title: Union Movement

text: Mosley's ideas were not new since concepts of a Nation Europa and Eurafrika (the same idea but with parts of north Africa included as natural sectors of Europe's traditional sphere of influence, an idea that Mosley himself felt had some merit) were already growing in Germany's postwar underground. Also, Benito Mussolini's Italian Social Republic had returned to fascism's roots with an attempt at a corporatist economic system during its brief existence. Nonetheless, Mosley was the first to express the ideas in English, and it came as no surprise when he returned to proper political activism in 1948. Those plans were to form the basis for the policy programme of the Union Movement.


title: Union Movement

text: After the release of interned fascists at the end of the Second World War, a number of far-right groups were formed. They were often virulently anti-Semitic and tried to capitalise on the violent events taking place in Mandatory Palestine. Large meetings were organised in Jewish areas of East London and elsewhere, which were often violently broken up by antifascist groups such as the 43 Group. Fifty-one separate groups were united under Mosley's leadership in the Union Movement (UM), launched at a meeting in Farringdon Hall, London, in 1948. The four main groups were Jeffrey Hamm's British League of Ex-Servicemen and Women, Anthony Gannon's Imperial Defence League, Victor Burgess's Union of British Freedom and Horace Gowing and Tommy Moran's Sons of St George, all of which were led by ex-BUF men. Another early member was Francis Parker Yockey, an American who had come to England to seek Mosley's help to publish his written work. Yockey briefly headed up the UM's European Contact Section, although he left after a dispute with Mosley.


title: Union Movement

text: The Union Movement was also known for its attempts to recruit Irish people living in Britain, and Mosley wrote a pamphlet in 1948, "Ireland's Right to Unite when entering European Union". There were also links between the UM and the Irish nationalist and pro-fascist party Ailtirí na hAiséirghe ("Architects of the Resurrection"), and Mosley wrote articles for its newspaper "Aiséirghe".


title: Union Movement

text: Mosley remained a critic of liberal democracy, and the UM instead extolled a strong executive that people could endorse or reject through regular referendums, with an independent judiciary in place to appoint replacements in the event of a rejection. In 1948 the party marched 1,500 supporters through Camden and went on to contest the following year's local elections in London. However, outside Shoreditch and Bethnal Green, where they polled 15.7% and 7.7% respectively in the wards contested, the UM performed very poorly and secured no representation. The Union Movement then declined as a political party, and attendance at meetings dwindled until it was negligible. Disillusioned by the stern opposition that the UM faced and his style of street politics being exposed as somewhat passé, in 1951 Mosley went into self-imposed exile in Ireland.


title: Union Movement

text: The member F.B. Price-Heywood was elected as a councillor in Grasmere, Lake District, Cumbria, during the 1953 local elections, but it was a rare success for the party, and the UM gained no parliamentary seats.


title: Union Movement

text: The Union Movement published several weekly newspapers and monthly magazines including "Union", "Action" (also the title of the prewar weekly newspaper of the New Party and the British Union of Fascists), "Attack", "Alternative", "East London Blackshirt", "The European" and "National European".


title: Union Movement

text: After the British Nationality Act 1948, there was a great increase in immigration, particularly from the Commonwealth and the colonies. In the early 1950s, immigration was estimated at 8,000–10,000 per year, but it had grown to 35,000 per year by 1957. Perceptions of the new migrant workers were frequently stereotypical, but the Conservative Party, despite the private opinions of some of its members, was loath to make a political issue out of it for fear of being seen as gutter politicians. Disturbances occurred in 1958 in Notting Hill after a Mosley rally and in Nottingham with clashes between racial groups, a new phenomenon in Britain.


title: Union Movement

text: The new uncertainties revitalised the UM, and Mosley re-emerged to stand as a candidate in the 1959 general election in Kensington North, which included Notting Hill, his first parliamentary election since 1931. Mosley made immigration his campaign issue and combined calls for assisted repatriation with stories regarding criminality and sexual deviance of black people, a common theme of the time. The 8.1% share of the vote that he secured was a personal humiliation for a man who still hoped that he would be called to serve someday as the British prime minister. However, the UM was as a whole buoyed by the immigration question, which it saw as the next big issue in British politics.


title: Union Movement

text: In April 1965, Mosley attempted to prove that he and the UM were not racist by forming an "Associate Movement" for ethnic minorities who agreed with his policies, including the financially-assisted repatriation of immigrants to their homelands of origin. The group was led by an Indian solicitor and an African airline pilot but was short-lived.


title: Union Movement

text: Along with his domestic politics, Mosley continued to work towards his goal of Europe a Nation and in 1962 attended a conference in Venice at which he helped to form a National Party of Europe, along with Germany's Reichspartei, the Mouvement d'Action Civique, and Jeune Europe of Belgium and the Italian Social Movement (MSI). Adopting the slogan "Progress - Solidarity - Unity", the movement aimed to work closely for a closer unity of European states, but in the end, little came of it as only the MSI enjoyed any success domestically. The group replaced the earlier European Social Movement in which Mosley had also been involved. The Union Movement itself did not play an active role in Europe, although it helped to set in motion co-operation between like-minded groups across Europe, which continued with the European National Front.


title: Union Movement

text: Mosley stood again in the 1966 election, this time in the Shoreditch and Finsbury constituency. However, gaining only 4.6% of the vote, Mosley effectively departed the scene thereafter, although he remained the official UM leader until 1973. The increasingly marginalised UM carried on into the 1970s and still advocated Europe A Nation but had no real influence and failed to capture support for its policies.


title: Union Movement

text: A brief revival seemed possible after the UM became the Action Party in 1973, the name under which it fought six seats at the Greater London Council election. Under the leadership of Jeffrey Hamm, the party hoped for something of a revival although it was damaged severely in 1974 when a leading member, Keith Thompson, and his followers split to form the League of Saint George, a non-party movement that they claimed was the true continuation of Mosley's ideas. With a sizeable chunk of its membership long since lost to the National Front, the Action Party gave up electoral politics and in 1978 became the Action Society, which acted as a publishing house rather than a political party. The group continued until Hamm's death in 1994, when the funding of Mosley's widow, Diana Mitford, was withdrawn. The Action Society was then wound up – this represented the final end of the Union Movement.


title: Union Movement

text: The 1980s ITV television series "Shine on Harvey Moon" features members of Mosley's Union Movement. It was created by the writers Laurence Marks and Maurice Gran who would later produce the Channel 4 mini-series "Mosley" broadcast in 1998.


title: Mitsuki (Naruto)

text: In the making of the film "Boruto" and the anime series, Hiroyuki Yamashita was in charge of developing the character despite his small role in the film. Critical reception to Mitsuki has been mixed. While his role in the "Boruto" film was criticized for its lack of development, both his backstory portrayed in the one-shot and his role in "Boruto: Naruto Next Generations" were praised for adding depth to his character, even though he remained a mysterious child.


title: Mitsuki (Naruto)

text: Masashi Kishimoto designed Mitsuki to provide hints to his lineage through his snake-themed features such as his eyes. He originally had a shoulder length bob, but the author decided to change his hair to make him look more appealing, giving him a short white hairstyle instead. Mitsuki was given a kimono with long sleeves. Rather than making the outfit casual, Kishimoto made it suitable for war by hiding Mitsuki's hands in the design, making it difficult for people to know his intentions. He was also equipped with a ninja tool pouch, which is longer than regular pouches, on the fastener of his sash.


title: Mitsuki (Naruto)

text: "Boruto" anime director Hiroyuki Yamashita commented on Mitsuki's part in the film, saying that he was much more of a gentle character. After reading the character's own story, Yamashita felt that Mitsuki's image was solidified. After the first screening, there was a scene that showed Mitsuki’s true form, and the director recalled that everyone was stirred up by it. That was the first time he thought, "it seems that (Mitsuki) might be intriguing". Afterward, he remembered being praised by Kishimoto, but Yamashita pointed out that he had not felt any satisfaction. In the making of the "Boruto" film, the character guidebook described Mitsuki as "An enigma shrouded in many mysteries. A boy with a composed expression... His slightly-long white hair has a waviness to it." Once the "" anime started, the director said that, while in the beginning Mitsuki and Sarada Uchiha were only classmates, the two would have "a more developed relationship from now on".


title: Mitsuki (Naruto)

text: Mitsuki's Japanese voice actor, Ryūichi Kijima, stated that he had been asked by the staff to sound emotionless. However, Kijima gave him a more notable characterization, citing his dynamic with Boruto since Mitsuki tends to help him. In the English dub, Mitsuki is voiced by Robbie Daymond, who said he is very honored to voice the character. Daymond and the other "Boruto" English voice actors were grateful to play the characters given how large the franchise is.


title: Mitsuki (Naruto)

text: Mitsuki makes his first appearance in the "Naruto" spin-off manga "" (2015) as a young child training to become a ninja. By the events of the film "" (2015), Mitsuki has become a low-ranking ninja, Genin, teaming up with Boruto Uzumaki and Sarada Uchiha, and led by Konohamaru Sarutobi. In the film, the team takes part the Chunin Exams, to improve their ranking. After the post-credits scene, Mitsuki confesses to Boruto and Sarada that he is the son of the criminal Orochimaru, shocking Sarada.


title: Mitsuki (Naruto)

text: Mitsuki's backstory is explored in "Naruto Gaiden: The Road Illuminated by the Full Moon" (2016), where it is revealed that Mitsuki is an artificial human created by Orochimaru. Mitsuki decides to abandon his master and sets out toward Konohagakure to find Boruto, whom he regards as his "sun". The manga series "Boruto: Naruto Next Generations" (2016) by Ukyō Kodachi and Mikio Ikemoto begins by retelling the events from the film, but afterward both Mitsuki and Sarada reject a ninja mission in order to save Boruto from an assassin.


title: Mitsuki (Naruto)

text: The anime series of "Boruto: Naruto Next Generations" (2017) shows Mitsuki's entrance into the ninja academy, and his befriending of Boruto and his classmates in ninja training. Mitsuki helps Boruto find the criminal behind the "Ghost" attacks. In a following arc, Mitsuki goes on a trip to Kirigakure where he joins the Mist ninjas and his allies in trying to stop a rebellion led by seven swordsmen. Following this arc, Mitsuki declares he will become a ninja to keep track of Boruto, feeling his encounter with him has changed his way of seeing life. After this arc, Mitsuki and his friends become ninjas after passing a test, and he, Boruto, and Sarada form the new "Team 7" under the leadership of Konohamaru. In an anime-exclusive arc, Mitsuki seemingly defects from the Leaf Village, and his friends go on a mission to prove his innocence to their superiors. They learn that Mitsuki is travelling with a group of artificial humans known as Fabrications from the Stone Village, who wish to perform a coup. He is eventually revealed to be acting as a spy, and once again joins his team after defeating the leader of the Fabrications, Ku.


