among those who held to a "Socinian" view was James Freeman.


title: Unitarianism

text: Regarding the virgin birth of Jesus among those who denied the preexistence of Christ, some held to it and others did not. Its denial is sometimes ascribed to the Ebionites; however, Origen ("Contra Celsum" v.61) and Eusebius ("HE" iii.27) both indicate that some Ebionites did accept the virgin birth. On the other hand, Theodotus of Byzantium, Artemon, and Paul of Samosata all accepted the virgin birth. In the early days of Unitarianism, the stories of the virgin birth were accepted by most. There were a number of Unitarians who questioned the historical accuracy of the Bible, including Symon Budny, Jacob Palaeologus, Thomas Belsham, and Richard Wright, and this made them question the virgin birth story. Beginning in England and America in the 1830s, and manifesting itself primarily in Transcendentalist Unitarianism, which emerged from the German liberal theology associated primarily with Friedrich Schleiermacher, the psilanthropist view increased in popularity. Its proponents took an intellectual and humanistic approach to religion. They embraced evolutionary concepts, asserted the "inherent goodness of man", and abandoned the doctrine of biblical infallibility, rejecting most of the miraculous events in the Bible (including the virgin birth). Notable examples are James Martineau, Theodore Parker, Ralph Waldo Emerson and Frederic Henry Hedge. Famous American Unitarian William Ellery Channing was a believer in the virgin birth until later in his life, after he had begun his association with the Transcendentalists.


title: Unitarianism

text: The Christology of Arianism holds that Jesus, before his human life, existed as the Logos, or the Word, a being created by God, who dwelt with God in heaven. There are many varieties of this form of Unitarianism, ranging from the belief that the Son was a divine spirit of the same nature as God before coming to earth, to the belief that he was an angel or other lesser spirit creature of a wholly different nature from God. Not all of these views necessarily were held by Arius, the namesake of this Christology. It is still Nontrinitarian because, according to this belief system, Jesus has always been beneath God, though higher than humans. Arian Christology was not a majority view among Unitarians in Poland, Transylvania or England. It was only with the advent of American Unitarianism that it gained a foothold in the Unitarian movement.


title: Unitarianism

text: Among early Christian theologians who believed in a pre-existent Jesus who was subordinate to God the Father were Lucian of Antioch, Eusebius of Caesarea, Arius, Eusebius of Nicomedia, Asterius the Sophist, Eunomius, and Ulfilas, as well as Felix, Bishop of Urgell. Proponents of this Christology also associate it (more controversially) with Justin Martyr and Hippolytus of Rome. Antitrinitarian Michael Servetus did not deny the pre-existence of Christ, so he may have believed in it. (In his "Treatise Concerning the Divine Trinity" Servetus taught that the Logos (Word) was the reflection of Christ, and "that reflection of Christ was 'the Word with God" that consisted of God Himself, shining brightly in heaven, "and it was God Himself" and that "the Word was the very essence of God or the manifestation of God's essence, and there was in God no other substance or hypostasis than His Word, in a bright cloud where God then seemed to subsist. And in that very spot the face and personality of Christ shone bright.") Isaac Newton had Arian beliefs as well. Famous 19th-century Arian Unitarians include Andrews Norton and Dr. William Ellery Channing (in his earlier years).


title: Unitarianism

text: Although there is no specific authority on convictions of Unitarian belief aside from rejection of the Trinity, the following beliefs are generally accepted:


title: Unitarianism

text: In 1938, "The Christian leader" attributed ""the" religion "of" Jesus, not "a" religion "about" Jesus" to Unitarians, though the phrase was used earlier by Congregationalist Rollin Lynde Hartt in 1924.


title: Unitarianism

text: Worship within the Unitarian tradition accommodates a wide range of understandings of God, while the focus of the service may be simply the celebration of life itself. Each Unitarian congregation is at liberty to devise its own form of worship, though commonly, Unitarians will light their chalice (symbol of faith), have a story for all ages; and include sermons, prayers, hymns and songs. Some will allow attendees to publicly share their recent joys or concerns.


title: Unitarianism

text: This section relates to Unitarian churches and organizations today which are still specifically Christian, whether within or outside Unitarian Universalism. Unitarian Universalism, conversely, refers to the embracing of non-Christian religions.


title: Unitarianism

text: Some Unitarian Christian groups are affiliated with the International Council of Unitarians and Universalists (ICUU), founded in 1995. The ICUU has "full member" groups in Australia, New Zealand, United Kingdom, Canada, Czech Republic, Denmark, EUU, Finland, Germany, Hungary, Indonesia, India, Nigeria, Pakistan, Philippines, Poland, Romania, South Africa, Spain. Sri Lanka and the United States. Brazil is a Provisional Member


title: Unitarianism

text: The ICUU includes small "Associate Groups", including Congregazione Italiana Cristiano Unitariana, Turin (founded in 2004) and the Bét Dávid Unitarian Association, Oslo (founded 2005).


title: Unitarianism

text: The largest Unitarian denomination worldwide today is also the oldest Unitarian denomination (since 1565, first use of the term "Unitarian" 1600): the Unitarian Church of Transylvania (in Romania, which is in union with the Unitarian Church in Hungary). The church in Transylvania still looks to the statement of faith, the "Summa Universae Theologiae Christianae secundum Unitarios" (1787), though today assent to this is not required. The modern Unitarian Church in Hungary (25,000 members) and the Transylvanian Unitarian Church (75,000 members) are affiliated with the International Council of Unitarians and Universalists (ICUU) and claim continuity with the historical Unitarian Christian tradition established by Ferenc Dávid in 1565 in Transylvania under John II Sigismund Zápolya. The Unitarian churches in Hungary and Transylvania are structured and organized along a church hierarchy that includes the election by the synod of a national bishop who serves as superintendent of the Church. Many Hungarian Unitarians embrace the principles of rationalist Unitarianism. Unitarian high schools exist only in Transylvania (Romania), including the John Sigismund Unitarian Academy in Cluj-Napoca, the Protestant Theological Institute of Cluj, and the Berde Mózes Unitárius Gimnázium in Cristuru Secuiesc; both teach Rationalist Unitarianism.


title: Unitarianism

text: The Unitarian Christian Association (UCA) was founded in the United Kingdom in 1991 by Rev. Lancelot Garrard (1904–93) and others to promote specifically Christian ideas within the General Assembly of Unitarian and Free Christian Churches (GAUFCC), the national Unitarian body in Great Britain. Just as the UUCF and ICUU maintain formal links with the Unitarian Universalist Association in the US, so the UCA is an affiliate body of the GAUFCC in Great Britain.


title: Unitarianism

text: The majority of Unitarian Christian publications are sponsored by an organization and published specifically for their membership. Generally, they do not serve as a tool for missionary work or encouraging conversions.


title: Unitarianism

text: In India, three different schools of Unitarian thought influenced varying movements, including the Brahmo Samaj, the Unitarian Church of the Khasi Hills, and the Unitarian Christian Church of Chennai, in Madras, founded in 1795. As of 2011, "Thirty-five congregations and eight fellowships comprising almost 10,000 Unitarians now form the Unitarian Union of North East India."


title: Unitarianism

text: Unitarian Universalist Association (UUA) is a network of liberal religious congregations affirming the worth and dignity of every person, shared ethical principles and reverence for a variety of theological sources. The UUA was formed in 1961 by the consolidation of the American Unitarian Association and the Universalist Church of America.


title: Unitarianism

text: Individual congregations may choose to elevate all of the sources of faith in their worship, or, in their context, move toward affirming particular sources as predominant. As of 2020, the UUA reports 187,689 individual members active in 1,027 congregations.


title: Unitarianism

text: During the US Civil Rights Movements, the murders of the US veteran Jimmie Lee Jackson, the Unitarian Universalist Minister James Reeb, and Unitarian Universalist lay leader Viola Liuzzo during the time of the marches from Selma to Montgomery highlighted the bigotry and violence of racial injustice to the wider American public. According to the historian Rev. Mark Morrison-Reed, on the final day of the march, "among the 30,000 who marched were about 500 UU lay people and about 250 UU ministers. The ministers who went to Selma represented a quarter to a third of all UU ministers in full fellowship." The Selma protests were critical to supporting passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.


title: Unitarianism

text: The current President of the Unitarian Universalist Association (UUA) is Rev. Susan Frederick Gray. Rev. Gray notes, for Unitarian Universalists, "Our work for justice and equity—our work to dismantle white supremacy culture, racism, and oppression in ourselves and in our world—is the faithful response to our theology of interdependence."


