title: Jorma Kaukonen

text: On August 28, 2018, St. Martin's Press published Kaukonen's autobiography, "Been So Long: My Life and Music".


title: Jorma Kaukonen

text: Jorma married his first wife, Lena "Margareta" (née Pettersson; September 23, 1943 – December 28, 1997) in January 1964. They divorced in 1983. Jorma met his second wife, Vanessa, in Key West, Florida, on July 3, 1988. They married on December 7 of that year. He has a son, Zachary (born September 6, 1997) whose mother was Stephanie Kearse, and an adopted daughter, Izze.


title: Jorma Kaukonen

text: As a member of Jefferson Airplane, Kaukonen's primary guitar was a Gibson ES-345, noted for the visible Varitone dial on the guitar and the signature 345 logo on the headstock. Kaukonen presently endorses Martin Guitars. In 2010, Martin Guitars released the Martin M-30 Jorma Kaukonen Custom Artist Edition. This guitar was designed by Kaukonen and Martin's Dick Boak, using ideas from two Martin guitars that he had previously been playing – a David Bromberg Custom Artist Edition and a prototype model that Kaukonen called an "M-5."


title: Jorma Kaukonen

text: Epiphone released a Jorma Kaukonen signature model Riviera guitar in 2002. Kaukonen also uses and endorses the Fishman Loudbox amp.


title: Liraglutide

text: Liraglutide, sold under the brand name Victoza among others, is an anti-diabetic medication used to treat type 2 diabetes, obesity, and chronic weight management. In diabetes it is a less preferred agent compared to metformin. Its effects on long-term health outcomes like heart disease and life expectancy are unclear. It is given by injection under the skin.


title: Liraglutide

text: Common side effects include low blood sugar, nausea, dizziness, abdominal pain, and pain at the site of injection. Gastrointestinal side-effects tend to be strongest at the beginning of treatment period and subside over time. Other serious side effects may include medullary thyroid cancer, angioedema, pancreatitis, gallbladder disease, and kidney problems. Use in pregnancy and breastfeeding is of unclear safety. Liraglutide is a glucagon-like peptide-1 receptor agonist (GLP-1 receptor agonist) also known as incretin mimetics. It works by increasing insulin release from the pancreas and decreases excessive glucagon release.


title: Liraglutide

text: Liraglutide was approved for medical use in the European Union in 2009, and in the United States in 2010. In 2020, it was the 146th most commonly prescribed medication in the United States, with more than 4million prescriptions.


title: Liraglutide

text: Liraglutide improves control of blood glucose. In patients with high cardiovascular risk, liraglutide has been shown to reduce the risk for first occurrence of death from cardiovascular causes, nonfatal myocardial infarction, or nonfatal stroke. ADA guidelines currently consider liraglutide a first line pharmacologic therapy for type 2 diabetes (usually together with metformin), specifically for patients with atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease or obesity. A 2011 Cochrane review showed a HbA1c reduction of 0.24% more with liraglutide 1.8mg compared to insulin glargine, 0.33% more than exenatide 10µg twice daily, sitagliptin and rosiglitazone. In an RCT comparing liraglutide, glargine, glimepiride, and sitagliptin (all added to metformin) with a follow-up of 5 years, glargine and liraglutide were modestly more effective in achieving and maintaining target HbA1c, with no difference in outcomes of microvascular and cardiovascular disease.


title: Liraglutide

text: Liraglutide may also be used together with diet and exercise for chronic weight management in adults. Liraglutide has been shown to lead to greater weight loss than other glucagon-like peptide analogues.


title: Liraglutide

text: At exposures eight times greater than those used in humans, liraglutide caused a statistically significant increase in thyroid tumors in rats. The clinical relevance of these findings is unknown. In clinical trials, the rate of thyroid tumors in patients treated with liraglutide was 1.3 per 1000 patient years (4 people) compared to 1.0 per 1000 patients (1 person) in comparison groups. The sole person in the comparator group and four of the five persons in the liraglutide group had serum markers (elevated calcitonin) suggestive of pre-existing disease at baseline.


title: Liraglutide

text: The FDA said serum calcitonin, a biomarker of medullary thyroid cancer, was slightly increased in liraglutide patients, but still within normal ranges, and it required ongoing monitoring for 15 years in a cancer registry.


title: Liraglutide

text: In 2013, a group at Johns Hopkins reported an apparently statistically significant association between hospitalization for acute pancreatitis and prior treatment with GLP-1 derivatives (such as exenatide) and DPP-4 inhibitors (such as sitagliptin). In response, the United States FDA and the European Medicines Agency conducted a review of all available data regarding the possible connection between incretin mimetics and pancreatitis or pancreatic cancer. In a joint 2014 letter to the New England Journal of Medicine, the agencies concluded that "A pooled analysis of data from 14,611 patients with type 2 diabetes from 25 clinical trials in the sitagliptin database provided no compelling evidence of an increased risk of pancreatitis or pancreatic cancer" and "Both agencies agree that assertions concerning a causal association between incretin-based drugs and pancreatitis or pancreatic cancer, as expressed recently in the scientific literature and in the media, are inconsistent with the current data. The FDA and the EMA have not reached a final conclusion at this time regarding such a causal relationship. Although the totality of the data that have been reviewed provides reassurance, pancreatitis will continue to be considered a risk associated with these drugs until more data are available; both agencies continue to investigate this safety signal."


title: Liraglutide

text: Liraglutide is an acylated glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1) agonist, derived from human GLP-1-(7-37), a less common form of endogenous GLP-1.


title: Liraglutide

text: It reduces meal-related hyperglycemia (for 24 hours after administration) by increasing insulin secretion (only) when required by increasing glucose levels, delaying gastric emptying, and suppressing prandial glucagon secretion.


title: Liraglutide

text: Liraglutide leads to insulin release in pancreatic beta cells in the presence of elevated blood glucose. This insulin secretion subsides as glucose concentrations decrease and approach euglycemia (normal blood glucose level). It also decreases glucagon secretion in a glucose-dependent manner and delays gastric emptying. Unlike endogenous GLP-1, liraglutide is stable against metabolic degradation by peptidases, with a plasma half-life of 13 hours.


title: Liraglutide

text: Endogenous GLP-1 has a plasma half-life of 1.5–2 minutes due to degradation by the ubiquitous enzymes, dipeptidyl peptidase-4 (DPP4) and neutral endopeptidases (NEP). The half-life after intramuscular injection is approximately half an hour, so even administered this way, it has limited use as a therapeutic agent. The metabolically active forms of GLP-1 are the endogenous GLP-1-(7-36)NH and the more rare GLP-1-(7-37). The prolonged action of liraglutide is achieved by attaching a fatty acid molecule at one position of the GLP-1-(7-37) molecule, enabling it to both self-associate and bind to albumin within the subcutaneous tissue and bloodstream. The active GLP-1 is then released from albumin at a slow, consistent rate. Albumin binding also results in slower degradation and reduced renal elimination compared to that of GLP-1-(7-37).


title: Liraglutide

text: Liraglutide is marketed under the brand name Victoza in the U.S., U.K. UAE, Kuwait, India, Iran, Canada, Europe, Japan and Philippines. It has been launched in Germany, Italy, Denmark, the Netherlands, Sweden, Japan, Canada, the United States, France, Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore. Liraglutide is also known to be marketed as Saxenda in Australia, Indonesia, Iran, Israel, Canada, Brazil, Switzerland, The United Kingdom, Ireland and the U.S.


title: Liraglutide

text: Liraglutide was approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in 2014, and by the European Medicines Agency (EMA) in 2015, for adults with a body mass index (BMI) of 30 or greater (obesity) or a BMI of 27 or greater (overweight) who have at least one weight-related condition. Liraglutide was approved by the FDA in 2019, for treatment of children 10 years or older with type 2 diabetes, making it the first non-insulin drug approved to treat type 2 diabetes in children since metformin was approved in 2000.


title: Liraglutide

text: Novo Nordisk stated that it plans to use 500 of its 3,000-strong sales force in the United States to promote Saxenda in 2015, because it is considered to have the potential for sales of $1 billion a year within 8–10 years of launch around the world. Analysts at Citi Research concur, assuming that the drug will reach less than 0.5 percent of the 107 million people in the United States classified as obese, and a daily price of $30 over 6 to 12 months' use. The company estimates that it has spent about $1 billion over ten years to take Saxenda from research to marketing.


title: Liraglutide

text: In 2010, Novo Nordisk breached the ABPI's code of conduct by failing to provide information about side effects, and by promoting it prior to being granted market authorization.


title: Liraglutide

text: In 2012, the non-profit consumer advocacy group Public Citizen petitioned the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to immediately remove liraglutide from the market because they concluded that risks of thyroid cancer and pancreatitis outweigh any documented benefits.


title: Liraglutide

text: In 2017, Novo Nordisk agreed to pay $58.65 million to settle multiple whistleblower lawsuits alleging that the company had illegally marketed, promoted, and sold Victoza for off-label uses (such as for type 1 diabetes) in violation of the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act and the False Claims Act. Novo Nordisk paid an additional $1.45 million to the states of California and Illinois to settle whistleblower cases alleging fraud against private commercial health insurers.


title: Honeymoon

text: A honeymoon is a vacation taken by newlyweds immediately after their wedding, to celebrate their marriage. Today, honeymoons are often celebrated in destinations considered exotic or romantic. In a similar context, it may also refer to the phase in a couple's relationship - whether they are in matrimony or not - that exists before one becomes a burden to the other.


title: Honeymoon

text: In Western culture and some westernized countries' cultures, the custom of a newlywed couple's going on a holiday together originated in early-19th-century Great Britain. Upper-class couples would take a "bridal tour", sometimes accompanied by friends or family, to visit relatives who had not been able to attend the wedding. The practice soon spread to the European continent and was known in France as a "voyage à la façon anglaise" (translation: English-style voyage), from the 1820s onwards.


title: Honeymoon

text: Honeymoons in the modern sense—a pure holiday voyage undertaken by the couple—became widespread during the "Belle Époque", in the late 1800s as one of the first instances of modern mass tourism.


title: Honeymoon

text: According to some sources, the honeymoon is a relic of marriage by capture, based on the practice of the husband going into hiding with his wife to avoid reprisals from her relatives, with the intention that the woman would be pregnant by the end of the month.


