#Helen Dorothy Martin

[starqueen87]

Helen Dorothy Martin (July 23, 1909 – March 25, 2000) was an American actress of stage and television. Martin's career spanned over 60 years, appearing first on stage and later in film and television. Martin is best known for her roles as Wanda on the CBS sitcom Good Times (1974–1979) and as Pearl Shay on the NBC sitcom 227 (1985–1990).

Martin attended Fisk University in Nashville for two years before dropping out. After leaving college, Martin moved to Chicago, and New York thereafter to study acting with the WPA Theater and the Rose McClendon Players. She was a founding member of the American Negro Theater in Harlem. Martin became a Broadway character actress for many decades, debuting in 'Orchids Preferred' in 1937 and thereafter Orson Welles' production of Native Son in 1941.

Martin appeared in a dozen Broadway shows, including Jean Genet's The Blacks, the musical Raisin from 1973 until 1975, Ossie Davis' Purlie Victorious (and later the musical version, which was called Purlie), The Amen Corner and Tennessee Williams' Period of Adjustment.

Martin became widely known later in life due to her roles in popular television series, which brought her a large audience. She had a recurring role as Wanda "Weeping Wanda" on the television series Good Times, and later as the neighbor Pearl Shay on the television sitcom 227, which lasted from 1985 until 1990. Martin also had a role on the short-lived sitcoms Baby, I'm Back (as mother in-law, Luzelle) and That's My Mama. Martin portrayed a variety of grandmothers in films: Hollywood Shuffle (1987), Don't Be a Menace to South Central While Drinking Your Juice in the Hood (1996), I Got the Hook Up (1998), House Party 2 (1991), and Mama Doll in Bulworth (1998).

[bkenber]

'Twister' Movie and 4K Review

The following review was written by Ultimate Rabbit correspondent, Tony Farinella. “Twister” is a film that is currently celebrating its 25th anniversary.  It raises two important questions—where has time gone, and when did I become old?  Watching “Twister” for the first-time since its release, it is clear this is a quintessential 1990’s action flick—you have your movie stars, your big budget,…

[brokehorrorfan]

Twister will be released on 4K Ultra HD (with Digital) in Steelbook and standard packaging on July 9 via Warner Bros. The 1996 disaster thriller's sequel, Twisters, hist theaters on July 19.

Jan de Bont (Speed) directs from a script by Michael Crichton (Jurassic Park) and Anne-Marie Martin. Helen Hunt, Bill Paxton, Jami Gertz, Cary Elwes, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Alan Ruck, Todd Field, and Jeremy Davies star.

Twisters has been restored in 4K with HDR and Dolby Atmos audio. Special features are listed below, where you can also see the full Steelbook layout.

Special features:

Audio commentary by director Jan de Bont and visual effects supervisor Stefen Fangmeier

Interview with director Jan de Bont (new)

Chasing the Storm: Twister Revisited

Anatomy of a Twister

HBO's The Making of Twister

"Human Beings" music video by Van Halen

An estranged couple, Dr. Jo Harding (Helen Hunt) and Bill Harding (Bill Paxton), reunites to deploy "Dorothy," a cutting-edge tornado research device, in a race against nature. This high-stakes adventure blends breathtaking visuals with a tale of reunion and resilience to create a cinematic experience not to be missed.

Pre-order Twister.

[azspot]

To look over this list of great figures like Helen Keller, Dorothy Day, Martin Luther King Jr., and Howard Zinn is to realize how impossible it is to fill their shoes, and to realize how much work we have to do to build a vibrant new socialist movement in our time. Because this list also reminds me how necessary socialists are to the health of society. Many of the people on this list were at the forefront of the struggle for labor rights, Black civil rights, and the anti-war movement. They helped to keep their country moral. Without them, some of the worst injustices in our history would have met much less resistance.

Locating Ourselves in the History of Socialism

[o-uncle-newt]

Enter Sir John (and Lord Peter)

This is basically a Sayers blog alongside a Finnemore blog at this point- and this is going to be mostly a Sayers post but also a bit of a window into my other detective fiction reading, which I don't really post about here but kind of want to. A bit of an experiment. (Also, some spoilers to a very old and AFAIK out of print book that I don't particularly recommend below, as well as a Sayers novel.)

So I have been reading a LOT of random old timey detective fiction recently, and at one point made a reading list based on having read the fabulous The Golden Age of Murder by Martin Edwards, which I highly recommend to basically anyone with even the faintest interest in the subject (and even more so to Christie and Sayers fans). ANYWAY, I made the list, then completely forgot where I got it from, ordered a bunch of books through the NYPL's interlibrary loan system, and somehow got all of them at once. So now I have a stack of books from five states on my dresser, many of which are first editions. One of those is my copy of Enter Sir John by Clemence Dane and Helen Simpson, which isn't only a first edition but literally has the pencil inscription by the original owner from Christmas 1928, when he bought/received the book. Gah I love reading other people's old books.

Reading other people's old books in general is fun- reading this particular one was more of a mixed bag. The pacing was kind of weird, the mystery was kind of thin (and the motive was... PECULIAR for a 21st century reader, a mix of oddly progressive and deeply, deeply problematic depending on how you look at it), and the characterization of most of the characters was pretty thin. The atmosphere of the small-time theatrical setting was fun, and the detective, Sir John Saumarez, is reasonably entertaining. To go through, and mildly spoil (you'll see why shortly), the plot- someone is found dead who had been known to have previously quarrelled with a woman in the past, under circumstances which make it clear that this woman had both motive, means, and opportunity. The woman is arrested and her trial is attended by a man with a title who is struck by her and feels compelled to work on her behalf. He works hard to find the actual killer when the trial goes poorly for her, and realizes that he is in love with her and confesses his feelings to her.

Sound familiar?

For context, Enter Sir John was published two years before Dorothy L Sayers's Strong Poison, and to be transparent I fiddled a bit with the timing and phrasing to make the synopsis as CLEARLY correlated as it is (he doesn't confess his feelings to her until after he's gotten her off the murder charges, she's actually in the room when the murder victim is found, she actually is convicted and her conviction is overturned on appeal, among other changes). If the above plot sounds interesting and you HAVEN'T read Strong Poison, just skip and read Strong Poison because it does the whole thing SO much better. For one thing, the mystery is better- this was Dane and Simpson's first mystery, and while I largely enjoyed Dane's earlier novel Regiment of Women (which I may post my thoughts about sometime), this book just didn't really work for me. It's technically fair play, I guess, but there aren't a whole lot of actual suspects or clues (there aren't many suspects in Strong Poison either, but there are many more clues and there's a much more robust structure).

The other major difference, and this is pretty important because it's at exactly the point where the two books are so similar, is that the characterization of the romance in Enter Sir John is REALLY NOT GOOD. Sure, as Sayers noted in her 1929 introduction to her Omnibus of Crime anthology, love interests in detective novels are often shitty and this isn't necessarily significantly worse than certain others I have read. But while there do seem to be attempts to describe the suspect's personality in a way that makes her sound more honest, frank, straightforward, etc (the kinds of ways that Harriet Vane comes across later in Strong Poison), she also comes across really naive and dumb, and really doesn't have a whole lot to do in the book at all to counteract that impression. On the plus side... she isn't AS racist as some other people, I guess? (This plays into the motive, which I can describe in the comments for people- it's too annoying to get bogged down in.) But anyway, Sir John largely (apparently? it's not characterized super well) is compelled by her and falls in love with her because of her striking appearance and her good breeding and gentility or whatever, and it's all just super awkward. (Also, there's the same "oh no I didn't realize you were proposing" awkwardness in this book as in Regiment of Women, which does it MUCH better and for MUCH better characterization-related reasons. In this book it's just kind of skin-crawling to read.)