title: Unitarianism

text: The Unitarian Universalist Christian Fellowship (UUCF) was founded in 1945, originally to support Unitarian Christians in the American Unitarian Association. The mission expanded to support Christian members of Universalist Church of America (UCA) in the newly formed Unitarian Universalist Association (UUA) in 1961. UUCF continues as an affiliate of the Unitarian Universalist Association (UUA) serving Christian members seeking to "freely follow Jesus".


title: Unitarianism

text: The American Unitarian Conference (AUC) was formed in 2000 and stands between UUA and ICUU in attachment to the Christian element of modern Unitarianism. The American Unitarian Conference is open to non-Christian Unitarians, being particularly popular with non-Christian theists and deists. As of 2009, The AUC has three congregations in the United States.


title: Unitarianism

text: Unitarian Christian Ministries International was a Unitarian ministry incorporated in South Carolina until its dissolution in 2013 when it merged with the Unitarian Christian Emerging Church. The Unitarian Christian Emerging Church has recently undergone reorganization and today is known as the Unitarian Christian Church of America.


title: Unitarianism

text: The Sydney Unitarian Church was founded 1850 under a Reverend Mr Stanley and was a vigorous denomination during the 19th century. The modern church, no longer unitarian Christian, has properties in Adelaide, Sydney and Melbourne, and smaller congregations elsewhere in Australia and New Zealand.


title: Unitarianism

text: The Unitarian movement in South Africa was founded in 1867 by David Faure, member of a well-known Cape family. He encountered advanced liberal religious thought while completing his studies at the University of Leiden in Holland for the ministry of the Dutch Reformed Church in Cape Town.


title: Unitarianism

text: There are two active Unitarian churches in Ireland, one in Dublin and the other in Cork. Both are member churches of the Non-subscribing Presbyterian Church of Ireland.


title: Unitarianism

text: Unitarianism was a latecomer to Denmark. Some of the inspiration came from Norway and England – family members of the founders, and the wife of Edward Grieg. 1900-1918 the society priest was Uffe Birkedal, who had previously been a Lutheran priest. He held the first worship 18 February 1900. A founding general assembly 18 May 1900 elected Mary Bess Westenholz as the first chairman of the Society. The Society newsletter was named ‘Protestantisk Tidende’ 1904-1993, and then renamed ‘Unitaren’, reflecting a gradually changing perception of being part of the Danish Lutheran Church, to one where this was no longer assumed ().


title: Unitarianism

text: Biblical Unitarianism (also known as "biblical Unitarianism" or "biblical unitarianism") identifies the Christian belief that the Bible teaches that God the Father is one singular being, and that Jesus Christ is a distinct being, his son, but not divine. A few denominations use this term to describe themselves, clarifying the distinction between them and those churches which, from the late 19th century, evolved into modern British Unitarianism and, primarily in the United States, Unitarian Universalism. In 16th-century Italy, Biblical Unitarianism was powered by the ideas of the Non-trinitarian theologians Lelio and Fausto Sozzini, founders of Socinianism; their doctrine was embraced and further developed by the Unitarian Church of Transylvania during the 16th and 17th centuries. Today, it's represented by the churches associated with the Christian Church in Italy.


title: Unitarianism

text: Notable Unitarians include classical composers Edvard Grieg and Béla Bartók; Ralph Waldo Emerson, Theodore Parker, Yveon Seon and Thomas Lamb Eliot in theology and ministry; Oliver Heaviside, Erasmus Darwin, Joseph Priestley, John Archibald Wheeler, Linus Pauling, Sir Isaac Newton and inventor Sir Francis Ronalds in science; George Boole in mathematics; Susan B. Anthony in civil government; Frances Ellen Watkins Harper, Whitney Young of the National Urban League, and Florence Nightingale in humanitarianism and social justice; John Bowring, Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Elizabeth Gaskell in literature; Frank Lloyd Wright in the arts; Josiah Wedgwood, Richard Peacock and Samuel Carter MP in industry; Thomas Starr King in ministry and politics; and Charles William Eliot in education. Julia Ward Howe was a leader in the woman suffrage movement, the first ever woman to be elected to the Academy of Arts and Letters, and author of the "Battle Hymn of the Republic", volumes of poetry, and other writing. Although raised a Quaker, Ezra Cornell, founder of Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, attended the Unitarian church and was one of the founders of Ithaca's First Unitarian Church. Eramus Darwin Shattuck, a signatory to the Oregon State Constitution, founded the first Unitarian church in Oregon in 1865.


title: Unitarianism

text: Eleven Nobel Prizes have been awarded to Unitarians: Robert Millikan and John Bardeen (twice) in physics; Emily Green Balch, Albert Schweitzer and Linus Pauling for peace; George Wald and David H. Hubel in medicine; Linus Pauling in chemistry; and Herbert A. Simon in economics.


title: Unitarianism

text: Four presidents of the United States were Unitarians: John Adams, John Quincy Adams, Millard Fillmore, and William Howard Taft. Adlai Stevenson II, the Democratic presidential nominee in 1952 and 1956, was a Unitarian; he was the last Unitarian to be nominated by a major party for president as of 2020. Although a self-styled materialist, Thomas Jefferson was pro-Unitarian to the extent of suggesting that it would become the predominant religion in the United States.


title: Unitarianism

text: In the United Kingdom, although Unitarianism was the religion of only a small minority of the population, its practitioners had an enormous impact on Victorian politics, not only in the larger cities – Birmingham, Leeds, Manchester and Liverpool – but in smaller communities such as Leicester, where there were so many Unitarian mayors that the Unitarian Chapel was known as the "Mayors' Nest". Numerous Unitarian families were highly significant in the social and political life of Britain from Victorian times to the middle of the 20th century. They included the Nettlefolds, Martineaus, Luptons, Kitsons, Chamberlains and Kenricks. In Birmingham, England, a Unitarian church – the Church of the Messiah – was opened in 1862. It became a cultural and intellectual centre of a whole society, a place where ideas about society were openly and critically discussed.


title: Unitarianism

text: Other Unitarians include Sir Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the World Wide Web, Lancelot Ware, founder of Mensa, Sir Adrian Boult, the conductor, Ray Kurzweil, notable inventor and futurist, and C. Killick Millard, founder of the Dignity in Dying society to support voluntary euthanasia. Ram Mohan Roy, an Indian reformer of the 18th century, was a Unitarian who published a book called "Precepts of Jesus".


title: The Game (mind game)

text: The Game is a mind game in which the objective is to avoid thinking about The Game itself. Thinking about The Game constitutes a loss, which must be announced each time it occurs. It is impossible to win most versions of The Game. Depending on the variation, it is held that the whole world, or all those who are aware of the game, are playing it all the time. Tactics have been developed to increase the number of people who are aware of The Game, and thereby increase the number of losses.


title: The Game (mind game)

text: The origins of The Game are uncertain. The most common hypothesis as is that The Game derives from another mental game, Finchley Central. While the original version of Finchley Central involves taking turns to name stations, in 1976 some members of the Cambridge University Science Fiction Society (CUSFS) developed a variant where the first person to think of the titular station loses. The game in this form demonstrates ironic processing, in which attempts to suppress or avoid certain thoughts make those thoughts more common or persistent than they would be at random.


title: The Game (mind game)

text: How this became simplified into The Game is unknown; one hypothesis is that once it spread outside the Greater London area, among people who are less familiar with London stations, it morphed into its self-referential form. The creators of "LoseTheGame.net", a website which aims to catalogue information relating to the phenomenon, have received messages from multiple former members of the CUSFS commenting on the similarity between the Finchley Central variant and the modern Game. The first known reference to The Game is a blog post from 2002 - the author states that they "found out about it online about 6 months ago".


title: The Game (mind game)

text: The Game is most commonly spread through the internet, such as via Facebook or Twitter, or by word of mouth.


title: The Game (mind game)

text: The definition of "thinking about The Game" is not always clear. If one discusses The Game without realizing that they have lost, this may or may not constitute a loss. If someone says "What is The Game?" before understanding the rules, whether they have lost is up for interpretation. According to some interpretations, one does not lose when someone else announces their loss, although the second rule implies that one loses regardless of what made them think about The Game. After a player has announced a loss, or after one thinks of The Game, some variants allow for a grace period between three seconds to thirty minutes to forget about the game, during which the player cannot lose the game again.


title: The Game (mind game)

text: The common rules do not define a point at which The Game ends. However, some players state that The Game ends when the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom announces on television that "The Game is up."


title: The Game (mind game)

text: Strategies focus on making others lose The Game. Common methods include saying "The Game" out loud or writing about The Game on a hidden note, in graffiti in public places, or on banknotes.


title: The Game (mind game)

text: Associations may be made with The Game, especially over time, so that one thing inadvertently causes one to lose. Some players enjoy thinking of elaborate pranks that will cause others to lose the game.