title: Honeymoon

text: The honeymoon was originally the period following marriage, "characterized by love and happiness", as attested since 1546. The word may allude to "the idea that the first month of marriage is the sweetest".


title: Honeymoon

text: Today, "honeymoon" has a positive meaning, but originally it may have referred to the inevitable waning of love like a phase of the moon. In 1552, Richard Huloet wrote:


title: Honeymoon

text: In many modern languages, the word for a honeymoon is a calque (e.g., ) or near-calque. Persian has a similar word, "mah-e-asal", which translates to "month of honey" or "moon of honey".


title: Honeymoon

text: A 19th-century theory claimed that the word alludes to "the custom of the higher order of the Teutones... to drink Mead, or Metheglin, a beverage made with "honey", for thirty days after every wedding", but the theory is now rejected.


title: Honeymoon

text: One 2015 scholarly study concluded that going on a honeymoon is associated with a somewhat lower risk of divorce, regardless of how much or little is spent on the honeymoon itself. However, high spending and incurring significant debt on other wedding-related expenses, such as engagement rings and wedding ceremonies, is associated with a high risk of divorce.


title: Honeymoon

text: An emerging 21st-century travel trend is the "solomoon" or "unimoon", a separate, solo holiday the newlyweds take without their spouse. "The New Zealand Herald" cites a report by "The New York Times" that such alternatives to honeymoons are "particularly suited for couples who just cannot agree on where to go". (This trend contrasts with the use by a jilted bride or groom of the travel reservations intended for the honeymoon, as popularly depicted in such films as "" (2008), in which Carrie Bradshaw turns her ruined Mexican honeymoon into a girls' trip, and "Like Father" (2018), in which a bride left at the altar travels with her absentee father on the cruise meant for her honeymoon.)


title: Pumpernickel

text: Pumpernickel (; ) is a typically heavy, slightly sweet rye bread traditionally made with sourdough starter and coarsely ground rye. It is sometimes made with a combination of rye flour and whole rye grains ("rye berries").


title: Pumpernickel

text: At one time it was traditional peasant fare, but largely during the 20th century various forms became popular with other classes through delicatessens and supermarkets. Present-day European and North American pumpernickel differ in several characteristics, including the use of additional leaveners. The North American version may have coloring and flavoring agents, added wheat flour, a higher baking temperature, and a dramatically shortened baking time.


title: Pumpernickel

text: The word supposedly stems from an old Bavarian term for "hard", either referring to the process used to grind the grain into flour, or the density of the final bread product. According to "Langenscheidts Taschenwörterbuch" (1956), it refers to a form of "pumping work".


title: Pumpernickel

text: The philologist Johann Christoph Adelung (1732–1806) states that the word has an origin in the Germanic vernacular, where was a New High German synonym for being flatulent, and was a form of the name Nicholas, commonly associated with a goblin or devil (e.g. Old Nick, a familiar name for Satan), or more generally for a malevolent spirit or demon. Hence, "pumpernickel" means "farting devil" or "devil's fart", a definition accepted by the publisher Random House, and by some English language dictionaries, including the "Merriam-Webster Dictionary". The "American Heritage Dictionary" adds "so named from being hard to digest". A variant of this explanation is also given by the German etymological dictionary "Kluge" that says the word is older than its usage for this particular type of bread, and may have been used as a mocking name for a person of unrefined manners (a "farting Nick") first. The change of meaning may have been caused by its use as a mocking expression for the (in the eyes of outsiders) "unrefined" rye bread produced by the Westphalian population.


title: Pumpernickel

text: The "Oxford English Dictionary" does not commit to any particular etymology for the word. It suggests it may mean a lout or booby, but also says "origin uncertain". The "OED" currently states the first use in English was in 1756.


title: Pumpernickel

text: "Chambers Twentieth Century Dictionary" gives the etymology as being the German word for a rackety goblin, a coarse lout, and rye-bread - possibly from its giving forth a sound like "pump" when struck.


title: Pumpernickel

text: A false folk etymology involves Napoleon, who, while invading Germany, asked for bread and was served dark Westphalian rye. According to the folktale, Napoleon declared that this was not suitable bread for himself, the emperor, but was bread () for Nickel (or Nicole), his horse: "". In a variation of the same basic story, Napoleon declared that the bread was no good for him, but was only good () for his horse: "". However, the name "Nickel" is not confirmed for any of Napoleon's many horses. Additional folk etymology grew from a "witty interpretation", proposed by seventeenth-century satirist Johann Balthasar Schupp, that the bread was only "good for "Nicol"", a nickname for a weak or puny horse.


title: Pumpernickel

text: Pumpernickel has been long associated with the Westphalia region of Germany, first referred to in print in 1450. Although it is not known whether this and other early references refer to precisely the bread that came to be known as "Pumpernickel", Westphalian pumpernickel is distinguished by use of coarse rye meal and a very long baking period, which gives the bread its characteristic dark color. Like most traditional all-rye breads, pumpernickel is made with an acidic sourdough starter, which preserves dough structure. The acid inactivates the rye protein, amylase, which converts the starch to sugar. That sourdough starter is sometimes augmented, or replaced, in commercial baking by adding citric acid or lactic acid along with commercial yeast.


title: Pumpernickel

text: Traditional German pumpernickel contains no coloring agents, instead relying on the Maillard reaction to produce its characteristic deep brown color, its sweet, dark chocolate, coffee flavor, and its earthy aroma. To achieve this, loaves are baked in long narrow lidded pans 16 to 24 hours in a low-temperature, about , steam-filled oven. Like French sandwich bread, or a pullman loaf, Westphalian pumpernickel has little or no crust. It is very similar to rye "Vollkornbrot", a dense rye bread with large amounts of whole grains added.


title: Pumpernickel

text: Pumpernickel varieties are popular in the Netherlands, under the name "" (Frisian rye bread—Friesland is just over the border from the German Westphalia), where it has been a common part of the diet for centuries, and in Denmark where is a staple. German pumpernickel is often sold sliced in small packets in supermarkets, where it may be paired with caviar, smoked salmon, sturgeon, and other expensive products on an hors d'oeuvres tray.


title: Pumpernickel

text: While some commercial bakeries mass-produce pumpernickel bread for wholesale, many American shops, stores, and families use traditional recipes and bake times. Some mass-produced pumpernickel in North America may incorporate natural colorants such as molasses, caramel color, coffee, or cocoa powder among others to imitate the various shades of brown of traditional German pumpernickel. As is common modern commercial baking practice, commercial bakeries often add wheat flour to provide gluten structure and increase rise, and commercial yeast to quicken the rise, compared to a traditional sourdough. In order to increase production and profits, the slow baking characteristic of German pumpernickel is forgone, resulting in a loaf indiscernible from dark rye bread. Some shops and boutique bakeries in America still use centuries old recipes, often also selling other German foods. Pumpernickel is also a popular bagel flavor in New York.


title: April O'Neil

text: April O'Neil is a fictional character from the "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles" comics. She is the first human ally of the Ninja Turtles. Her main love interest in the series is Casey Jones.


title: April O'Neil

text: April made her first appearance in the Mirage comic series in 1984 as a computer programmer. She was later portrayed as a strong-willed news reporter in the Turtles' first animated series, as a warrior in the "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Adventures" comic produced by Archie Comics, and various other personas in different "TMNT" media.


title: April O'Neil

text: April was voiced by Renae Jacobs in the 1987 animated series, Veronica Taylor in the 2003 animated series, and Sarah Michelle Gellar in the 2007 film "TMNT". In the 2012 animated series, April is voiced by Mae Whitman, in which she is her late teens. In film, she has been portrayed by Judith Hoag (1990), Paige Turco ( and 1993), Megan Fox (2014 and ), and by Malina Weissman as the younger version of the character in the 2014 film.


title: April O'Neil

text: In the original Mirage Comics storyline for "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles", April O'Neil was a skilled computer programmer and assistant to a famous yet nefarious scientist, Baxter Stockman. She helped program his MOUSER robots but, after discovering Baxter was using them to burrow into bank vaults, she fled his workshop. Robots chased her into the sewer where she was promptly saved by three of the Turtles. The Turtles later successfully fended off a MOUSER invasion.


title: April O'Neil

text: After leaving her job with Baxter, April decided to open an antique shop. The shop was subsequently destroyed in a battle between the Turtles and Shredder and the Foot Clan. April and the Turtles retreated to a farm house in Northampton, Massachusetts to recover and during this time she suffered recurrent nightmares about the Foot Clan's attack. During the mid-1990s, April became romantically involved with the violent vigilante Casey Jones, and the two of them eventually raised Shadow, the child of Casey's late wife Gabrielle, as their own.


title: April O'Neil

text: In Volume 2 of the "TMNT" comics, April was attacked by a huge robot controlled by the brain of her former boss, Baxter Stockman, and injected with nanobots. With the help of the Utroms, the Turtles injected April with turtle versions of nanobots to stop Baxter's plan. The intervention saved April before Baxter's nanobots could reach her brain stem and kill her. The attack rendered April sterile. To deal with the emotional strain she became a female version of "Nobody", a vigilante crime fighter, until her identity was discovered by Casey Jones. With the help of Renet, a time-traveler who took April back through time, it was revealed that April was really a living drawing brought to life with the help of Kirby's crystal. She was drawn by her father before his own biological daughter Robyn O'Neil was born. Although anything that Kirby drew with pencil would vanish after a while, April's father used a pen, which might explain why April lived past thirty without vanishing. Questions of realness and morality were too much for April; she bid farewell to Shadow and Casey and travelled to Alaska to be alone with her thoughts. Although the trip helped April cope with her demons and led to her eventual return to New York, her family history remained unexplored.


title: April O'Neil

text: The Mirage Studios version of April has dark brown/black hair (though early color reprints of Volume 1 depicted her hair color as red/light brown). Most subsequent incarnations of April are redheads. In the September 1985 re-printing of issue one, artist Ryan Brown depicts April as a katana-wielding ninja warrior in his back cover pin-up.


title: April O'Neil

text: In the "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Adventures" series produced by Archie Comics, April began as a carbon copy of her animated counterpart from the 1987 TV series, but the writers developed her into a competent warrior after training with Splinter. Because of her frequent adventures with the Turtles, she lost her job at Channel 6 and became a freelance reporter.


title: April O'Neil

text: In the winter 1994 Archie Special, April was mutated into a turtle herself. This made her the first official female turtle introduced to the series, three years before Venus de Milo's debut. Archie also published two sets of three-part April O'Neil mini-series.