title: Mitsuki (Naruto)

text: Apart from the manga and anime, Mitsuki appears in the "Boruto" light novels. He is also a playable character in the fighting game "" (2016). He also appears in an original video animation where Team Konohamaru is sent to stop an apparent thief. He is also playable in the video game "Naruto to Boruto: Shinobi Striker" (2018).


title: Mitsuki (Naruto)

text: Critical reception to Mitsuki's character has been mixed based on his limited appearances in the film's story as well as his role in the printed and animated series. Thais Valdivia of "Hobby Consolas" stated that while Mitsuki's characterization was not properly executed in the film due to his limited appearances, his post-credit scenes would surprise the audience because of the revelation behind his heritage. "The Fandom Post" writer Chris Homer expressed a similar belief regarding the limited exploration of Mitsuki's character until the film's ending. "Toon Zone" felt that Mitsuki and Sarada provided good contrasts to Boruto in the film and also praised Robbie Daymond for his work as Mitsuki's English voice actor. Similarly, Amy McNulty of "Anime News Network" praised Daymond's performance, saying that while being "calm, collected, and oftentimes emotionless, the voice helps lend the character much of his mystery". Sarah Nelkin of "Anime Now" felt Mitsuki had no development in the film despite being a recurring fighter supporting the lead character.


title: Mitsuki (Naruto)

text: Once Mitsuki's past was explored in Masashi Kishimoto's one-shot manga, McNulty felt his origins were engaging, but at the same time not completely explained, and believed this was due to the ambiguous nature of the one-shot. Similarly, Melina Dargis, another "The Fandom Post" writer, considered Mitsuki's chapter the best in the first volume of the "Boruto" manga due to his connections with Orochimaru, and she felt it could have been used in the film. Nik Freeman of "Anime News Network" found Mitsuki's backstory one of the best in the franchise's history because it was not a rehash of prior story arcs. Rebecca Silverman of the same site wondered how Mitsuki's origins might clash with Boruto's as the series' main theme due to the issues they both face: the relationship between children and their parents.


title: Mitsuki (Naruto)

text: After Mitsuki had debuted in the "Boruto" anime television series, McNulty wrote that while his introduction was overshadowed by the episode's focus on his ninja academy teacher Shino Aburame, his role fitted into the story and she still found him mysterious. She also praised his actions in the episode as well as his interactions with Boruto. Sam Stewart of "IGN" had similar thoughts, saying that, like Sarada, Mitsuki was not properly introduced in his debut because the plot focused on Shino. In a later review, McNulty considered Mitsuki and Boruto's fight against the Ghost culprit, Sumire Kakehi, one of the best in the "Boruto" anime. Stewart agreed, saying that the fight was well-animated despite there being minor issues with the animation in other parts from the sequence. Nelkin felt the series succeeded in exploring more of Mitsuki, which was needed considering his minor role in the film. The writer additionally compared him with "Naruto" character Sai since both rarely express their emotions during their introductions into the series. Nelkin also described Mitsuki as a "character that is growing as a person as he spends time with his comrades", the teenagers attending the ninja academy. In poll from 2021, Mitsuki was voted as the eighth best character from "Boruto: Naruto Next Generations".


title: Tompkins Table

text: The Tompkins Table is an annual ranking that lists the Colleges of the University of Cambridge in order of their undergraduate students' performances in that year's examinations. Two colleges—Darwin and Clare Hall—do not have undergraduate students and do not feature in the list. It was created in 1981 by Peter Tompkins, then a third-year undergraduate mathematics student at Trinity College, who compiled it for many years. It was formerly published by "The Independent". Since 2016, it has been published by "Varsity", a student newspaper of the University of Cambridge. It is not an official University of Cambridge table. It does not take account of students who are not candidates for Honours degrees, or those who have failed to gain a degree. It was not published in 2020 or 2021 as a result of the restrictions to the examination process brought about as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.


title: Tompkins Table

text: Initially, it only included final year exams but since 1997 has covered all exams for which grades are allocated. The table allocates 5 points for a First Class degree, 3 points for an Upper Second (known also as a 2.i), 2.5 points for a Second Undivided (A second class degree that isn't divided into Upper or Lower), 2 points for a Lower Second (a 2.ii), 1 point for a Third and no points for someone only granted an allowance towards an Ordinary Degree. The scores in each subject are then weighted to a common average, to avoid the bias towards colleges with higher proportions of students entered for subjects which receive higher average grades. The result is expressed as a percentage of the total number of points available. The differences between the highest places on the table are usually very slight. Christ's College was the top college in 2019, after coming top in 2018 following seven years in which Trinity College came top. The rankings are not officially endorsed by the University. Since Darwin College and Clare Hall admit only graduate students, they do not feature in this undergraduate ranking. Some of the mature colleges, including St. Edmund's College, Hughes Hall, Lucy Cavendish College, and Wolfson College, tend to perform relatively poorly in the Tompkins Table, but have significantly more graduate students than undergraduate students, so the results here are not representative of the majority of the student population of each of these colleges.


title: Tompkins Table

text: Certain Colleges of the University of Cambridge commission similar tables called Baxter Tables from Martin Baxter who is a financial analyst specialising in mathematical modelling and who developed the Electoral Calculus web site. Baxter tables rank colleges' undergraduate students by their year and subject separately and are delivered in July or August. They are compiled using published Class Lists, which do not include students who are not candidates for Honours degrees, or those who have failed to gain a degree, or those whose names the Council have determined should be withheld from public display. They are meant for internal use of Colleges but not the University, being distributed to the Senior Tutors of the Colleges , with the full tables not being published publicly or outside of the Colleges, and some students being unaware of their existence. However, the rankings of Colleges in the Baxter Tables are sometimes referred to by Colleges in publicly available literature, and the methodology used to compile the Baxter Tables is also available. There is also a 'value-added' table, which shows how students' results improve over the course of their years at Cambridge, and is intended to give a measure or indication of the quality of teaching at the different Colleges. However, with such small sample sizes, the amount of meaningful information which can be extracted from these tables is questionable.


title: Tompkins Table

text: The corresponding ranking for Oxford colleges is the Norrington Table. Since 1986, when the University of Oxford adopted split second-class degrees, the Norrington Table has adopted the same method of scoring as the Tompkins Table, but without the weighting attached to individual subject scores.


title: Slow Train Coming

text: Slow Train Coming is the 19th studio album by American singer-songwriter Bob Dylan, released on August 20, 1979, by Columbia Records. It was Dylan's first album following his conversion to Christianity, and the songs either express personal faith, or stress the importance of Christian teachings and philosophy. The evangelical nature of the record alienated many of Dylan's existing fans; at the same time, many Christians were drawn into his fan base. "Slow Train Coming" was listed at in the 2001 book "CCM Presents: The 100 Greatest Albums in Christian Music".


title: Slow Train Coming

text: The album was generally well-reviewed by music critics, and the single "Gotta Serve Somebody" became his first hit in three years, winning Dylan the inaugural Grammy Award for Best Male Rock Vocal Performance in 1980. The album peaked at on the charts in the UK and went platinum in the US, where it reached .


title: Slow Train Coming

text: By November 1978, Dylan had received some of the worst reviews of his career. In late January, he finally premiered "Renaldo and Clara", the part-fiction, part-concert film shot in the fall of 1975, during the first Rolling Thunder Revue tour. Though the performances were well-received, the overwhelming majority of film reviews were negative, particularly those by "The Village Voice", which printed four negative reviews by four different critics. Though critical reception in the United Kingdom was kinder, with some British critics proclaiming it a major work, his most recent album, "Street-Legal", was also received poorly by most American critics. Charges of sexism, poor production, and poor writing were thrown at the album.


title: Slow Train Coming

text: In the meantime, Dylan's latest tour was getting its own share of negative reviews, many of which reflected the negative criticism which greeted the American release of "Bob Dylan at Budokan", taken from performances in February and March 1978.


title: Slow Train Coming

text: Yet Dylan was in good spirits, according to his own account: "I was doing fine. I had come a long way in just the year we were on the road [in 1978]." This would change on November 17 in San Diego, California. As Clinton Heylin reports, "the show itself was proving to be very physically demanding, but then, he perhaps reasoned, he'd played a gig in Montreal a month earlier with a temperature of 105."


title: Slow Train Coming

text: "Towards the end of the show someone out in the crowd ... knew I wasn't feeling too well," recalled Dylan in a 1979 interview. "I think they could see that. And they threw a silver cross on the stage. Now usually I don't pick things up in front of the stage. Once in a while I do. Sometimes I don't. But I looked down at that cross. I said, 'I gotta pick that up.' So I picked up the cross and I put it in my pocket ... And I brought it backstage and I brought it with me to the next town, which was out in Arizona ... I was feeling even worse than I'd felt when I was in San Diego. I said, 'Well, I need something tonight.' I didn't know what it was. I was used to all kinds of things. I said, 'I need something tonight that I didn't have before.' And I looked in my pocket and I had this cross."


title: Slow Train Coming

text: Dylan believed he had experienced a vision of Christ in his Tucson hotel room. "Jesus did appear to me as King of Kings, and Lord of Lords," he would later say. "There was a presence in the room that couldn't have been anybody but Jesus ... Jesus put his hand on me. It was a physical thing. I felt it. I felt it all over me. I felt my whole body tremble. The glory of the Lord knocked me down and picked me up."


title: Slow Train Coming

text: Heylin writes that "his state of mind may well have made him susceptible to such an experience. Lacking a sense of purpose in his personal life since the collapse of his marriage, he came to believe that, when Jesus revealed Himself, He quite literally rescued him from an early grave."


title: Slow Train Coming

text: "[Dylan's] conversion wasn't one of those things that happens when an alcoholic goes to Alcoholics Anonymous," David Mansfield, one of Dylan's band members and fellow-born-again Christian, would later say. "The simplest explanation is that he had a very profound experience which answered certain lifelong issues for him."


title: Slow Train Coming

text: Hints of Dylan's newfound faith began to appear publicly. In the final four weeks of the tour, Dylan could be seen wearing the same silver cross that catalyzed his conversion. During performances of "Tangled Up in Blue", lyrics were replaced with explicit references to the Bible. As Heylin writes, "Rather than having the mysterious lady in the topless bar quoting an Italian poet from the 13th century [sic], she was quoting from the Bible, initially from the Gospel According to Matthew. Gradually, though, the lines changed, until he settled upon a verse from Jeremiah—the one he would quote on the inner sleeve of the "Saved" album: 'Behold, the days come, sayeth the Lord, that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel, and with the house of Judah' (Jeremiah 31)."