title: The Game (mind game)

text: Other strategies involve merchandise: T-shirts, buttons, mugs, posters, and bumper stickers have been created to advertise The Game. The Game is also spread via social media websites such as Facebook and Twitter.


title: The Game (mind game)

text: The Game has been described as challenging and fun to play, and as pointless, childish, and infuriating. In some Internet forums, such as "Something Awful" and GameSpy, and in several schools, The Game has been banned.


title: The Game (mind game)

text: The 2009 "Time" 100 poll was manipulated by users of 4chan, forming an acrostic for "marblecake also the game" out of the top 21 people's names.


title: Knowing (film)

text: Knowing is a 2009 American science fiction thriller film directed and co-produced by Alex Proyas and starring Nicolas Cage. The film, conceived and co-written by Ryne Douglas Pearson, was originally attached to a number of directors under Columbia Pictures, but it was placed in turnaround and eventually picked up by Escape Artists. Production was financially backed by Summit Entertainment. "Knowing" was filmed in Docklands Studios Melbourne, Australia, using various locations to represent the film's Boston-area setting. The film centers on the discovery of a strange paper filled with numbers and the possibility that they somehow predict the details of various disasters culminating in the apocalypse.


title: Knowing (film)

text: The film was released on March 20, 2009, in the United States. The DVD and Blu-ray media were released on July 7, 2009. "Knowing" grossed $186.5 million at the worldwide box office, plus $27.7 million with home video sales, against an average production budget of $50 million. It met with mixed reviews, with praise for the acting performances, visual style and atmosphere, but criticism over some implausibilities and the ending.


title: Knowing (film)

text: In 1959, a Lexington, Massachusetts elementary school celebrates its opening with a competition in which students draw what they believe will happen in the future. All the children create visual works except for Lucinda Embry. Guided by whispering voices, she fills her paper with a series of numbers. Before she can write the final numbers, the allotted time for the task expires, and the teacher collects the students' drawings. The following day, Lucinda engraves the remaining numbers into a closet door with her fingernails. The works are stored in a time capsule and opened fifty years later when the current class distributes the drawings among the students. Lucinda's sheet is given to Caleb Koestler, the nine-year-old son of widowed MIT astrophysics professor John Koestler.


title: Knowing (film)

text: John notices that Lucinda's numbers are dates, death tolls, and geographical coordinates of major catastrophes over the past fifty years (including the Oklahoma City bombing, the September 11 attacks, and Hurricane Katrina), and three have yet to happen. In the following days, John encounters two of the three final events in person: a plane crash and a New York City Subway train collision caused by faulty siding. John becomes convinced that his family has a significant role in these incidents: his wife died in one of the earlier events, while Caleb was the one to receive Lucinda's message. Meanwhile, Caleb begins hearing the same whispering voices as Lucinda.


title: Knowing (film)

text: John tracks Lucinda's daughter Diana and her granddaughter Abby to prevent the last event. After some initial disbelief, Diana goes with John to Lucinda's childhood home, where they find a copy of Matthäus Merian's engraving of Ezekiel's "chariot vision", in which a great sun is represented. They also discover that the final two digits of Lucinda's message are not numbers, but two reversed letter E's, matching the message left by Lucinda under her bed: "Everyone Else." During this search, Caleb and Abby, who were left asleep in the car, have an encounter with the beings who are the source of the whispers. Diana tells John that her mother had always told her the date she would die. He also visits Lucinda's teacher, who tells him of the scratching on the door left by Lucinda.


title: Knowing (film)

text: The next day, Abby colors in the sun on the engraving, which gives John a revelation. He rushes to the MIT observatory and learns that a massive solar flare with the potential to destroy all life will hit the Earth on the last date indicated by the message. As Diana and Abby prepare to take refuge in nearby caves, John goes to the school and finds the door on which Lucinda engraved the final numbers and identifies them as coordinates of a place where he believes they may find salvation from the solar flare. The skeptical and hysterical Diana loads Caleb and Abby into her car and flees for the caves.


title: Knowing (film)

text: At a gas station, the whispering beings steal her car with Caleb and Abby inside. Diana pursues them at speed (in a stolen SUV) but is killed in a traffic accident involving a semi-truck on the date her mother predicted. The beings take Caleb and Abby to Lucinda's mobile home, where John encounters them shortly thereafter. The beings, acting as extraterrestrial angels, are leading children to safety on interstellar arks. John is told he cannot go with them because he never heard the whispering, so he convinces Caleb to leave with Abby and two pet rabbits they found, and both are transported away by the beings. The ark, along with many other arks, leave Earth. The following morning, John decides to be with his family when the flare strikes and drives through a chaotic Boston to his parent's house, where he reconciles with his estranged father. The solar flare then strikes, destroying the Earth's atmosphere and all life on the planet. Meanwhile, the ark, along with others, deposits Caleb and Abby in another world resembling an earthly paradise and departs. The two run through a field towards a large white mysterious tree (implied to be the tree of life).


title: Knowing (film)

text: In 2001, novelist Ryne Douglas Pearson approached producers Todd Black and Jason Blumenthal with his idea for a film, where a time capsule from the 1950s is opened revealing fulfilled prophecies, of which the last one ended with 'EE' – "everyone else". The producers liked the concept and bought his script. The project was set up at Columbia Pictures. Both Rod Lurie and Richard Kelly were attached as directors, but the film eventually went into turnaround. The project was picked up by the production company Escape Artists, and the script was rewritten by Stiles White and Juliet Snowden. Director Alex Proyas was attached to direct the project in February 2005. Proyas said the aspect that attracted him the most was the "very different script" and the notion of people seeing the future and "how it shape their lives". Summit Entertainment took on the responsibility to fully finance and distribute the film. Proyas and Stuart Hazeldine rewrote the draft for production, which began on March 25, 2008 in Melbourne, Australia. The director hoped to emulate "The Exorcist" in melding "realism with a fantastical premise".


title: Knowing (film)

text: The film is set primarily in the town of Lexington with some scenes set in the nearby cities of Cambridge and Boston. However, it was shot in Australia, where director Proyas resides. Locations included the Geelong Ring Road; the Melbourne Museum; "Cooinda", a residence in Mount Macedon which was the location for all of the "home and garden" scenes; and Collins Street. Filming also took place at Camberwell High School, which was converted into the fictional William Dawes Elementary, located in 1959 Lexington. Interior shots took place at the Australian Synchrotron to represent an observatory. Filming also took place at the Haystack Observatory in Westford, Massachusetts. In addition to practical locations, filming also took place at the Melbourne Central City Studios in Docklands. The plane crash, which was mostly shown in one take in the film, was done in a nearly-finished freeway outside Melbourne, the Geelong Ring Road, mixing practical effects and pieces of a plane with computer-generated elements. The scenographic rain led to the usage of a new gel for the flames so the fire would not be put out, and semi-permanent make-up to make them last the long shooting hours. The solar flare destruction sequence is set in New York City, showing notable landmarks such as the Metlife Building, Times Square and the Empire State Building being obliterated as the flare spreads across the Earth's surface, destroying everything in its path.


title: Knowing (film)

text: Proyas used a Red One 4K digital camera. He sought to capture a gritty and realistic look to the film, and his approach involved a continuous two-minute scene in which Cage's character sees a plane crash and attempts to rescue passengers. The scene was an arduous task, taking two days to set up and two days to shoot. Proyas explained the goal, "I did that specifically to not let the artifice of visual effects and all the cuts and stuff we can do, get in the way of the emotion of the scene."


title: Knowing (film)

text: The music for the film was written by Marco Beltrami, but also features classical works such as Symphony No. 7 (Beethoven) - Allegretto, which is played without any accompanying sound effects in the final Boston disaster scene of the film. Beltrami released the soundtrack as a CD with 22 tracks.


title: Knowing (film)

text: "Knowing" was released in 3,332 theaters in the United States and Canada on March 20, 2009, and grossed US$24,604,751 in its opening weekend, placing first at the box office. According to exit polling, 63% of the audience was 25 years old and up and evenly split between genders. On the weekend of March 17, 2009, "Knowing" ranked first in the international box office, grossing US$9.8 million at 1,711 theatres in ten markets, including first with US$3.55 million in the United Kingdom. The film had grossed US$80 million in the United States and Canada and US$107 million in other territories for a worldwide total of US$186.5 million, plus US$27.7 million with home video sales, against a production budget of US$50 million.


title: Knowing (film)

text: Review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes gives the film a 34% critic rating based upon a sample of 184 critics with an average rating of 4.80/10. The site's consensus: ""Knowing" has some interesting ideas and a couple good scenes, but it's weighted down by its absurd plot and over-seriousness". Metacritic gave the film a score of 41% based on 27 reviews, indicating "mixed or average reviews".