title: April O'Neil

text: The second issue of the Dreamwave Productions series (based on the 2003 animated series) focused entirely on O'Neil, consisting of a dream sequence showing how she had been pressured into a scientific career by her family despite having an interest in journalism.


title: April O'Neil

text: In the continuity of the IDW comics, April is a very bright science student who interns at Baxter Stockman's genetic laboratory "Stock Gen", where her father used to work before a stroke rendered him paralyzed. It is there that she first meets the Turtles and Splinter (at that time ordinary lab animals subjected to an intelligence-enhancing serum) and gives the Turtles their names.


title: April O'Neil

text: April later nearly becomes a murder victim during a nocturnal break-in by a group of ninjas (the Foot Clan), who steal the Turtles along with several samples of Stockman's secret mutagenetic projects; the attempt at her life shakes her so much that she decides to take self-defense lessons from her fellow student Casey Jones, who later introduces her to the now-mutated Turtles and Splinter. April subsequently accompanies or assists the Turtles in their adventures and battles against their enemies, in the course of which she investigates Stockman's clandestine operations and makes an important contact in the Pantheon by incurring the sympathies of one of their members, Aka. While she and Casey begin a romantic relationship, Casey's self-doubts about his ability to protect his loved ones eventually cause them to drift apart.


title: April O'Neil

text: In the 1987 cartoon series, April Harriet O'Neil was introduced as a television reporter for Channel 6 News. She had a strong nature and passion for her work, frequently expressing disagreement with her employer Burne Thompson's assignments. She also fell out repeatedly with Vernon Fenwick, the director/camera operator whose enormous ego compelled him to scoop April on her stories whenever possible. April was best friends with Irma Langinstein, the receptionist at Channel 6. She lived in an apartment in New York City, though during the course of the series she was forced to relocate several times due to a variety of Turtle-related mishaps.


title: April O'Neil

text: April was reporting on a series of high-tech equipment thefts when she came under attack by a gang of street punks. Thinking quickly, she managed to squeeze into a storm drain and ran from the mob until she hit a dead end. The Turtles were nearby and defeated the punks. She was taken back to their sewer lair, where they explained their origins to her. At first, she believed them to be responsible for the equipment thefts, but they agreed to help find the true culprits if she kept quiet about the Turtles' existence. April quickly became their major link to the outside world since their unusual appearance effectively precluded them from functioning above ground without some sort of disguise. To communicate with the Turtles, she used a Turtlecom, a device that functioned as a two way audio-video communications system.


title: April O'Neil

text: April's friendship with the Turtles resulted in the opportunity to record exclusive footage of their encounters with Shredder, but despite her intimate knowledge of the details of their lives, she tended to keep her professional news reports about them impersonal and mysterious. She was a vocal champion of their cause, despite Burne Thompson's opinion that the Turtles were a menace to the city, and most episodes generally showed her attempting to convince Burne and the New Yorkers that the Turtles were not criminals. By the episode "Doomquest," she finally succeeded in this by publicly exposing Lord Dregg's plans to take over the Earth via propaganda campaigns. April was frequently kidnapped by Shredder and used as bait in order to lure the Turtles out of hiding and destroy them.


title: April O'Neil

text: April revealed her age in the Season 3 episode "Leather Head - Terror of The Swamp". In Florida on vacation, she and the Turtles found a body of water contaminated with a mutagen that made mutants feel youthful, while physically de-aging humans into four-year-old versions of themselves. Donatello did not allow April to enter the water, to which she lamented, "Oh, great! I'm doomed to be a decrepit twenty-eight-year-old hag!" Her Aunt Agatha ("Aggie"), who appeared in the episodes "Case of the Hot Kimono" and "Sleuth on the Loose", was a detective.


title: April O'Neil

text: April was normally portrayed as a capable and independent woman. Her most important contribution to the Turtles was her access to research via the Channel 6 computers; using this information she could alert the Turtles to trouble and possible case leads. Her blue news van had classic headlights and the Channel 6 News logo on each side. April could usually be found wearing a distinctive yellow jumpsuit with white boots. By the ninth season, April worked freelance for reasons never specified, and exchanged her yellow jumpsuit for a brown leather jacket. She continued to help the Turtles even after the defeat of Shredder and his subsequent exile to Dimension X.


title: April O'Neil

text: At the young adult age of 28, April has high reflexes and deduction skills. Being a news reporter, she is able to find and gather information for the Turtles and Splinter. She is also skilled at operating a number of different vehicles.


title: April O'Neil

text: April was voiced by Renae Jacobs. In the 25th Anniversary crossover TV special "Turtles Forever", she was voiced by Rebecca Soler. Renae Jacobs auditioned for the role in Los Angeles in 1986. She developed her initial personification of O'Neil while preparing for the audition, having not read the comics. Her first day on set voice director Stu Rosen made it clear he did not approve of her for the role, and had waited to show her audition last, saying to her, "Every one I played, the producers said ‘No, no, no, that’s not April,’ and finally I was out of people to show them, so I pulled your audition out and played it for them and they said ‘That’s April!’"


title: April O'Neil

text: In the 2003 cartoon series, April, voiced by Veronica Taylor in English, got a costume change and her hair color was altered to a dark magenta tone for the new incarnation of the animated series produced by 4Kids Entertainment. However, her role was similar to that of the Mirage Studios character: again, she served as an assistant to Baxter Stockman until his Mouser experiments got out of control, and after the Turtles saved her she became a faithful friend, ally, and "big sister" to them. April made much more use of her scientific expertise and she often used her computer skills to aid the Turtles. She developed a closer relationship to Donatello, who shared many of her interests. In she sometimes helped Donatello to collect Splinter's data bits. April developed a modest knowledge of combat skills after training with Splinter. Her quick thinking was often instrumental to the Turtles' survival.


title: April O'Neil

text: April is romantically attracted to Casey Jones, though their contrasting personalities often make them bicker. By the third season, the two seemed to have quite a serious romantic relationship. In the series finale, "Wedding Bells and Bytes", she and Casey finally got married.


title: April O'Neil

text: The young adult April continues to learn how to defend herself against Foot ninjas and other monstrosities by undergoing basic ninja training from the Turtles. She is quite skilled in some useful firearms, and can easily go through a laser grid with no problem at all. In the seventh and final season, she dons a yellow-and-black jumpsuit based on the TMNT film and carries a tantō sword to further perfect her fighting skills. At one point, she became psionically linked with a female mermaid-like mutant who had telepathically shown her the hardships of her childhood and that the few of her kind were on the verge of extinction.


title: April O'Neil

text: In addition to her recently developed ninjutsu skills, April is incredibly intelligent, smart and resourceful in complex scientific fields; similar to her good friend Donatello. So much that she even had worked for the eccentric Baxter Stockman as his assistant. She was able to hack into the computers of Shredder's stronghold and even breach several codes. She was seen wielding a katana in the special episode "Turtles Forever".


title: April O'Neil

text: Mae Whitman voices the teenage April O'Neil in the 2012 computer-animated series. Her shoulder-length bright red hair with flowy bangs is tied with a white ponytail holder which becomes undone, at times, if she is under great stress or rage. Unlike her previous counterparts, she is a sixteen-year-old teenager (as opposed to being a young adult in her late twenties) and possesses exceptionally strong psychic powers, which she eventually learns to develop more and increase drastically throughout the fourth season. This is due to her being a half human, half Kraang-mutant as her mother was abducted and experimented on by the Kraang before she was born. Her inherent psionic abilities are first hinted at in Episode 7, "Monkey Brains", when she had detected that a mutant-monkey was, in fact, a human scientist; merely saying that she "sometimes get a feeling about things", implying that she possesses extrasensory abilities as well. It even enabled her to hear far off sounds that Splinter, with his superhuman hearing, could not.


title: April O'Neil

text: April O'Neil has been changed into a streetwise teenage girl in the 2018 cartoon, "Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles". She is voiced by Kat Graham, and is now African-American in ethnicity. This version of April also performs a variety of odd jobs around New York while helping the turtles in any way she can. In "," April starts going to college studying journalism similar to previous portrayals.


title: April O'Neil

text: In the first live-action film, April was played by Judith Hoag. She was a television reporter working for Channel 3 news under Charles "Chuck" Pennington, doing an investigative series on mysterious thefts in New York City whose culprits vanished without a trace. One night while leaving work, she is accosted by teenage thieves in league with the Foot Clan, but the Turtles appear and save her under the cover of darkness. In the aftermath, April discovers and grabs Raphael's lost sai; Raphael soon follows her to retrieve the weapon and saves her again when she is attacked by a group of Foot Ninja in the subway. During the attack, April is knocked unconscious while trying to fight them off with her purse. Unsure what to do with her, Raphael carries her to the Turtles' sewer lair. Though afraid at first, April eventually comes to regard the Turtles and Splinter as friends, even letting them stay in her apartment after the Foot Clan discovered and destroyed their sewer dwellings.


title: April O'Neil

text: Mirroring the Mirage Studios storyline, April is fired from her news job and the Foot once again attack the Turtles in the antique shop, prompting April, the Turtles, and Casey Jones to retreat to her family's farmhouse in Northampton, Massachusetts. She keeps a journal documenting their forced sabbatical in addition to drawing sketches of the Turtles. She grows extremely close to the four brothers: Michelangelo, who initially confesses to having a crush on April, later addressing her as "Sis," indicating the role she has come to occupy in the Turtles' family. During their respite, April also develops a kind of love-hate relationship with Casey Jones. By the end of the film, she accepts her attraction to him and in the aftermath of Shredder's defeat as well as getting her job back (she had been fired earlier in the film), April asks Casey for a kiss.


title: April O'Neil

text: In the sequel, "", April was played by Paige Turco. She provides the Turtles and Splinter with a place to stay after the destruction of their lair in the previous film, and helps them research the company responsible for the mutagen that transformed the Turtles into their present state.


title: April O'Neil

text: In "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III: Turtles in Time," Paige Turco reprised her role as April O'Neil. In the film, April is temporally transported to feudal Japan, forcing the Turtles to travel back in time to rescue her.