title: Slow Train Coming

text: Dylan also began writing songs that would reflect his new spirituality. During soundchecks on the final two weeks of the tour, he worked on a new song called "Slow Train". At the final show in Hollywood, Florida, he would introduce a new song to his audience: "Do Right to Me Baby (Do Unto Others)". According to Heylin, it "was the first song he had ever written around a dictum from the Bible, indeed a saying directly attributed to Jesus himself: 'All things, therefore, that you want men to do to you, you also must likewise do to them; this, in fact, is what the Law and the Prophets mean' ()."


title: Slow Train Coming

text: Dylan wasn't alone in his religious awakening. Band members Steven Soles and David Mansfield had already joined the Vineyard Fellowship, a Christian organization introduced to them by T-Bone Burnett. Helena Springs, one of the singers in the band, was brought up Christian and still practiced her faith. Dylan was also romantically linked with Mary Alice Artes; raised as a Christian, she had strayed from her faith only to return to it after joining the Vineyard Fellowship (without the influence of Burnett, Soles or Mansfield).


title: Slow Train Coming

text: At one meeting with the Vineyard Fellowship, Artes approached pastor Kenn Gulliksen, seeking pastoral guidance for Dylan. Pastors Larry Myers and Paul Emond were sent to Dylan's home where they ministered to him. As Heylin writes, "by embracing the brand of Christianity advocated by the Vineyard Fellowship, Dylan was about to become, in popular perception, just another Bible-[thumping] fundamentalist. In fact, though the Fellowship certainly shared the 'born again' precepts of more right-wing credos—believing such a change was an awakening from original sin ('Adam given the Devil reign/Because he sinned I got no choice')—it represented a more joyous baptism of faith." As Mansfield would say, "a big part of the fellowship of that church was music."


title: Slow Train Coming

text: Under the guidance of the Vineyard Fellowship, Dylan was asked to attend a course held at the Vineyard School of Discipleship, which would run four days a week over the course of three months. "At first I said, 'There's no way I can devote three months to this, Dylan would say in a 1980 interview. I've got to be back on the road soon.' But I was sleeping one day and I just sat up in bed at seven in the morning and I was compelled to get dressed and drive over to the Bible school."


title: Slow Train Coming

text: Pastor Gulliksen would later say, "It was an intensive course studying about the life of Jesus; "principles of discipleship"; the Sermon on the Mount; what it is to be a believer; how to grow; "how to share" ... but at the same time a good solid Bible-study overview type of ministry."


title: Slow Train Coming

text: As Heylin writes, "A well-read man, for whom the Bible had previously been little more than a literary source, [Dylan] now made its allegories come out in black and white." In an interview taken in 1985, Dylan would say, "What I learned in Bible school was just ... an extension of the same thing I believed in all along, but just couldn't verbalize or articulate ... People who believe in the coming of the Messiah live their lives right now, as if He was here. That's my idea of it, anyway. I know people are going to say to themselves, 'What the fuck is this guy talking about?' but it's all there in black and white, the written and unwritten word. I don't have to defend this. The scriptures back me up."


title: Slow Train Coming

text: Through his Bible classes, Dylan became acquainted with "the works of Hal Lindsey, the man to whom God in his infinite wisdom had revealed the true code of Revelation," writes Heylin. "Though no saint himself, Lindsey was closely associated with the Vineyard Church. His book, "The Late Great Planet Earth" (1970), became Dylan's second Bible and added an apocalyptic edge to his worldview".


title: Slow Train Coming

text: According to Lindsey, current world events had been foretold in the apocalyptic tracts of the Bible," Heylin continued. "His basic premise, in "The Late Great Planet Earth", was that the events revealed to St. John in Revelation corresponded with 20th century history, starting with the re-establishment of the Jews' homeland, Israel. By identifying Russia as Magog and Iran as Gog—the confederation responsible for instigating the final conflict, the Battle of Armageddon—Lindsey prophesied an imminent End."


title: Slow Train Coming

text: In later shows, Dylan would reflect these beliefs on stage. At one show in the fall of 1979, Dylan said, "You know we're living in the end times ... The scriptures say, 'In the last days, perilous times shall be at hand. Men shall become lovers of their own selves. Blasphemous, heavy and highminded.' ... Take a look at the Middle East. We're heading for a war ... I told you 'The Times They Are A-Changin' ' and they did. I said the answer was 'Blowin' in the Wind' and it was. I'm telling you now Jesus is coming back, and He is! And there is no other way of salvation ... Jesus is coming back to set up His kingdom in Jerusalem for a thousand years."


title: Slow Train Coming

text: As Heylin writes, "[Dylan's] belief in the imminence of the End was reflected in almost all of the songs he now found himself writing." Dylan would later say in an interview taken in 1984, "The songs that I wrote for the "Slow Train" album [frightened me] ... I didn't plan to write them ... I didn't like writing them. I didn't want to write them."


title: Slow Train Coming

text: "Precious Angel", "Gonna Change My Way of Thinking", "When You Gonna Wake Up?" and "When He Returns" all "drew heavily and directly upon the Book of Revelation," notes Heylin. "In the early months of 1979, Dylan was writing his most message-driven album in sixteen years. This time, though, the pursuit of the millennium had overtaken more sociopolitical concerns."


title: Slow Train Coming

text: Dylan first heard Mark Knopfler when assistant and engineer Arthur Rosato played him the Dire Straits single "Sultans of Swing". Later, on March 29, 1979, Dylan caught the final show of a Dire Straits' residency at the Roxy in Los Angeles, California. Dylan approached Knopfler after the show, asking the guitarist to participate on his next album. Knopfler agreed, unaware of the religious nature of the material that awaited him.


title: Slow Train Coming

text: Dylan also approached Jerry Wexler to produce the upcoming sessions. "What he wanted", Wexler told interviewer Ted Fox, "was more of a tailored, big funk sound, which he didn't have on his records. He wanted a little more precision, a little more musical input. It was something he felt was time." According to Wexler, it was his, not Dylan's, initiative to bring in Knopfler: that was "the innovative part of it...Instead of going with the regular Muscle Shoals section, I changed it a little bit." Studio recording had become much more complex during the 1970s, and after his struggles recording the large ensemble performances of "Street-Legal", Dylan was resolute in hiring an experienced producer he could trust. He was familiar with Wexler's celebrated work with Aretha Franklin, Wilson Pickett, Percy Sledge, Dusty Springfield, and other soul artists. "Synonymous with a small studio in Sheffield, Alabama, the sixties Atlantic recordings of Wexler defined the Muscle Shoals Sound," writes Clinton Heylin. Like Knopfler, when Wexler agreed to produce, he was unaware of the nature of the material that awaited him.


title: Slow Train Coming

text: "Naturally, I wanted to do the album in Muscle Shoals—as Bob did—but we decided to prep it in L.A., where Bob lived," recalls Wexler. "That's when I learned what the songs were about: born-again Christians in the old corral ... I liked the irony of Bob coming to me, the Wandering Jew, to get the Jesus feel ... [But] I had no idea he was on this born-again Christian trip until he started to evangelize me. I said, 'Bob, you're dealing with a sixty-two-year-old confirmed Jewish atheist. I'm hopeless. Let's just make an album.'"


title: Slow Train Coming

text: Knopfler voiced his concerns to his manager, Ed Bicknell, remarking that "all these songs are about God," but he was also impressed with Dylan's professionalism. "Bob and I ran down a lot of those songs beforehand," recalls Knopfler. "And they might be in a very different form when he's just hittin' the piano, and maybe I'd make suggestions about the tempo or whatever. Or I'd say, 'What about a twelve-string?'"


title: Slow Train Coming

text: When sessions were held in Alabama, Dylan retained only two members from his 1978 touring band: Helena Springs and Carolyn Dennis, both background singers. Veteran bassist Tim Drummond was hired, as was Dire Straits' drummer Pick Withers on Knopfler's recommendation. Keyboardist Barry Beckett and the Muscle Shoals Horns, both key elements of the celebrated Muscle Shoals Sound, were also brought in.”


title: Slow Train Coming

text: The first session was held on April 30; it proved to be very difficult. Much of the day was dedicated to recording "Trouble in Mind," a song that was ultimately left off "Slow Train Coming". Wexler criticized Dylan for unnecessarily vocalizing while Dylan refused to wear headphones, adamant that they pursue a more 'live' sound even though overdubs on the 24-track recordings were virtually expected.


title: Slow Train Coming

text: "Bob began playing and singing along with the musicians," recalls Wexler. "We were in the first stages of building rhythm arrangements; it was too soon for him to sing, but he sang on every take anyway. I finally persuaded him to hold off on the vocals until later, when the arrangements were in shape and the players could place their licks around—not against—Bob."


title: Slow Train Coming

text: As the sessions wore on, Wexler's techniques seemed more accommodating. Once arrangements were set, Dylan could focus on recording a strong vocal track while subsequent overdubs would fill in the gaps. As Heylin describes it, the basic tracks with "lead vocals intact [were] laid down before Dylan's boredom threshold was reached. Adding and redoing bass parts, acoustic and electric guitars, background vocals, horns, organ, electric piano, and percussion would require their own set of sessions, but by then Dylan could be an interested observer." For "Precious Angel", bass, guitar, organ, and horns would all be overdubbed a week after recording the master take. "No Man Righteous (Not No One)" (ultimately left off "Slow Train Coming") was constructed in similar fashion.


title: Slow Train Coming

text: As Heylin notes, Dylan also broke from his "usual practice of recording songs without running them down for the musicians." "Bob might run it down on piano or guitar, just singing and playing the background until we had a rough shape in our minds; then the Muscle Shoals band would start to play it," recalls Wexler. "As soon as it sounded right, Bob and the girls would start to sing." Unlike his previous album sessions, "Slow Train Coming" sessions would run smoothly and efficiently after a slow start. The basic tracks for the remaining ten songs were recorded in just six three-hour sessions over a period of three days. The first takes of "I Believe in You" and "Gonna Change My Way of Thinking" would become the basic tracks for the masters.


title: Slow Train Coming

text: The final song recorded was "When He Returns". Its role as the album's closer was already decided, but Dylan planned on having Springs or Dennis sing the lead vocal. After recording a guide vocal, backed by Beckett on piano, he reconsidered. As Heylin suggested, Beckett's "strident accompaniment made him think again." Dylan practiced singing "When He Returns" overnight before laying down eight vocal takes over Beckett's original piano track. The final take, described by Heylin as "perhaps Dylan's strongest studio vocal since 'Visions of Johanna'," was selected as the master.