Anyway, why have I made you all read about why I didn't particularly like a not-super-easy-to-find book that you were unlikely to ever read anyway? Well, partly because it's an interesting curiosity- and because as I was reading I was like "what the hell, how did Sayers get away with this?" So I cracked open my copy of The Golden Age of Murder again and in its description of the book realized that it mentions that Sayers and Simpson were friends and that Enter Sir John is of interest as an inspiration to Strong Poison, which in retrospect is probably why I put it on my list in the first place.

But I'm still left with some lingering questions. While the actual murder plot and motive are entirely different, this particular throughline on the part of the detective is really STARTLINGLY similar, not least because Sir John Saumarez has some distinctive surface resemblances to Wimsey. For one thing, the method used to trap the killer (casually having them be part of a reenactment/discussion of the way the murder took place) is used by Sayers in Strong Poison as a ruse that Wimsey uses to try to catch Harriet Vane out, if there's anything to catch (when he "casually" brings up the murder-for-book-profits mystery plot idea he had). For another, like Wimsey later would in Strong Poison, Saumarez has a whole inner monologue about how he has only a month to solve the case (though in his case it's before the suspect is executed, and in Wimsey's case it's the IMO more plausible situation of being before the retrial occurs).

All that being considered, one major difference is, of course, that at the end of Strong Poison Wimsey and Harriet don't get engaged, and Saumarez and the suspect (whose name I don't even remember, if I'm being honest, she REALLY wasn't that memorable) do. But Sayers famously wrote that she wanted to use this book to marry Wimsey off! If she had followed through, and still used this same book as a way to do it, would she have literally lifted, if substantially improved, this plotline from her friend's book in order to do it? She was such an original writer- would she have borrowed so significantly from another writer to finish off a series that she had worked so hard on, even if it was one she was wearying of?!

It's interesting, because I wrote in a previous post about how it feels like after writing the Omnibus of Crime intro, including how bad mystery romance plots are, she dared herself to do it better. Reading this book makes me wonder if she read THIS PARTICULAR BOOK and decided she wanted to do it better. Which would be fascinating whether that was a decision that she made before she'd decided to continue the series after this book or afterward- before, in which case she'd be wholesale lifting the plot but at the same time elevating it lol I feel like I'm writing crossword clues) just by virtue of better writing and characterization in both that plot and the mystery that surrounded it, or after, in which case one of her ways of elevating it would de facto BE changing the ending to make it less corny and awkward, and writing a detective romance which is actually psychologically plausible and satisfying rather than just pairing pants and a skirt, so to speak.

Anyway- decidedly mediocre book that I don't particularly recommend, but one that made me ask some questions that I had a lot of fun pondering! I also had fun writing this, and am considering doing another one on Leo Bruce's The Case for Three Detectives, which was tremendously fun as a pastiche of Wimsey as well as Poirot and Father Brown.

[vintagestagehotties]

Round 1 is officially over!

Congratulations to the actresses who made it to Round 2!

Round 2 will begin on Saturday, May 4th

The winners of Round 1:

Maude Adams

Anna Maria Alberghetti

Julie Andrews

Angela Baddeley

Hermione Baddeley

Lauren Bacall

Olga Baclanova

Pearl Bailey

Josephine Baker

Lucille Ball

Anne Bancroft

Tallulah Bankhead

Theda Bara

Mona Barrie

Jessie Bateman

Polly Bergen

Claire Bloom

Mrs Patrick Campbell

Diahann Carroll

Lina Cavalieri

Helen Chandler

Geraldine Chaplin

Ruth Chatterton

Claudette Colbert

Constance Collier

Gladys Cooper

Katharine Cornell

Phyllis Dare

Zena Dare

Ruby Dee

Judi Dench

Stephanie Deste

Marie Doro

Geraldine Farrar

Maude Fealy

Edwige Feuillère

Susanna Foster

Trixie Friganza

Jane Froman

Eva Gabor

Zsa Zsa Gabor

Mary Garden

Greer Garson

Dusolina Giannini

Hermione Gingold

Dorothy Gish

Lillian Gish

Frances Greer

Mata Hari

Dolores Hart

Olivia de Havilland

Jill Haworth

Audrey Hepburn

Libby Holman

Lena Horne

Sally Ann Howes

Ethel Irving

Diane Keaton

Lisa Kirk

Eartha Kitt

Angela Landbury

Carol Lawrence

Vivien Leigh

Lotte Lenya

Beatrice Lillie

Bambi Linn

Gillian Lynne

Heather MacRae

Jayne Mansfield

Mary Martin

Jessie Matthews

Siobhán McKenna

Meng Xiaodong

Helen Menken

Ethel Merman

Cléo de Mérode

Evelyn Millard

Liza Minnelli

Rita Moreno

Odette Myrtil

Pola Negri

Julie Newmar

Nichelle Nichols

Maureen O’Sullivan

Aida Overton Walker

Anna Pavlova

Bernadette Peters

Lily Pons

Rosa Ponselle

Lee Remick

Diana Rigg

Thelma Ritter

Chita Rivera

Ginger Rogers

Lillian Russell

Rosalind Russell

Diana Sands

Lizabeth Scott

Maggie Smith

Emily Stevens

Susan Strasberg

Barbra Streisand

Yma Sumac

Inga Swenson

Laurette Taylor

Hilda Trevelyan

Monique Van Vooren

Fannie Ward

Ethel Warwick

Elisabeth Welch

Mae West

Anna May Wong

Diana Wynyard

Yoshiko Yamaguchi

[brainrot-yumm]

so to tally up the ramblings so far:

And I just feel the need to emphasize that I'm crossovering all the characters based on personality, not relationships. Which means there are gonna be some weird as hell dynamics going on. That's where the spice comes in, you understand.

Going by the list in the "reoccurring character" section of the wiki

.

Jon - Twilight Sparkle - Twila "Twi" Sims

Martin - Fluttershy - Flora Blackwood

Sasha - Rarity - Rachel James

NotSasha - Sweetie Belle - "Rachel James"

Tim - Rainbow Dash - Ramona "Rain" Stoker

Danny - Scootaloo - Lucy "Scoot" Stoker

Melanie - Applejack - Adelaide King

Georgie - Sunset Shimmer - Sasha (listen it'd be funny) Barker

The Admiral - Spike - Sergeant

Basira - Trixie Lulamoon - Tohfa Hussain

Daisy - Starlight Glimmer - Aurora "Starry" Tonner

Gertrude - Starswirl - Sulien Robinson

Jurgen - Sunburst - Siegurd Leitner

Rosie - Coco Pommel - Colette "Coco" Zampano

Smirke - Zecora - Zephyra Smirke

Dekker - Daring Do - Delilah Dekker

Mikaele - DJ Pon-3 - Penina Salesa

Gerry - Diamond Tiara - Dorothy "Dottie" Keay

Mary - Spoiled Rich - Sophia Keay

Eric - Filthy Rich - Fred Delano

.

