title: Big Sean

text: Starting in 2020, Big Sean has appeared in the Showtime series Twenties in a recurring role as Trsitan, an anti-social media character who learns the value of online connection.


title: Big Sean

text: In October 2021, Big Sean, in collaboration with rapper and producer Hit-Boy released an EP entitled What You Expect.


title: Big Sean

text: In February 2022, Big Sean and singer Queen Naija released a single entitled Hate Our Love. The song will appear of Naija's upcoming album. In that same month, Big Sean confirmed the Twenty88 album and revealed he was collaborating with girlfriend Jhené Aiko.


title: Big Sean

text: In September 2022, Big Sean re-released Detroit to streaming platforms, in honor of its 10th anniversary.


title: Big Sean

text: Big Sean dated his high school sweetheart, Ashley Marie, whom he met when he was sixteen and started dating at nineteen until their break-up in early 2013. He subsequently began dating actress Naya Rivera, whom he first met on Twitter; their relationship became public in April 2013. Sean and Rivera were engaged from October 2013 to April 2014. He dated singer Ariana Grande from October 2014 to April 2015.


title: Big Sean

text: Big Sean has been in a relationship with singer Jhené Aiko since 2016. In his 2020 song "Deep Reverence", he revealed that Aiko had previously experienced a miscarriage. Their son, Noah Hasani, was born on November 8th, 2022.


title: Big Sean

text: On November 28, 2017, Big Sean purchased an 11,000 square foot home, with 7 bedrooms and 8 bathrooms home in Beverly Hills. The house was previously owned by Guns N' Roses guitarist Slash. Originally listed at $11 million, Big Sean acquired it for $8.7 million.


title: Big Sean

text: Big Sean has struggled with depression, canceling a tour in 2018. He credits therapy, a healthy lifestyle, exercise and taking a break from touring to refocus on his music as instrumental in his recovery.


title: Big Sean

text: In May 2012, Big Sean founded a nonprofit organization called the “Sean Anderson Foundation,” with the aim of helping underserved children and families in his native Detroit. Alongside direct donations to local institutions, primarily educational institutions, the foundation has created fundraising programs and partnered with other organizations. In 2016, the foundation launched #HealFlintKids to raise money for the Community Foundation of Greater Flint amid the Flint water crisis - the program raised $100,000.


title: Big Sean

text: In 2015, the foundation launched Mogul Prep, which partnered high school students with music industry professionals. During the same year, the foundation donated a recording studio for students at Big Sean's alma mater, Cass Technical High School.


title: Big Sean

text: Beginning in 2018, the foundation has hosted an annual weekend festival, called D.O.N. Weekend, with free events and performances for Detroit residents and usually by Detroit artists. In December 2018, Big Sean in partnership with Ally Financial, Thurgood Marshall College Fund & the Sean Anderson Foundation, created an annual scholarship competition for HBCU students called “Moguls in the Making.”


title: Big Sean

text: In 2019, the foundation partnered with Boys & Girls Club of Southeastern Michigan, donating a second $100,000 recording studio to the club during that year's D.O.N. Weekend.


title: Big Sean

text: Since 2012, the foundation has participated in the annual All Star Giveback on Thanksgiving, where it distributes turkeys, trimming and canned goods to Detroit residents.


title: Big Sean

text: In May 2021, Big Sean, via his Sean Anderson foundation, released a video series on wellness and mental health. The series was released during Mental Health Awareness Month and featured conversation between Big Sean and his mother, educator Myra Anderson, about the intersection between wellness and mental health, including topics like meditation, sleep and emotional freedom techniques.


title: Big Sean

text: In October 2008, Big Sean was featured in "The Source" and headlined the "Style" section of the magazine. He posed in the Winter 2008 Billionaire Boys Club lookbook, and is a consistent representative of Ti$A apparel. He has an endorsement deal with Adidas, through which he has released his own "Detroit Player" line of sneakers, and is a follower of the Rosewood clothing style.


title: Big Sean

text: In 2018, Big Sean launched a shoe collection with PUMA, called Puma x Big Sean. The collection included a relaunch of the classic PUMA Suede, released on the shoe's 50th anniversary. In December 2020, Big Sean joined the NBA's Detroit Pistons as creative director of innovation. In that role, he leads the design of team apparel, with practice jerseys bearing his “Don Life” logo, and other non-game, community-driven initiatives.


title: Big Sean

text: In December 2020, Big Sean joined McDonald's “Black & Positively Golden” mentorship program. The program offers scholarships for HBCU students.


title: Big Sean

text: On August 4, 2011, Big Sean was arrested for third-degree sexual assault at a concert in Lewiston, New York. On October 26, he pleaded guilty to second-degree unlawful imprisonment, and was fined $750; the charges of third-degree sexual abuse were dropped as part of the plea bargain. Big Sean's attorney, Scott Leemon, stated that Sean "did not engage in any type of sexual misconduct."


title: Whale

text: Whales are a widely distributed and diverse group of fully aquatic placental marine mammals. As an informal and colloquial grouping, they correspond to large members of the infraorder Cetacea, i.e. all cetaceans apart from dolphins and porpoises. Dolphins and porpoises may be considered whales from a formal, cladistic perspective. Whales, dolphins and porpoises belong to the order Cetartiodactyla, which consists of even-toed ungulates. Their closest non-cetacean living relatives are the hippopotamuses, from which they and other cetaceans diverged about 54 million years ago. The two parvorders of whales, baleen whales (Mysticeti) and toothed whales (Odontoceti), are thought to have had their last common ancestor around 34 million years ago. Mysticetes include four extant (living) families: Balaenopteridae (the rorquals), Balaenidae (right whales), Cetotheriidae (the pygmy right whale), and Eschrichtiidae (the grey whale). Odontocetes include the Monodontidae (belugas and narwhals), Physeteridae (the sperm whale), Kogiidae (the dwarf and pygmy sperm whale), and Ziphiidae (the beaked whales), as well as the six families of dolphins and porpoises which are not considered whales in the informal sense.


title: Whale

text: Whales are fully aquatic, open-ocean creatures: they can feed, mate, give birth, suckle and raise their young at sea. Whales range in size from the and dwarf sperm whale to the and blue whale, which is the largest known animal that has ever lived. The sperm whale is the largest toothed predator on Earth. Several whale species exhibit sexual dimorphism, in that the females are larger than males.


title: Whale

text: Baleen whales have no teeth; instead they have plates of baleen, fringe-like structures that enable them to expel the huge mouthfuls of water they take in, while retaining the krill and plankton they feed on. Because their heads are enormous—making up as much as 40% of their total body mass—and they have throat pleats that enable them to expand their mouths, they are able to take huge quantities of water into their mouth at a time. Baleen whales also have a well developed sense of smell.