title: Slow Train Coming

text: Wexler convinced Dylan to overdub new vocals for "Gonna Change My Way of Thinking" and "When You Gonna Wake Up?", but otherwise the overdubbing sessions held the following week focused on instrumental overdubbing.


title: Slow Train Coming

text: Dylan recorded three additional songs during these sessions, but these did not make the final cut for "Slow Train Coming". "Trouble in Mind" was issued as a B-side in 1979. "Ain't No Man Righteous" was covered by reggae group Jah Mallah, but no Dylan version was released until 2017. "Ye Shall Be Changed" was issued on "The Bootleg Series Vol 1–3". All three outtakes were also released on "" in 2017.


title: Slow Train Coming

text: As the album approached completion, Dylan was required to provide testimony in a defamation-of-character suit brought against him by Patty Valentine, an eyewitness to the murders described in Dylan's song "Hurricane" from "Desire". In a May 22 pre-trial deposition, Dylan was asked about his wealth. "You mean my treasure on earth?" replied Dylan. He was asked about the identity of the 'fool' in "Hurricane". Dylan said the 'fool' was "whoever Satan gave power to ... whoever was blind to the truth and was living by his own truth." Five days later, Dylan's pre-trial statement was reported in "The Washington Post", which also interviewed Kenn Gulliksen, who revealed to the paper that Dylan had joined the Vineyard Christian Fellowship.


title: Slow Train Coming

text: By June, with the album virtually finished, Dylan gave London's Capital Radio station an acetate disc of "Precious Angel", which premiered on Roger Scott's afternoon radio show. By July, the album was ready for issue, and pre-release copies of "Slow Train Coming" circulated through the press. "New Musical Express" would proclaim "Dylan & God – It's Official".


title: Slow Train Coming

text: In a year when Van Morrison and Patti Smith released their own spiritual works in "Into the Music" and "Wave", respectively, Dylan's album seemed vitriolic and bitter in comparison. Critic Charles Shaar Murray wrote, "Bob Dylan has never seemed more perfect and more impressive than on this album. He has also never seemed more unpleasant and hate-filled." Greil Marcus wrote, "Dylan's received truths never threaten the unbeliever, they only chill the soul" and accused Dylan of "sell[ing] a prepackaged doctrine he's received from someone else." According to Clinton Heylin, "Marcus isolated "Slow Train Coming"'s greatest flaw, an inevitable by-product of his determination to capture the immediacy of newfound faith in song."


title: Slow Train Coming

text: Robert Christgau gave a mostly positive review, grading it a B+. "The lyrics are indifferently crafted," wrote Christgau. "Nevertheless, this is his best album since "Blood on the Tracks". The singing is passionate and detailed."


title: Slow Train Coming

text: Reviewing the album in "Rolling Stone", Jann Wenner proclaimed it "one of the finest records Dylan has ever made". However, in an interview in "Rolling Stone", Ann Druyen stated "The thing that I always loved about Dylan was the courage of his metaphors and the way he could cut to the bone of some kind of naked feeling. It always seemed very gutsy. And now it seems that he's turned away, he's blinded by the light, and so he looks for some easy explanation."


title: Slow Train Coming

text: On October 20, 1979, Dylan promoted the album with his first—and, to date, only—appearance on "Saturday Night Live", performing "Gotta Serve Somebody", "I Believe in You", and "When You Gonna Wake Up". On November 1, Dylan began a lengthy residency at the Fox Warfield Theater in San Francisco, California, playing a total of fourteen dates supported by a large ensemble. It was the beginning of six months of touring North America, performing his new music to believers and his hecklers alike.


title: Slow Train Coming

text: Despite the mixed reactions to Dylan's new direction, "Gotta Serve Somebody" was a US Top 30 hit, and the album outsold both "Blood on the Tracks" and "Blonde on Blonde" in its first year of release despite missing the top of the charts. It even managed to place at No. 38 on "The Village Voice"'s Pazz & Jop Critics Poll for 1979, proving he had some critical support if not universal acclaim.


title: Slow Train Coming

text: During this period, Dylan refused to play any of his older compositions, as well as any secular material. Though Pastor Larry Myers had assured Dylan that his old compositions were not sacrilegious, Dylan would say he would not "sing any song which hasn't been given to me by the Lord to sing". Fans wishing to hear his older songs openly expressed their disappointment. Hecklers continued to appear at his concerts, only to be answered by lectures from the stage. Dylan was firmly entrenched in his evangelical ways, and it would continue through his next album, whether his audience would follow or not.


title: Crossroads (novel)

text: Crossroads: A Novel is a 2021 novel by American author Jonathan Franzen. His sixth novel, "Crossroads" was published on October 5, 2021. It is a family saga set during the 1970s and centers on the Hildebrandt family in the fictional small town of New Prospect, Illinois. It was first announced on November 13, 2020, by Franzen's publisher Farrar, Straus and Giroux.


title: Crossroads (novel)

text: The novel is the first volume in a projected trilogy titled "A Key to All Mythologies". Franzen intends the trilogy to "span three generations and trace the inner life of our culture through the present day."


title: Crossroads (novel)

text: "Crossroads" follows Russ and Marion Hildebrandt, whose marriage is close to collapse, and their four children, Clem, Becky, Perry, and Judson. Each chapter is told from the perspective of one of the Hildebrandts, and most are set in the fictional New Prospect Township of suburban Chicago.


title: Crossroads (novel)

text: The first section, "Advent," takes place in the winter of 1971. Russ, an associate minister at First Reformed Church, flirts with a young widow, Frances Cottrell, and stews over his rivalry with the charismatic Rick Ambrose. Russ has been forced out of Crossroads, the popular youth group he founded at the Church, in favor of Rick's more popular – and less liturgical – style of leadership.


title: Crossroads (novel)

text: Both Perry and Becky have recently joined Crossroads. Precocious Perry has resolved to stop dealing pot and become a better person. Becky, a popular cheerleader, mistrusts Perry, though she is close with her elder brother, Clem. She has also clashed with her parents over a $13,000 inheritance from her Aunt Shirley. Initially she attends Crossroads at the urging of Tanner Evans – "a bell-bottomed dreamboat" and aspiring musician on whom she has a crush – but ultimately has a religious awakening of her own.


title: Crossroads (novel)

text: Clem, on the other hand, has had a sexual awakening, with his college girlfriend Sharon, but he decides to end the relationship, drop out of school, and forfeit his draft deferral in order to fight in the Vietnam War. Meanwhile, Marion is surreptitiously attending therapy sessions, at which she recounts traumatic episodes from her past, including an affair with a married man named Bradley Grant and a subsequent psychiatric breakdown. These episodes took place in Los Angeles shortly before she met Russ, and Marion has hidden them from her family, despite her concern for Perry's mental stability.


title: Crossroads (novel)

text: The second section, "Easter," begins in the spring of 1972. Crossroads takes its annual service trip to Arizona, where Russ has connections with the Navajo community dating back to his alternative service in Arizona as a conscientious objector during World War II. Russ attends the trip as a chaperon, as does Frances, with whom he has recently smoked pot for the first time. Following a confrontation with a young Navajo man, who objects to the Church group's presence on the territory, Russ and Frances sleep together. Marion is on vacation in California, ostensibly taking Judson to Disneyland and visiting an uncle, but in fact meeting with Bradley. Perry has developed a cocaine addiction and, also with Crossroads in Arizona but neglected by Russ, he ends up in hospital.


title: Crossroads (novel)

text: That summer, Becky and Tanner take a trip around Europe, and Becky becomes pregnant. Back in New Prospect, living with Tanner and their daughter, Gracie, Becky becomes estranged from her parents. Russ and Marion have grown closer, thoroughly absorbed in caring for Perry, who has spent time in psychiatric treatment and undergone electroshock therapy.


title: Crossroads (novel)

text: Becky has also fallen out with Clem, who – sent away by the draft board – is now in Peru, doing manual labor. The book ends in the spring of 1974, when Clem returns to New Prospect to reunite with Becky.


title: Crossroads (novel)

text: Franzen began writing "Crossroads" in early 2018, and completed it during the first four months of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020.


title: Crossroads (novel)

text: Franzen has said that it was during the writing of "Crossroads" that he first fully embraced his place as "a novelist of character and psychology," as opposed to a novelist of form or social commentary. He attempted to restrict himself to "a strict realist narrative," and in this regard the project differed from his earlier novels.


title: Crossroads (novel)

text: Franzen also sees "Crossroads" as his first attempt to write "a family novel," where, in his view, a true family novel should span multiple generations and thus show "how patterns replicate themselves."


title: Crossroads (novel)

text: The project first arose from Franzen's conception of a single character, inspired by a new acquaintance who – like Russ in "Crossroads" – had a Mennonite background. As a teenager, Franzen belonged to a church youth group called Fellowship, which is the subject of his essay "The Joy Breaks Through" in "The Discomfort Zone" and which resembles Crossroads.


title: Crossroads (novel)

text: However, in "Crossroads", Franzen approached religion as primarily "an emotional experience":It wasn't my conscious intention, but I think I produced a book that has essentially no theology in it... I think the questions for me are, am I a good person? What can I do to be a better person? I don't think people are, by and large, saying, 'I want to be good according to some external standard.' I think they're wrestling with it in a more personal and specific way.


title: Crossroads (novel)

text: Asked why he chose to set "Crossroads" in the early 1970s, Franzen pointed to the close link between religion and progressive movements in the United States at that time – a time, that is, before Christianity was decisively associated with right-wing politics. He was also interested in the aftermath of the civil rights and anti-war movements and in the fact that "you started to see the first young people who were actually more conservative than their parents." Moreover, the 1970s had been the "most important decade of [his own] life."


title: Crossroads (novel)

text: Franzen has also said that he found it appealing to write about the past, rather than the present, during the years of the Trump administration, which he felt he "could not make sense of in real time."


title: Crossroads (novel)

text: Franzen initially envisaged writing a single "super-novel" of three sections, with each section set 25 years apart. However, he decided to expand the project after beginning work on the first section, set in the 1970s. The first section, "Crossroads", thus became the first in a projected trilogy.


title: Crossroads (novel)

text: The trilogy, "A Key to All Mythologies", is named after Reverend Casaubon's unfinished manuscript in "Middlemarch". Franzen has said that the "mythologies" which interest him are "irrational belief[s]" – "the fundamentally irrational basis for everything we think and do and espouse":I have been thinking a lot about the inescapable nature of religion. Even if it is uncoupled from transcendent beliefs or metaphysical structures, everyone still organizes their life around something that can't be proved. I would say this goes particularly for the virulent atheists... [O]bviously, that phrase ['a key to all mythologies'] came to mind because if everyone has a mythology, it's only a matter of listing what they are, and suddenly you're thinking of a trilogy of novels.