Elias - Cadence - Cecilia Bouchard née Lukas née Bouchard née

Jonah - Celestia - Clara Magnus

Peter - Shining Armor - Solomon Lukas né Sims né Bouchard né

Maxwell - Luna - Lilith Rayner (neé Magnus)

Callum - Cozy Glow - Cinna Brodie

Manuela - Moondancer - Marzana Dominguez

Natalie - Babs Seed - Bonnie Ennis

Jane - Chrysalis - Chrissy Prentiss

Timothy Hodge - Thorax - Theodore Hodge

John2 - Flash Sentry (it'd be funny) - Frank Amherst

Jordan - Zephyr Breeze - Zach Kennedy (né Blackwood)

Michael - Cheese Sandwich - Camillus Shelley

Helen - Pinkie Pie - Phoebe Richardson

Emma Harvey - Sweetie Drops

Angela - Lyra Heartstrings

Tom Haan - Grand Pear -

Nikola - Discord

Breekon & Hope - Flim & Flam

Sarah Baldwin - Applebloom - Annabelle King

Jane Doe - Sugar Belle

Max Mustermann - Party Favor

Doctor David - Double Diamond

Annabelle - Adagio Dazzle -

Raymond - Big Mcintosh

Neil - Photo Finish

Simon Fairchild - Sonata Dusk

Mike Crew - Lightning Dust

Oliver - Ditzy Doo - Desdemona "Dezzie" Banks

Agatha - Tempest Shadow

Jude - Aria Blaze

Jack Barnabas - Joe

Diego - Iron Will

Edwin - Cheerilee

Jared - Snips & Snails (I got an idea)

Robert Montauk - Sombra

Julia - Gilda

Trevor - Tirek

.

??? - most of the rest of the mane 6's families

??? - silver spoon

??? - Twist

??? - Suri Polomare

??? Sapphire Shores

Wonderbolts?

Tree Hugger

.

Also Twilight greys out through the first few seasons, but when she reawakens it's all gonna turn into her iconic hair streaks

Is my hyperfixation obvious yet

[sporadiceagleheart]

Eybymia “Effie” Babanatsou,5-year-old, Rose Pizem, 4-year-old, Saffie-Rose Brenda Roussos, 8-year-old, Louis XVII, 10-year-old, Lois Janes, 7-year-old, Gracie Perry Watson, 6-year-old, Ava Jordan Wood, 14-year-old, Heather Michele O'Rourke, 12-year-old, Judith Barsi, 10-year-old, Ema “Emica” Kobiljski, 13-year-old, Ava Martin White, 12-year-old, Ava Johnson White, 60-year-old, Riley Faith Steep, 7-year-old, Destiny Riekeberg, 9-year-old, Makenna Lee Elrod and Eliahna Torres, 10-year-old, Ava Ellis White, 92-year-old, Nova Henry, 24-years-old, Ava Safiyah Henry-Curry, 10-months-old, Ava Carroll Overton Waller, 87-years-old, Ava Wright Hadley, 67-years-old, Caroline Schermerhorn Astor Wilson, 86-years-old, Caroline Astor, 78-years-old, Emily Astor Van Alen, 26-27-years-old, Charlotte Augusta Astor Drayton, 62-years-old, Mrs Caroline Astor Drayton Phillips, 84-years-old, Helen Rebecca Roosevelt Robinson, 80-years-old, China Machado, 87-years-old, Elizabeth Grace “Bessie” Gahan Myers, 75-years-old, Dorothy Julia “Dodie” Pennebaker Brando, 57-years-old, Jocelyn Brando, 86-years-old, Frances Elizabeth “Frannie” Brando Loving, 71-years-old, Lois Ayers Coggins, 90-years-old, Frances Ellen Watkins Harper, 85-years-old, Irmgard Christine Winter, 3-years-old, Anna D. Crnkovic, 7-year-old, Destiny Anne Norton, 5-year-old, Michelle B. Norris, 7-year-old, Heather Angel Alexandre, 8-year-old, Serenity Gail Elmore, 6-month-old, Heather Lynn Aspin-Thomas, 10-year-old, Shirley Temple, 85-years-old, Dorothy DeBorba, 85-years-old, Mary Ann Jackson, 80-years-old, Jean Darling, 93-years-old, June Marlowe, 80-years-old, Darla Jean Hood, 47-years-old, Mary Kornman, 57-years-old, Catherine Violet Hubbard, 6-year-old, JonBenèt Ramsey, 6-year-old, Skylar Annette Neese, 16-years-old, Tristyn Bailey, 13-year-old, Maite Yuleana Rodriguez, 10-year-old,

[kevinsreviewcatalogue]

Review Double Feature: Twister (1996) and Twisters (2024)

Making this another double feature. This weekend, I went back and rewatched the original Twister, an old nostalgic favorite of mine, just in time for the release of its years-later nostalgic sequel Twisters. Does the original hold up, and does the sequel live up to it?

Twister (1996)

Rated PG-13 for intense depiction of very bad weather

<Originally posted at https://kevinsreviewcatalogue.blogspot.com/2024/07/review-twister-1996.html>

Score: 4 out of 5

One of the films that, together with Independence Day a couple of months later, helped revive the disaster movie genre after it had seemingly died with disco at the end of the '70s, Twister is as wild a movie as the namesake weather phenomena it's named for and which serve as the centerpieces of its action. It's a movie that, while not science fiction, has the thumbprints of Michael Crichton, the sci-fi writer who co-wrote it with his wife Anne-Marie Martin and produced it, all over it in its depiction of scientists as heroic working men and women in a way that I, somebody who's had his fair share of experience with what scientific and medical work are actually like, readily appreciated. (Even if Crichton, over the course of his career, had a fairly mixed track record when it came to how his novels and screenplays presented scientific subjects, but that's another matter entirely.) It may have had problems when it came to telling a coherent story, especially when it came to Cary Elwes' character, but it was easy enough to place those problems in the back of my mind when the movie was busy thrilling me with intense, well-shot action and an interesting cast of characters that together dropped me right into the thick of it with them. There's a reason why, even long after the second wave of disaster movies in the Y2K era burned out, people of my generation still fondly remember Twister as a gem of that time.

The film revolves around a group of stormchasers in Oklahoma, led by Jo Harding, a scientist who entered meteorology after watching her father die during a tornado when she was a little girl. They do exactly what their name sounds like, chasing tornadoes in order to track and research them for scientific purposes, specifically with the intention of designing more effective early warning systems that might give people more of a chance to survive when these wicked storms touch down. Our viewpoint characters are Jo's estranged husband Bill Harding, a former stormchaser turned TV weatherman who's come back in order to get her signature on their divorce papers and formally end their marriage, and his new fiancé Melissa Reeves, a therapist from the city who's completely out of her depth in the wild world of stormchasers.

Right away, I fell in love with most of this cast, filled with a who's who of talented actors like Helen Hunt, Bill Paxton, Jami Gertz, and Philip Seymour Hoffman giving it their all. It's a highly glamorized depiction of meteorology that makes it look like a career that combines the advanced scientific work of crunching data with the gritty, hands-on work of actually collecting that data, depicting Jo and her team of scientists as operating highly advanced equipment, at least some of which (most notably the "Dorothy" units they're trying to send into the storms to measure them up close) they designed themselves, out of the backs of trucks, vans, and station wagons covered in dirt and mud. It makes for a very funny contrast with Melissa, the film's comic relief character and audience stand-in who's trying to take calls from her patients even as she's being dragged head-first into the path of a tornado. They may not have been the deepest characters, with Jo's history with tornadoes and her, Bill, and Melissa's rom-com love triangle being just about the only development they get, but I loved them anyway. If I had to pick favorites, they'd probably be Hoffman as Dusty Davies, the very hammy and excitable dude on Jo's team who explains a lot of weather-related concepts, and Lois Smith as Jo's aunt Meg, a little old lady who seemingly can't be put down even after a tornado trashes her house and leaves her injured. Above all else, this is a movie that knows how to make scientists look good, and I'm not surprised that there were a lot of people in the late '90s who got very interested in meteorology after this came out.