title: April O'Neil

text: April was voiced by Sarah Michelle Gellar in the 2007 CGI film "TMNT". Following the continuity from the previous films, it appeared that she and Casey Jones were engaged in a genuinely close romance, living together in Casey's apartment, and working for a shipping firm. She found Leonardo in Central America at the start of the film while seeking an artifact for Max Winters. No mention was made of her past as a journalist; instead, she now appears to be involved in archaeology. April takes up several forms of ninjutsu training from Splinter, purchasing a slim black-and-yellow jumpsuit of armor from Japan, and becoming quite skilled in the use of a katana. She demonstrates her combative skills in a one-on-one fight with the far more experienced female ninja Karai.


title: April O'Neil

text: A collectible booklet packed in with her action figure for the film implies that she had become a master of the katana. The figure itself includes a katana, tonfa, and two shoulder armored pads; this outfit was replicated for the movie. In the film's alternate ending, Casey proposes marriage to April and she accepts. This scene is absent from the final cut of the movie but can be found on the DVD.


title: April O'Neil

text: April appears in the reboot "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles" with Megan Fox playing the role. During the film, it is revealed that not only was April's father involved in the creation of the turtles as his experiments created the mutagen that turned them into what they are now, but that the young April was responsible for the Turtles and Splinter escaping the destruction of the lab where they were created when she released them into the sewers after the lab was destroyed by her father to prevent Shredder and Eric Sacks getting access to the mutagen.


title: April O'Neil

text: It was reported there was a filmed but unused scene of a fight within April, Vernon Fenwick, Karai, and The Foot in downtown Manhattan that was cut from the finished film. Will Arnett, who played Vernon, said his character "comes out just at the right moment [and] hits Karai with the gurney and knocks her off balance a little bit. Then April kind of finishes her off."


title: April O'Neil

text: In the two-part anime "", April was voiced by Emi Shinohara. April made a live-action appearance in the "" musical tour played by Sherie Rene Scott whose role was to incite the live audience to interact with the stage performers and encourage the Turtles when needed.


title: April O'Neil

text: April has appeared in most of the "TMNT" video games, usually as the damsel in distress who has been captured by Shredder (or by Karai in case of SNES version of ""). In "", she kicks the story off with a brief report where Krang steals the Statue of Liberty and later appears in the game ending; she also appears onscreen in the SNES version to encourage the Turtles to fight when the player characters are idle. In Konami's series of "TMNT" games based on the 2003 cartoon series, April resembles her cartoon counterpart and often shows up in various cutscenes to give advice and advance the plot of the game.


title: April O'Neil

text: April appears as a playable character in "" for the Genesis, where her game character bears little resemblance to the 1987 cartoon likeness. In "," April is again a playable character and participates in multi-player battles. She is also a playable character in Ubisoft's "" where she is based on the ninja April from the 2007 film. She also appears in the 2014 film-based game by Activision for the Nintendo 3DS, voiced by Julie Nathanson.


title: April O'Neil

text: April appears as a playable character in the 2021 fighting game "Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl", utilizing her design from the 1987 animated series, voiced by Abby Trott. April is a playable character in "". She was fired by Vernon Fenwick for sending in reports that confirmed her friendship with the turtles, but decided to rebel. She reluctantly saves Fenwick from Bebop in the opening level, and the two reconcile. After helping the turtles defeat the Statue of Tyranny and Super Shredder, she is rehired by Fenwick, though due to him hiding during the battle, he mistakenly gives the credit to the Punk Frogs. In September 2022, April was confirmed to be playable in "Nickelodeon Kart Racers 3: Slime Speedway," once again having her likeness taken from the 1987 series.


title: April O'Neil

text: In the TMNT toy lines produced by Playmates Toys, April O'Neil has appeared in several action figure incarnations. The first of these had a limited production run, and lacked a blue stripe on her jumpsuit; it was replaced with a yellow-striped version with greater circulation. An alternate version was released in 1990, with a head sculpt closer to her cartoon incarnation, orange boots, and further modification. Another variation was released in 1993 packaged exclusively with the Channel 6 Newsman vehicle; this April had the same sculpt of the 1990 release although her jumpsuit is green and the boots yellow.


title: April O'Neil

text: Other notable April figures include the 1992 version, dubbed simply "April" with purple accents on her jumpsuit; "April, the Ravishing Reporter", which was the first such figure to feature rooted hair; "April, the Ninja Newscaster", who came with one of each of the Turtles' signature weapons; and "Mutatin' April," part of the Mutations assortment in which April can transform into a humanoid cat (inspired by the original series' episode "The Cat Woman from Channel Six"). For the 2003 TV series, Playmates introduced two O'Neil figures; a standard sized April with bonus Mouser robots and a miniature April.


title: April O'Neil

text: There is also an April figure based on her appearance in the 2007 film, wearing her yellow ninja outfit. NECA has released O'Neil figures based on her original Mirage Studios appearance and her appearance in the cartoon series. A figure featuring the likeness of Judith Hoag from the 1990 feature film has also been revealed for a Fall 2021 release.


title: Enantiomer

text: In chemistry, an enantiomer ( ; from Ancient Greek ἐνάντιος "(enántios)" 'opposite', and μέρος "(méros)" 'part') – also called optical isomer, antipode, or optical antipode – is one of two stereoisomers that are non-superposable onto their own mirror image. Enantiomers are much like one's right and left hands, when looking at the same face, they cannot be superposed onto each other. No amount of reorientation will allow the four unique groups on the chiral carbon (see Chirality (chemistry)) to line up exactly. The number of stereoisomers a molecule has can be determined by the number of chiral carbons it has. Stereoisomers include both enantiomers and diastereomers.


title: Enantiomer

text: Diastereomers, like enantiomers, share the same molecular formula and are non-superposable onto each other however, they are not mirror images of each other.


title: Enantiomer

text: A molecule with chirality rotates plane-polarized light. A mixture of equals amounts of each enantiomer, a "racemic mixture" or a "racemate", does not rotate light.


title: Enantiomer

text: There are three common naming conventions for specifying one of the two enantiomers (the absolute configuration) of a given chiral molecule: the R/S system is based on the geometry of the molecule; the (+)- and (−)- system (also written using the obsolete equivalents "d"- and "l"-) is based on its optical rotation properties; and the / system is based on the molecule's relationship to enantiomers of glyceraldehyde.


title: Enantiomer

text: The R/S system is based on the molecule's geometry with respect to a chiral center. The R/S system is assigned to a molecule based on the priority rules assigned by Cahn–Ingold–Prelog priority rules, in which the group or atom with the largest atomic number is assigned the highest priority and the group or atom with the smallest atomic number is assigned the lowest atomic number.


title: Enantiomer

text: The (+)- and (−)- is used to specify a molecule's optical rotation — the direction that the molecule in rotates polarized light. When a molecule is denoted dextrorotatory it is rotating the plane of polarized light clockwise and can also be denoted as (+). When it is denoted as levorotatory it is rotating the plane of polarized light counterclockwise and can also be denoted as (−).


title: Enantiomer

text: The Latin words for "left" are "laevus" and "sinister", and the word for "right" is "dexter" (or "rectus" in the sense of correct or virtuous). The English word "right" is a cognate of "rectus". This is the origin of the L/D and S/R notations, and the employment of prefixes "levo-" and "dextro-" in common names.


title: Enantiomer

text: The prefix "ar-", from the Latin "recto" (right), is applied to the right-handed version; "es-", from the Latin "sinister" (left), to the left-handed molecule. Example: ketamine, arketamine, esketamine.


title: Enantiomer

text: The asymmetric atom is called a chirality center, a type of stereocenter. A chirality center is also called a "chiral center" or an "asymmetric center". Some sources use the terms "stereocenter", "stereogenic center", "stereogenic atom" or "stereogen" to refer exclusively to a chirality center, while others use the terms more broadly to refer also to centers that result in diastereomers (stereoisomers that are not enantiomers).


title: Enantiomer

text: Compounds that contain exactly one (or any odd number) of asymmetric atoms are always chiral. However, compounds that contain an even number of asymmetric atoms sometimes lack chirality because they are arranged in mirror-symmetric pairs, and are known as "meso" compounds. For instance, "meso" tartaric acid (shown on the right) has two asymmetric carbon atoms, but it does not exhibit enantiomerism because there is a mirror symmetry plane. Conversely, there exist forms of chirality that do not require asymmetric atoms, such as axial, planar, and helical chirality.


title: Enantiomer

text: Even though a chiral molecule lacks reflection (C) and rotoreflection symmetries (S), it can have other molecular symmetries, and its symmetry is described by one of the chiral point groups: C, D, T, O, or I. For example, hydrogen peroxide is chiral and has C (two-fold rotational) symmetry. A common chiral case is the point group C, meaning no symmetries, which is the case for lactic acid.


title: Enantiomer

text: An example of such an enantiomer is the sedative thalidomide, which was sold in a number of countries around the world from 1957 until 1961. It was withdrawn from the market when it was found to cause birth defects. One enantiomer caused the desirable sedative effects, while the other, unavoidably present in equal quantities, caused birth defects.


title: Enantiomer

text: The herbicide mecoprop is a racemic mixture, with the ("R")-(+)-enantiomer ("Mecoprop-P", "Duplosan KV") possessing the herbicidal activity.


title: Enantiomer

text: Another example is the antidepressant drugs escitalopram and citalopram. Citalopram is a racemate [1:1 mixture of ("S")-citalopram and ("R")-citalopram]; escitalopram [("S")-citalopram] is a pure enantiomer. The dosages for escitalopram are typically 1/2 of those for citalopram. Here, (S)-citalopram is called a chiral switch of Citalopram.


title: Enantiomer

text: Advances in industrial chemical processes have made it economic for pharmaceutical manufacturers to take drugs that were originally marketed as a racemic mixture and market the individual enantiomers. This strategy of marketing of a chiral specific drug from an already approved and existing racemic drug is normally done for better therapeutic efficacy. This kind of switching from a racemic drug to an enantiopure drug is called a chiral switch and the process is called chiral switching. In some cases, the enantiomers have genuinely different effects. An interesting case is that of Propoxyphene. The enantiomeric pair of propoxyphene is separately sold by Eli Lilly and company. One of the partner is dextropropoxyphene, an analgesic agent (Darvon) and the other is called levopropoxyphene, an effective antitussive (Novrad).  It is interesting to note that the trade names of the drugs, DARVON and NOVRAD, also reflect the chemical mirror-image relationship. In other cases, there may be no clinical benefit to the patient. In some jurisdictions, single-enantiomer drugs are separately patentable from the racemic mixture. It is possible that only one of the enantiomers is active. Or, it may be that both are active, in which case separating the mixture has no objective benefits, but extends the drug's patentability.