title: Whale

text: Toothed whales, in contrast, have conical teeth adapted to catching fish or squid. They also have such keen hearing—whether above or below the surface of the water—that some can survive even if they are blind. Some species, such as sperm whales, are particularly well adapted for diving to great depths to catch squid and other favoured prey.


title: Whale

text: Whales evolved from land-living mammals, and must regularly surface to breathe air, although they can remain under water for long periods of time. Some species, such as the sperm whale, can stay underwater for up to 90 minutes They have blowholes (modified nostrils) located on top of their heads, through which air is taken in and expelled. They are warm-blooded, and have a layer of fat, or blubber, under the skin. With streamlined fusiform bodies and two limbs that are modified into flippers, whales can travel at speeds of up to 20 knots, though they are not as flexible or agile as seals. Whales produce a great variety of vocalizations, notably the extended songs of the humpback whale. Although whales are widespread, most species prefer the colder waters of the northern and southern hemispheres, and migrate to the equator to give birth. Species such as humpbacks and blue whales are capable of travelling thousands of miles without feeding. Males typically mate with multiple females every year, but females only mate every two to three years. Calves are typically born in the spring and summer; females bear all the responsibility for raising them. Mothers in some species fast and nurse their young for one to two years.


title: Whale

text: Once relentlessly hunted for their products, whales are now protected by international law. The North Atlantic right whales nearly became extinct in the twentieth century, with a population low of 450, and the North Pacific grey whale population is ranked Critically Endangered by the IUCN. Besides the threat from whalers, they also face threats from bycatch and marine pollution. The meat, blubber and baleen of whales have traditionally been used by indigenous peoples of the Arctic. Whales have been depicted in various cultures worldwide, notably by the Inuit and the coastal peoples of Vietnam and Ghana, who sometimes hold whale funerals. Whales occasionally feature in literature and film. A famous example is the great white whale in Herman Melville's novel "Moby Dick". Small whales, such as belugas, are sometimes kept in captivity and trained to perform tricks, but breeding success has been poor and the animals often die within a few months of capture. Whale watching has become a form of tourism around the world.


title: Whale

text: The word "whale" comes from the Old English "hwæl", from Proto-Germanic "*hwalaz", from Proto Indo European "*(s)kwal-o-", meaning "large sea fish". The Proto-Germanic "*hwalaz" is also the source of Old Saxon "hwal", Old Norse "hvalr", "hvalfiskr", Swedish "val", Middle Dutch "wal", "walvisc", Dutch "walvis", Old High German "wal", and German "Wal". The obsolete "whalefish" has a similar derivation, indicating a time when whales were thought to be fish. Other archaic English forms include "wal, wale, whal, whalle, whaille, wheal", etc.


title: Whale

text: The term "whale" is sometimes used interchangeably with dolphins and porpoises, acting as a synonym for Cetacea. Six species of dolphins have the word "whale" in their name, collectively known as blackfish: the orca, known for a time as the "killer whale", the melon-headed whale, the pygmy killer whale, the false killer whale, and the two species of pilot whales, all of which are classified under the family Delphinidae (oceanic dolphins). Each species has a different reason for it, for example, the killer whale was named "Ballena asesina" 'killer whale' by Spanish sailors.


title: Whale

text: The term "Great Whales" covers those currently regulated by the International Whaling Commission: the Odontoceti family Physeteridae (sperm whales); and the Mysticeti families Balaenidae (right and bowhead whales), Eschrichtiidae (grey whales), and some of the Balaenopteridae (Minke, Bryde's, Sei, Blue and Fin; not Eden's and Omura's whales).


title: Whale

text: The whales are part of the largely terrestrial mammalian clade Laurasiatheria. Whales do not form a clade or order; the infraorder Cetacea includes dolphins and porpoises, which are not considered whales in the informal sense. The phylogenetic tree shows the relationships of whales and other mammals, with whale groups marked in green.


title: Whale

text: Cetaceans are divided into two parvorders. The larger parvorder, Mysticeti (baleen whales), is characterized by the presence of baleen, a sieve-like structure in the upper jaw made of keratin, which it uses to filter plankton, among others, from the water. Odontocetes (toothed whales) are characterized by bearing sharp teeth for hunting, as opposed to their counterparts' baleen.


title: Whale

text: Cetaceans and artiodactyls now are classified under the order Cetartiodactyla, often still referred to as Artiodactyla, which includes both whales and hippopotamuses. The hippopotamus and pygmy hippopotamus are the whale's closest terrestrial living relatives.


title: Whale

text: Mysticetes are also known as baleen whales. They have a pair of blowholes side by side and lack teeth; instead they have baleen plates which form a sieve-like structure in the upper jaw made of keratin, which they use to filter plankton from the water. Some whales, such as the humpback, reside in the polar regions where they feed on a reliable source of schooling fish and krill. These animals rely on their well-developed flippers and tail fin to propel themselves through the water; they swim by moving their fore-flippers and tail fin up and down. Whale ribs loosely articulate with their thoracic vertebrae at the proximal end, but do not form a rigid rib cage. This adaptation allows the chest to compress during deep dives as the pressure increases. Mysticetes consist of four families: rorquals (balaenopterids), cetotheriids, right whales (balaenids), and grey whales (eschrichtiids).


title: Whale

text: The main difference between each family of mysticete is in their feeding adaptations and subsequent behaviour.


title: Whale

text: Balaenopterids are the rorquals. These animals, along with the cetotheriids, rely on their throat pleats to gulp large amounts of water while feeding. The throat pleats extend from the mouth to the navel and allow the mouth to expand to a large volume for more efficient capture of the small animals they feed on. Balaenopterids consist of two genera and eight species.


title: Whale

text: Balaenids are the right whales. These animals have very large heads, which can make up as much as 40% of their body mass, and much of the head is the mouth. This allows them to take in large amounts of water into their mouths, letting them feed more effectively.


title: Whale

text: Eschrichtiids have one living member: the grey whale. They are bottom feeders, mainly eating crustaceans and benthic invertebrates. They feed by turning on their sides and taking in water mixed with sediment, which is then expelled through the baleen, leaving their prey trapped inside. This is an efficient method of hunting, in which the whale has no major competitors.