And if the cast and the writing did the work in crafting a great cast of characters for me to root for, then Jan de Bont's direction did the work in throwing them into peril and dragging me right along with them. The film takes the opposite tack of Independence Day when it comes to showing large-scale destruction on screen, focusing less on the grand spectacle of seeing cities and monuments get blown up and more on the people running for cover as the houses, farms, tractor-trailers, and drive-in theaters around them get shredded by wicked winds. It's a very ground-level perspective on a disaster flick that still makes it stand out today, when epic-scale scenes of destruction have become the norm for Hollywood blockbusters, much like how Cloverfield used a similar perspective to make a giant monster movie scary. A few shots may not hold up so well today (especially that early shot of a weather satellite that looks like a prerendered cutscene from an early '00s video game), but on the whole, its mix of practical effects work and CGI still looks amazing when it comes time to showing buildings getting torn apart and cars getting tossed around.

Watching and, more importantly, hearing the storms on screen also made me realize how underappreciated sound design is in so many modern movies. All too often, we've seen a trend in action movies especially that I like to call "Nolanization" after one of the filmmakers who helped popularize it, an emphasis on making sound mixing more "realistic" for the sake of realism that, in effect, winds up causing it to turn into a wash where you can barely understand what the characters are saying or where the explosions and gunfire are coming from. If you've ever wondered why you have to turn on the subtitles to make out the dialogue in a lot of movies made in the last ten years, especially movies that were made for streaming, this is why. I had no such complaints here, with the sound of the twisters, often compared in real life to freight trains and jet engines, embellished for effect here but very much drilling into me exactly the mix of awe and terror that the film wanted me to experience. It's repeated throughout the film that tornadoes are not to be trifled with, and as I watched, I very much felt that in my bones. The score by Mark Mancina also injected a ton of energy into the film, especially with its guitars blending almost seamlessly with the rock and country songs on the soundtrack, livening up the film's downtime when the characters are planning or heading out but then falling back during the action scenes and letting the roaring winds take center stage.

The plot of the movie is pretty paper-thin, more or less following a couple of very exciting days in the lives of a team of stormchasers. I liked these characters more because they were played by great actors and had a lot of very cool, funny, and entertaining chemistry and dialogue together, not because they really had any depth. Had the film just been about them, I probably wouldn't have minded. The problem came with Cary Elwes' character Jonah Miller, a guy leading a rival team of stormchasers who we're told are the bad guys because they have corporate backing and are only in it for the money, not the science. When it came to fleshing out its human villain, the film's thin writing and plotting hurt it, not least of all because, despite Elwes doing everything he can to make Jonah into a despicable jackass, the writing never really gives me a sense that he's a bad guy as opposed to just a foil to Jo and Bill. There are ways this movie could've gone about to make me hate Jonah as a proper villain, such as having him not just rip off the design of Jo's Dorothy units but actively sabotage her career for his own gain, having him be the reason Bill left stormchasing and wound up estranged from Jo, or fleshing out the other members of his own team (especially Jake Busey as his sidekick) and having him put them in harm's way because he's a dumbass and a glory hound. The film leans in those directions, but it never really fleshes them out, instead just having Jonah recur throughout the film as a guy who annoys the protagonists only to vanish again. It really needed more Cary Elwes, is what I'm saying.

The Bottom Line

Twister isn't exactly known as a movie with a great story, but there's a reason why a key part of its enduring legacy was an attraction at Universal Studios Orlando that lasted until 2015. This is a two-hour thrill ride that still holds up watching it again nearly thirty years later, and one I'd firmly recommend to anyone who wants to watch a pure, straightforward disaster movie.

----------

And now, for the sequel...

Twisters (2024)

Rated PG-13 for intense action and peril, some language and injury images

Score: 4 out of 5

While Twisters has been billed as a sequel to Twister, what it really feels like is more of a remake in all but name, which is what they were by all accounts originally planning to make. It features no returning characters and only a few minor continuity nods to remind you that the two films are set in the same universe, otherwise following a brand new cast that loosely fits into the archetypes of the first movie but does its own thing with them. More than that, however, it's a movie that recognizes how and why the original still works as well as it does. Like its predecessor, it's a more up-close-and-personal take on the disaster movie that demonstrates how to make this genre work in 2024, in a world where scenes of epic, spectacle-filled destruction enabled with the latest and greatest in special effects have become routine: focus on the people, be they those caught in harm's way or the ones running into it for either science or glory. It's a movie whose real heart and soul underneath the awe-inspiring action set pieces is its cast of characters, played by a host of rising stars who I can see riding this movie to much greater heights of fame and fortune, enough to make up for the fact that it doesn't quite fix the biggest problem I had with the original. There really isn't much to say here other than that it's about as good as the original and the kind of film that's made to be seen on a big screen, one that I'd firmly recommend.

Just like last time, we're back in Oklahoma following two rival teams of stormchasers. Our protagonist Kate Carter, who had been chasing storms when she was a college student, left that way of life behind five years ago and took a job with NOAA in New York City (where a little EF1 tornado that hit Brooklyn recently was considered big news) after a bad judgment call she made got most of her team killed. Her friend Javier "Javi" Rivera, the one other surviving member of her team, convinces her to come back to Oklahoma and work with his new team Storm-Par, a corporate outfit that's employing advanced radar technology that Javi worked with in his time in the military to track storms more accurately than before. While they're down there, Kate and Javi cross paths with Tyler Owens, a stormchaser and YouTuber who's become a minor celebrity as the "Tornado Wrangler" filming himself and his team performing death-defying stunts in and around tornadoes. While Tyler's initially presented as a fame-seeking gloryhound with more followers than sense, Kate eventually warms up to him as they cross paths and she realizes he's not the dumbass he comes off as at first glance, while she and Javi start to question Storm-Par's mission as they do some more digging on Marshall Riggs, the local real estate tycoon who's funding them.

Just as the first movie had a who's who of '90s stars at the top of their game, so too is this one filled with a bunch of modern-day rising stars who, if their performances here are any indication, are probably going places after this. Daisy Edgar-Jones does her best Helen Hunt impression as Kate and does it well, making for a likable heroine with her own tornado-related tragedy in her past for her to overcome, while Anthony Ramos' Javi made for a nice twist on Jonah from the first movie, a version of him who seems to realize what a jackass he's becoming and the kind of person he's working for but also knows that he needs Riggs' money to keep doing his work at the level he's doing it at. The real breakout star here, however, is undoubtedly going to be Glen Powell as Tyler Owens. A guy with a name like a country singer and a truck and wardrobe to match, Tyler is something like a cowboy MrBeast, a YouTuber who makes no bones about the fact that fame and fortune are perks of the job but also, as we see later in the film, seeks to use his platform to do good for the people whose lives are destroyed by the tornadoes he chases. He's initially presented in a fashion similar to Jonah from the first film, quite ironically given how the aesthetics of his team more resemble those of that film's scrappy protagonists, but the more we learn about him, the more Powell gets to lay on his rugged-yet-funny charm and get me to root for him. This is the kind of role that they would've cast Chris Pratt in ten years ago, and Powell brings a very similar energy to this part. Movie nerds have been waiting for Powell to get his big break after years of well-received roles in smaller movies and TV shows, and if this is any indication, he's almost certainly a star in the making.