title: Enantiomer

text: In the absence of an effective enantiomeric environment (precursor, chiral catalyst, or kinetic resolution), separation of a racemic mixture into its enantiomeric components is impossible, although certain racemic mixtures spontaneously crystallize in the form of a "racemic conglomerate", in which crystals of the enantiomers are physically segregated and may be separated mechanically. However, most racemates will crystallize in crystals containing both enantiomers in a 1:1 ratio, arranged in a regular lattice.


title: Enantiomer

text: In his pioneering work, Louis Pasteur was able to isolate the isomers of tartaric acid because they crystallize from solution as crystals each with a different symmetry and separate them with tweezers. This is known as chiral resolution and its one of the two main strategies for the preparation of enantiopure compounds. A less common method is by enantiomer self-disproportionation.


title: Enantiomer

text: The second strategy is asymmetric synthesis: the use of various techniques to prepare the desired compound in high enantiomeric excess. Techniques encompassed include the use of chiral starting materials (chiral pool synthesis), the use of chiral auxiliaries and chiral catalysts, and the application of asymmetric induction. The use of enzymes (biocatalysis) may also produce the desired compound.


title: Enantiomer

text: A third strategy is Enantioconvergent synthesis, the synthesis of one enantiomer from a racemic precursor, utilizing both enantiomers. By making use of a chiral catalyist, both enantiomers of the reactant result in a single enantiomer of product.


title: Enantiomer

text: Enantiomers may not be isolable if there is an accessible pathway for racemization (interconversion between enantiomorphs to yield a racemic mixture) at a given temperature and timescale. For example, amines with three distinct substituents are chiral, but with few exceptions (e.g. substituted "N"-chloroaziridines), they rapidly undergo "umbrella inversion" at room temperature, leading to racemization. If the racemization is fast enough, the molecule can often be treated as an achiral, averaged structure.


title: Enantiomer

text: For all intents and purposes, each enantiomer in a pair has the same energy. However, theoretical physics predicts that due to parity violation of the weak nuclear force (the only force in nature that can "tell left from right"), there is actually a "minute" difference in energy between enantiomers (on the order of 10 eV or 10 kJ/mol or less) due to the weak neutral current mechanism. This difference in energy is far smaller than energy changes caused by even small changes in molecular conformation, and far too small to measure by current technology, and is therefore chemically inconsequential. In the sense used by particle physicists, the "true" enantiomer of a molecule, which has exactly the same mass-energy content as the original molecule, is a mirror-image that is also "built from antimatter" (antiprotons, antineutrons, and positrons). Throughout this article, "enantiomer" is used only in the chemical sense of compounds of ordinary matter that are not superposable on their mirror image.


title: Enantiomer

text: "Quasi"-enantiomers are molecular species that are not strictly enantiomers, but behave as if they are. In "quasi"-enantiomers majority of the molecule is reflected; however, an atom or group within the molecule is changed to a similar atom or group. "Quasi"-enantiomers can also be defined as molecules that have the potential to become enantiomers if an atom or group in the molecule is replaced. An example of "quasi"-enantiomers would ("S")-bromobutane and ("R")-iodobutane. Under normal conditions the enantiomers for ("S")-bromobutane and ("R")-iodobutane would ("R)-"bromobutane and ("S")-iodobutane respectively. "Quasi"-enantiomers would also produce quasi-racemates, which are similar to normal racemates (see Racemic mixture) in that they form an equal mixture of "quasi"-enantiomers.


title: Enantiomer

text: Though not considered actual enantiomers, the naming convention for "quasi-enantiomers also" follows the same trend as enantiomers when looking at ("R") and ("S") configurations - which are considered from a geometrical basis (see Cahn–Ingold–Prelog priority rules).


title: P. D. James

text: Phyllis Dorothy James, Baroness James of Holland Park, (3 August 1920 – 27 November 2014), known professionally as P. D. James, was an English novelist and life peer. Her rise to fame came with her series of detective novels featuring the police commander and poet, Adam Dalgliesh.


title: P. D. James

text: James was born in Oxford, the daughter of Sidney Victor James, a tax inspector, and his wife, Dorothy Mary James. She was educated at the British School in Ludlow and Cambridge High School for Girls. Her mother was committed to a mental hospital when James was in her mid-teens.


title: P. D. James

text: She had to leave school at the age of sixteen to work to take care of her younger siblings, sister Monica, and brother Edward, because her family did not have much money and her father did not believe in higher education for girls. She worked in a tax office in Ely for three years and later found a job as an assistant stage manager for the Festival Theatre in Cambridge. She married Ernest Connor Bantry White (called "Connor"), an army doctor, on 8 August 1941. They had two daughters, Clare and Jane.


title: P. D. James

text: White returned from the Second World War mentally ill and was institutionalised. With her daughters being mostly cared for by Connor's parents, James studied hospital administration, and from 1949 to 1968 worked for a hospital board in London. She began writing in the mid-1950s, using her maiden name ("My genes are James genes").


title: P. D. James

text: Her first novel, "Cover Her Face", featuring the investigator and poet Adam Dalgliesh of New Scotland Yard, was published in 1962. Dalgliesh's last name comes from a teacher of English at Cambridge High School and his first name is that of Miss Dalgliesh's father. Many of James's mystery novels take place against the backdrop of UK bureaucracies, such as the criminal justice system and the National Health Service, in which she worked for decades starting in the 1940s. Two years after the publication of "Cover Her Face", James's husband died on 5 August 1964. Prior to his death, James had not felt able to change her job: "He [Connor] would periodically discharge himself from hospital, sometimes at very short notice, and I never knew quite what I would have to face when I returned home from the office. It was not a propitious time to look for promotion or for a new job, which would only impose additional strain. But now [after Connor's death] I felt the strong need to look for a change of direction." She applied for the grade of Principal in the Home Civil Service and held positions as a civil servant within several sections of the Home Office, including the criminal section. She worked in government service until her retirement in 1979.


title: P. D. James

text: On 7 February 1991, James was created a life peer as Baroness James of Holland Park, of Southwold in the County of Suffolk. She sat in the House of Lords as a Conservative. She was an Anglican and a lay patron of the Prayer Book Society. Her 2001 work, "Death in Holy Orders", displays her familiarity with the inner workings of church hierarchy. Her later novels were often set in a community closed in some way, such as a publishing house, barristers' chambers, a theological college, an island or a private clinic. "Talking About Detective Fiction" was published in 2009. Over her writing career, James also wrote many essays and short stories for periodicals and anthologies, which have yet to be collected. She revealed in 2011 that "The Private Patient" was the final Dalgliesh novel.


title: P. D. James

text: As guest editor of BBC Radio 4's "Today" programme in December 2009, James conducted an interview with the Director General of the BBC, Mark Thompson, in which she seemed critical of some of his decisions. Regular "Today" presenter Evan Davis commented that "She shouldn't be guest editing; she should be permanently presenting the programme." In 2008, she was inducted into the International Crime Writing Hall of Fame at the inaugural ITV3 Crime Thriller Awards.


title: P. D. James

text: In August 2014, James was one of 200 public figures who were signatories to a letter to "The Guardian" opposing Scottish independence in the run-up to September's referendum on that issue.


title: P. D. James

text: James' main home was her house on Holland Park Avenue, the area from which she took her title; she also owned homes in Oxford and Southwold.


title: P. D. James

text: James died at her home in Oxford on 27 November 2014, aged 94. She is survived by her two daughters, Clare and Jane, five grandchildren and eight great-grandchildren.


title: P. D. James

text: During the 1980s, many of James's mystery novels were adapted for television by Anglia Television for the ITV network in the UK. These productions have been broadcast in other countries, including the US on the PBS network. Roy Marsden played Adam Dalgliesh. According to James in conversation with Bill Link on 3 May 2001 at the Writer's Guild Theatre, Los Angeles, Marsden "is not my idea of Dalgliesh, but I would be very surprised if he were." The BBC adapted "Death in Holy Orders" in 2003, and "The Murder Room" in 2004, both as one-off dramas starring Martin Shaw as Dalgliesh. In "Dalgliesh" (2021), Bertie Carvel starred as the titular, enigmatic detective–poet. Six episodes, shown as three two-parters, premiered on Acorn TV on 1 November 2021 in the United States followed by a Channel 5 premiere on 4 November in the United Kingdom.


title: P. D. James

text: Her novel "The Children of Men" (1992) was the basis for the feature film "Children of Men" (2006), directed by Alfonso Cuarón and starring Clive Owen, Julianne Moore and Michael Caine. Despite substantial changes from the book, James was reportedly pleased with the adaptation and proud to be associated with the film.


title: P. D. James

text: A three episode adaptation, Death Comes to Pemberley, written by Juliette Towhidi, was made by Origin Pictures for BBC One. It was first shown in the UK over three nights from 26 December 2013 as part of the BBC's Christmas schedule and stars Anna Maxwell Martin as Elizabeth, Matthew Rhys as Mr Darcy, Jenna Coleman as Lydia and Matthew Goode as Wickham.


title: Dan Simmons

text: Dan Simmons (born April 4, 1948) is an American science fiction and horror writer. He is the author of the Hyperion Cantos and the Ilium/Olympos cycles, among other works which span the science fiction, horror, and fantasy genres, sometimes within a single novel. Simmons's genre-intermingling" Song of Kali" (1985) won the World Fantasy Award. He also writes mysteries and thrillers, some of which feature the continuing character Joe Kurtz.


title: Dan Simmons

text: Born in Peoria, Illinois, Simmons received a B.A. in English from Wabash College in 1970 and, in 1971, a Masters in Education from Washington University in St. Louis.


title: Dan Simmons

text: He soon started writing short stories, although his career did not take off until 1982, when, through Harlan Ellison's help, his short story "The River Styx Runs Upstream" was published and awarded first prize in a "Twilight Zone Magazine" story competition, and he was taken on as a client by Ellison's agent, Richard Curtis. Simmons's first novel, "Song of Kali", was released in 1985.


title: Dan Simmons

text: "Summer of Night" (1991) recounts the childhood of a group of pre-teens who band together in the 1960s, to defeat a centuries-old evil that terrorizes their hometown of Elm Haven, Illinois. The novel, which was praised by Stephen King in a cover blurb, is similar to King's "It" (1986) in its focus on small-town life, the corruption of innocence, the return of an ancient evil, and the responsibility for others that emerges with the transition from youth to adulthood.