title: Whale

text: Odontocetes are known as toothed whales; they have teeth and only one blowhole. They rely on their well-developed sonar to find their way in the water. Toothed whales send out ultrasonic clicks using the melon. Sound waves travel through the water. Upon striking an object in the water, the sound waves bounce back at the whale. These vibrations are received through fatty tissues in the jaw, which is then rerouted into the ear-bone and into the brain where the vibrations are interpreted. All toothed whales are opportunistic, meaning they will eat anything they can fit in their throat because they are unable to chew. These animals rely on their well-developed flippers and tail fin to propel themselves through the water; they swim by moving their fore-flippers and tail fin up and down. Whale ribs loosely articulate with their thoracic vertebrae at the proximal end, but they do not form a rigid rib cage. This adaptation allows the chest to compress during deep dives as opposed to resisting the force of water pressure. Excluding dolphins and porpoises, odontocetes consist of four families: belugas and narwhals (monodontids), sperm whales (physeterids), dwarf and pygmy sperm whales (kogiids), and beaked whales (ziphiids).


title: Whale

text: The differences between families of odontocetes include size, feeding adaptations and distribution. Monodontids consist of two species: the beluga and the narwhal. They both reside in the frigid arctic and both have large amounts of blubber. Belugas, being white, hunt in large pods near the surface and around pack ice, their coloration acting as camouflage. Narwhals, being black, hunt in large pods in the aphotic zone, but their underbelly still remains white to remain camouflaged when something is looking directly up or down at them. They have no dorsal fin to prevent collision with pack ice.


title: Whale

text: Physeterids and Kogiids consist of sperm whales. Sperm whales consist the largest and smallest odontocetes, and spend a large portion of their life hunting squid. "P. macrocephalus" spends most of its life in search of squid in the depths; these animals do not require any degree of light at all, in fact, blind sperm whales have been caught in perfect health. The behaviour of Kogiids remains largely unknown, but, due to their small lungs, they are thought to hunt in the photic zone.


title: Whale

text: Ziphiids consist of 22 species of beaked whale. These vary from size, to coloration, to distribution, but they all share a similar hunting style. They use a suction technique, aided by a pair of grooves on the underside of their head, not unlike the throat pleats on the rorquals, to feed.


title: Whale

text: As a formal clade (a group which does not exclude any descendant taxon), odontocetes also contains the porpoises (Phocoenidae) and four or five living families of dolphins: oceanic dolphins (Delphinidae), South Asian river dolphins (Platanistidae), the possibly extinct Yangtze River dolphin (Lipotidae), South American river dolphins (Iniidae), and La Plata dolphin (Pontoporiidae).


title: Whale

text: Whales are descendants of land-dwelling mammals of the artiodactyl order (even-toed ungulates). They are related to the "Indohyus", an extinct chevrotain-like ungulate, from which they split approximately 48 million years ago. Primitive cetaceans, or archaeocetes, first took to the sea approximately 49 million years ago and became fully aquatic 5–10 million years later. What defines an archaeocete is the presence of anatomical features exclusive to cetaceans, alongside other primitive features not found in modern cetaceans, such as visible legs or asymmetrical teeth. Their features became adapted for living in the marine environment. Major anatomical changes included their hearing set-up that channeled vibrations from the jaw to the earbone ("Ambulocetus" 49 mya), a streamlined body and the growth of flukes on the tail ("Protocetus" 43 mya), the migration of the nostrils toward the top of the cranium (blowholes), and the modification of the forelimbs into flippers ("Basilosaurus" 35 mya), and the shrinking and eventual disappearance of the hind limbs (the first odontocetes and mysticetes 34 mya).


title: Whale

text: Whale morphology shows a number of examples of convergent evolution, the most obvious being the streamlined fish-like body shape. Other examples include the use of echolocation for hunting in low light conditions — which is the same hearing adaptation used by bats — and, in the rorqual whales, jaw adaptations, similar to those found in pelicans, that enable engulfment feeding.


title: Whale

text: Today, the closest living relatives of cetaceans are the hippopotamuses; these share a semi-aquatic ancestor that branched off from other artiodactyls some 60 mya. Around 40 mya, a common ancestor between the two branched off into cetacea and anthracotheres; nearly all anthracotheres became extinct at the end of the Pleistocene 2.5 mya, eventually leaving only one surviving lineage – the hippopotamus.


title: Whale

text: Whales split into two separate parvorders around 34 mya – the baleen whales (Mysticetes) and the toothed whales (Odontocetes).


title: Whale

text: Whales have torpedo-shaped bodies with non-flexible necks, limbs modified into flippers, non-existent external ear flaps, a large tail fin, and flat heads (with the exception of monodontids and ziphiids). Whale skulls have small eye orbits, long snouts (with the exception of monodontids and ziphiids) and eyes placed on the sides of its head. Whales range in size from the and dwarf sperm whale to the and blue whale. Overall, they tend to dwarf other cetartiodactyls; the blue whale is the largest creature on Earth. Several species have female-biased sexual dimorphism, with the females being larger than the males. One exception is with the sperm whale, which has males larger than the females.


title: Whale

text: Odontocetes, such as the sperm whale, possess teeth with cementum cells overlying dentine cells. Unlike human teeth, which are composed mostly of enamel on the portion of the tooth outside of the gum, whale teeth have cementum outside the gum. Only in larger whales, where the cementum is worn away on the tip of the tooth, does enamel show. Mysticetes have large whalebone, as opposed to teeth, made of keratin. Mysticetes have two blowholes, whereas Odontocetes contain only one.


title: Whale

text: Breathing involves expelling stale air from the blowhole, forming an upward, steamy spout, followed by inhaling fresh air into the lungs; a humpback whale's lungs can hold about of air. Spout shapes differ among species, which facilitates identification.


title: Whale

text: All whales have a thick layer of blubber. In species that live near the poles, the blubber can be as thick as . This blubber can help with buoyancy (which is helpful for a 100-ton whale), protection to some extent as predators would have a hard time getting through a thick layer of fat, and energy for fasting when migrating to the equator; the primary usage for blubber is insulation from the harsh climate. It can constitute as much as 50% of a whale's body weight. Calves are born with only a thin layer of blubber, but some species compensate for this with thick lanugos.


title: Whale

text: Whales have a two- to three-chambered stomach that is similar in structure to those of terrestrial carnivores. Mysticetes contain a proventriculus as an extension of the oesophagus; this contains stones that grind up food. They also have fundic and pyloric chambers.


title: Whale

text: Whales have two flippers on the front, and a tail fin. These flippers contain four digits. Although whales do not possess fully developed hind limbs, some, such as the sperm whale and bowhead whale, possess discrete rudimentary appendages, which may contain feet and digits. Whales are fast swimmers in comparison to seals, which typically cruise at 5–15 kn, or ; the fin whale, in comparison, can travel at speeds up to and the sperm whale can reach speeds of . The fusing of the neck vertebrae, while increasing stability when swimming at high speeds, decreases flexibility; whales are unable to turn their heads. When swimming, whales rely on their tail fin to propel them through the water. Flipper movement is continuous. Whales swim by moving their tail fin and lower body up and down, propelling themselves through vertical movement, while their flippers are mainly used for steering. Some species log out of the water, which may allow them to travel faster. Their skeletal anatomy allows them to be fast swimmers. Most species have a dorsal fin.