The basic meat and potatoes of this movie isn't that different from the first. What made that movie work is still in play here, this being a film where, while the scenes of tornadoes ripping apart a highway, wind turbines, a rodeo ground, a motel, an oil refinery, and a small town Main Street are exciting, well-shot, and brought to life with outstanding special effects, they aren't the most intense scenes in it. I've seen other reviews, both positive and negative, call this a movie shot in close-up, with the focus placed less on the action and more on the characters running for their lives and hanging on for dear life as tornadoes roar around them. I've always felt that this is the way to do a disaster movie right nowadays, in a time when most viewers will look at even the biggest action spectacle and quote one of the musicians featured on this movie country-heavy soundtrack ("that don't impress me much!), and director Lee Isaac Chung proved my point by making the action feel about as intimate as you can get when there are tornadoes roaring right behind the main characters. The result was that, even when the camera wasn't focused squarely on the mayhem, it felt more impactful than a lot of comparable effects-driven blockbusters.

Unfortunately, it also has a very similar problem to the first movie: the script, and most notably the villains. Marshall Riggs is given a lot of attention as a background villain who's running Storm-Par as part of his scheme to buy up ruined homes in tornado country and then flip them for profit at the expense of the often desperate people who live in them, a scheme that drives a wedge between Kate and Javi and forces the latter to think about why he's doing this job. The problem is, as despicable as this guy's actions are, he's only in the movie for one scene early on and then completely vanishes, with Javi's co-worker Scott, himself a fairly minor character, serving as the main representative of his villainy. Once again, the film tries to shoehorn in a human villain, in this case a timely representative of gentrification and corporate greed, without really doing anything with him and giving him a real presence in the film. Like with the first movie, I would've either dropped this subplot entirely or made things personal between him and the protagonists. Maybe have Kate's mom, played in one scene by Maura Tierney, know some people who've lost their homes and farms to Riggs and may very well lose hers? Or have him cut costs on Storm-Par's equipment and training, putting them in harm's way? Or have him find out about Kate and Javi's plan to disrupt tornadoes and try to sabotage it because it would mean fewer distressed properties for him to buy up and redevelop? The least this movie could've done is give him a satisfying death, preferably one involving a tornado eating a rich douchebag's mansion or him trying to get the hell out of Dodge in a rhinestone-encrusted Cadillac only to get one of his own billboards dropped on his head. As it stands, it's the same pitfall that ensnared the first movie from a writing perspective, playing out a bit differently in the details but otherwise having more or less the same effect.

The Bottom Line

Twisters is a very well-made throwback to '90s disaster movies that, while suffering from many of the same problems as the original, is also blessed with many of the same things that made it so much fun to watch, especially in a crowded IMAX theater. If you're just looking for a good-time, empty-calorie popcorn blockbuster that hits the spot, this is your ticket.

[legofanguy]

OC-tober Halloween

A story featuring new ocs for @fireheartaw event OC-tober Halloween.

The elementary school kids arrived at their class wearing their Halloween costumes and their teacher Ms. Denise whose have red hair and wearing a black shirt ask them once they take their seat, "Good morning, class, and Happy Halloween. Can you tell me what you are for Halloween?" Roger Banks start first as he said to Ms. Denise, "I'm Goku from Dragon Ball." and then David Coons said to Ms. Denise, "I'm Harry Potters." and then Jim Haller said to Ms. Denise, "I'm a baseball player." and then Mark King said to Ms. Denise, "I'm Darth Vader." and then Helen Linko said to Ms. Denise, "I'm Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz." and then Jane Martin said to Ms. Denise, "I'm Wonder Woman." and then Annie Payne said to Ms. Denise, "I'm the Little Mermaid." and then Beth Sharp said to Ms. Denise, "I'm a cheetah." and then Sam Tinload said to Ms. Denise, "I'm a Ghostbuster." and then Vicki White said to Ms. Denise, "I'm a witch." and then Sue Williams said to Ms. Denise, "I'm Alice from Alice in Wonderland." and then Sean Jackson said to Ms. Denise, "I'm Spider-Man." and then Becky Jones said to Ms. Denise, "I'm Belle from Beauty and the Beast." and then Pat Moore said to Ms. Denise, "I'm Wonder Woman." and then John Matt said to Ms. Denise, "I'm Batman." Roger then ask the teacher, "Ms. Denise, what are you for Halloween?" and Ms. Denise smile as she answer, "Well, it is a surprise." as her shadow show her true form as a succubus.

[ulkaralakbarova]

A blind Vietnam vet, trained as a swordfighter, comes to America and helps to rescue the son of a fellow soldier. Credits: TheMovieDb. Film Cast: Nick Parker: Rutger Hauer Frank Devereaux: Terry O’Quinn Billy Devereaux: Brandon Call Cobb: Charles Cooper MacCready: Noble Willingham Annie Winchester: Lisa Blount Lynn Devereaux: Meg Foster The Assassin: Sho Kosugi Slag: Randall “Tex” Cobb Lyle Pike: Nick Cassavetes Tector Pike: Rick Overton Latin Girl: Julia González Gang Leader: Paul James Vasquez Crooked Miami Cop #1: Woody Watson Crooked Miami Cop #2: Alex Morris Bus Station Cop: Mark Fickert Popcorn: Weasel Forshaw Six Pack: Roy Morgan Snow: Tim Mateer Female Biker: C.K. McFarland Cornfield Killer #1: T.J. McFarland Cornfiled Killer #2: Blue Deckert Cornfield Killer #3: Glenn Lampert Cornfield Killer #4: Red Mitchell Rockwell Mom: Bonnie Suggs Rockwell Dad: Harold Suggs Freeway Lady #1: Barbara Gulling-Goff Freeway Lady #3: Holly Cross Vagley Freeway Lady #2: Dorothy Young Colleen: Sharon Shackelford Casino Bodyguard #1: Jay Pennison Casino Bodyguard #2: Masanori Toguchi Crooked Croupier: R. Nelson Brown Croupier #2: Lincoln Casey Jr. Croupier #3: Gene Skillen Big Mama: Debora Williams Casino Cowboy: Kyle Thatcher Casino Patron: Patricia Mathews Waiter in Elevator: Mitch Hrushowy Penthouse Guard #1: Ernest Mack Penthouse Guard #2: Linwood Walker Drug Dealer: Robert Prentiss Ski Lodge Killer #1: Jeffrey J. Dashnaw Ski Lodge Killer #2: Glenn R. Wilder Ski Lodge Killer #3: David R. Ellis Ski Lodge Killer #4: Michael Adams Ski Lodge Killer #5: Dave Bartholomew Ski Lodge Killer #6: Fred Lerner Ski Lodge Killer #7: Mike Shanks Ski Lodge Killer #8: Ray Colbert Film Crew: Director of Photography: Don Burgess Executive Producer: Robert W. Cort Producer: Daniel Grodnik Director: Phillip Noyce Producer: Tim Matheson Executive Producer: David Madden Associate Producer: Charles Robert Carner Production Design: Peter Murton Editor: David A. Simmons Original Music Composer: J. Peter Robinson Location Manager: Carole Fontana Unit Production Manager: Dennis Stuart Murphy Location Scout: Mike Harrowing Set Designer: Lauren E. Polizzi Title Designer: Michael Lodge Costume Design: Katherine Dover Production Coordinator: Jeffrey J. Kiehlbauch Casting Assistant: Louise Marrufo Production Coordinator: Gina Scheerer Casting: Junie Lowry-Johnson Casting Associate: William A. Johnson Art Direction: John Myhre Casting Assistant: Elisa Goodman Location Manager: Susan Elkins Script Supervisor: Helen Caldwell Set Decoration: Tom Talbert Second Unit Director: Dick Ziker Key Makeup Artist: Karoly Balazs Special Effects Makeup Artist: J.C. Matalon Assistant Hairstylist: Jan Sebastian Key Makeup Artist: Jeanne Van Phue Hairstylist: Cinzia Zanetti Production Manager: Leonard Bram Executive In Charge Of Production: Ted Zachary Additional Second Assistant Director: Sandy Collister Second Assistant Director: K.C. Colwell First Assistant Director: Tom Davies Second Assistant Director: Douglas Dean III Second Assistant Director: Thomas A. Irvine First Assistant Director: Donald P.H. Eaton Second Unit Director: Max Kleven Set Dresser: Joel Bestrop Art Direction: Michael Marcus Set Decoration: Nicholas T. Preovolos Sound Editor: Gregg Baxter Production Sound Mixer: Jacob Goldstein Assistant Sound Editor: David Hagberg Sound Re-Recording Mixer: Grover B. Helsley Sound Editor: Michael Hilkene Sound Mixer: Walter Hoylman Sound Editor: David M. Ice Sound Editor: Doug Jackson Special Sound Effects: Eric Lindemann Sound Re-Recording Mixer: William L. McCaughey Boom Operator: Prometheus Patient ADR Editor: Tally Paulos Foley Mixer: Troy Porter Sound Re-Recording Mixer: Richard D. Rogers Foley Artist: Joan Rowe Sound Editor: Christopher Sheldon Assistant Sound Editor: Thomas W. Small Foley Artist: Jerry Trent Special Effects Coordinator: Martin Bresin Special Effects Assistant: Steven C. Foster Special Effects Assistant: Marvin Gardner Special Effects Coordinator: Allen Hall Special Effects Supervisor: Mike Manzel Special Effects Assistant: Joe Montenegr...