title: Crossroads (novel)

text: Of course, there is the fact that Casaubon dies in "Middlemarch" before he finishes his project. And undertaking writing three books in my 60s, I thought, 'Well, that's a funny little joke.'The trilogy will eventually reach the 2020s and will center on the Hildebrandt family throughout, following their children and possibly some of their grandchildren. However, Franzen intends "Crossroads" and each of its two sequels to be "freestanding," and thus prefers to view the trilogy as "a trio of novels."


title: Crossroads (novel)

text: "Crossroads: A Novel" received favorable reviews, with a cumulative "Positive" rating at the review aggregator website Book Marks, based on 48 book reviews from mainstream literary critics. "Bookforum" called it Franzen's "finest novel yet," his "greatest and most perfect novel," and Dwight Garner of the "New York Times" said it was "warmer than anything he's yet written, wider in its human sympathies, weightier of image and intellect." According to the "Times Literary Supplement":"Crossroads" is largely free from the vices to which Franzen's previous work has been addicted: the self-conscious topicality; the show-off sophistication; the formal heavy-handedness. It retains many of his familiar virtues: the robust characterization; the escalating comedy; the virtuosic command of narrative rhythm.Critics especially praised the character of Marion, whom Garner called "one of the glorious characters in recent American fiction."


title: Crossroads (novel)

text: Not all reviews were unequivocally positive. A review in "Vulture" said that, in comparison to the better among Franzen's earlier novels, "Crossroads" seems "not only muddy and unstylish but determinedly and self-righteously so." Arguing that, other than Marion and Perry, the Hildebrandts are "boring" characters – and "boring in exactly the same way: stubborn, narrow, flummoxed, risk averse" – the review lamented the absence of the "weird words, arcane shit, and glorious tangents" which animate Franzen's earlier work. The "Brooklyn Rail", arguing that Russ's story "read as if it's been told too often in American fiction," regretted that Franzen had not further developed the storylines involving the Navajo, a black inner-city church, and the female Hildebrandts, Marion and Becky.


title: Crossroads (novel)

text: Reviewers noted that, in "Crossroads," Franzen turns further away from his earlier aspirations towards writing "systems novels." The "London Review of Books" wrote, "Franzen certainly did what we wanted him to do: "Crossroads" is a family story that's interested in people, not systems." Yet several reviewers commented on the novel's overt concern with the notion of virtue and, in this respect, its thematic overlap with novels of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. According to the "Chicago Review of Books":Maybe the most attractive aspect of "Crossroads" is its depth of moral, capitalist, and religious contemplation—discursions that thankfully do not present via authorial (or authoritative) monologues... Franzen has reinvigorated the contemporary novel by offering a vision for how fiction can still serve as the preeminent vehicle for exploring humanity's most consequential ideas.The "New Republic" said that the novel is "closer to a novel of ideas" than to a social realist novel:...though it's not quite this either. Unlike a more typical novel of ideas... there are no lectures or staged debates. Characters are more than mouthpieces, although they and their discussions of being good are relatively flat. On some level, Franzen seems to know this, as the novel's plot ultimately undercuts its philosophizing. The irony of "Crossroads" is that it's a novel of ideas about the inadequacy of ideas...Kathryn Schulz of the "New Yorker" agreed that "Crossroads" exhibits such a tendency towards philosophizing, and suggests that this is occasionally to the novel's detriment: ...[S]ome part of Franzen... is forever turning outward, toward the grand sweep of history and the prevailing customs and troubles of our era. Sometimes his attempts to square those two scales are successful... [But] he is at his finest when writing about the Midwest, the middle class, midlife crises, middlingness in general. The farther he ventures from all that, the shakier his plots become, the less organically they arise from his characters... In such moments, the characters seem subservient to a set of ideas...


title: Crossroads (novel)

text: The "New Republic" said that the role of "materially starved-but-spiritually rich indigenous people" in the novel suggested that "[t]here is a critique to be made here about neocolonialism and the white man's fantasy of the exotic Other." In the "Irish Independent", Naoise Dolan criticised the novel's portrayal of women and people of color, allowing that it accurately depicted "a particular consciousness" but questioning its literary value. "Crossroads", she wrote, "treats anyone who's not white as one of its motifs, its character development moods."


title: Crossroads (novel)

text: However, others held that people of color are more convincingly rendered in "Crossroads" than in Franzen's earlier novels, argued that the depictions of the Navajo reflect more about Russ than about Franzen, or pointed to the irony present in those depictions.


title: Crossroads (novel)

text: The most common complaint among critics was that the novel's prose style is mediocre. Rumaan Alam, writing for the "Nation", noted a dearth of "lovely sentences" in "Crossroads", but said that the middling prose style is compensated for by "the charms of plot and momentum, characters and conversation." Similarly, an otherwise positive review in the "Times" admitted that "the prose is bad" and described Franzen as "a major writer with a minor style," though he remains "highly readable." According to "Vulture", the novel contained some "breathtaking" sentences but many more "inert" ones. The "Times Literary Supplement" said that its "frictionless style... sometimes feels a bit lacklustre." And Schulz said of Franzen:...his prose has grown looser and laxer; never a showy author, he now sometimes scarcely seems like a good one. He has become so assertively styleless that he appears to have deemed linguistic pleasure not only inferior to but anathema to all other literary aims. Whole chapters—almost whole books—go by without a beautiful line or an arresting image... Franzen does not always seem to be doing the best he can.Conversely, Wyatt Mason argued in the "Wall Street Journal" that Franzen's prose is excellent.


title: Gedson Fernandes

text: Gedson Carvalho Fernandes (born 9 January 1999) is a professional footballer who plays as a midfielder for Turkish Süper Lig club Beşiktaş. Born in São Tomé and Príncipe, he represents the Portugal national football team.


title: Gedson Fernandes

text: Born in São Tomé, Fernandes started his career at SC Frielas in Portugal in 2008. A year later, he joined S.L. Benfica's youth system, where he progressed to the club's reserve team in 2017. On 11 February that year, he made his professional debut with Benfica B in a LigaPro 4–2 win over Desportivo das Aves.


title: Gedson Fernandes

text: Following his promotion to Benfica's first team in the 2018–19 season, Fernandes debuted as a starter in a 1–0 home win over Fenerbahçe in the first leg of the UEFA Champions League third qualifying round on 7 August 2018. A week later, in the second leg away, he scored a 26th-minute opener in a 1–1 draw, which qualified Benfica to the competition's play-off round.


title: Gedson Fernandes

text: Fernandes signed on an 18-month loan for Premier League club Tottenham Hotspur on 15 January 2020. He made his Premier League debut coming on in the 80th minute away against Watford on 18 January, which ended 0–0.


title: Gedson Fernandes

text: In January 2021, Fernandes moved to Turkish club Galatasaray, on a loan deal until the end of the season.


title: Gedson Fernandes

text: On 3 February 2022, Turkish club Beşiktaş announced a deal to purchase Fernandes. Since the club already had met their maximum quota of foreign players, his contract was made to start on 1 July 2022. Until then, Benfica loaned him to fellow Süper Lig club Çaykur Rizespor.


title: The Tall Man (2012 film)

text: The Tall Man is a 2012 Canadian and French mystery-horror film written and directed by Pascal Laugier. It was filmed in the Kootenay region of Southeastern British Columbia and stars Jessica Biel. The film is set in a small former mining town where poverty is rife and children are disappearing on a regular basis. The abductions are blamed on a local legend called "the Tall Man." Jessica Biel plays a widowed nurse whose child is abducted, leading her on a desperate chase to recover him.


title: The Tall Man (2012 film)

text: Julia lives in a small town in Washington called Cold Rock. She is the town's local nurse, widowed by her husband, who was the town's doctor. Cold Rock was formerly a prosperous mining town, but has become poverty-stricken. There is little work, the school has been closed and the town has virtually vanished from the map. During her day, Julia visits several families. Jenny and Carol live with their mother and her violent, alcoholic boyfriend, who has impregnated Carol. Despite this, their mother did not kick him out, drawing Julia's ire. Instead, she sends away Carol and her baby, whom Julia helped to deliver. Because of her rough life, Jenny is selectively mute, communicating through a journal she carries. She also sketches things she's seen, including "the tall man". This is a local legend or urban myth surrounding a being who abducts local children who are never seen again.


title: The Tall Man (2012 film)

text: Julia returns to her large home on the outskirts of Cold Rock, which she shares with her son David and his nanny. She eats dinner, puts David to bed, and falls asleep on a couch. She awakes to a noise downstairs, followed by a loud radio sermon. She finds the nanny bound and gagged, then rushes to her son's bedroom, finding him gone. While in pursuit of what the viewer believes is "The Tall Man", it is gradually revealed that David is not her son at all, but rather one of the kidnapped children. The kidnapper is actually the real mother of the boy, attempting to take back her child. The rest of the town, skeptical of the mother's accusations, agree to give her a chance to prove her claims.


title: The Tall Man (2012 film)

text: Julia, with the help of Jenny, pursues the mother, reacquires David, and hands him off to "The Tall Man" in the tunnels which run under the town, left over from the defunct mine. Jenny begs her to send the Tall Man to take her, too. Julia initially refuses but then relents, cautioning her to remain silent about it until the Tall Man comes for her. Julia then waits in her house. The police and FBI arrive, as does an angry mob. The nanny hangs herself, and Julia is taken to jail, where she is despised and threatened as a child killer. Julia admits to kidnapping and murdering the children, but the confession is later revealed to be a lie.


title: The Tall Man (2012 film)

text: Soon after, Jenny watches her mother engage in a drunken fight with her boyfriend, before laughing with him over it. Disgusted, Jenny walks off into a nearby field, where she finds the Tall Man waiting for her—Julia's husband, who is not dead after all. He takes her to an empty house in a nearby city, providing her with new clothes. He then delivers her to a new family, with a new identity. The Tall Man refuses payment, saying that the organization faces massive risks to rescue each child, with Julia martyring herself to save the organisation, which "rescues" young children from bad homes and places them with good ones, in an attempt to break the cycle of poverty and abuse which passes from one generation to the next.