title: Whale

text: Whales are adapted for diving to great depths. In addition to their streamlined bodies, they can slow their heart rate to conserve oxygen; blood is rerouted from tissue tolerant of water pressure to the heart and brain among other organs; haemoglobin and myoglobin store oxygen in body tissue; and they have twice the concentration of myoglobin than haemoglobin. Before going on long dives, many whales exhibit a behaviour known as sounding; they stay close to the surface for a series of short, shallow dives while building their oxygen reserves, and then make a sounding dive.


title: Whale

text: The whale ear has specific adaptations to the marine environment. In humans, the middle ear works as an impedance equalizer between the outside air's low impedance and the cochlear fluid's high impedance. In whales, and other marine mammals, there is no great difference between the outer and inner environments. Instead of sound passing through the outer ear to the middle ear, whales receive sound through the throat, from which it passes through a low-impedance fat-filled cavity to the inner ear. The whale ear is acoustically isolated from the skull by air-filled sinus pockets, which allow for greater directional hearing underwater. Odontocetes send out high frequency clicks from an organ known as a melon. This melon consists of fat, and the skull of any such creature containing a melon will have a large depression. The melon size varies between species, the bigger the more dependent they are of it. A beaked whale for example has a small bulge sitting on top of its skull, whereas a sperm whale's head is filled up mainly with the melon.


title: Whale

text: The whale eye is relatively small for its size, yet they do retain a good degree of eyesight. As well as this, the eyes of a whale are placed on the sides of its head, so their vision consists of two fields, rather than a binocular view like humans have. When belugas surface, their lens and cornea correct the nearsightedness that results from the refraction of light; they contain both rod and cone cells, meaning they can see in both dim and bright light, but they have far more rod cells than they do cone cells. Whales do, however, lack short wavelength sensitive visual pigments in their cone cells indicating a more limited capacity for colour vision than most mammals. Most whales have slightly flattened eyeballs, enlarged pupils (which shrink as they surface to prevent damage), slightly flattened corneas and a tapetum lucidum; these adaptations allow for large amounts of light to pass through the eye and, therefore, a very clear image of the surrounding area. They also have glands on the eyelids and outer corneal layer that act as protection for the cornea.


title: Whale

text: The olfactory lobes are absent in toothed whales, suggesting that they have no sense of smell. Some whales, such as the bowhead whale, possess a vomeronasal organ, which does mean that they can "sniff out" krill.


title: Whale

text: Whales are not thought to have a good sense of taste, as their taste buds are atrophied or missing altogether. However, some toothed whales have preferences between different kinds of fish, indicating some sort of attachment to taste. The presence of the Jacobson's organ indicates that whales can smell food once inside their mouth, which might be similar to the sensation of taste.


title: Whale

text: Whale vocalization is likely to serve several purposes. Some species, such as the humpback whale, communicate using melodic sounds, known as whale song. These sounds may be extremely loud, depending on the species. Humpback whales only have been heard making clicks, while toothed whales use sonar that may generate up to 20,000 watts of sound (+73 dBm or +43 dBw) and be heard for many miles.


title: Whale

text: Captive whales have occasionally been known to mimic human speech. Scientists have suggested this indicates a strong desire on behalf of the whales to communicate with humans, as whales have a very different vocal mechanism, so imitating human speech likely takes considerable effort.


title: Whale

text: Clicks are quick broadband burst pulses, used for sonar, although some lower-frequency broadband vocalizations may serve a non-echolocative purpose such as communication; for example, the pulsed calls of belugas. Pulses in a click train are emitted at intervals of ≈35–50 milliseconds, and in general these inter-click intervals are slightly greater than the round-trip time of sound to the target.


title: Whale

text: Whistles are narrow-band frequency modulated (FM) signals, used for communicative purposes, such as contact calls.


title: Whale

text: Whales are known to teach, learn, cooperate, scheme, and grieve. The neocortex of many species of whale is home to elongated spindle neurons that, prior to 2007, were known only in hominids. In humans, these cells are involved in social conduct, emotions, judgement, and theory of mind. Whale spindle neurons are found in areas of the brain that are homologous to where they are found in humans, suggesting that they perform a similar function.


title: Whale

text: Brain size was previously considered a major indicator of the intelligence of an animal. Since most of the brain is used for maintaining bodily functions, greater ratios of brain to body mass may increase the amount of brain mass available for more complex cognitive tasks. Allometric analysis indicates that mammalian brain size scales at approximately the ⅔ or ¾ exponent of the body mass. Comparison of a particular animal's brain size with the expected brain size based on such allometric analysis provides an encephalisation quotient that can be used as another indication of animal intelligence. Sperm whales have the largest brain mass of any animal on Earth, averaging and in mature males, in comparison to the average human brain which averages in mature males. The brain to body mass ratio in some odontocetes, such as belugas and narwhals, is second only to humans.


title: Whale

text: Small whales are known to engage in complex play behaviour, which includes such things as producing stable underwater toroidal air-core vortex rings or "bubble rings". There are two main methods of bubble ring production: rapid puffing of a burst of air into the water and allowing it to rise to the surface, forming a ring, or swimming repeatedly in a circle and then stopping to inject air into the helical vortex currents thus formed. They also appear to enjoy biting the vortex-rings, so that they burst into many separate bubbles and then rise quickly to the surface. Some believe this is a means of communication. Whales are also known to produce bubble-nets for the purpose of foraging.


title: Whale

text: Larger whales are also thought, to some degree, to engage in play. The southern right whale, for example, elevates their tail fluke above the water, remaining in the same position for a considerable amount of time. This is known as "sailing". It appears to be a form of play and is most commonly seen off the coast of Argentina and South Africa. Humpback whales, among others, are also known to display this behaviour.


title: Whale

text: Whales are fully aquatic creatures, which means that birth and courtship behaviours are very different from terrestrial and semi-aquatic creatures. Since they are unable to go onto land to calve, they deliver the baby with the fetus positioned for tail-first delivery. This prevents the baby from drowning either upon or during delivery. To feed the new-born, whales, being aquatic, must squirt the milk into the mouth of the calf. Being mammals, they have mammary glands used for nursing calves; they are weaned off at about 11 months of age. This milk contains high amounts of fat which is meant to hasten the development of blubber; it contains so much fat that it has the consistency of toothpaste. Females deliver a single calf with gestation lasting about a year, dependency until one to two years, and maturity around seven to ten years, all varying between the species. This mode of reproduction produces few offspring, but increases the survival probability of each one. Females, referred to as "cows", carry the responsibility of childcare as males, referred to as "bulls", play no part in raising calves.