[lboogie1906]

Helen Dorothy Martin (July 23, 1909 – March 25, 2000) was an actress on stage and television. Her career spanned over 60 years, appearing first on stage and in film and television. She is known for her roles as Wanda on the sitcom Good Times and as Pearl Shay on the sitcom 227.

Martin was born in St. Louis and raised in Nashville. She was an only child born to a family of musicians. Her parents wanted their daughter to become a concert pianist. She attended Fisk University for two years before dropping out.

She moved to Chicago, and New York thereafter to study acting with the WPA Theater and the Rose McClendon Players. She was a founding member of the American Negro Theater in Harlem. She became a Broadway character actress for many decades, debuting in ‘Orchids Preferred’ and Native Son.

She appeared in a dozen Broadway shows, including The Blacks, the musical Raisin, Ossie Davis’ Purlie Victorious, The Amen Corner, and Tennessee Williams’ Period of Adjustment.

She became known due to her roles in popular television series, which brought her a large audience. She had a role in the short-lived sitcoms Baby, I’m Back and That’s My Mama. She portrayed a variety of grandmothers in films: Hollywood Shuffle, Don’t Be a Menace to South Central While Drinking Your Juice in the Hood, I Got the Hook Up, House Party 2, and Bulworth. #africanhistory365 #africanexcellence

[alexlacquemanne]

Janvier MMXXIV

Films

Bridget Jones Baby (Bridget Jones's Baby) (2016) de Sharon Maguire avec Renée Zellweger, Patrick Dempsey, Shirley Henderson, Gemma Jones et Jim Broadbent

Arnaque à Hollywood (The Comeback Trail) (2020) de George Gallo avec Robert De Niro, Tommy Lee Jones, Morgan Freeman, Zach Braff, Eddie Griffin, Emile Hirsch et Kate Katzman

Copie conforme (1947) de Jean Dréville avec Louis Jouvet, Suzy Delair, Annette Poivre, Madeleine Suffel, Jane Marken, Danièle Franconville, Jean-Jacques Delbo et Léo Lapara

L'Inconnu du Nord-Express (Strangers on a Train) (1951) d'Alfred Hitchcock avec Farley Granger, Ruth Roman, Robert Walker, Leo G. Carroll, Patricia Hitchcock, Marion Lorne, Jonathan Hale et Laura Elliott

Une affaire d'honneur (2023) de et avec Vincent Perez et aussi Roschdy Zem, Doria Tillier, Damien Bonnard, Guillaume Gallienne, Nicolas Gaspar, Pepe Lorente

Hôtel fantôme (Das letzte Problem) (2019) de et avec Karl Markovics et aussi Stefan Pohl, Maria Fliri, Julia Koch, Max Moor, Sunnyi Melles Laura Bilgeri

Aviator (The Aviator) (2004) de Martin Scorsese avec Leonardo DiCaprio, Cate Blanchett, Kate Beckinsale, Adam Scott, Kelli Garner, Alec Baldwin, Ian Holm, Jude Law et Danny Huston

Palais royal ! (2005) de et avec Valérie Lemerciere et aussi Lambert Wilson, Catherine Deneuve, Michel Aumont, Mathilde Seigner, Denis Podalydès, Michel Vuillermoz, Gisèle Casadesus, Gilbert Melki, Maurane

Du plomb pour l'inspecteur (Pushover) (1954) de Richard Quine avec Fred MacMurray, Philip Carey, Kim Novak, Dorothy Malonne, E.G. Marshall, Allen Nourse, James Anderson et Joe Bailey

Les Douze Salopards (The Dirty Dozen) (1967) de Robert Aldrich avec Lee Marvin, Ernest Borgnine, Charles Bronson, Jim Brown, John Cassavetes, Richard Jaeckel, George Kennedy, Trini Lopez et Telly Savalas

Le silence des ânes (Das Schweigen der Esel) (2022) de et avec Karl Markovics et aussi Julia Koch, Caroline Frank, Gerhard Liebmann, Valentin Sottopietra, Klaus Windisch, Tobias Fend, Julian Sark, Stefan Pohl

Elmer Gantry le charlatan (Elmer Gantry) (1960) de Richard Brooks avec Burt Lancaster, Jean Simmons, Arthur Kennedy, Dean Jagger, Shirley Jones, Patti Page et Edward Andrews

Tendre Poulet (1978) de Philippe de Broca avec Annie Girardot, Philippe Noiret, Catherine Alric, Hubert Deschamps, Paulette Dubost, Roger Dumas, Raymond Gérôme, Guy Marchand, Simone Renant et Georges Wilson

Judy (2019) de Rupert Goold avec Renée Zellweger, Darci Shaw, Rufus Sewell, Michael Gambon, Finn Wittrock, Richard Cordery, Jessie Buckley et Bella Ramsey

Cinquième Colonne (Saboteur) (1942) d'Alfred Hitchcock avec Robert Cummings, Priscilla Lane, Otto Kruger, Alan Baxter, Clem Bevans, Norman Lloyd, Alma Kruger et Vaughan Glaser

Robin des Bois, prince des voleurs (Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves) (1991) de Kevin Reynolds avec Kevin Costner, Morgan Freeman, Christian Slater, Alan Rickman, Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio, Nick Brimble et Michael McShane

La Fine Fleur (2020) de Pierre Pinaud avec Catherine Frot, Melan Omerta, Fatsah Bouyahmed, Olivia Côte, Marie Petiot, Vincent Dedienne et Serpentine Teyssier

Maigret et l'Affaire Saint-Fiacre (1959) de Jean Delannoy avec Jean Gabin, Michel Auclair, Valentine Tessier, Robert Hirsch, Paul Frankeur, Michel Vitold, Camille Guérini, Serge Rousseau et Micheline Luccioni