title: The Tall Man (2012 film)

text: In Cold Rock, Jenny's birth mother grieves over her runaway daughter, the town continues to decline, and Julia sits in prison. The police have given up on finding the children, thinking that Julia buried them in the tunnels which run for miles and are dangerous to traverse because of cave ins, etc. In comparison, Jenny lives in a beautiful home, where her art is encouraged, and she has the best of everything. She has begun to talk and seems well-adjusted and happy. As she walks to an art class, she gives a voice-over expressing love and gratitude toward her three mothers: her birth mother, whom she misses; Julia, who gave her a chance at a new life; and her new mother, who is providing her with everything she could ever want. As she crosses a park, she sees David with his new family, which he now accepts as his own. (Jenny thinks he and the other younger ones have forgotten and do not recognize her, but the visual cues leave it decidedly open-ended). Despite getting her wish of a better life, she sometimes wishes to return. Jenny's closing thoughts question society's implication that her new life is better.


title: The Tall Man (2012 film)

text: Star Jessica Biel said that she enjoyed Pascal Laugier's previous film, "Martyrs", and loved the script for "The Tall Man", which impressed her with its unpredictable plot twists. She became enthusiastic about the project and wanted to work with him. Principal photography began in September 2010. The film is Pascal Laugier's first English production.


title: The Tall Man (2012 film)

text: In 2012 "The Tall Man" premiered at South by Southwest, where it was acquired by Image Entertainment. It received a limited release on August 31, 2012, and was released on Blu-ray Disc and DVD 25 days later on September 25, 2012.


title: The Tall Man (2012 film)

text: Reviews were mixed; Rotten Tomatoes reports that 41% of 29 surveyed critics gave it a positive review; the average score was 5.24/10.


title: The Tall Man (2012 film)

text: Mark Olsen of the "Los Angeles Times" wrote that Biel's performance was believable and the film atmospheric, but the story becomes ridiculous and nonsensical. Jeanette Catsoulis positively compared it to Stephen King's early work, and designated it as a "New York Times" Critics' Pick. Chris Packham of "The Village Voice" called the film implausible and deceptive in its narrative twists. Scott Tobias of The A.V. Club rated the film B and described the film's plot as unpredictable but unwieldy, though Biel's performance and a final plot twist save the film from the expected mediocrity of a direct-to-video release. Scott Weinberg of Fearnet wrote that the film's increasingly unpredictable plot twists and acting by Biel cause it to defy expectations and may encourage discussion among viewers. Elizabeth Kerr of "The Hollywood Reporter" wrote that, like "Martyrs", the film had arresting imagery but a leaden narrative.


title: Julia Montes

text: Mara Hautea Schnittka (; born March 19, 1995), known professionally as Julia Montes (), is a Filipino actress of German descent. She is one of the most sought-after actresses in the country and has been hailed as the “"Royal Princess of Drama"” for her acting prowess and versatility.


title: Julia Montes

text: Montes is a 2-time winner for Best Actress in a TV series at Gawad Tanglaw Awards and has won a FAMAS Award. In 2014, she scored a Best Actress nomination at the 62nd FAMAS Awards. In 2013, Yes! Magazine listed her at number one spot on their list of 100 Most Beautiful Stars and placed fourth as one of the most influential celebrities the year prior. She was also listed six consecutive times (2012-2017) on FHM's annual list of Philippines Sexiest Women. She is dubbed as the reigning ""Daytime Drama Queen"" by the media.


title: Julia Montes

text: She began acting as a child on television by playing guest roles and starring in "Goin' Bulilit". Montes gained widespread recognition with her first significant role and breakthrough playing the mean and spoiled Clara del Valle in the remake of "Mara Clara" (2010–11), following which she made her film debut in the family drama "Way Back Home" (2011).


title: Julia Montes

text: After "Mara Clara" ended, she starred in the critically acclaimed romantic drama "Walang Hanggan" (2012), as Katerina Alcantara, for which she won the Princess of Philippine Television Award, and in "Muling Buksan ang Puso" (2013), as Sarah Beltran. For her role as Mona Hidalgo in the period drama "Ikaw Lamang" (2014), she won a Gawad Tanglaw Award for Best Actress and received a nomination for the PMPC Star Award for Best Drama Supporting Actress. Montes subsequently won her second Gawad Tanglaw Award for Best Actress and received a nomination for the PMPC Star Award for Best Drama Actress when she headlined the melodrama "Doble Kara" (2015–17), as identical twin sisters Kara Dela Rosa and Sara Suarez. She currently stars in the lead role of Ana Dimasalang in the political drama "Asintado" (2018).


title: Julia Montes

text: In films, she starred in the romantic drama "A Moment in Time" (2013), as Jillian Linden, for which she was nominated for the FAMAS Award for Best Actress, and the romantic horror "Halik sa Hangin" (2015), as Mia Generoso, for which she earned a nomination for the Young Critics Circle Award for Best Performance. Other film appearances include the romantic comedy "The Reunion" (2012), the horror adventure "The Strangers" (2012) and the independent drama "Padre de Familia" (2016).


title: Julia Montes

text: Julia Montes was born Mara Hautea Schnittka on March 19, 1995, in Pandacan, Manila, Philippines, to a Filipino mother, Gemma Hautea, and German father, Martin Schnittka. Schnittka left them when Montes was still a baby, and only her deaf mother raised her with the help of her grandmother, Flory Hautea. She has two younger brothers, Patrick and Paolo. She describes education as one of the tools to have a good life and she hopes to continuously work not just for herself but for her family as well. Montes has other relatives in Germany. In 2011, she finished high school with good grades at the Blessed Hope Christian School.


title: Julia Montes

text: At the age of 5, Montes began attending auditions and modeling agencies. She recalls the struggles she and her grandmother went through: commuting to castings, hurrying from school to shoots and missing a lot of family time in the process until she was cast in a milk brand, chocolate snack and fast food chain endorsements. However, she said she never competed with anyone and was just in the entertainment industry out of needs. Describing her ambitions as a child, Montes has said, "Since I was a child, I only had three dreams: to become a soldier, a chef and a flight attendant."


title: Julia Montes

text: Montes started as a commercial model before appearing in various television shows. She began her acting career with minor roles when she was cast in a number of GMA shows such as "Sana ay Ikaw na Nga" in 2001 as the daughter of actors Robin Da Rosa and Angelu de Leon, and in some episodes of the now defunct drama anthology "Magpakailanman". Montes went on to play guest roles on ABS-CBN's television shows such as "Hiram" (2004) and "Maalaala Mo Kaya" before landing a permanent spot in the kiddie gag show "Goin' Bulilit" in 2005.


title: Julia Montes

text: She also appeared in other television series in 2008 including "Ligaw na Bulaklak" and "I Love Betty La Fea". These parts led her to being cast as a series regular in "Goin' Bulilit" in which she played various roles in different comedic situations until her departure that year. Also that year, Montes, as Abby, starred in a "Maalaala Mo Kaya" episode titled "Card", a story of a girl who is longing for the love of her parents while under the care of a nursemaid. The following year, she appeared in "Katorse" with a guest role in the series' finale episode playing a shy girl Nellie. She was then cast as the teenage Mara, a character with her same name, in the youth-oriented show "Gimik 2010".


title: Julia Montes

text: In 2010, Montes' breakthrough role came when she portrayed the role of Clara del Valle / Clara David in the remake of Emil Cruz, Jr.'s longest-running classic soap opera "Mara Clara", a drama about teenage sibling rivalry, alongside her co-star and off-screen best friend Kathryn Bernardo. Montes changed her screen name from "Mara Montes" to "Julia Montes" to avoid confusion and complications, since the titular character Mara will be played by Bernardo. The finale episode of the series earned a 43.4% national ratings based on Kantar Media, making it the highest-rating teleserye episode to date aired on ABS-CBN that year. Montes' portrayal as the main antiheroine of the series received generally positive reviews and landed her lead roles in films and television series in her future projects.


title: Julia Montes

text: In 2011, Montes made her film debut in the family drama "Way Back Home", which opened in August 2011 to positive reviews, as Jessica "Jessie" Lorraine S. Santiago, alongside "Mara Clara" co-star Kathryn Bernardo. Montes garnered largely positive reviews by critics, with Abby Mendoza of "Philippine Entertainment Portal" writing, "One should applaud Julia Montes for deviating from the classic snotty, mean girl character who makes life miserable for the downtrodden Mara. It is Julia's strength to gain the sympathy of the audience while playing the angsty girl who harbors much pain. She has the ability to make her audience understand the pain her character is going through, and more importantly make them see where it is coming from. Julia was astounding." That same year, she worked with Bernado for the third time in the youth-oriented show entitled "Growing Up", in which she portrayed the role of Samantha "Tammy" Magtoto, the daughter of an OFW who entrusted his care to Mikaella Dimalanta (played by Bernardo).


title: Julia Montes

text: In 2012, greater success came to Montes when she starred with Coco Martin in the romantic drama series "Walang Hanggan". The critically acclaimed series is loosely based on the 1991 film "Hihintayin Kita sa Langit", a film based on the Emily Brontë classic novel, Wuthering Heights. "Walang Hanggan" features the undying love that revolves around characters from three different generations – the love triangle among Virginia, Margaret, and Joseph; the ill-fated lovers Marco and Emily; and young sweethearts Daniel and Katerina. The series includes Martin as Daniel Guidotti, Richard Gomez as Marco Montenegro, Dawn Zulueta as Emily Guidotti, Susan Roces as Virginia "Henya" Cruz, Helen Gamboa as Doña Margaret Montenegro, and Montes, as Katerina Alcantara.This also marks the first on-screen team-up of Coco Martin and Julia Montes, and the reunion project of eternal loveteam Richard Gomez and Dawn Zulueta. Writing for "Philippine Entertainment Portal", Mark Angelo Ching considered Montes' decision to jump to a mature role after playing a teenager in "Mara Clara" seemingly to be a "gamble" at first, but all doubts are dispelled once she is seen holding her own against Martin, and believed that her "natural naïveté" works against the mature outlook of the actor's character.


title: Julia Montes

text: The series and Montes' performance both earned widespread acclaim from critics as it maintained the top spot and dominated the viewers' ratings for most of its run, being the only Philippine drama of 2012 to exceed the 40% margin in ratings. The finale episode of the show garnered a 45.4% viewership rating nationwide. "Walang Hanggan" emerged as the most watched show during the second half of 2012, ruling the list with a whopping national TV rating of 38.4% based on Kantar Media. Due to the series' phenomenal success, "Walang Hanggan" was aired internationally in foreign countries along with "Ina, Kapatid, Anak", and "Be Careful With My Heart". The series earned Montes the title of "Phenomenal Primetime Princess;" eventually she was named as the "Princess of Philippine Television" during the 44th Box Office Entertainment Awards (GMMSFI). Martin, on the other hand, acquired the title "Prince of Philippine Television". For their rapport in "Walang Hanggan", Montes and Martin also placed 2nd as the most popular loveteams at the 4th FMTM Awards.