title: Whale

text: Most mysticetes reside at the poles. So, to prevent the unborn calf from dying of frostbite, they migrate to calving/mating grounds. They will then stay there for a matter of months until the calf has developed enough blubber to survive the bitter temperatures of the poles. Until then, the calves will feed on the mother's fatty milk. With the exception of the humpback whale, it is largely unknown when whales migrate. Most will travel from the Arctic or Antarctic into the tropics to mate, calve, and raise during the winter and spring; they will migrate back to the poles in the warmer summer months so the calf can continue growing while the mother can continue eating, as they fast in the breeding grounds. One exception to this is the southern right whale, which migrates to Patagonia and western New Zealand to calve; both are well out of the tropic zone.


title: Whale

text: Unlike most animals, whales are conscious breathers. All mammals sleep, but whales cannot afford to become unconscious for long because they may drown. While knowledge of sleep in wild cetaceans is limited, toothed cetaceans in captivity have been recorded to sleep with one side of their brain at a time, so that they may swim, breathe consciously, and avoid both predators and social contact during their period of rest.


title: Whale

text: A 2008 study found that sperm whales sleep in vertical postures just under the surface in passive shallow 'drift-dives', generally during the day, during which whales do not respond to passing vessels unless they are in contact, leading to the suggestion that whales possibly sleep during such dives.


title: Whale

text: All whales are carnivorous and predatory. Odontocetes, as a whole, mostly feed on fish and cephalopods, and then followed by crustaceans and bivalves. All species are generalist and opportunistic feeders. Mysticetes, as a whole, mostly feed on krill and plankton, followed by crustaceans and other invertebrates. A few are specialists. Examples include the blue whale, which eats almost exclusively krill, the minke whale, which eats mainly schooling fish, the sperm whale, which specialize on squid, and the grey whale which feed on bottom-dwelling invertebrates. The elaborate baleen "teeth" of filter-feeding species, mysticetes, allow them to remove water before they swallow their planktonic food by using the teeth as a sieve. Usually whales hunt solitarily, but they do sometimes hunt cooperatively in small groups. The former behaviour is typical when hunting non-schooling fish, slow-moving or immobile invertebrates or endothermic prey. When large amounts of prey are available, whales such as certain mysticetes hunt cooperatively in small groups. Some cetaceans may forage with other kinds of animals, such as other species of whales or certain species of pinnipeds.


title: Whale

text: Large whales, such as mysticetes, are not usually subject to predation, but smaller whales, such as monodontids or ziphiids, are. These species are preyed on by the otv or orca. To subdue and kill whales, orcas continuously ram them with their heads; this can sometimes kill bowhead whales, or severely injure them. Other times they corral the narwhals or belugas before striking. They are typically hunted by groups of 10 or fewer orcas, but they are seldom attacked by an individual. Calves are more commonly taken by orcas, but adults can be targeted as well.


title: Whale

text: These small whales are also targeted by terrestrial and pagophilic predators. The polar bear is well adapted for hunting Arctic whales and calves. Bears are known to use sit-and-wait tactics as well as active stalking and pursuit of prey on ice or water. Whales lessen the chance of predation by gathering in groups. This however means less room around the breathing hole as the ice slowly closes the gap. When out at sea, whales dive out of the reach of surface-hunting orcas. Polar bear attacks on belugas and narwhals are usually successful in winter, but rarely inflict any damage in summer.


title: Whale

text: A 2010 study considered whales to be a positive influence to the productivity of ocean fisheries, in what has been termed a "whale pump." Whales carry nutrients such as nitrogen from the depths back to the surface. This functions as an upward biological pump, reversing an earlier presumption that whales accelerate the loss of nutrients to the bottom. This nitrogen input in the Gulf of Maine is "more than the input of all rivers combined" emptying into the gulf, some each year. Whales defecate at the ocean's surface; their excrement is important for fisheries because it is rich in iron and nitrogen. The whale faeces are liquid and instead of sinking, they stay at the surface where phytoplankton feed off it.


title: Whale

text: Upon death, whale carcasses fall to the deep ocean and provide a substantial habitat for marine life. Evidence of whale falls in present-day and fossil records shows that deep sea whale falls support a rich assemblage of creatures, with a global diversity of 407 species, comparable to other neritic biodiversity hotspots, such as cold seeps and hydrothermal vents.


title: Whale

text: Deterioration of whale carcasses happens though a series of three stages. Initially, moving organisms such as sharks and hagfish, scavenge the soft tissues at a rapid rate over a period of months, and as long as two years. This is followed by the colonization of bones and surrounding sediments (which contain organic matter) by enrichment opportunists, such as crustaceans and polychaetes, throughout a period of years. Finally, sulfophilic bacteria reduce the bones releasing hydrogen sulfide enabling the growth of chemoautotrophic organisms, which in turn, support other organisms such as mussels, clams, limpets, and sea snails. This stage may last for decades and supports a rich assemblage of species, averaging 185 species per site.


title: Whale

text: Whaling by humans has existed since the Stone Age. Ancient whalers used harpoons to spear the bigger animals from boats out at sea. People from Norway and Japan started hunting whales around 2000 B.C. Whales are typically hunted for their meat and blubber by aboriginal groups; they used baleen for baskets or roofing, and made tools and masks out of bones. The Inuit hunted whales in the Arctic Ocean. The Basques started whaling as early as the 11th century, sailing as far as Newfoundland in the 16th century in search of right whales. 18th- and 19th-century whalers hunted whales mainly for their oil, which was used as lamp fuel and a lubricant, baleen or whalebone, which was used for items such as corsets and skirt hoops, and ambergris, which was used as a fixative for perfumes. The most successful whaling nations at this time were the Netherlands, Japan, and the United States.


title: Whale

text: Commercial whaling was historically important as an industry well throughout the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries. Whaling was at that time a sizeable European industry with ships from Britain, France, Spain, Denmark, the Netherlands and Germany, sometimes collaborating to hunt whales in the Arctic, sometimes in competition leading even to war. By the early 1790s, whalers, namely the Americans and Australians, focused efforts in the South Pacific where they mainly hunted sperm whales and right whales, with catches of up to 39,000 right whales by Americans alone. By 1853, US profits reached US$11,000,000 (GB£6.5m), equivalent to US$348,000,000 (GB£230m) today, the most profitable year for the American whaling industry. Commonly exploited species included North Atlantic right whales, sperm whales, which were mainly hunted by Americans, bowhead whales, which were mainly hunted by the Dutch, common minke whales, blue whales, and grey whales. The scale of whale harvesting decreased substantially after 1982 when the International Whaling Commission (IWC) placed a moratorium which set a catch limit for each country, excluding aboriginal groups until 2004.