On a volé la cuisse de Jupiter (1980) de Philippe de Broca avec Annie Girardot, Philippe Noiret, Francis Perrin, Catherine Alric, Marc Dudicourt, Paulette Dubost et Roger Carel

Gosford Park (2001) de Robert Altman avec Maggie Smith, Michael Gambon, Kristin Scott Thomas, Camilla Rutherford, Charles Dance, Geraldine Somerville, Tom Hollander, Stephen Fry, Helen Mirren et Emily Watson

Meurtre à Hollywood (Sunset) (1988) de Blake Edwards avec Bruce Willis, James Garner, Malcolm McDowell, Mariel Hemingway, Kathleen Quinlan, Jennifer Edwards, Victoria Alperin et Patricia Hodge

Iron Claw (The Iron Claw) (2023) de Sean Durkin avec Zac Efron, Jeremy Allen White, Harris Dickinson, Holt McCallany, Lily James, Maura Tierney et Stanley Simons

Séries

La croisière s'amuse Saison 1

Une traversée de chien - L'Amour fou - Ami ou Ennemi - Farces et Attrapes - Une célébrité encombrante - Le Grand Air - Le docteur voit double - Le Grand Amour - Le Père du commandant - Monnaie de singe - La vie est belle au large - Tel est pris qui croyait prendre - Jeux de mains - Les Grandes Retrouvailles : première partie - Les Grandes Retrouvailles : deuxième partie - La Victoire en dansant - Le Gros Lot - Coupable, mais de quoi ? - Souvenirs Souvenirs - Il y a des jours comme ça - Qui comprend quelque chose à l'amour ? - Le commandant connaît la musique - Coup de folie - Ne comptez pas sur moi pour tomber amoureuse

Coffre à Catch

#148 : Bonne année 2024 à tout l'univers d'Agius ! - #149 : Zack Ryder : Woo Woo Woo, tu le sais ! - #150 : L'exceptionnel retour de Colby ! - #151 : Les adieux au catch de Tommy Dreamer ? - #152 : Tommy Dreamer enfin champion de la ECW !

Les Simpson Saison 1

Noël mortel - Bart le génie - L'Odyssée d'Homer - Simpsonothérapie - Terreur à la récré - Ste Lisa Blues - L'Abominable Homme des bois - Bart a perdu la tête - Marge perd la boule - L'Odyssée d'Homer - L'Espion qui venait de chez moi - Un clown à l'ombre - Une soirée d'enfer

Downton Abbey Saison 5

Tradition et Rébellion - Un vent de liberté - Le Bonheur d'être aimé - Révolution à Downton - Tout ce qui compte… - Étape par étape - Désillusions - Menaces et Préjugés - La Réconciliation

Castle Saison 4

Renaissance - Lame solitaire - Casse-tête - L'Empreinte d'une arme - L'Art de voler - Démons - Otages - Dans l'antre du jeu - Course contre la mort - Détache-moi

Kaamelott Livre IV

Tous les matins du monde première partie - Tous les matins du monde deuxième partie - Raison et Sentiments - Les Tartes aux fraises - Le Dédale - Les Pisteurs - Le Traître - La Faute première partie - La Faute deuxième partie - L’Ascension du Lion - Une vie simple - Le Privilégié - Le Bouleversé - Les Liaisons dangereuses - Les Exploités II - Dagonet et le Cadastre - Duel première partie - Duel deuxième partie - La Foi bretonne - Au service secret de Sa Majesté - La Parade - Seigneur Caius - L’Échange première partie - L’Échange deuxième partie - L’Échelle de Perceval - La Chambre de la reine - Les Émancipés - La Révoquée - La Baliste II - Les Bonnes - La Révolte III - Le Rapport - L’Art de la table - Les Novices - Les Refoulés - Les Tuteurs II - Le Tourment IV - Le Rassemblement du corbeau II - Le Grand Départ - L’Auberge rouge - Les Curieux : première partie - Les Curieux : deuxième partie - La Clandestine - Les Envahisseurs - La vie est belle - La Relève - Les Tacticiens : première partie - Les Tacticiens : deuxième partie - Drakkars ! - La Réponse - Unagi IV - La Permission - Anges et Démons - La Rémanence - Le Refuge - Le Dragon gris - La Potion de vivacité II - Vox populi III - La Sonde - La Réaffectation - La Poétique II : première partie - La Poétique II : deuxième partie

Affaires sensibles

Henri Martin, debout contre la guerre d’Indochine - 1923 : Germaine Berton : l’anarchiste qui tua pour venger Jaurès - Prince de Conty : où sont passés les lingots de l'épave? - De Paris à Dakar, le rallye du désert - Cannes 1987, Pialat et sa palme - Affaire Mis et Thiennot, la fin de l'énigme judiciaire ? - Agnès Le Roux, la disparition d’une héritière - Les mystères de Chevaline

The Crown Saison 6

Un engouement fanatique - Hors du temps

Le Voyageur Saison 2

La Forêt perchée - La tentation du mal

Alfred Hitchcock présente Saison 5, 6, 3, 7

Arthur - La Vengeance - Chantage - Pan! vous êtes mort

Spectacles

Concert du Nouvel An en direct du Musikverein, à Vienne (2024)

Adele Live At The Royal Albert Hall (2011)

Sexe et jalousie (1993) de Marc Camoletti et Georges Folgoas avec Jean-Luc Moreau, Marie-Pierre Casey, Patrick Guillemin, Marie Lenoir et Bunny Godillot

Billy Cobham's Glass Menagerie (1981) live at Riazzino, Switzerland

Agents Are Forever : Danish National Symphony Orchestra (2020) avec Caroline Henderson

Bonté divine (2010) de Frédéric Lenoir et Louis-Michel Colla avec Jean-Loup Horwitz, Benoit Nguyen-Tat, Saïd Amadis et Roland Giraud

Livres

Kid Paddle, Tome 1 : Jeux de vilains de Midam

Détective Conan, Tome 20 de Gôshô Aoyama

Castle, Tome 1 : La dernière aube de Brian Michael Bendis, Kelly Sue DeConnick et Tom Raney

James Bond : Le guide officiel de 007 de Lee Pfeiffer et Dave Worrall

[jcmarchi]

Researchers Improve Blood Tests’ Ability to Detect and Monitor Cancer - Technology Org

New Post has been published on https://thedigitalinsider.com/researchers-improve-blood-tests-ability-to-detect-and-monitor-cancer-technology-org/

Researchers Improve Blood Tests’ Ability to Detect and Monitor Cancer - Technology Org

Tumors constantly shed DNA from dying cells, which briefly circulates in the patient’s bloodstream before it is quickly broken down. Many companies have created blood tests that can pick out this tumor DNA, potentially helping doctors diagnose or monitor cancer or choose a treatment.

A blood test procedure. Image credit: Max Pixel, CC0 Public Domain

The amount of tumor DNA circulating at any given time, however, is extremely small, so it has been challenging to develop tests sensitive enough to pick up that tiny signal. A team of researchers from MIT and the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard has now come up with a way to significantly boost that signal, by temporarily slowing the clearance of tumor DNA circulating in the bloodstream.

The researchers developed two different types of injectable molecules that they call “priming agents,” which can transiently interfere with the body’s ability to remove circulating tumor DNA from the bloodstream. In a study of mice, they showed that these agents could boost DNA levels enough that the percentage of detectable early-stage lung metastases leapt from less than 10 percent to above 75 percent.