title: Knowing (film)

text: A. O. Scott of "The New York Times" gave the film a negative review and wrote, "If your intention is to make a brooding, hauntingly allegorical terror-thriller, it's probably not a good sign when spectacles of mass death and intimations of planetary destruction are met with hoots and giggles ... The draggy, lurching two hours of "Knowing" will make you long for the end of the world, even as you worry that there will not be time for all your questions to be answered." In the "San Francisco Chronicle", Peter Hartlaub called the film "an excitement for fans of Proyas" and "a surprisingly messy effort". He thought Nicolas Cage "borders on ridiculous here, in part because of a script that gives him little to do but freak out or act depressed".


title: Knowing (film)

text: Writing for "The Washington Post", Michael O'Sullivan thought the film was "creepy, at least for the first two-thirds or so, in a moderately satisfying, if predictable, way ... But the narrative corner into which this movie... paints itself is a simultaneously brilliant and exciting one. Well before the film neared its by turns dismal and ditzy conclusion, I found myself knowing—yet hardly able to believe—what was about to happen." Betsy Sharkey of the "Los Angeles Times" found it to be "moody and sometimes ideologically provocative" and added, ""Knowing" has its grim moments—and by that I mean the sort of cringe- (or laugh-) inducing lines of dialogue that have haunted disaster films through the ages ... So visually arresting are the images that watching a deconstructing airliner or subway train becomes more mesmerising than horrifying."


title: Knowing (film)

text: Roger Ebert of the "Chicago Sun-Times" was enthusiastic, rating it four stars out of four and writing, ""Knowing" is among the best science-fiction films I've seen—frightening, suspenseful, intelligent and, when it needs to be, rather awesome." He continued, "With expert and confident storytelling, Proyas strings together events that keep tension at a high pitch all through the film. Even a few quiet, human moments have something coiling beneath. Pluck this movie, and it vibrates." Ebert later listed it as the sixth best film of 2009.


title: Knowing (film)

text: Peter Bradshaw of "The Guardian" suggested "Knowing" was saved by its ending, concluding that "the film sticks to its apocalyptic guns with a spectacular and thoroughly unexpected finish." Philip French's review in "The Observer" suggested the premise was "intriguing B-feature apocalypse, determinism versus free will stuff" and that the ending has something for everyone: "A chosen few will apparently be swept away by angels to a better place. If you're a Christian fundamentalist who believes that Armageddon is nigh, you'll have a family hug and wake up to be greeted by St Peter at the Pearly Gates. On the other hand, Darwinists will be gratified to see Gaia and her stellar opposite numbers sock it to an unconcerned mankind." Richard von Busack of "Metroactive" derided the striking similarity between the film and the Arthur C. Clarke novel "Childhood's End".


title: Knowing (film)

text: The film was nominated at the 8th Visual Effects Society Awards in the category of "Best Single Visual Effect of the Year" for the plane crash sequence.


title: Knowing (film)

text: "Knowing" was released on DVD on July 7, 2009, opening in the United States at No. 1 for the week and selling 773,000 DVD units for US$12.5 million in revenue. In total, 1.4 million DVD units were sold in the United States for a US$21.1 million and US$25 million worldwide. From Blu-ray sales, the film also earned US$1.6 million in the United States and a total of US$2.6 million worldwide. The estimated gross for global domestic video sales is US$27.6 million.


title: Knowing (film)

text: On November 25, 2009, Global Findability filed a patent infringement lawsuit against Summit Entertainment and Escape Artists in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, claiming that a geospatial entity object code was used in the film "Knowing" which infringed Patent . The case was dismissed on January 10, 2011.


title: Knowing (film)

text: Regarding the film's grounding in science, director Alex Proyas said at a press conference: "The science was important. I wanted to make the movie credible. So of course we researched as much as we could and tried to give it as much authenticity as we could".


title: Knowing (film)

text: Ian O'Neill of Discovery News criticized the film's solar flare plot line, pointing out that the most powerful solar flares could never incinerate Earthly cities.


title: Knowing (film)

text: Erin McCarthy of "Popular Mechanics" calls attention to the film's confusion of numerology, the occult's study of how numbers like dates of birth influence human affairs, with the ability of science to describe the world mathematically to make predictions about things like weather or create technology like cell phones.


title: Knowing (film)

text: Steve Biodrowski of "Cinefantastique" refers to the film's approach as disappointingly "pseudo-scientific". He writes, "Cage plays an astronomer, and his discussions with a colleague hint that the film may actually grapple with the question of predicting the future, perhaps even offer a plausible theory. Unfortunately, this approach is abandoned as Koestler pursues the disasters, and the film eventually moves into a mystical approach".


title: Knowing (film)

text: Asked about his research for the role, Nicolas Cage stated: "I grew up with a professor, so that was all the research I ever needed". His father, August Coppola, was a professor of comparative literature at Cal State Long Beach.


title: Brazil (1985 film)

text: Brazil is a 1985 dystopian black comedy film directed by Terry Gilliam and written by Gilliam, Charles McKeown, and Tom Stoppard. The film stars Jonathan Pryce and features Robert De Niro, Kim Greist, Michael Palin, Katherine Helmond, Bob Hoskins, and Ian Holm.


title: Brazil (1985 film)

text: The film centres on Sam Lowry, a low-ranking bureaucrat trying to find a woman who appears in his dreams while he is working in a mind-numbing job and living in a small apartment, set in a dystopian world in which there is an over-reliance on poorly maintained (and rather whimsical) machines. "Brazil"s satire of technocracy, bureaucracy, hyper-surveillance, corporatism and state capitalism is reminiscent of George Orwell's 1949 novel "Nineteen Eighty-Four" and has been called Kafkaesque and absurdist.


title: Brazil (1985 film)

text: Sarah Street's "British National Cinema" (1997) describes the film as a "fantasy/satire on bureaucratic society", and John Scalzi's "Rough Guide to Sci-Fi Movies" (2005) describes it as a "dystopian satire". Jack Mathews, a film critic and the author of "The Battle of Brazil" (1987), described the film as "satirizing the bureaucratic, largely dysfunctional industrial world that had been driving Gilliam crazy all his life". Despite its title, the film is not about the country Brazil nor does it take place there; it is named after the recurrent theme song, Ary Barroso's "Aquarela do Brasil", known simply as "Brazil" to British audiences, as performed by Geoff Muldaur.


title: Brazil (1985 film)

text: Though a success in Europe, the film was unsuccessful in its initial North American release. It has since become a cult film. In 1999, the British Film Institute voted "Brazil" the 54th greatest British film of all time. In 2017, a poll of 150 actors, directors, writers, producers, and critics for "Time Out" magazine saw it ranked the 24th best British film ever.


title: Brazil (1985 film)

text: In a dystopian, polluted, hyper-consumerist, overbearing bureaucratic totalitarian future somewhere in the 20th century, Sam Lowry is a low-level government employee who frequently dreams of himself as a winged warrior saving a damsel in distress. One day, shortly before Christmas, a fly becomes jammed in a teleprinter, which misprints a copy of an arrest warrant it was receiving. This leads to the arrest and death during interrogation of cobbler Archibald Buttle instead of renegade heating engineer and suspected terrorist Archibald Tuttle.


title: Brazil (1985 film)

text: Sam discovers the mistake when he discovers the wrong bank account had been debited for the arrest. He visits Buttle's widow to give her the refund where he catches a glimpse of her upstairs neighbour Jill Layton, a truck driver, and is astonished to discover that Jill resembles the woman from his dreams. Sam frantically tries to approach Jill, but she disappears before he can find her. Jill has been trying to help Mrs Buttle establish what happened to her husband, but her efforts have been obstructed by bureaucracy. Unbeknownst to her, she is now considered a terrorist accomplice of Tuttle for attempting to report the wrongful arrest of Buttle.


title: Brazil (1985 film)

text: Meanwhile, Sam reports a fault in his apartment's air conditioning. Central Services are uncooperative, but then Tuttle, who used to work for Central Services but left because of his dislike of the tedious and repetitive paperwork now working as freelancing heating engineer (which is considered illegal), unexpectedly comes to his assistance. Tuttle repairs Sam's air conditioning, but when two Central Services workers, Spoor and Dowser, arrive, Sam has to stall to let Tuttle escape. The workers later return to demolish Sam's ducts and seize his apartment under the pretence of fixing the system.


title: Brazil (1985 film)

text: Sam discovers that Jill's records have been classified and the only way to access them is to be promoted to Information Retrieval. He had previously turned down a promotion arranged by his high-ranking mother, Ida, who is obsessed with the rejuvenating plastic surgery of cosmetic surgeon Dr Jaffe. Sam retracts his refusal by speaking with Deputy Minister Mr Helpmann at a party hosted by Ida. After obtaining Jill's records, Sam tracks her down before she can be arrested. Sam clumsily confesses his love to Jill, and they cause mayhem as they escape government agents. They stop at a mall and are frightened by a terrorist bombing (part of a campaign that has been occurring around the city), then government agents arrive and take Sam. He awakens briefly detained in police custody.