title: Dan Simmons

text: In the sequel to "Summer of Night", "A Winter Haunting" (2002), Dale Stewart (one of the first book's protagonists and now an adult), revisits his boyhood home to come to grips with mysteries that have disrupted his adult life.


title: Dan Simmons

text: Between the publication of "Summer of Night" (1991) and "A Winter Haunting" (2002), several additional characters from "Summer of Night" appeared in: "Children of the Night" (1992), a loose sequel to "Summer of Night", which features Mike O'Rourke, now much older and a Roman Catholic priest, who is sent on a mission to investigate bizarre events in a European city; "Fires of Eden" (1994), in which the adult Cordie Cooke appears; and "Darwin's Blade" (2000), a thriller in which Dale's younger brother, Lawrence Stewart, appears as a minor character.


title: Dan Simmons

text: After "Summer of Night", Simmons focused on writing science fiction until the 2007 work of historical fiction and horror, "The Terror". His 2009 book "Drood" is based on the last years of Charles Dickens' life leading up to the writing of "The Mystery of Edwin Drood", which Dickens had partially completed at the time of his death.


title: Dan Simmons

text: "The Terror" (2007) crosses the bridge between horror and historical fiction. It is a fictionalized account of Sir John Franklin and his expedition to find the Northwest Passage. The two ships, and , become icebound the first winter, and the captains and crew struggle to survive while being stalked across an Arctic landscape by a monster.


title: Dan Simmons

text: "The Abominable" (2013) recounts a mid-1920s attempt on Mount Everest by five climbers—two British, one French, one Sherpa, and one American (the narrator)—to recover the body of a cousin of one the British characters.


title: Dan Simmons

text: In January 2004, it was announced that the screenplay he wrote for his novels "Ilium" and "Olympos" would be made into a film by Digital Domain and Barnet Bain Films, with Simmons acting as executive producer. "Ilium" is described as an "epic tale that spans 5,000 years and sweeps across the entire solar system, including themes and characters from Homer's "The Iliad" and Shakespeare's "The Tempest"."


title: Dan Simmons

text: In 2008, Guillermo del Toro was scheduled to direct a film adaptation of "Drood" for Universal Pictures. As of December 2017, the project is still listed as "in development."


title: Dan Simmons

text: In 2009, Scott Derrickson was set to direct ""Hyperion Cantos"" for Warner Bros. and Graham King, with Trevor Sands penning the script to blend the first two cantos "Hyperion" and "The Fall of Hyperion" into one film. In 2011, actor Bradley Cooper expressed interest in taking over the adaptation. In 2015, it was announced that TV channel Syfy will produce a mini-series based on the Hyperion Cantos with the involvement of Cooper and King. As of May 2017, the project was still "in development" at Syfy. On November 1, 2021, Cooper and King restarted the feature film adaptation at Warner Bros. with Tom Spezialy set to write the script.


title: Dan Simmons

text: "The Terror" (2007) was adapted in 2018 as an AMC 10 episode-mini-series in 2018 and received generally positive reviews upon release.


title: Dan Simmons

text: Dan Simmons has been nominated on numerous occasions in a range of categories for his fiction, including the Arthur C. Clarke Award, Bram Stoker Award, British Fantasy Society Award, Hugo Award, Nebula Award, and World Fantasy Award.


title: Skara Brae

text: Skara Brae is a stone-built Neolithic settlement, located on the Bay of Skaill on the west coast of Mainland, the largest island in the Orkney archipelago of Scotland. Consisting of ten clustered houses, made of flagstones, in earthen dams that provided support for the walls; the houses included stone hearths, beds, and cupboards. A primitive sewer system, with "toilets" and drains in each house, carried effluent to the ocean. (Water was used to flush waste into a drain.)


title: Skara Brae

text: The site was occupied from roughly 3180 BC to about 2500 BC and is Europe's most complete Neolithic village. Skara Brae gained UNESCO World Heritage Site status as one of four sites making up "The Heart of Neolithic Orkney". Older than Stonehenge and the Great Pyramids of Giza, it has been called the "Scottish Pompeii" because of its excellent preservation.


title: Skara Brae

text: Care of the site is the responsibility of Historic Scotland which works with partners in managing the site: Orkney Islands Council, NatureScot (Scottish Natural Heritage), and the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds. Visitors to the site are welcome during much of the year, although some areas and facilities were closed due to the worldwide COVID-19 pandemic during parts of 2020 and into 2021.


title: Skara Brae

text: In the winter of 1850, a severe storm hit Scotland causing widespread damage and over 200 deaths. In the Bay of Skaill the storm stripped the earth from a large irregular knoll known as "Skara Brae". When the storm cleared, local villagers found the outline of a village consisting of several small houses without roofs. William Watt of Skaill, the local laird, began an amateur excavation of the site, but after four houses were uncovered, work was abandoned in 1868. The site remained undisturbed until 1913 when during a single weekend the site was plundered by a party with shovels who took away an unknown quantity of artifacts. In 1924 another storm swept away part of one of the houses, and it was determined the site should be secured and properly investigated. The job was given to the University of Edinburgh’s Professor V. Gordon Childe, who travelled to Skara Brae for the first time in mid-1927.


title: Skara Brae

text: The inhabitants of Skara Brae were makers and users of grooved ware, a distinctive style of pottery that had recently appeared in northern Scotland. The houses used earth sheltering, being sunk into the ground. They were sunk into mounds of pre-existing prehistoric domestic waste known as middens. This provided the houses with a stability and also acted as insulation against Orkney's harsh winter climate. On average, each house measures with a large square room containing a stone hearth used for heating and cooking. Given the number of homes, it seems likely that no more than fifty people lived in Skara Brae at any given time.


title: Skara Brae

text: It is not clear what material the inhabitants burned in their hearths. Childe was sure that the fuel was peat, but a detailed analysis of vegetation patterns and trends suggests that climatic conditions conducive to the development of thick beds of peat did not develop in this part of Orkney until after Skara Brae was abandoned. Other possible fuels include driftwood and animal dung. There is evidence that dried seaweed may have been used significantly. At some sites in Orkney, investigators have found a glassy, slag-like material called "kelp" or "cramp" that may be residual burnt seaweed.


title: Skara Brae

text: The dwellings contain a number of stone-built pieces of furniture, including cupboards, dressers, seats, and storage boxes. Each dwelling was entered through a low doorway that had a stone slab door that could be shut "by a bar that slid in bar-holes cut in the stone door jambs". A number of dwellings offered a small connected antechamber, offering access to a partially covered stone drain leading away from the village. It is suggested that these chambers served as indoor privies.


title: Skara Brae

text: Seven of the houses have similar furniture, with the beds and dresser in the same places in each house. The dresser stands against the wall opposite the door, and was the first thing seen by anyone entering the dwelling. Each of these houses had the larger bed on the right side of the doorway and the smaller on the left. Lloyd Laing noted that this pattern accorded with Hebrides custom up to the early 20th century suggesting that the husband's bed was the larger and the wife's was the smaller. The discovery of beads and paint-pots in some of the smaller beds may support this interpretation. Additional support may come from the recognition that stone boxes lie to the left of most doorways, forcing the person entering the house to turn to the right-hand, "male", side of the dwelling. At the front of each bed lie the stumps of stone pillars that may have supported a canopy of fur; another link with recent Hebridean style.


title: Skara Brae

text: House 8 has no storage boxes or dresser and has been divided into something resembling small cubicles. Fragments of stone, bone and antler were excavated suggesting the house may have been used to make tools such as bone needles or flint axes. The presence of heat-damaged volcanic rocks and what appears to be a flue, support this interpretation. House 8 is distinctive in other ways as well: it is a stand-alone structure not surrounded by midden; instead it is above ground with walls over thick and has a "porch" protecting the entrance.


title: Skara Brae

text: The Grooved Ware People who built Skara Brae were primarily pastoralists who raised cattle and sheep. Childe originally believed that the inhabitants did not farm, but excavations in 1972 unearthed seed grains from a midden suggesting that barley was cultivated. Fish bones and shells are common in the middens indicating that dwellers ate seafood. Limpet shells are common and may have been fish-bait that was kept in stone boxes in the homes. The boxes were formed from thin slabs with joints carefully sealed with clay to render them waterproof.


title: Skara Brae

text: This pastoral lifestyle is in sharp contrast to some of the more exotic interpretations of the culture of the Skara Brae people. Euan MacKie suggested that Skara Brae might be the home of a privileged theocratic class of wise men who engaged in astronomical and magical ceremonies at nearby Ring of Brodgar and the Standing Stones of Stenness. Graham and Anna Ritchie cast doubt on this interpretation noting that there is no archaeological evidence for this claim, although a Neolithic "low road" that goes from Skara Brae passes near both these sites and ends at the chambered tomb of Maeshowe. Low roads connect Neolithic ceremonial sites throughout Britain.


title: Skara Brae

text: Originally, Childe believed that the settlement dated from around 500 BC. This interpretation was coming under increasing challenge by the time new excavations in 1972–73 settled the question. Radiocarbon results obtained from samples collected during these excavations indicate that occupation of Skara Brae began about 3180 BC with occupation continuing for about six hundred years. Around 2500 BC, after the climate changed, becoming much colder and wetter, the settlement may have been abandoned by its inhabitants. There are many theories as to why the people of Skara Brae left; particularly popular interpretations involve a major storm. Evan Hadingham combined evidence from found objects with the storm scenario to imagine a dramatic end to the settlement:


title: Skara Brae

text: The site was farther from the sea than it is today, and it is possible that Skara Brae was built adjacent to a fresh water lagoon protected by dunes. Although the visible buildings give an impression of an organic whole, it is certain that an unknown quantity of additional structures had already been lost to sea erosion before the site's rediscovery and subsequent protection by a seawall. Uncovered remains are known to exist immediately adjacent to the ancient monument in areas presently covered by fields, and others, of uncertain date, can be seen eroding out of the cliff edge a little to the south of the enclosed area.


title: Skara Brae

text: A number of enigmatic carved stone balls have been found at the site and some are on display in the museum. Similar objects have been found throughout northern Scotland. The spiral ornamentation on some of these "balls" has been stylistically linked to objects found in the Boyne Valley in Ireland. Similar symbols have been found carved into stone lintels and bed posts. These symbols, sometimes referred to as "runic writings", have been subjected to controversial translations. For example, author Rodney Castleden suggested that "colons" found punctuating vertical and diagonal symbols may represent separations between words.