This approach could enable not only earlier diagnosis of cancer, but also more sensitive detection of tumor mutations that could be used to guide treatment. It could also help improve detection of cancer recurrence.

“You can give one of these agents an hour before the blood draw, and it makes things visible that previously wouldn’t have been. The implication is that we should be able to give everybody who’s doing liquid biopsies, for any purpose, more molecules to work with,” says Sangeeta Bhatia, the John and Dorothy Wilson Professor of Health Sciences and Technology and of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at MIT, and a member of MIT’s Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research and the Institute for Medical Engineering and Science.

Bhatia is one of the senior authors of the new study, along with J. Christopher Love, the Raymond A. and Helen E. St. Laurent Professor of Chemical Engineering at MIT and a member of the Koch Institute and the Ragon Institute of MGH, MIT, and Harvard and Viktor Adalsteinsson, director of the Gerstner Center for Cancer Diagnostics at the Broad Institute.

Carmen Martin-Alonso PhD ’23, MIT and Broad Institute postdoc Shervin Tabrizi, and Broad Institute scientist Kan Xiong are the lead authors of the paper, which appears today in Science.

Better biopsies

Liquid biopsies, which enable detection of small quantities of DNA in blood samples, are now used in many cancer patients to identify mutations that could help guide treatment. With greater sensitivity, however, these tests could become useful for far more patients. Most efforts to improve the sensitivity of liquid biopsies have focused on developing new sequencing technologies to use after the blood is drawn.

While brainstorming ways to make liquid biopsies more informative, Bhatia, Love, Adalsteinsson, and their trainees came up with the idea of trying to increase the amount of DNA in a patient’s bloodstream before the sample is taken.

“A tumor is always creating new cell-free DNA, and that’s the signal that we’re attempting to detect in the blood draw. Existing liquid biopsy technologies, however, are limited by the amount of material you collect in the tube of blood,” Love says. “Where this work intercedes is thinking about how to inject something beforehand that would help boost or enhance the amount of signal that is available to collect in the same small sample.”

The body uses two primary strategies to remove circulating DNA from the bloodstream. Enzymes called DNases circulate in the blood and break down DNA that they encounter, while immune cells known as macrophages take up cell-free DNA as blood is filtered through the liver.

The researchers decided to target each of these processes separately. To prevent DNases from breaking down DNA, they designed a monoclonal antibody that binds to circulating DNA and protects it from the enzymes.

“Antibodies are well-established biopharmaceutical modalities, and they’re safe in a number of different disease contexts, including cancer and autoimmune treatments,” Love says. “The idea was, could we use this kind of antibody to help shield the DNA temporarily from degradation by the nucleases that are in circulation? And by doing so, we shift the balance to where the tumor is generating DNA slightly faster than is being degraded, increasing the concentration in a blood draw.”

The other priming agent they developed is a nanoparticle designed to block macrophages from taking up cell-free DNA. These cells have a well-known tendency to eat up synthetic nanoparticles.

“DNA is a biological nanoparticle, and it made sense that immune cells in the liver were probably taking this up just like they do synthetic nanoparticles. And if that were the case, which it turned out to be, then we could use a safe dummy nanoparticle to distract those immune cells and leave the circulating DNA alone so that it could be at a higher concentration,” Bhatia says.

Earlier tumor detection

The researchers tested their priming agents in mice that received transplants of cancer cells that tend to form tumors in the lungs. Two weeks after the cells were transplanted, the researchers showed that these priming agents could boost the amount of circulating tumor DNA recovered in a blood sample by up to 60-fold.

Once the blood sample is taken, it can be run through the same kinds of sequencing tests now used on liquid biopsy samples. These tests can pick out tumor DNA, including specific sequences used to determine the type of tumor and potentially what kinds of treatments would work best.

Early detection of cancer is another promising application for these priming agents. The researchers found that when mice were given the nanoparticle priming agent before blood was drawn, it allowed them to detect circulating tumor DNA in blood of 75 percent of the mice with low cancer burden, while none were detectable without this boost.

“One of the greatest hurdles for cancer liquid biopsy testing has been the scarcity of circulating tumor DNA in a blood sample,” Adalsteinsson says. “It’s thus been encouraging to see the magnitude of the effect we’ve been able to achieve so far and to envision what impact this could have for patients.”

After either of the priming agents are injected, it takes an hour or two for the DNA levels to increase in the bloodstream, and then they return to normal within about 24 hours.

“The ability to get peak activity of these agents within a couple of hours, followed by their rapid clearance, means that someone could go into a doctor’s office, receive an agent like this, and then give their blood for the test itself, all within one visit,” Love says. “This feature bodes well for the potential to translate this concept into clinical use.”

The researchers have launched a company called Amplifyer Bio that plans to further develop the technology, in hopes of advancing to clinical trials.

“A tube of blood is a much more accessible diagnostic than colonoscopy screening or even mammography,” Bhatia says. “Ultimately, if these tools really are predictive, then we should be able to get many more patients into the system who could benefit from cancer interception or better therapy.”

Written by Anne Trafton

Source: Massachusetts Institute of Technology

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[wutbju]

Bonnie Louise Martin Trevillian of Lexington, formerly of Raleigh, passed away on Monday, January 24 at the home of her daughter where she had lived since the passing of her husband in May, 2021.

Bonnie was born in Bassett, Virginia in 1932 to John Wesley Martin and Lucy Doris Shelton Martin.  She grew up in Bassett and attended the public schools there.  After graduation from Bassett High School, she attended Bob Jones University in Greenville, SC.

In 1952, on a blind date arranged by a friend, she met her future husband, Al Trevillian, from Flint, Michigan.  Thus began a 68-year romance that saw the birth of four children, 10 grandchildren and 11 great-grandchildren.

Much of Bonnie’s working life was spent doing bookkeeper-receptionist type work.  In Raleigh, she worked for U.S. Floor Systems and the Life Enrichment Center.  Her profession changed, however, when her needlework hobby led her to purchase a business called Threadbenders, located in the Glenwood Village shopping center.  Bonnie also did a lot of volunteer work for Sanderson High School where her four children attended.  She ran the concession stand at football games as a member of the band boosters and worked in the production of the program booklets used for the games.  She was always busy with something.

Bonnie didn’t neglect her church, either.  She put many hours into helping with the youth group of Millbrook Baptist Church, of which her children were a part.  She remained dedicated to her faith throughout her life.

Bonnie was predeceased by her husband Al and her parents, as well as her three sisters, Dorothy Haynes, Helen Bryant and Rachel Miller.  She is survived by her children, Bonnie Riddle (Steve), John Trevillian (Nancy), Jim Trevillian (Becky) and Robert Trevillian (Suzanne), as well as her grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

A graveside service will be held on Tuesday, February 1, 2022 at 2 p.m. at Brier Creek Memorial Gardens in Raleigh with The Reverend Allison Haynes officiating. There will be no formal viewing or visitation. Flowers are appreciated and memorials may be made to the American Heart Association in Bonnie’s name. Online condolences can be given to the family at www.jcgreenandsons.com.

[midwesternartlovertraveler]

" Bowling Green opened the Dorothy and Lillian Gish Film Theater in 1976, and the joint name was undertaken on Lillian’s insistence. At that time, the university in her home state of Ohio also accepted a gift towards the endowment to provide scholarships as well as a gift from her archives. In May 2019, Bowling Green removed the Gish name, changing it to “The BGSU Film Theater,” while retaining the endowment and memorabilia.”

What a bunch of hypocrites. They remove the Gish name, but they keep the money and memorabilia.