title: Whale

text: Current whaling nations are Norway, Iceland, and Japan, despite their joining to the IWC, as well as the aboriginal communities of Siberia, Alaska, and northern Canada. Subsistence hunters typically use whale products for themselves and depend on them for survival. National and international authorities have given special treatment to aboriginal hunters since their methods of hunting are seen as less destructive and wasteful. This distinction is being questioned as these aboriginal groups are using more modern weaponry and mechanized transport to hunt with, and are selling whale products in the marketplace. Some anthropologists argue that the term "subsistence" should also apply to these cash-based exchanges as long as they take place within local production and consumption. In 1946, the IWC placed a moratorium, limiting the annual whale catch. Since then, yearly profits for these "subsistence" hunters have been close to US$31 million (GB£20m) per year.


title: Whale

text: Whales can also be threatened by humans more indirectly. They are unintentionally caught in fishing nets by commercial fisheries as bycatch and accidentally swallow fishing hooks. Gillnetting and Seine netting is a significant cause of mortality in whales and other marine mammals. Species commonly entangled include beaked whales. Whales are also affected by marine pollution. High levels of organic chemicals accumulate in these animals since they are high in the food chain. They have large reserves of blubber, more so for toothed whales as they are higher up the food chain than baleen whales. Lactating mothers can pass the toxins on to their young. These pollutants can cause gastrointestinal cancers and greater vulnerability to infectious diseases. They can also be poisoned by swallowing litter, such as plastic bags. Advanced military sonar harms whales. Sonar interferes with the basic biological functions of whales—such as feeding and mating—by impacting their ability to echolocate. Whales swim in response to sonar and sometimes experience decompression sickness due to rapid changes in depth. Mass strandings have been triggered by sonar activity, resulting in injury or death. Whales are sometimes killed or injured during collisions with ships or boats. This is considered to be a significant threat to vulnerable whale populations such as the North Atlantic right whale, whose total population numbers less than 500.


title: Whale

text: Whaling decreased substantially after 1946 when, in response to the steep decline in whale populations, the International Whaling Commission placed a moratorium which set a catch limit for each country; this excluded aboriginal groups up until 2004. As of 2015, aboriginal communities are allowed to take 280 bowhead whales off Alaska and two from the western coast of Greenland, 620 grey whales off Washington state, three common minke whales off the eastern coast of Greenland and 178 on their western coast, 10 fin whales from the west coast of Greenland, nine humpback whales from the west coast of Greenland and 20 off St. Vincent and the Grenadines each year. Several species that were commercially exploited have rebounded in numbers; for example, grey whales may be as numerous as they were prior to harvesting, but the North Atlantic population is functionally extinct. Conversely, the North Atlantic right whale was extirpated from much of its former range, which stretched across the North Atlantic, and only remains in small fragments along the coast of Canada, Greenland, and is considered functionally extinct along the European coastline.


title: Whale

text: The IWC has designated two whale sanctuaries: the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary, and the Indian Ocean Whale Sanctuary. The Southern Ocean whale sanctuary spans and envelopes Antarctica. The Indian Ocean whale sanctuary takes up all of the Indian Ocean south of 55°S. The IWC is a voluntary organization, with no treaty. Any nation may leave as they wish; the IWC cannot enforce any law it makes.


title: Whale

text: There are at least 86 cetacean species that are recognized by the International Whaling Commission Scientific Committee. , six are considered at risk, as they are ranked "Critically Endangered" (North Atlantic right whale), "Endangered" (blue whale, North Pacific right whale, and sei whale), and "Vulnerable" (fin whale and sperm whale). Twenty-one species have a "Data Deficient" ranking. Species that live in polar habitats are vulnerable to the effects of recent and ongoing climate change, particularly the time when pack ice forms and melts.


title: Whale

text: An estimated 13 million people went whale watching globally in 2008, in all oceans except the Arctic. Rules and codes of conduct have been created to minimize harassment of the whales. Iceland, Japan and Norway have both whaling and whale watching industries. Whale watching lobbyists are concerned that the most inquisitive whales, which approach boats closely and provide much of the entertainment on whale-watching trips, will be the first to be taken if whaling is resumed in the same areas. Whale watching generated US$2.1 billion (GB£1.4 billion) per annum in tourism revenue worldwide, employing around 13,000 workers. In contrast, the whaling industry, with the moratorium in place, generates US$31 million (GB£20 million) per year. The size and rapid growth of the industry has led to complex and continuing debates with the whaling industry about the best use of whales as a natural resource.


title: Whale

text: As marine creatures that reside in either the depths or the poles, humans knew very little about whales over the course of human history; many feared or revered them. The Vikings and various arctic tribes revered the whale as they were important pieces of their lives. In Inuit creation myths, when 'Big Raven', a deity in human form, found a stranded whale, he was told by the Great Spirit where to find special mushrooms that would give him the strength to drag the whale back to the sea and thus, return order to the world. In an Icelandic legend, a man threw a stone at a fin whale and hit the blowhole, causing the whale to burst. The man was told not to go to sea for twenty years, but during the nineteenth year he went fishing and a whale came and killed him.


title: Whale

text: Whales played a major part in shaping the art forms of many coastal civilizations, such as the Norse, with some dating to the Stone Age. Petroglyphs off a cliff face in Bangudae, South Korea show 300 depictions of various animals, a third of which are whales. Some show particular detail in which there are throat pleats, typical of rorquals. These petroglyphs show these people, of around 7,000 to 3,500 B.C.E. in South Korea, had a very high dependency on whales.


title: Whale

text: The Pacific Islanders and Australian Aborigines viewed whales as bringers of good and joy. One exception is French Polynesia, where, in many parts, cetaceans are met with great brutality.


title: Whale

text: In coastal regions of China, Korea and Vietnam, the worship of whale gods, who were associated with Dragon Kings after the arrival of Buddhism, was present along with related legends.


title: Whale

text: In Vietnam and Ghana, among other places, whales hold a sense of divinity. They are so respected in their cultures that they occasionally hold funerals for beached whales, a throwback to Vietnam's ancient sea-based Austro-Asiatic culture. The god of the seas, according to Chinese folklore, was a large whale with human limbs.


title: Whale

text: Whales have also played a role in sacred texts. The story of Jonah being swallowed by a great fish is told both in the Qur'an and in the biblical Book of Jonah (and is mentioned by Jesus in the New Testament: Matthew 12:40.). This episode was frequently depicted in medieval art (for example, on a 12th-century column capital at the abbey church of Mozac, France). The Bible also mentions whales in Genesis 1:21, Job 7:12, and Ezekiel 32:2. The "leviathan" described at length in Job 41:1-34 is generally understood to refer to a whale. The "sea monsters" in Lamentations 4:3 have been taken by some to refer to marine mammals, in particular whales, although most modern versions use the word "jackals" instead.