title: Julia Montes

text: Montes then starred in other two 2012 films, as Ligaya in "The Reunion", and as Pat in "The Strangers". With nationwide revenues of over ₱68.1 million for the former, the film remains her highest-grossing release. In 2013, Montes starred in the romantic drama "A Moment in Time" alongside Martin, as a follow-up success of their preeminent team-up in "Walang Hanggan". The film grossed over ₱64,543,391 nationwide, and Montes received her first nomination for the FAMAS Award for Best Actress. Jennifer Dugena of "Philippine Entertainment Portal" praised her performance, writing: "Julia plays the part with exquisitely combined innocence and maturity. She is perfect as a young woman coming-of-age to the truths and facts of life. Her vulnerability and strength shines through as she submits herself to the emotional machinations inflicted by Martin's character Patrick. Her emotions are solid, intense and very affecting. Her acting chops slices away any doubts about her ability to portray young or adult characters. Talent-wise, she is clearly way ahead of her contemporaries."


title: Julia Montes

text: Later in 2013, she appeared in a "Maalaala Mo Kaya" episode titled "Krus", a story about a girl named Diana who was sold to a prostitution den by her own foster mother at a young age of 15. The episode drew a nationwide audience share of 34.2%, making it the No. 1 most watched program on March 9, according to data from Kantar Media. That same year, Montes co-starred with Enchong Dee and Enrique Gil in another television series "Muling Buksan ang Puso" which centers on the themes of forgiveness and second chances. Montes portrayed the role of Sarah Beltran, a role which she said in an interview was "tailor-fit" for her real age. The series ranked 10th in Top 15 programs from January to December 2013.


title: Julia Montes

text: Montes' profile continued to grow in 2014 when she appeared as Mona Roque-Hidalgo, the lifelong loyal friend and secret admirer of Samuel, in the period drama series "Ikaw Lamang" where she reteamed with her "Walang Hanggan" leading man Coco Martin as Samuel Hidalgo / Gabriel Hidalgo. It also starred Kim Chiu as Isabelle Miravelez-Hidalgo / Andrea Hidalgo and Jake Cuenca as Franco Hidalgo. She received a nomination for Best Drama Supporting Actress in the series at the PMPC Star Awards for TV 2014. In January 2015 at the 13th Gawad Tanglaw (Gawad Tagapuring mga Akademisyan ng Aninong Gumagalaw) for television, Montes, tied with veteran actress Angel Locsin, won a Best Actress award for her role in "Ikaw Lamang". During the same year, Montes completed work on Adolfo Alix Jr.'s family drama "Padre de Familia", which was released on February 20, 2016, with Martin and Nora Aunor. Filming took place in Malaysia.


title: Julia Montes

text: After her character's departure from "Ikaw Lamang", Montes starred in the romantic horror "Halik sa Hangin" with Gerald Anderson and JC de Vera. The film, under the direction of Emmanuel Quindo Palo, marked Montes' third collaboration with Palo and was theatrically released on January 28, 2015. Montes continued to draw praises and recognition from film critics for her role as Mia Generoso in "Halik sa Hangin". In a review from "Philippine Entertainment Portal", author Jocelyn Valle stated that "Julia, the actress, shows great commitment and earnestness in playing the character of Mia. She makes the viewer feel Mia's emotional stages of entering into the territory of romantic love — apprehension, excitement, caution, bliss — until reality bites. She shines the brightest in the pivotal scene where Mia is suspected to becoming a mental case, and Mia has to convince everybody that she's telling the truth." Montes' performance earned her a Young Critics Circle nomination for Best Performance.


title: Julia Montes

text: Later in 2015, Dreamscape publicity head Eric John Salut confirmed on February 12, 2015 via Twitter that Montes will be reunited once again with "Walang Hanggan" leading man Coco Martin in an upcoming TV project. Martin and Montes reunited in a new chapter of "Wansapanataym"<nowiki>'</nowiki>s summer special called "Yamishita's Treasures", marking the second collaboration of the two as a loveteam in television since their hit TV series "Walang Hanggan". After watching the premiere of "Halik sa Hangin", Martin stated in an interview that he personally requested for Montes as his leading lady for his new project because he was proud and impressed particularly by the young actress' outstanding performance in "Halik sa Hangin". Montes starred as Tanya, a princess in a world of fairies, who meets Yami and helps him retrieve a treasure in her world. "Wansapanataym"<nowiki>'</nowiki>s "Yamishita's Treasures" ran for 12 weeks, from March 22 to June 14, 2015. Later that same year, Montes appeared in an "Maalaala Mo Kaya" episode titled "Picture", a story about a young woman named Rosa who fell in love with a man who, unknown to her, is already married. The episode registered a national TV rating of 37.2%, making it one of the most watched episodes of "Maalaala Mo Kaya" that year.


title: Julia Montes

text: After accomplishing several film and television projects involving "Halik sa Hangin", "Wansapanataym", and in an episode of "Maalaala Mo Kaya", Montes headlined "Doble Kara" in 2015 (co-starring Carmina Villarroel, Mylene Dizon, Ariel Rivera, Allen Dizon and Sam Milby). The series revolves around the lives and story of twins Kara and Sara, who got separated during their childhood due to Kara's urgent need of cure for leukemia. Montes assumed the roles of identical twin sisters Kara and Sara, who share the same appearance but exhibit completely different personas. "Doble Kara" is produced by Dreamscape Entertainment Television, and premiered on August 24, 2015. Montes received a Best Actress Award for two consecutive years at the 2016 ceremony of the 14th Gawad Tanglaw Awards, as well as a PMPC Star Award nomination in the Best Dramatic Actress category for her role. In February 2016, "Star Style" magazine noted in a 2016 feature that Montes seemed dedicated to developing herself as a serious actress rather than a film star. Montes starred alongside JC Santos in "Wansapanataym" "Annika Pintasera" on April 2, 2017 where she played as Annika de Cuadra, a rich girl who does not value the people around her. The series scored an average national TV rating of 31.7% and landed on 4th spot for the Top 10 programs in May 2017.


title: Julia Montes

text: In 2018, Montes stars in the political drama "Asintado" alongside Lorna Tolentino, Paulo Avelino, Shaina Magdayao, Agot Isidro, Cherry Pie Picache, and Aljur Abrenica. She plays Ana Dimasalang, a paramedic who became Gael Ojeda's personal nurse after saving him from an accident and fell in love with him; she becomes involved in an assassination plot arranged by the del Mundos and Ojedas upon witnessing their plan.


title: Julia Montes

text: In June 2015, Montes completed a culinary course at the Center for Culinary Arts, Manila along with her fellow actress Yam Concepcion.


title: Julia Montes

text: In December 2017, Montes was reunited with her birth father, Martin Schnittka, at Bellini's, Cubao, Quezon City. She revealed via Instagram about her encounter with her father and expressed gratitude towards her German cousin Michelle Lloyd and CocoJul Bukayo fans for paving the way to meet him.


title: Julia Montes

text: Montes has been described in the media as one of the most talented actresses of her generation, and frequently referred to as "Royal Princess of Drama", and "Daytime Drama Queen". She is noted for playing in a range of material from horror to drama and has played roles in both high-profile, mainstream productions, and low-budget independent films. Directors Emmanuel Palo and Trina Dayrit, who directed her in different Dreamscape Entertainment releases such as "Walang Hanggan", "A Moment in Time", "Ikaw Lamang", and "Doble Kara", have praised her versatility and maturity.


title: Julia Montes

text: Montes says that she finds it fitting for people to give her mature roles since she "acts and looks a lot more mature" than her age and most girls of her age. The journalist Irish Christianne Dizon of "The Philippine Star" has identified this as her "trademark" in many of her best projects, adding, "In this age where rabid love team fans compete for the No. 1 trending spot on Twitter nightly, Julia is taking the road less traveled, choosing herself as partner-in-crime instead of a good-looking boy." Her "Doble Kara" co-star John Lapus has praised her effortless acting that makes her performance classic. She started her acting studies in Star Magic. ABS-CBN vice president Johnny Manahan has favorably compared her craft to that of Claudine Barretto and considers her "incandescent on screen and as an actress who is passionate about her craft". In 2012, "The Philippine Star" called her acting "beyond her age". In a 2016 interview with "Star Style", Montes elaborated:


title: Julia Montes

text: I like that I have the chance to be in someone else's shoes. Once I portray someone else's life, I get to understand who that person is. It gives me a much bigger and better perspective on everyone's lives around me.


title: Julia Montes

text: As a role model to young people, she is particularly known for her grounded and family-oriented personality. Early in her career, Montes established a reputation for being her family's breadwinner, amidst the absence of her biological father. She managed to buy her own house at age 17 and was able to put up a salon for her grandmother, who had to sacrifice her salon business to pull their efforts together to support Montes at the start of her career. In 2016 and 2017, Montes was awarded for the Makabata Stars on the Anak TV Awards. ABS-CBN's Push.com says she is humble about her profession, saying she is "just a person with a job" to make ends meet, attracts little gossip or tabloid attention, and casual in her appearance. In 2015, she was included in "Candy Magazine" listing of the "7 Amazing Women Who Should Be Your Life Pegs" features.


title: Julia Montes

text: Several media publications have noted Montes' attractiveness. She appeared in "Yes!" magazine's annual listing of the "100 Most Beautiful Stars", topping the list with Kathryn Bernardo in 2013. From 2012 to 2016, she was included in "FHM" 100 sexiest women, and won Star Magic Ball's "Sweetheart of the Night", and "Female Star of the Night" awards in 2012 and 2015, respectively.


title: Julia Montes

text: Montes has received one FAMAS Award for Best Actress nomination, two PMPC Star Award nominations, and one Young Critics Circle Award for Best Performance nomination. From these, she has won a FAMAS Award for the German Moreno Youth Achievement. In addition, Montes won two Gawad Tanglaw Awards for Best Actress for her performances in "Ikaw Lamang" (2014) and "Doble Kara" (2015–17). She also won a Princess of Philippine Television Award for "Walang Hanggan" (2012). Her other accolades include four FMTM Awards for "Walang Hanggan" and a TV Series Craze Award for "Doble Kara".


title: Benson Boone

text: Benson Boone is an American singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist. He was born in Monroe, Washington.


title: Benson Boone

text: Boone grew up as the only boy of 5 siblings in Monroe, Washington. He attended Monroe High School and competed on the diving team. He first discovered his vocal talent when a friend asked him to play piano and sing in their high school's battle of the bands his junior year even though he had no experience singing. Boone briefly attended Brigham Young University–Idaho before leaving after a semester to focus on singing.