title: Skara Brae

text: Lumps of red ochre found here and at other Neolithic sites have been interpreted as evidence that body painting may have been practised. Nodules of haematite with highly polished surfaces have been found as well; the shiny surfaces suggest that the nodules were used to finish leather.


title: Skara Brae

text: Other artifacts excavated on site made of animal, fish, bird, and whalebone, whale and walrus ivory, and orca teeth included awls, needles, knives, beads, adzes, shovels, small bowls and, most remarkably, ivory pins up to long. These pins are very similar to examples found in passage graves in the Boyne Valley, another piece of evidence suggesting a linkage between the two cultures. So-called Skaill knives were commonly used tools in Skara Brae; these consist of large flakes knocked off sandstone cobbles. Skaill knives have been found throughout Orkney and Shetland.


title: Skara Brae

text: The 1972 excavations reached layers that had remained waterlogged and had preserved items that otherwise would have been destroyed. These include a twisted skein of Heather, one of a very few known examples of Neolithic rope, and a wooden handle.


title: Skara Brae

text: A comparable, though smaller, site exists at Rinyo on Rousay. Unusually, no Maeshowe-type tombs have been found on Rousay and although there are a large number of Orkney–Cromarty chambered cairns, these were built by Unstan ware people.


title: Skara Brae

text: Knap of Howar, on the Orkney island of Papa Westray, is a well-preserved Neolithic farmstead. Dating from 3500 BC to 3100 BC, it is similar in design to Skara Brae, but from an earlier period, and it is thought to be the oldest preserved standing building in northern Europe.


title: Skara Brae

text: There is also a site currently under excavation at Links of Noltland on Westray that appears to have similarities to Skara Brae.


title: Skara Brae

text: "The Heart of Neolithic Orkney" was inscribed as a World Heritage site in December 1999. In addition to Skara Brae the site includes Maeshowe, the Ring of Brodgar, the Standing Stones of Stenness and other nearby sites. It is managed by Historic Environment Scotland, whose "Statement of Significance" for the site begins:


title: Skara Brae

text: In 2019, a risk assessment was performed to assess the site's vulnerability to climate change. The report by Historic Environment Scotland, the Orkney Islands Council and others concludes that the entire Heart of Neolithic Orkney World Heritage Site, and in particular Skara Brae, is "extremely vulnerable" to climate change due to rising sea levels, increased rainfall and other factors; it also highlights the risk that Skara Brae could be partially destroyed by one unusually severe storm.


title: Vidyasagar (composer)

text: Vidyasagar (born 2 March 1963) is an Indian composer, musician and singer who works predominantly in the Tamil, Malayalam, and Telugu film industries. After working with several composers as assistant and conductor, Vidyasagar made his debut as a film composer in the 1989 Tamil film "Poo Manam" and nicknamed as Melody King Working for over 225 feature films, he is the recipient of the National Award and five Filmfare Awards.


title: Vidyasagar (composer)

text: Vidyasagar was born to Ramachandra Rao, a musician, and Sooryakantham in Vizianagaram, Andhra Pradesh. He was named after the 19th century social reformer Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar. He was brought up in Bobbili. He underwent carnatic vocals training first and then started taking classical guitar classes in Chennai from Master Dhanraj along with A. R. Rahman and then later piano.


title: Vidyasagar (composer)

text: Vidyasagar became an independent film composer with the song "En Anbe" in the 1989 Tamil movie "Poomanam". Vidyasagar started his music career with a Tamil film, he gained recognition good in the Tamil music industry at a later stage. He shifted base to Telugu cinema in 1989.


title: Vidyasagar (composer)

text: In 1994–95, Vidyasagar was approached by Tamil actor-director Arjun, with whom he worked for many musical films like "Jai Hind", "Karna" and "Subash". Their combination resulted in acclaimed Tamil language melodic songs like "Malare" and "Padu Padu".


title: Vidyasagar (composer)

text: From 1996 to 2001 Vidyasagar mainly concentrated on Malayalam films. During this period, Vidyasagar also composed for a few Tamil movies like "Nilaave Vaa" and "Uyirodu Uyiraga". He won three Kerala State Film Awards. About his stint in the Malayalam Cinema, Vidyasagar was quoted saying "I believe that it was a God sent opportunity for me to work in one of the finest film industries".


title: Vidyasagar (composer)

text: From the year 2002, he started composing soundtracks for "Dhil", "Run", "Dhool", "Ghilli" etc. in Tamil and "Summer in Bethlehem", "Meesha Madhavan", "Kilichundan Mampazham", "Pattalam", "C.I.D. Moosa" etc. in Malayalam. His Bollywood venture "Hulchul" directed by Priyadarshan was a box-office blockbuster, but the songs only became nominal hits, not bringing him the acclaim he was usually used to in Tamil and Malayalam films.


title: Vidyasagar (composer)

text: During this period, Vidyasagar composed for his first English language feature, "Beyond The Soul", a low-budget independent film directed by Rajiv Anchal.


title: Vidyasagar (composer)

text: Between 2003 and 2005, he composed songs for several notable films like "Anbe Sivam", "Madhurey", "Kochi Rajavu", "Ji" and "Chandrolsavam" in 2004–05. The year 2005 saw Vidyasagar receiving his first National Film Awards for his music in the Telugu film "Swarabhishekam" directed by K. Vishwanath. The music in the film was predominantly Carnatic. The same year, he composed music for the film "Chandramukhi".


title: Vidyasagar (composer)

text: In 2007, Vidyasagar was signed by Prakash Raj for his production venture "Mozhi" starring Prithviraj Sukumaran and Jyothika. The film directed by Radha Mohan had critically acclaimed melodies like "Kaatrin Mozhiye" and "Sevvanam". The songs of "Mozhi" had the distinction of being completely devoid of duets. The only female voice was of Sujatha Mohan in Katrin Mozhi. In 2008 Vidyasagar's notable releases were Vijay's "Kuruvi" and the Priyadarshan directed "Mere Baap Pehle Aap" in Hindi.


title: Vidyasagar (composer)

text: After his brief dull phase in Malayalam, he bounced back into the scene with the Lal Jose directorial "Neelathamara", scripted by the legendary M.T. Vasudevan Nair, with the song "Anuraga Vilochananaayi" becoming a cult favourite. He followed it up with hits in Apoorva Ragam and Makeup Man. Meanwhile, in Tamil, he delivered hits with Karthi's "Siruthai" and Vijay's "Kaavalan".


title: Vidyasagar (composer)

text: In 2012, Vidyasagar had three releases in Malayalam with "Diamond Necklace", Thappana and "Ordinary".


title: Vidyasagar (composer)

text: In 2013, Priyadarshan signed him in for his film, "Geethaanjali" in Malayalam with Mohanlal in the lead role. Lal Jose's "Pullipulikalum Aattinkuttiyum" and "Jannal Oram", the Tamil remake of "Ordinary" were his other releases of the year. The end of veteran filmmaker Sathyan Anthikkad's 10-film long collaboration with composer Ilaiyaraaja saw him collaborate with Vidyasagar for the film "Oru Indian Pranayakatha". Sathyan Anthikad continued his collaboration with Vidyasagar for his next 2 films, "Ennum Eppozhum" (released in 2015) and "Jomonte Suvisheshangal" (released in 2017).


title: Knight of Cups (film)

text: Knight of Cups is a 2015 American drama film written and directed by Terrence Malick and produced by Nicolas Gonda, Sarah Green and Ken Kao. The film features an ensemble cast, starring Christian Bale as the central character.


title: Knight of Cups (film)

text: The film follows screenwriter Rick (Bale) on an odyssey through Los Angeles and Las Vegas as he undertakes a series of adventures with colorful figures, identified by seven tarot cards, with Bale as the Knight of Cups. The film is loosely inspired by, and at times quotes directly from, the 1678 Christian allegory "The Pilgrim's Progress", the "Acts of Thomas" passage "Hymn of the Pearl," and Suhrawardi's "A Tale of the Western Exile".


title: Knight of Cups (film)

text: After over two years in post-production, the film premiered in the main competition section at the 65th Berlin International Film Festival on February 8, 2015 to mixed reviews. It was released in the United States on March 4, 2016, by Broad Green Pictures to more mixed reviews from critics and audiences alike.


title: Knight of Cups (film)

text: Rick is a screenwriter living in Los Angeles, California. He is successful in his career, but his life feels empty. Haunted by the death of one brother and the dire circumstances of the other, he finds temporary solace in Hollywood excess. Women provide a distraction from the daily pain he endures, and every encounter brings him closer to finding his place in the world.


title: Knight of Cups (film)

text: The film is divided into eight chapters (each named after a tarot card, except the final chapter, "Freedom"), plus a prologue, each loosely based around the central character's relationship with somebody in his life:


title: Knight of Cups (film)

text: VII. Death – Elizabeth, a married woman with whom he has a relationship and who becomes pregnant with a child that may be his.


title: Knight of Cups (film)

text: "Knight of Cups" directly quotes a variety of dream vision works, including John Bunyan's "The Pilgrim's Progress" (1678), Mark Frost and David Lynch's "Twin Peaks", and the "Hymn of the Pearl" from the Acts of Thomas. The film freely oscillates between depicting Rick's memory, dreams, and "real" experiences, becoming a stream-of-consciousness series of moments and thoughts. Quotations from the "Hymn of the Pearl" are read in voice-over by Rick's father in the beginning of the film, with many of the lines corresponding to Rick's experiences and feelings. Much like the "Hymn of the Pearl"'s protagonist, Rick is expected to awaken from his "deep sleep" by remembering "the pearl".


title: Knight of Cups (film)

text: Drugs, alcohol, and other means to altered states of consciousness play a large role in the film. Pivotal scenes include the glittery high-rise party the film begins with, at a mansion full of Hollywood elites (where a patron urges Rick to attend a ketamine party, another patron wears a virtual reality headset, and two children play Wii Sports), and Rick's kaleidoscopic journey to Las Vegas with Karen. Various characters talk about drugs, with Clifton Collins Jr.'s character Jordan telling Nick Offerman's character Scott that "the sweet spot" to get women into in order to open them to seduction "is one Xanny, four white wines". Karen says, "You see, I took drugs once, and it kind of opened up this window for me. I call it the Window of Truth."