title: Brazil (1985 film)

text: At work, Sam is chastised by his new boss Mr Warrenn for his lack of productivity. Sam returns home to find that the two Central Services workers have repossessed his apartment. Tuttle then appears in secret and helps Sam enact revenge on Spoor and Dowser by filling their hazmat suits with raw sewage. Jill finds Sam outside his apartment and the two take refuge in Ida's unoccupied home. Sam falsifies government records to indicate her death, allowing her to escape pursuit. The two share a romantic night together, but in the morning are apprehended by the government at gunpoint. Sam is told that Jill was killed while resisting arrest. Charged with treason for abusing his new position, Sam is restrained in a chair in a large, empty cylindrical room, to be tortured by his old friend, Jack Lint.


title: Brazil (1985 film)

text: As Jack is about to start the torture, Tuttle and other members of the resistance break into the Ministry, shooting Jack, rescuing Sam, and blowing up the Ministry building. Sam and Tuttle flee together, but Tuttle disappears amid a mass of scraps of paperwork from the destroyed building. Sam stumbles into the funeral of Ida's friend, who has died following botched cosmetic surgery. Sam discovers that his mother now resembles Jill, and is too busy being fawned over by young men to care about her son's plight. Government agents disrupt the funeral, and Sam falls into the open casket. Through a black void he lands in a street from his daydreams, and tries to escape police and monsters by climbing a pile of flex-ducts. Opening a door, he passes through it and is surprised to find himself in a truck driven by Jill. The two leave the city together. However, this "happy ending" is a delusion: it is revealed that Sam is still strapped to the torture chair. Realising that Sam has descended into irrecoverable insanity, Jack and Mr Helpmann declare him a lost cause and leave the room. Sam remains in the chair, smiling and humming "Aquarela do Brasil" to himself.


title: Brazil (1985 film)

text: Gilliam developed the story and wrote the first draft of the screenplay with Charles Alverson, who was paid for his work but was ultimately uncredited in the final film. For nearly 20 years, Gilliam denied that Alverson had made any material contribution to the script. When the first draft was published and original in-progress documents emerged from Alverson's files, however, Gilliam begrudgingly changed his story. This was too late for either credit on the film or a listing on the failed Oscar nomination for Alverson; he has said that he would not have minded the Oscar nomination, even though he didn't think much of the script or the finished film. Gilliam, McKeown, and Stoppard collaborated on further drafts. "Brazil" was developed under the titles "The Ministry" and "1984 ½", the latter a nod not only to Orwell's original "Nineteen Eighty-Four" but also to "8½" directed by Federico Fellini; Gilliam often cites Fellini as one of the defining influences on his visual style. During the film's production, other working titles floated about, including "The Ministry of Torture", "How I Learned to Live with the System—So Far", and "So That's Why the Bourgeoisie Sucks", before settling with "Brazil", relating to the name of its escapist signature tune.


title: Brazil (1985 film)

text: Gilliam sometimes refers to this film as the second in his "Trilogy of Imagination" films, starting with "Time Bandits" (1981) and ending with "The Adventures of Baron Munchausen" (1988). All are about the "craziness of our awkwardly ordered society and the desire to escape it through whatever means possible." All three movies focus on these struggles and attempts to escape them through imagination—"Time Bandits", through the eyes of a child, "Brazil", through the eyes of a man in his thirties, and "Munchausen", through the eyes of an elderly man. In 2013, Gilliam also called "Brazil" the first instalment of a dystopian satire trilogy it forms with 1995's "12 Monkeys" and 2013's "The Zero Theorem" (though he later denied having said this).


title: Brazil (1985 film)

text: Gilliam has stated that "Brazil" was inspired by George Orwell's "Nineteen Eighty-Four"—which he has admitted never having read—but is written from a contemporary perspective rather than looking to the future as Orwell did. In Gilliam's words, his film was "the "Nineteen Eighty-Four" for 1984." Critics and analysts have pointed out many similarities and differences between the two, an example being that contrary to Winston Smith, Sam Lowry's spirit did not capitulate as he sank into complete catatonia. The film's ending bears a strong similarity to the short story "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge" by Ambrose Bierce. The tragicomic tone and philosophy of the film bear many resemblances to absurdist drama, a genre for which "Brazil" co-writer Tom Stoppard is widely acclaimed.


title: Brazil (1985 film)

text: Michael Atkinson of "The Village Voice" wrote, "Gilliam understood that all futuristic films end up quaintly evoking the naïve past in which they were made, and turned the principle into a coherent comic aesthetic." In the second version of the script, Gilliam and Alverson described the film's setting like this: "It is neither future nor past, and yet a bit of each. It is neither East nor West, but could be Belgrade or Scunthorpe on a drizzly day in February. Or Cicero, Illinois, seen through the bottom of a beer bottle." In the 1988 documentary "The Birth of Brazil", Gilliam said that he always explained the film as taking place "everywhere in the 20th century, whatever that means, on the Los Angeles/Belfast border, whatever that means". Pneumatic tubes are a frequent sight throughout the film.


title: Brazil (1985 film)

text: The result is an anachronistic technology, "a view of what the 1980s might have looked like as viewed from the perspective of a 1940s filmmaker" which has been dubbed "retro-futurism" by fellow filmmakers Jean-Pierre Jeunet and Marc Caro. It is a mixture of styles and production designs derived from Fritz Lang's films (particularly "Metropolis" and "M") or film noir pictures starring Humphrey Bogart: "On the other hand, Sam's reality has a '40s noir feel. Some sequences are shot to recall images of Humphrey Bogart on the hunt and one character (Harvey Lime) may be named as an homage to "The Third Man" Harry Lime." A number of reviewers also saw a distinct influence of German Expressionism, as the 1920s seminal, more nightmarish, predecessor to 1940s film noir, in general in how Gilliam made use of lighting and set designs. A brief sequence towards the end, in which resistance fighters flee from government soldiers on the steps of the Ministry, pays homage to the Odessa Steps sequence in Sergei Eisenstein's "Battleship Potemkin" (1925). Strong references exist to the overcomplicated humoristic machinery of British illustrator W. Heath Robinson, published between 1915 and 1942. The grotesque sets were based on George Grosz's paintings of 1920s Berlin.


title: Brazil (1985 film)

text: The lighting and set design was coupled with Gilliam's trademark obsession for very wide lenses and tilted camera angles; going unusually wide for an audience used to mainstream Hollywood productions, Gilliam made the film's wide-angle shots with 14mm (Zeiss), 11mm, and 9.8mm (Kinoptik) lenses, the latter being a recent technological innovation at the time as one of the first lenses of that short a focal length that did not fish-eye. In fact, over the years, the 14mm lens has become informally known as "The Gilliam" among filmmakers due to the director's frequent use of it since "Brazil".


title: Brazil (1985 film)

text: Many of the film's exterior scenes are filmed in "Les Espaces d'Abraxas" in Noisy-le-Grand near Paris, a monumental apartment complex designed by Ricardo Bofill Taller de Arquitectura.


title: Brazil (1985 film)

text: The numbering of form , without which no work can be done by repairmen of the Department of Central Services, is an allusion to George Orwell's flat at 27B Canonbury Square, London (up six half-flights of stairs), where he lived while writing parts of "Nineteen Eighty-Four".


title: Brazil (1985 film)

text: Geoff Muldaur performed a version of Ary Barroso's most famous 1939 song "Aquarela do Brasil" ("Watercolor of Brazil", often simply called "Brazil" in English). The song is a musical ode to the Brazilian motherland. Geoff Muldaur uses the song as a leitmotif in the film, although other background music is also used. Michael Kamen's arrangement and orchestration of Barroso's song for "Brazil" made it more pliable to late 20th-century tastes to the extent that film trailer composers often use it in contexts that have little to do with Brazil and more to do with Gilliam's dystopian vision. Kamen, who scored the film, originally recorded "Brazil" with vocals by Kate Bush. This recording was not included in the actual film or the original soundtrack release; however, it has been subsequently released on re-pressings of the soundtrack. Gilliam recalls drawing the inspiration to use the song as follows:


title: Brazil (1985 film)

text: Sylvia Albertazzi, in her article "Salman Rushdie's 'The location of Brazil'. The Imaginary homelands of the Fantastic Literature", stresses even further the importance that the soundtrack had upon the movie's plot and meaning. She suggests "... the opening question 'where is Gilliam's Brazil?', may be answered, quite literally, 'in a song'; just as it is in a song that there is to be found that world where 'all fall down' in children's games".