title: Whale

text: In 1585, Alessandro Farnese, 1585, and Francois, Duke of Anjou, 1582, were greeted on his ceremonial entry into the port city of Antwerp by floats including "Neptune and the Whale", indicating at least the city's dependence on the sea for its wealth.


title: Whale

text: In 1896, an article in "The Pall Mall Gazette" popularised a practice of alternative medicine that probably began in the whaling town of Eden, Australia two or three years earlier. It was believed that climbing inside a whale carcass and remaining there for a few hours would relieve symptoms of rheumatism.


title: Whale

text: Whales continue to be prevalent in modern literature. For example, Herman Melville's "Moby Dick" features a "great white whale" as the main antagonist for Ahab. The whale is an albino sperm whale, considered by Melville to be the largest type of whale, and is partly based on the historically attested bull whale Mocha Dick. Rudyard Kipling's "Just So Stories" includes the story of "How the Whale got in his Throat". A whale features in the award-winning children's book "The Snail and the Whale" (2003) by Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler.


title: Whale

text: Niki Caro's film the "Whale Rider" has a Māori girl ride a whale in her journey to be a suitable heir to the chieftain-ship. Walt Disney's film "Pinocchio" features a showdown with a giant whale named Monstro at the end of the film.


title: Whale

text: A recording of "Song with a Humpback Whale" by a team of marine scientists became popular in 1970. Alan Hovhaness's orchestral composition "And God Created Great Whales" (1970) includes the recorded sounds of humpback and bowhead whales. Recorded whale songs also appear in a number of other musical works, including Léo Ferré's song "Il n'y a plus rien" and Judy Collins's "Farewell to Tarwathie" (on the 1970 album "Whales and Nightingales").


title: Whale

text: Belugas were the first whales to be kept in captivity. Other species were too rare, too shy, or too big. The first beluga was shown at Barnum's Museum in New York City in 1861. For most of the 20th century, Canada was the predominant source of wild belugas. They were taken from the St. Lawrence River estuary until the late 1960s, after which they were predominantly taken from the Churchill River estuary until capture was banned in 1992. Russia has become the largest provider since it had been banned in Canada. Belugas are caught in the Amur River delta and their eastern coast, and then are either transported domestically to aquariums or dolphinariums in Moscow, St. Petersburg, and Sochi, or exported to other countries, such as Canada. Most captive belugas are caught in the wild, since captive-breeding programs are not very successful.


title: Whale

text: As of 2006, 30 belugas were in Canada and 28 in the United States, and 42 deaths in captivity had been reported up to that time. A single specimen can reportedly fetch up to US$100,000 (GB£64,160) on the market. The beluga's popularity is due to its unique colour and its facial expressions. The latter is possible because while most cetacean "smiles" are fixed, the extra movement afforded by the beluga's unfused cervical vertebrae allows a greater range of apparent expression.


title: Whale

text: Between 1960 and 1992, the Navy carried out a program that included the study of marine mammals' abilities with sonar, with the objective of improving the detection of underwater objects. A large number of belugas were used from 1975 on, the first being dolphins. The program also included training them to carry equipment and material to divers working underwater by holding cameras in their mouths to locate lost objects, survey ships and submarines, and underwater monitoring. A similar program was used by the Russian Navy during the Cold War, in which belugas were also trained for antimining operations in the Arctic.


title: Whale

text: Aquariums have tried housing other species of whales in captivity. The success of belugas turned attention to maintaining their relative, the narwhal, in captivity. However, in repeated attempts in the 1960s and 1970s, all narwhals kept in captivity died within months. A pair of pygmy right whales were retained in an enclosed area (with nets); they were eventually released in South Africa. There was one attempt to keep a stranded Sowerby's beaked whale calf in captivity; the calf rammed into the tank wall, breaking its rostrum, which resulted in death. It was thought that Sowerby's beaked whale evolved to swim fast in a straight line, and a tank was not big enough. There have been attempts to keep baleen whales in captivity. There were three attempts to keep grey whales in captivity. Gigi was a grey whale calf that died in transport. Gigi II was another grey whale calf that was captured in the Ojo de Liebre Lagoon, and was transported to SeaWorld. The calf was a popular attraction, and behaved normally, despite being separated from his mother. A year later, the whale grew too big to keep in captivity and was released; it was the first of two grey whales, the other being another grey whale calf named JJ, to successfully be kept in captivity. There were three attempts to keep minke whales in captivity in Japan. They were kept in a tidal pool with a sea-gate at the Izu Mito Sea Paradise. Another, unsuccessful, attempt was made by the U.S. One stranded humpback whale calf was kept in captivity for rehabilitation, but died days later.


title: JFK (film)

text: JFK (released under the subtitle The Story That Won’t Go Away) is a 1991 American epic political thriller film written and directed by Oliver Stone. The film examines the events leading up to the assassination of John F. Kennedy in 1963 and its alleged cover-up, through the eyes of former New Orleans district attorney Jim Garrison. Garrison filed charges against Clay Shaw for his alleged participation in a conspiracy to assassinate Kennedy, for which Lee Harvey Oswald was found responsible by the Warren Commission.


title: JFK (film)

text: The film's screenplay was adapted by Stone and Zachary Sklar from the books "On the Trail of the Assassins" (1988) by Jim Garrison and "Crossfire: The Plot That Killed Kennedy" (1989) by Jim Marrs. Stone described this account as a "counter-myth" to the Warren Commission's "fictional myth."


title: JFK (film)

text: "JFK" became embroiled in controversy at the time of its release. Many major American newspapers ran editorials accusing Stone of taking liberties with historical facts, including the film's implication that Kennedy's vice president (and eventual successor) Lyndon B. Johnson was part of a "coup d'état" to kill Kennedy. Despite the controversy surrounding its historical depiction, "JFK" received critical praise for the performances of its cast, Stone's directing, score, editing, and cinematography. The film gradually picked up momentum at the box office after a slow start, earning over $205 million in worldwide gross, making it the sixth highest-grossing film of 1991 worldwide.


title: JFK (film)

text: "JFK" was nominated for eight Academy Awards, including Best Picture, and won two for Best Cinematography and Best Editing. It was the first of three films Stone made about American presidents, followed by "Nixon" and "W.".