title: Knight of Cups (film)

text: In November 2011, the film was announced with Cate Blanchett, Christian Bale and Isabel Lucas mentioned as cast. It was also announced the film would be shot back-to-back with "Song to Song". To prepare, Bale read Walker Percy's novel "The Moviegoer", on Malick's suggestion.


title: Knight of Cups (film)

text: Production on the film began in June 2012 and lasted nine weeks. During production, many of the cast and crew were spotted filming throughout Los Angeles County and Las Vegas, as most of the filming took place on the streets and in public places.


title: Knight of Cups (film)

text: Although a script was written, Bale received no pages from it, while all other cast members received only pages of internal and verbal monologue for each shooting day. Bale later said that while filming, he was unclear about what the final film would actually be. During production, Malick used a process he calls "torpedoing", where a character is thrown into a scene without the other actors' advance knowledge, forcing them to improvise. In addition to a traditional studio, the cast also recorded their voice-over work in nontraditional places, such as in a van or by the side of the road.


title: Knight of Cups (film)

text: The film spent two years in post-production, which consisted of a small group of editors in the beginning and widened throughout.


title: Knight of Cups (film)

text: The film premiered in the main competition section at the 65th Berlin International Film Festival on February 8, 2015. Shortly after, Broad Green Pictures acquired distribution rights to the film. The film had its American premiere at the Santa Barbara Film Festival on February 7, 2016, and was released in the United States on March 4, 2016.


title: Knight of Cups (film)

text: "Knight of Cups" has received mixed reviews from critics. On review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds a 46% approval rating based on 175 reviews, with an average rating of 5.67 out of 10. The site's consensus reads, ""Knight of Cups" finds Terrence Malick delving deeper into the painterly visual milieu he's explored in recent efforts, but even hardcore fans may struggle with the diminishing narrative returns." On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 53 out of 100 based on 41 reviews, indicating "mixed or average reviews".


title: Knight of Cups (film)

text: Justin Chang of "Variety" called the film "flawed but fascinating" and a "feverish plunge into the toxic cloud of decadence" as Malick offers a "corrosive critique of Hollywood hedonism". Todd McCarthy of "The Hollywood Reporter" said that the "resolutely poetic and impressionist" film "conveys most bracingly [the] fleeting nature of human exchange", but the end result "is a certain tedium and repetitiveness along with the rhythmic niceties and imaginative riffs... this one mostly operates on a more dramatically mundane, private and even narcissistic level [than "The Tree of Life"]".


title: Knight of Cups (film)

text: Moira Macdonald of "The Seattle Times" praised the film's "dreamlike" nature, but also stated that "you keep waiting for the film to come together, for Rick to emerge as a character rather than a cipher, for the women to seem less interchangeable — in short, for a point to it all. By its end, I was still waiting." Stephanie Zacharek of "TIME" wrote that the director "understands so little about women" and argued, "For loyal Malick fans, the woozy dream-logic visuals here may be enough. But this director is hardly the perceptive student of human nature he's cracked up to be." In "The Arizona Republic", Bill Goodykoontz wrote, "I'm all for directors making audiences think, but ultimately, those thoughts need to lead us somewhere."


title: Knight of Cups (film)

text: Some critics were very positive, with Matt Zoller Seitz of RogerEbert.com, who gave the film four out of four stars, stating, "Nobody else is making films like this. Not at this level...The sheer freedom of it is intoxicating." He acknowledged it would be "impenetrable and intolerable" for most audiences, and that ""Knight of Cups" is not a young man's movie...[It's a] philosophically engaged, beatific, starchild-as-old-man's movie." In another highly positive review, Richard Brody of "The New Yorker" called the film "an instant classic in several genres—the confessional, the inside-Hollywood story, the Dantesque midlife-crisis drama, the religious quest, the romantic struggle, the sexual reverie, the family melodrama" and considered it "one of the great recent bursts of cinematic artistry, a carnival of images and sounds that have a sensual beauty, of light and movement, of gesture and inflection, rarely matched in any movie that isn’t Malick’s own." Later, in a 2016 BBC poll, Seitz voted "Knight of Cups" the fifth-greatest film since 2000.


title: Amal Neerad

text: Amal Neerad (born on 7 October 1976) is an Indian film director, cinematographer and producer who mainly works in Malayalam Cinema. He attended the Satyajit Ray Film and Television Institute, Kolkata (first batch). He was awarded the National Film Award for Best Cinematography (special mention) in 2001 for his diploma film "Meena Jha" (short feature section).


title: Amal Neerad

text: He started his career shooting music videos, documentaries and ads. It was his Diploma film that brought him to the attention of Ram Gopal Verma and his team. Neerad moved into Hindi Cinema with three back to back films; James (2004), "Darna Zaroori Hai" (2006) and "Shiva" (2006). In 2004, he also shot the Malayalam Film 'Black'.


title: Amal Neerad

text: Back in Malayalam Cinema, paths were being opened for new filmmakers collaborating with superstars like Mammootty whom he had met during the shoot of 'Black'. That fateful meeting resulted in his debut directorial venture, the now Cult Classic movie "Big B" (2007). The stylish narrative and technical brilliance also brought together a team of fresh technicians and minds on board, like writer Unni R., music director Gopi Sundar, cinematographer Sameer Thahir, asst. cinematographers Jomon T. John and Shyju Khalid, editor Vivek Harshan etc. revolutionising Malayalam Cinema of the new decade. He has since then gone on to direct and shoot and produce and distribute many critically and commercially successful Malayalam movies.


title: Amal Neerad

text: Amal Neerad born in Kollam, Kerala. He attended school and college in Kochi. He was the college union chairman of Maharaja's College, Ernakulam in two consecutive terms (1992–93 and 1993–94).


title: Amal Neerad

text: Amal joined Satyajit Ray Film and Television Institute in 1995. He is a winner of National Film Awards for best cinematography. After his graduation from the institute he worked as a cinematographer with Ram Gopal Varma's production company for the films such as "James", "Darna Zaroori Hai" and "Shiva". His debut movie in Malayalam as cinematographer was "Black", directed by Ranjith.


title: Amal Neerad

text: In 2007, he made his directorial debut "Big B" starring Mammootty and Shereveer Vakil. Even though the movie was an average grosser at the box office, the stylish narrative and technical brilliance that the film possessed apparently gave the movie an iconic stature and cult following. His next film was "Sagar Alias Jacky" starring Mohanlal, a sequel of 1987 film "Irupatham Noottandu". In 2010, He directed "Anwar" with Prithviraj and Prakash Raj in lead roles.


title: Amal Neerad

text: Amal Neerad launched his production company Amal Neerad Productions through the 2012 film "Bachelor Party" directed by himself. In 2013, he produced the anthology film, "5 Sundarikal". Amal directed the segment "Kullante Bharya" starred Dulquer Salmaan and handled camera for the segment "Aami", directed by Anwar Rasheed. He directed and co-produced (with Fahad Faasil) the period thriller "Iyobinte Pustakam" starring Fahadh Faasil, Lal, and Jayasurya in 2014. In 2017, he produced and directed "Comrade In America" starring Dulquer Salmaan. He later directed Fahadh Faasil starred "Varathan" in 2018. The movie was jointly produced by Neerad and Fahadh Faasil. Amal joined hands with Anwar Rasheed again as a cinematographer for the movie "Trance", starring Fahadh Faasil. Later, he joined Mammootty again after 15 years for the movie "Bheeshma Parvam" which emerged as one of the biggest hits in Mollywood industry.


title: Akari Kitō

text: At an early age, she became familiar with anime, games, and manga due to her father's influence. She was in the Light Music Club at her high school and chose to play the bass because she did not want to stand out, but little did she know that others would have had the same thought, so she instead took up the role of vocalist. She had always thought she would become an illustrator, but right before graduating from high school, she was told by her parents that they could not afford to pay for her university education and that instead, she would have to apply for a scholarship. Because she was from Aichi Prefecture which is four hours away from Tokyo, moving to Tokyo never crossed her mind. After consideration, she decided to save money attending and instead decided to move to Tokyo to become a voice actress seeing as she was still young and wanted a challenge. A year or two into moving to Tokyo, her grandmother who she was extremely close to was dying. At the same time, jobs and audition calls were scarce, so she was constantly worried about her financial situation. She considers this the most painful time of her life. She told herself that if she did not make it as a voice actress, she would become an illustrator instead.


title: Akari Kitō

text: For her discography as her Love Live! Nijigasaki Highschool Idol Club character Kanata Konoe see here


title: Lakshya (2004 film)

text: Lakshya () is a 2004 Indian Hindi-language coming-of-age war-drama film directed by Farhan Akhtar and produced by Ritesh Sidhwani. It stars Amitabh Bachchan, Hrithik Roshan and Preity Zinta in lead roles with Boman Irani and Anjula Bedi in supporting roles. Based on the 1999 Kargil War, the film is about Karan Sheirgill, an aimless and lazy boy from Delhi who joins the Indian Army and transforms himself into a soldier to make his girlfriend Romila Dutta proud of him.


title: Lakshya (2004 film)

text: At the 50th Filmfare Awards, "Lakshya" received 4 nominations, including Best Director (Farhan) and Best Actor (Roshan), and won 2 awards – Best Choreography (Prabhu Deva for "Main Aisa Kyun Hoon...") and Best Cinematography.


title: Lakshya (2004 film)

text: Karan Sheirgill is an aimless and lazy boy living in Delhi who has no goals for his future. His father Sanjeev Sheirgill is a wealthy businessman and his mother Shalini Sheirgill is a housewife. His girlfriend Romila Dutta aka Romi, an aspiring journalist, tries to make him understand that he needs to have a goal in life. Karan also wonders why he does not know what he wishes to pursue in life. Eventually, he aimlessly thinks of joining the Indian Army after his one of his friends decides to do so but backs out. However, his father ends up lashing out at him on learning about his decision. Infuriated, he decides to join the Indian Army and gains Romi's advice of not listening to anyone if he really desires to do so. Karan gives the Combined Defence Services Examination and gets selected into the Indian Military Academy in Dehradun. However, he is undisciplined and unused to life over there. He keeps receiving punishments during the military training from the team due to his overconfidence and laziness. Upset, he flees from the academy and is forced to confront his parents' low opinion of him. His decision also causes Romi to angrily break up with him for not respecting his own decision. Devastated, Karan finally comes to terms with his situation and makes his decision. He returns to the Indian Military Academy, takes his punishment, and becomes a focused, disciplined officer cadet.