title: Brazil (1985 film)

text: The film was produced by Arnon Milchan's company Embassy International Pictures. Gilliam's original cut of the film is 142 minutes long and ends on a dark note. This version was released in Europe and internationally by 20th Century Fox without issue; however, US distribution was handled by Universal, whose executives felt the ending tested poorly. Universal chairman Sid Sheinberg insisted on a dramatic re-edit of the film to give it a happy ending, and suggested testing both versions to see which scored higher. At one point, there were two editing teams working on the film, one without Gilliam's knowledge. As with the science fiction film "Blade Runner" (1982), which had been released three years earlier, a version of "Brazil" was created by the studio with a more consumer-friendly ending.


title: Brazil (1985 film)

text: After a lengthy delay with no sign of the film being released, Gilliam took out a full-page ad in the trade magazine "Variety" urging Sheinberg to release "Brazil" in its intended version. Sheinberg spoke publicly of his dispute with Gilliam in interviews and ran his own advertisement in "Daily Variety" offering to sell the film. Gilliam conducted private screenings of "Brazil" (without the studio's approval) for film schools and local critics. On the same night Universal's award contender "Out of Africa" premiered in New York, "Brazil" was awarded the Los Angeles Film Critics Association awards for "Best Picture", "Best Screenplay", and "Best Director". This prompted Universal to finally agree to release a modified 132-minute version supervised by Gilliam, in 1985.


title: Brazil (1985 film)

text: On review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 98% based on 50 reviews, with an average rating of 8.7/10. The website's critical consensus reads, "Brazil, Terry Gilliam's visionary Orwellian fantasy, is an audacious dark comedy, filled with strange, imaginative visuals." On Metacritic, the film received a score of 84 based on 18 reviews, indicating "universal acclaim".


title: Brazil (1985 film)

text: "Los Angeles Times" critic Kenneth Turan described the film as "the most potent piece of satiric political cinema since "Dr. Strangelove"". Janet Maslin of "The New York Times" was very positive towards the film upon its release, stating "Terry Gilliam's "Brazil," a jaunty, wittily observed vision of an extremely bleak future, is a superb example of the power of comedy to underscore serious ideas, even solemn ones."


title: Brazil (1985 film)

text: Roger Ebert was less enthusiastic in the "Chicago Sun-Times", giving the film two out of four stars and claiming that it was "hard to follow". He felt the film lacked a confident grasp on its characters' roles in a story "awash in elaborate special effects, sensational sets, apocalyptic scenes of destruction and a general lack of discipline". Ebert wrote positively of certain scenes, especially one in which "Sam moves into half an office and finds himself engaged in a tug-of-war over his desk with the man through the wall. I was reminded of a Chaplin film, "Modern Times", and reminded, too, that in Chaplin economy and simplicity were virtues, not the enemy."


title: Brazil (1985 film)

text: Colin Greenland reviewed "Brazil" for "Imagine" magazine, and stated that it was "a daring, exorbitant Vision, sombrely funny and darkly true."


title: Brazil (1985 film)

text: In 2004, "Total Film" named "Brazil" the 20th-greatest British movie of all time. In 2005, "Time" film reviewers Richard Corliss and Richard Schickel included "Brazil" in an unordered list of the 100 best films of all time. In 2006, Channel 4 voted "Brazil" one of the "50 Films to See Before You Die", shortly before its broadcast on FilmFour. The film also ranks at number 83 in "Empire" magazine's list of the 500 Greatest Films of All Time.


title: Brazil (1985 film)

text: "Wired" ranked "Brazil" number 5 in its list of the top 20 sci-fi movies. "Entertainment Weekly" listed "Brazil" as the sixth-best science-fiction piece of media released since 1982. The magazine also ranked the film No. 13 on their list of "The Top 50 Cult Films".


title: Brazil (1985 film)

text: The film was nominated for two Academy Awards, for Best Original Screenplay and Best Art Direction (Norman Garwood, Maggie Gray).


title: Brazil (1985 film)

text: According to Gilliam in an interview with Clive James in his online programme "Talking in the Library", "Brazil" is – to his surprise – apparently a favourite film of the far right in America.


title: Brazil (1985 film)

text: "Brazil" has been released several times by The Criterion Collection, as a five-disc LaserDisc set in 1996, a three-disc DVD set in 1999, and a two-disc Blu-ray set in 2012, all with the same special features: a 142-minute cut of the film (referred to by Gilliam as the "fifth and final cut"), Sheinberg's 94-minute "Love Conquers All" cut for syndicated television, and various galleries and featurettes.


title: Brazil (1985 film)

text: Criterion also released a one-disc, movie-only edition in 2006, while the three-disc set was revised to be compatible with widescreen televisions


title: Brazil (1985 film)

text: A Blu-ray of the 132-minute US version of the movie was released in the US on 12 July 2011 by Universal Pictures. It contains only that version of the film and no extra features.


title: Brazil (1985 film)

text: Other films which have drawn inspiration from "Brazil" cinematography, art design, and overall atmosphere include Jean-Pierre Jeunet's and Marc Caro's films "Delicatessen" (1991) and "The City of Lost Children" (1995), Rocky Morton and Annabel Jankel's "Super Mario Bros." (1993), the Coen brothers' "The Hudsucker Proxy" (1994), and Alex Proyas's "Dark City" (1998).


title: Brazil (1985 film)

text: The production design and lighting style of Tim Burton's "Batman" (1989) have been compared to "Brazil". Tim Burton and production designer Anton Furst studied "Brazil" as a reference for "Batman".


title: Brazil (1985 film)

text: The ending of Neil Marshall's "The Descent" (2005) was greatly inspired by "Brazil", as Marshall explained in an interview:


title: Brazil (1985 film)

text: "" (2017) was also heavily inspired by "Brazil", both in its production design and its themes. The planet of Canto Bight is aesthetically similar to "Brazil". Both films also share several themes, showing the ambivalence of the wealthy in the face of a world falling apart and a society unaware of the conflict surrounding them. A direct reference to the film can be heard when Finn and Rose are arrested for Parking Violation 27B/6, a nod to form 27B/6 without which no work can be done by repairmen of the Department of Public Works. Another reference can be heard in the film's soundtrack, as the Canto Bight Theme composed by John Williams briefly samples "Aquarela do Brasil", making it one of the few times that a "Star Wars" soundtrack incorporated a song from outside the "Star Wars" universe.


title: Brazil (1985 film)

text: Production design of the Time Variance Authority depicted in the Disney+ series "Loki" was inspired by the "fun sci-fi bureaucracy" and dystopian design elements of "Brazil" Ministry of Information.


title: Brazil (1985 film)

text: The highly technological aesthetics of "Brazil" inspired the set design of Max Cohen's apartment in the film "Pi". "Brazil" also served as an inspiration for the film "Sucker Punch" (2011), and has been recognised as an inspiration for writers and artists of the steampunk subculture.


title: Rocky IV

text: Rocky IV is a 1985 American sports drama film written, directed by and starring Sylvester Stallone. It is the sequel to "Rocky III" (1982) and is the fourth installment in the "Rocky" franchise. It also stars Talia Shire, Burt Young, Carl Weathers, Tony Burton, Brigitte Nielsen, and Dolph Lundgren. In the film, Rocky Balboa (Stallone) fights Ivan Drago (Lundgren), a Soviet boxer responsible for causing a personal tragedy. "Rocky IV" was Dolph Lundgren's first American film debut, and Stallone's last directorial effort until 2006.


title: Rocky IV

text: Development for a fourth "Rocky" film began soon after the success of "Rocky III", which faced controversy after it was subject to a copyright lawsuit. Principal photography began in 1984, with filming locations including Philadelphia, Wyoming, and Vancouver. Stallone and Lundgren engaged in authentic punching in their fight, which led to Stallone being admitted to intensive care. Filming also featured new special effects and bona fide and groundbreaking sport methods and equipment, some of which were years removed from public use. "Rocky IV" is known for its strong Cold War themes, and for its successful theme songs "Burning Heart" and "Living in America".


title: Rocky IV

text: "Rocky IV" premiered in Los Angeles on November 21, 1985, and was theatrically released in the United States by MGM/UA on November 27. The film received mixed to negative reviews, with criticism for its predictable screenplay and Cold War themes, which some critics deemed as propaganda and facilitating negative portrayals of Russians. However, there was some praise for Drago's credibility as a villain. Despite its reception, the film was a box office success, grossing $300 million worldwide, becoming the highest grossing film in the franchise and the third highest grossing film of 1985, and the critical reception became more favorable in the years later, with the praise for the training montage. The film has been considered an icon of 1980s pop culture. In 2021, a director's cut was released with the title "Rocky IV: Rocky vs Drago", receiving positive reviews from critics. The sequel, "Rocky V", was released in 1990.