title: Benson Boone

text: Boone drew early musical inspiration from attending a Jon Bellion concert, after which he began taking singing seriously. He began posting singing videos to TikTok, and auditioned for season 19 of "American Idol" on a friend's recommendation in early 2021. Though he was invited to advance to the show's Hollywood week, he was not present, as Boone withdrew from the show after making it to the Top 24 to consider his career.


title: Benson Boone

text: Boone began sharing snippets of his original music on TikTok, where he amassed 1.7 million followers in advance of his first single release. He caught the attention of Imagine Dragons frontman Dan Reynolds, who signed Boone to his record label Night Street Records in partnership with Warner Records. The signing was announced October 15, 2021, alongside the release of Boone's first single "Ghost Town". Boone played drums, guitar, and piano on the recording, in addition to designing the artwork for the single. Boone performed "Ghost Town", which charted in 13 countries including the US on the "Billboard" Hot 100, on "The Ellen DeGeneres Show", "The Kelly Clarkson Show", and "Late Night with Seth Meyers".


title: My Best Friend's Girl (2008 film)

text: My Best Friend's Girl is a 2008 American romantic comedy film by Howard Deutch and stars Dane Cook, Kate Hudson, Jason Biggs, Diora Baird, Alec Baldwin, and Lizzy Caplan. It was released on September 19, 2008. The film received generally unfavorable reviews from critics and grossed $41 million.


title: My Best Friend's Girl (2008 film)

text: Sherman "Tank" Turner is a help line operator and a ladies' man with a unique side hustle: He helps guys who want a lady back by taking her on a bad date. Throughout the evening, Tank inevitably behaves moronically, causing the woman to realize her ex is not really so bad after all and go back to him.


title: My Best Friend's Girl (2008 film)

text: Tank shares an apartment with his step cousin Dustin who has fallen for his colleague Alexis. Dustin takes her on a date, professing his love, but she insists they remain friends. After the date, he explains his situation to Tank, who volunteers his services as a good friend (instead of having to pay for it). Initially turning him down, the next day, he sees Alexis flirting with another co-worker and begs Tank to take Alexis out. He accepts.


title: My Best Friend's Girl (2008 film)

text: Tank bumps into Alexis, and they arrange to go out. He behaves badly all night, but she is too drunk to care. When he drops her off she expects him to come in but he resists out of loyalty to Dustin. Alexis calls Dustin, but when they meet, she explains that the date with Tank has motivated her to see other men. Dustin sends Alexis roses and an apology poem in Tank's name, and she calls him, berating him for leaving early the previous night. Tank goes to see her, and they end up having casual sex on a regular basis while Dustin begins a series of desperate attempts to stay friends with her.


title: My Best Friend's Girl (2008 film)

text: Dustin prepares to go on a date with a single mother, but when he arrives to pick her up, she is breast-feeding her child. In an effort to be funny, he awkwardly remarks that he would like to have what the baby is having. Now creeped out and furious, she yells at Dustin, throws him out and cancels their date. Distraught, he goes to Alexis's but is told by her roommate that she is busy upstairs with the guy she has been having sex with regularly. Dustin, even more upset and refusing to leave, starts to walk up the stairs only to discover that the man Alexis has been sleeping with is actually Tank.


title: My Best Friend's Girl (2008 film)

text: Tank and Dustin get into a fight and go their separate ways. Tank's feelings for Alexis have grown, and he decides to consult with his father. After talking with him, he has doubts that he deserves a serious relationship with her. While attending the wedding of Alexis's sister Rachel, he recognizes her as one of his previous bad dates. The groom, Josh asks him to keep quiet about his use of his services. After overhearing Alexis telling Rachel she has fallen for him, Tank's guilt causes him to sabotage their relationship and apologize to Dustin.


title: My Best Friend's Girl (2008 film)

text: Dustin arrives at the wedding reception, revealing Tank's schemes to Alexis. Tank points out his clients, including the groom, and is punched and thrown out. Alexis, distraught since Tank used her and Dustin asked for his help to cheaply win her, never wants to see either of them again. Later, while talking with Dustin and his father, Tank realizes that he loves Alexis, so they encourage him to reconcile with her. Finding her, he jogs with her for a few miles in an attempt to make amends, but Alexis is unmoved.


title: My Best Friend's Girl (2008 film)

text: Three months later, Tank is on a date when Alexis sees him and spontaneously decides to sabotage it by embarrassing him. Throwing wine in his face, she then announces to the whole restaurant that he left her pregnant. He soon catches on to her "joke", and they continue to loudly exchange insults (some of which shadow ones used previously), each trying to best the other in a "play argument" of insults and bantering, after which they reconcile with a kiss.


title: My Best Friend's Girl (2008 film)

text: The film ends, suggesting their relationship is back on. As the titles roll, Dustin and Alexis's roommate Ami sleep together after realizing their common sexual interests.


title: My Best Friend's Girl (2008 film)

text: Review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes gives "My Best Friend's Girl" an approval rating of 14% based on 59 reviews, with an average rating of 4.6/10. The website's critics consensus reads: ""My Best Friend's Girl" spends too much time being vulgar and offensive, leaving little room for laughs." Metacritic assigned the film an average score of 34 out of 100, based on 13 critics, indicating "generally unfavorable reviews". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B−" on an A+ to F scale.


title: My Best Friend's Girl (2008 film)

text: "My Best Friend's Girl" earned a Razzie Award nomination for Worst Actress (Kate Hudson; also for "Fool's Gold"). Dane Cook also harshly criticized the poster for the film on his Myspace blog.


title: My Best Friend's Girl (2008 film)

text: The film opened at No. 3 at the North American box office making $8,265,357 USD in its opening weekend. It went on to gross $41.6 million worldwide.


title: Ricky Reed

text: Eric Burton Frederic (born July 23, 1982), known professionally as Ricky Reed, is an American artist, music producer, singer, songwriter, and founder of Nice Life Recording Company. From 2005 to 2014, Reed was also known as Wallpaper.


title: Ricky Reed

text: Reed has received RIAA platinum records for two Jason Derulo singles: "Talk Dirty" ft. 2 Chainz (4× Platinum) and "Wiggle" ft. Snoop Dogg (2× Platinum).


title: Immortalised cell line

text: An immortalised cell line is a population of cells from a multicellular organism which would normally not proliferate indefinitely but, due to mutation, have evaded normal cellular senescence and instead can keep undergoing division. The cells can therefore be grown for prolonged periods "in vitro". The mutations required for immortality can occur naturally or be intentionally induced for experimental purposes. Immortal cell lines are a very important tool for research into the biochemistry and cell biology of multicellular organisms. Immortalised cell lines have also found uses in biotechnology.


title: Immortalised cell line

text: An immortalised cell line should not be confused with stem cells, which can also divide indefinitely, but form a normal part of the development of a multicellular organism.


title: Immortalised cell line

text: There are various immortal cell lines. Some of them are normal cell lines (e.g. derived from stem cells). Other immortalised cell lines are the "in vitro" equivalent of cancerous cells. Cancer occurs when a somatic cell which normally cannot divide undergoes mutations which cause de-regulation of the normal cell cycle controls leading to uncontrolled proliferation. Immortalised cell lines have undergone similar mutations allowing a cell type which would normally not be able to divide to be proliferated "in vitro". The origins of some immortal cell lines, for example HeLa human cells, are from naturally occurring cancers. HeLa, the first-ever immortal human cell line, was taken from Henrietta Lacks (without informed consent) in 1951 at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, Maryland.


title: Immortalised cell line

text: Immortalised cell lines are widely used as a simple model for more complex biological systems, for example for the analysis of the biochemistry and cell biology of mammalian (including human) cells. The main advantage of using an immortal cell line for research is its immortality; the cells can be grown indefinitely in culture. This simplifies analysis of the biology of cells which may otherwise have a limited lifetime.


title: Immortalised cell line

text: Immortalised cell lines can also be cloned giving rise to a clonal population which can, in turn, be propagated indefinitely. This allows an analysis to be repeated many times on genetically identical cells, which is desirable for repeatable scientific experiments. The alternative, performing an analysis on primary cells from multiple tissue donors, does not have this advantage.


title: Immortalised cell line

text: Immortalised cell lines find use in biotechnology, where they are a cost-effective way of growing cells similar to those found in a multicellular organism "in vitro". The cells are used for a wide variety of purposes, from testing toxicity of compounds or drugs to production of eukaryotic proteins.


title: Immortalised cell line

text: While immortalised cell lines often originate from a well-known tissue type, they have undergone significant mutations to become immortal. This can alter the biology of the cell and must be taken into consideration in any analysis. Further, cell lines can change genetically over multiple passages, leading to phenotypic differences among isolates and potentially different experimental results depending on when and with what strain isolate an experiment is conducted.


title: Immortalised cell line

text: Many cell lines that are widely used for biomedical research have been contaminated and overgrown by other, more aggressive cells. For example, supposed thyroid lines were actually melanoma cells, supposed prostate tissue was actually bladder cancer, and supposed normal uterine cultures were actually breast cancer.


title: Immortalised cell line

text: There are several examples of immortalised cell lines, each with different properties. Most immortalised cell lines are classified by the cell type they originated from or are most similar to biologically.


title: Reliquary

text: A reliquary (also referred to as a "shrine", by the French term "châsse", and historically including "phylacteries") is a container for relics. A portable reliquary may be called a "fereter", and a chapel in which it is housed a "feretory".


title: Reliquary

text: Relics may be the purported or actual physical remains of saints, such as bones, pieces of clothing, or some object associated with saints or other religious figures. The authenticity of any given relic is often a matter of debate; it is for that reason, some churches require documentation of the relic's provenance.


title: Reliquary

text: Relics have long been important to Buddhists, Christians, Hindus and to followers of many other religions. In these cultures, reliquaries are often presented in shrines, churches, or temples to which the faithful make pilgrimages in order to gain blessings.


title: Reliquary

text: The term is sometimes used loosely of containers for the body parts of non-religious figures; in particular the Kings of France often specified that their hearts and sometimes other organs be buried in a different location from their main burial.


title: Reliquary

text: The use of reliquaries became an important part of Christian practices from at least the 4th century, initially in the Eastern Churches, which adopted the practice of moving and dividing the bodies of saints much earlier than the West, probably in part because the new capital of Constantinople, unlike Rome, lacked buried saints. Relics are venerated in the Oriental Orthodox, Eastern Orthodox, Roman Catholic and some Anglican Churches. Reliquaries provide a means of protecting and displaying relics. While frequently taking the form of caskets, they range in size from simple pendants or rings to very elaborate ossuaries.