title: Rocky IV

text: In 1985, Soviet boxer Ivan Drago arrives in the United States with his wife, Ludmilla, a Soviet swimmer, and a team of trainers from the Soviet Union and Cuba. His manager, Nicolai Koloff, takes every opportunity to promote Drago's athleticism as a hallmark of Soviet superiority. Motivated by patriotism and an innate desire to prove himself, former heavyweight champion Apollo Creed challenges Drago to an exhibition bout. Rocky has reservations but agrees to help train Apollo for the match.


title: Rocky IV

text: During a press conference regarding the match, hostility sparks between Apollo's and Drago's respective camps. The boxing exhibition takes place at the MGM Grand Hotel in Las Vegas. Apollo enters the ring in an over-the-top patriotic entrance with James Brown performing "Living in America" complete with showgirls. The bout starts tamely with Apollo landing several punches that are ineffective against Drago, but Drago suddenly retaliates with devastating effects. By the end of the first round, Rocky and Apollo's trainer, Duke, plead with him to stop the match, but Apollo refuses to do so and tells Rocky to not stop the match "no matter what." Drago continues to pummel him in the second round and Duke begs Rocky to throw in the towel. Rocky honors Apollo's wishes, which allows Drago to beat Apollo to death in the ring. In the aftermath, Drago displays no sense of contrition, commenting to the assembled media: "If he dies, he dies."


title: Rocky IV

text: Frustrated by the Soviets' cold indifference, Rocky decides to challenge Drago himself, but has to surrender his championship to do so. Drago's camp agrees to an unsanctioned 15-round fight in the Soviet Union on Christmas Day, an arrangement meant to protect Drago from the threats of violence he has been receiving in the United States. Rocky travels to the Soviet Union without his wife Adrian due to her disapproval of the match, setting up his training base in a remote cabin in Krasnogourbinsk with only Duke and Paulie to accompany him. Duke opens up to Rocky, stating that he actually raised Apollo and that his death felt like a father losing his son, and expresses his faith in Rocky that he will emerge victorious. To prepare for the match, Drago uses high-tech equipment, a team of trainers and doctors monitoring his every movement, and regular doses of anabolic steroids. Rocky, on the other hand, does roadwork in deep snow over mountainous terrain and workouts utilizing antiquated farm equipment. Adrian arrives unexpectedly to give Rocky her support, which gives Rocky a new vigor.


title: Rocky IV

text: Before the match begins, Balboa is the first to enter to a hostile crowd. As he waits nervously in the ring, the lights in the arena suddenly go out, and Drago is introduced with an elaborate patriotic ceremony, with the Soviet general secretary and the Politburo in attendance. The home crowd is squarely on Drago's side and hostile to Rocky. In contrast to his match with Apollo, Drago immediately goes on the offensive. Rocky takes a fierce pounding in the first round, but goes on the offensive toward the end of the second round after landing a brutal right hook that cuts Drago's left eye, stunning both Drago and the crowd. Duke encourages Rocky by reminding him that he just proved Drago is a man, and not a machine as he's been made out to be. In contrast, Drago comments to his trainers that Rocky "is not human, he is like a piece of iron," after his trainers reprimand him for his performance against the "weak" American.


title: Rocky IV

text: The two boxers spend the next dozen rounds trading blows, with Rocky managing to continually hold his ground despite Drago's best efforts. As the 12th round begins, the previously hostile Soviet crowd suddenly start chanting and cheering for Balboa. After being berated by Koloff, Drago rebels, throwing him from the ring and directly addressing the Soviet leadership, stating he fights only for himself. In the final round, with both fighters exhausted, Rocky initially takes more punishment, but manages to stay on his feet. Both fighters trade blows, before Balboa seizes an opening, unleashing a series of vicious blows, eventually knocking out Drago and avenging Apollo's death.


title: Rocky IV

text: Rocky gives a victory speech, acknowledging that the local crowd's disdain of him had turned to mutual respect during the fight. Rocky finally declares: "During this fight, I've seen a lot of changing, the way you felt about me, and in the way I felt about you. In here, there were two guys killing each other, but I guess that's better than 20 million. I guess what I'm trying to say, is that if I can change, and you can change, everybody can change!" The Soviet premier stands up and reluctantly applauds Rocky, and his aides follow suit. Rocky ends his speech by wishing his son watching the match on TV a Merry Christmas and raises his arms into the air in victory as the crowd applauds.


title: Rocky IV

text: LeRoy Neiman plays the ring announcer in the Creed-Drago match. Burgess Meredith appears as Mickey Goldmill in archive footage. Appearing as themselves are singer James Brown and commentators Stu Nahan, Warner Wolf, R. J. Adams, Barry Tompkins and Al Bandiero.


title: Rocky IV

text: Sportscaster Stu Nahan makes his fourth appearance in the series as commentator for the Creed–Drago fight. Warner Wolf replaces Bill Baldwin, who died following filming for "Rocky III", as co-commentator. For the fight between Rocky and Drago, commentators Barry Tompkins and Al Bandiero portray themselves as USA Network broadcasters.


title: Rocky IV

text: Apollo Creed's wife Mary Anne (Sylvia Meals) made her second appearance in the series, the first being "Rocky II", although the character was mainly featured in "Rocky II". Stallone's future wife, Brigitte Nielsen, appeared as Drago's wife, Ludmilla.


title: Rocky IV

text: The Soviet premier in the sky box during the Rocky–Drago match, played by David Lloyd Austin, strongly resembles contemporary Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev. Austin later played Gorbachev in "", and Russian characters in other films.


title: Rocky IV

text: Wyoming doubled for the frozen expanse of the Soviet Union. The small farm where Rocky lived and trained was in Jackson Hole, and Grand Teton National Park was used for filming many of the outdoor sequences in the Soviet Union. The PNE Agrodome at Hastings Park in Vancouver, British Columbia served as the location of Rocky's Soviet bout.


title: Rocky IV

text: Sylvester Stallone has stated that the original punching scenes filmed between him and Dolph Lundgren in the first portion of the fight are completely authentic. Stallone wanted to capture a realistic scene and Lundgren agreed that they would engage in legitimate sparring. One particularly forceful Lundgren punch to Stallone's chest slammed his heart against his breastbone, causing the heart to swell. Stallone, suffering from labored breathing and a blood pressure over 200, was flown from the set in Canada to Saint John's Regional Medical Center in Santa Monica, and was forced into intensive care for eight days. Stallone later commented that he believed Lundgren had the athletic ability and talent to fight in the professional heavyweight division of boxing. Producer Winkler describes the exact same event in his autobiography, observing not Lundgren, rather, "Sly took a punch from a stand-in fighter and ended up in the emergency room with his blood pressure dangerously high."


title: Rocky IV

text: Additionally, Stallone has stated that Lundgren nearly forced Carl Weathers to quit during the filming of the Apollo-vs.-Drago "exhibition" fight. At one point in the filming of the scene, Lundgren tossed Weathers into the corner of the boxing ring. Weathers shouted profanities at Lundgren while leaving the ring and announced that he was calling his agent and quitting the movie. Only after Stallone forced the two actors to reconcile did filming continue. The event caused a four-day work stoppage, while Weathers was talked back into the part and Lundgren agreed to tone down his aggressiveness.


title: Rocky IV

text: "Rocky IV" is one of the few sport movies that applies genuine sound effects from actual punches, bona fide training methods created by boxing consultants, and a bevy of other new special effects. The film is recognized as being ahead of its time in its demonstration of groundbreaking high-tech sporting equipment, some of which was experimental and 20 years from public use. In 2012, Olympians Michael Phelps and Ryan Lochte noted that the training sequences in "Rocky IV" inspired them to use a cabin similar to what the resourceful Balboa utilized in the film.


title: Rocky IV

text: Paulie's robot, a character that through the years has enjoyed a cult following of its own, was created by International Robotics Inc. in New York City. The robot's initial voice was that of the company's CEO, Robert Doornick. The robot is identified by its engineers as "SICO" and is/was a member of the Screen Actors Guild. It toured with James Brown in the 1980s. The robot was written into the movie after it had been used to help treat Stallone's autistic son, Seargeoh.


title: Rocky IV

text: The musical score for "Rocky IV" was composed by Vince DiCola, who would later compose the music for "". "Rocky IV" is the only film in the series not to feature original music by Bill Conti, who was replaced by DiCola; however, it does feature arrangements of themes composed by Conti from previous films in the series, such as "The Final Bell". Conti, who was too busy with the first two "Karate Kid" films at the time, would return for "Rocky V" and "Rocky Balboa". Conti's famous piece of music from the Rocky series, "Gonna Fly Now", does not appear at all in "Rocky IV" (the first time in the series this happened), though a few bars of it are incorporated into DiCola's training montage instrumental.


title: Rocky IV

text: Songs from the movie included "Living in America", by James Brown, and also music by John Cafferty ("Heart's on Fire", featuring Vince DiCola), Survivor, Kenny Loggins, and Robert Tepper. Four of these songs became U.S. chart hits, two of which reached the Top Five. Go West wrote "One Way Street" for the movie by request of Sylvester Stallone. Europe's hit "The Final Countdown", written earlier in the decade by lead singer Joey Tempest, is often incorrectly stated as being featured in the film due to its similarity to DiCola's "Training Montage." However, Europe's track was not released as a single until late 1986, after "Rocky IV"<nowiki>'</nowiki>s release.


title: Rocky IV

text: According to singer Peter Cetera, he originally wrote his best-selling solo single "Glory of Love" as the end title for this film, but was passed over by United Artists, and instead used the theme for "The Karate Kid Part II".


title: Rocky IV

text: "Rocky IV" premiered in Westwood, Los Angeles on November 21, 1985. It opened Wednesday, November 27 on 1,325 screens in the United States and Canada prior to the Thanksgiving holiday.


title: Rocky IV

text: The script development was the subject of a famous copyright lawsuit, "Anderson v. Stallone". Timothy Anderson developed a treatment for "Rocky IV" on spec; after the studio decided not to buy his treatment, he sued when the resulting movie script was similar to his treatment. The court held that Anderson had prepared an unauthorized derivative work of the characters Stallone had developed in "Rocky I" through "III", and thus he could not enforce his unauthorized story extension against the owner of the character's copyrights.


title: Rocky IV

text: In August 2020, Stallone announced that a director's cut edition of the film would be released to commemorate the film's 35th anniversary. Ongoing editing ultimately pushed the release date, with Stallone finishing his editing sometime in January 2021. In all, approximately 38 minutes of previously unreleased footage consisting of both new scenes and alternate takes was added to the film, including significant extensions of both fight scenes and the Apollo Creed funeral scene, in addition to a lengthier recap of "Rocky III" at the beginning of the film. Conversely, a significant amount of original footage was removed or replaced, as the director's cut runs 93 minutes compared to the original cut's 91 minutes.


title: Rocky IV

text: One major cut was that of the scenes featuring Paulie's robot. "The robot is going to the junkyard forever, no more robot," Stallone commented. Robert Doornick, founder of International Robotics and the voice of the robot, commented that Stallone cut all of the robot scenes in the director's cut to save money on royalty fees that were given to Doornick in the original cut. Scenes with Brigitte Nielsen playing Ludmilla, Ivan Drago's wife, were also substantially diminished, particularly the scenes where she spoke for her husband at press conferences and her encounter with Apollo Creed's wife in Las Vegas just before the tragic fight between Creed and Drago. Nielsen and Stallone were married in 1985, shortly after the film's premiere, and divorced in 1987, which perhaps explains Stallone's decision to now reduce the role of his ex-wife in the film. In contrast, additional minor scenes featuring Adrian and Drago's manager Nicolai were added to the film.


title: Rocky IV

text: Other scenes from the 1985 version removed in the new cut include Balboa celebrating his wedding anniversary with Adrian and the Soviet regime leaders applauding Rocky for his speech after winning the final fight. The director's cut also features the addition of some of Bill Conti's themes from the previous films onto the soundtrack, and the toning down of sound effects, particularly the exaggerated punching sounds heard in the original cut. The new cut is also presented in a new aspect ratio of 2.35:1 compared to the original's 1.85:1.


title: Rocky IV

text: The cut missed its original November 27, 2020, release, though by February 2021 Stallone publicly stated that he was "putting the finishing touches" on the project. On April 6, 2021, he announced a completion of the cut. The director's cut, titled "Rocky IV: Rocky vs. Drago - The Ultimate Director's Cut", had a one-night theatrical release on November 11, 2021, it was then released in digital formats the following day. A "making of" video was released on YouTube a week prior to the director's cut release.


title: Rocky IV

text: Over the 5-day Thanksgiving weekend, it grossed a non-summer record $31,770,105. In its fourth week of release it expanded to a then-record 2,232 screens. It spent a total of six weeks as the number one film at the US box office, staying on top through the Christmas and New Years period, and grossed a total of $127.8 million in United States and Canada, and $300 million worldwide, the most of any "Rocky" film. It was the highest-grossing sports film of all time, until "The Blind Side" (2009), which grossed $309 million (without accounting for inflation). It was also the highest-grossing fourth installment of a film in the United States and Canada, surpassing the record of "Sudden Impact" (1983). Its success led to other studios opening major films over the Thanksgiving holiday.


title: Rocky IV

text: Stallone has been quoted as saying the enormous financial success and fan-following of "Rocky IV" once had him envisioning another "Rocky" movie, devoted to Drago and his post-boxing life, with Balboa's storyline running parallel to Drago's. However, he noted the damage both boxers sustained in the fight made them "incapable of reason", and thus instead planned "Rocky V" as a showcase of the dangers of boxing.


title: Rocky IV

text: The film has a 37% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes, from 49 critics, indicating mixed reviews; the critical consensus states, ""Rocky IV" inflates the action to absurd heights, but it ultimately rings hollow thanks to a story that hits the same basic beats as the first three entries in the franchise." On Metacritic, the film has a score of 40 out of 100, based on 13 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews."


title: Rocky IV

text: Roger Ebert gave the film two out of four stars, stating that with this film the "Rocky" series began "finally losing its legs. It's been a long run, one hit movie after another, but "Rocky IV" is a last gasp, a film so predictable that viewing it is like watching one of those old sitcoms where the characters never change and the same situations turn up again and again." Ian Nathan of "Empire" gave the film two out of five stars, calling the script a "laughable turd" and describing "Rocky IV" as "the [film] where the "Rocky" series threw in the towel on the credibility."


title: Rocky IV

text: Gene Siskel of the "Chicago Tribune" gave the film a 3.5 out of 4 stars, and stated in his review, "[Stallone] creates credible villains worthy of his heroic character."


title: Rocky IV

text: Russian goodwill ambassador Katya Lycheva objected to the character Ivan Drago, saying that the film uses him to vilify the Russian people.


title: Rocky IV

text: In 2020, "Maxim" magazine ranked the film 8th in the list of "12 most delusional films about Russia", noting that "cinema takes its grudge against the most unpleasant, pre-Gorbachev Soviet realities. <…> Soviet sports and party apparatchiks are portrayed in the film with incredible poison and malice".


title: Rocky IV

text: The new cut received better reviews from critics, mainly praising the fights (new choreography and sound), more serious tone and character development, but still criticising the over-the-top plot. On Rotten Tomatoes, the recut version, titled "Rocky IV: Rocky vs. Drago", holds an approval rating of 80% based on 15 reviews, with an average rating of 7.0/10.


title: Rocky IV

text: Jeremy Smith, from "Polygon", stated: "The triumph of Stallone’s director’s cut — with a pin-sharp focus on Apollo and Rocky’s relationship and its ruthless removal of anything which distracts — is that it not only nails the central message of the film, but the very point of it existing at all (montages aside)".


title: Rocky IV

text: In his review for the "Empire", Terri White praised the clearer motivations in the director's cut: "It’s a much more sombre context for the film (and goes some way to recontextualising the first three outings) and serves to subdue its worst indulgences. Without the gills of excess breathing quite so hard, the story of Rocky then pledging to fight Drago in Russia on Christmas Day becomes clear: it’s not about solving the Cold War or even a simple revenge yarn wrapped in bombastic patriotism. Rocky needs to find a way to break free of the code. To find a way to change. Apollo couldn’t, it says now more explicitly, and he died because of it".


title: Rocky IV

text: Dolph Lundgren received acclaim for his performance as Ivan Drago. He won the Marshall Trophy for Best Actor at the Napierville Cinema Festival. "Rocky IV" also won Germany's Golden Screen Award.


title: Rocky IV

text: The film won five Golden Raspberry Awards, including Worst Actor (Sylvester Stallone, along with ""), Worst Director (Stallone), Worst Supporting Actress (Brigitte Nielsen), Worst New Star (Nielsen, and also for "Red Sonja") and Worst Musical Score. It also received nominations for Worst Picture, Worst Supporting Actress (Talia Shire), Worst Supporting Actor (Burt Young) and Worst Screenplay.


title: Rocky IV

text: Scholars note that the film's strong yet formulaic structure emphasizes the power of the individual, embodied by Rocky, the prototypically American hero who is inventive, determined, and idealistic.