title: JFK (film)

text: During his farewell address in 1961, outgoing President Dwight D. Eisenhower warns about the build-up of the "military-industrial complex". He is succeeded by John F. Kennedy as president, whose time in office is marked by the Bay of Pigs Invasion and the Cuban Missile Crisis until his assassination in Dealey Plaza on November 22, 1963. Kennedy's suspected assassin Lee Harvey Oswald is arrested for the murder of police officer J. D. Tippit but is killed by Jack Ruby. New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison and his team investigate potential New Orleans links to the JFK assassination, including private pilot David Ferrie, but their investigation is publicly rebuked by the federal government and Garrison closes the investigation.


title: JFK (film)

text: The investigation is reopened in 1966 after Garrison reads the Warren Report and notices what he believes to be multiple inaccuracies. Garrison and his staff interrogate people involved with Oswald and Ferrie. One such witness is Willie O'Keefe, a male prostitute serving five years in prison for soliciting, who says he witnessed Ferrie discussing about assassinating the President, as well as briefly meeting Oswald, and romantically involved with a man called "Clay Bertrand". Garrison and his team theorize Oswald was an agent of the Intelligence Agency and was framed for the assassination.


title: JFK (film)

text: In 1967, Garrison and his team talk to several witnesses to the Kennedy assassination, including Jean Hill, a teacher who says she witnessed a gunman shooting from the grassy knoll, that Secret Service threatened her into saying three shots came from the book depository, and her testimony was altered by the Warren Commission. Garrison's staff also test fire an empty rifle from the Texas School Book Depository from which Oswald was alleged to have shot Kennedy and conclude that Oswald was too poor a marksman to make the shots, indicating more than one shooter were involved. Garrison comes to believe New Orleans-based international businessman Clay Shaw is the same man as Bertrand. When Shaw is interrogated, the businessman denies any knowledge of meeting Ferrie, O'Keefe or Oswald. Some key witnesses become scared and refuse to testify while others, such as Ruby and Ferrie, are killed in suspicious circumstances. Before his death, Ferrie tells Garrison that he believes people are after him, and reveals there was a conspiracy to kill Kennedy. Garrison meets a high-level figure in Washington D.C. who identifies himself as "X". He suggests a "coup d'état" at the highest levels of government, implicating members of the CIA, the Mafia, the military-industrial complex, Secret Service, FBI, and Kennedy's vice-president and then president Lyndon Baines Johnson as either co-conspirators or as having motives to cover up the truth of the assassination. X suggests that Kennedy was killed because he wanted to pull the United States out of the Vietnam War and dismantle the CIA. X encourages Garrison to keep digging and prosecute Shaw. Shaw is soon charged with conspiring to murder the President.


title: JFK (film)

text: Some of Garrison's staff begin to doubt his motives and disagree with his methods, and leave the investigation. Garrison's marriage is strained when his wife Liz complains that he is spending more time on the case than with his own family. After a sinister phone call is made to their daughter, Liz accuses Garrison of being selfish and attacking Shaw only because of his homosexuality. In addition, television and newspaper media launch attacks, attacking Garrison's character and criticizing the way his office is spending taxpayers' money. Garrison suspects a connection with the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. and the assassination of Robert F. Kennedy.


title: JFK (film)

text: The trial of Clay Shaw takes place in 1969. Garrison presents the court with a dismissal of the single-bullet theory, proposing a scenario involving three assassins firing six shots and framing Oswald for the murders of Kennedy and Tippit, but the jury acquits Shaw after less than one hour of deliberation. Members of that jury state publicly that they believe there was a conspiracy behind the assassination, but not enough evidence to link Shaw to that conspiracy.


title: JFK (film)

text: Zachary Sklar, a journalist and a professor of journalism at the Columbia School of Journalism, met Garrison in 1987 and helped him rewrite a manuscript that he was working on about Kennedy's assassination. He changed it from a scholarly book in the third person to "a detective story – a whydunnit" in the first person. Sklar edited the book and it was published in 1988. While attending the Latin American Film Festival in Havana, Cuba, Stone met Sheridan Square Press publisher Ellen Ray on an elevator. She had published Jim Garrison's book "On the Trail of the Assassins". Ray had gone to New Orleans and worked with Garrison in 1967. She gave Stone a copy of Garrison's book and told him to read it. He did and quickly bought the film rights with $250,000 of his own money to prevent talk going around the studios about projects he might be developing.


title: JFK (film)

text: Kennedy's assassination had always had a profound effect on Stone: "The Kennedy murder was one of the signal events of the postwar generation, my generation." Stone met Garrison and grilled him with a variety of questions for three hours. Garrison stood up to Stone's questioning and then got up and left. His pride and dignity impressed the director. Stone's impressions from their meeting were that "Garrison made many mistakes. He trusted a lot of weirdos and followed a lot of fake leads. But he went out on a limb, way out. And he kept going, even when he knew he was facing long odds."


title: JFK (film)

text: Stone was not interested in making a film about Garrison's life, but rather the story behind the conspiracy to kill Kennedy. He also bought the film rights to Jim Marrs' book "Crossfire: The Plot That Killed Kennedy". One of the filmmaker's primary goals with "JFK" was to provide a rebuttal to the Warren Commission's report that he believed was "a great myth. And in order to fight a myth, maybe you have to create another one, a counter-myth." Even though Marrs' book collected many theories, Stone was hungry for more and hired Jane Rusconi, a recent Yale University graduate, to lead a team of researchers and assemble as much information about the assassination as possible while the director completed post-production on "Born on the Fourth of July". Stone read two dozen books on the assassination while Rusconi read between 100 and 200 books on the subject.


title: JFK (film)

text: By December 1989, Stone began approaching studios to back his film. While in pre-production on "The Doors", he met with three executives at Warner Bros. who wanted him to make a film about Howard Hughes. However, Warren Beatty owned the rights and so Stone pitched "JFK". Studio president and chief operating officer Terry Semel liked the idea. He had a reputation for making political and controversial films, including "All the President's Men", "The Parallax View" and "The Killing Fields". Stone made a handshake deal with Warner Bros. whereby the studio would get all the rights to the film and put up $20 million for the budget. The director did this so that the screenplay would not be widely read and bid on, and he also knew that the material was potentially dangerous and wanted only one studio to finance it. Finally, Stone liked Semel's track record of producing political films.


title: JFK (film)

text: When Stone set out to write the screenplay, he asked Sklar (who also edited Marrs' book) to co-write it with him and distill the Garrison and Marrs books and Rusconi's research into a script that would resemble what he called "a great detective movie." Stone told Sklar his vision of the film:


title: JFK (film)

text: Sklar worked on the Garrison side of the story while Stone added the Oswald story, the events at Dealey Plaza and the "Mr. X" character. Sklar spent a year researching and writing a 550-page triple-spaced screenplay and then Stone rewrote it and condensed it closer to normal screenplay length. Stone and Sklar used composite characters, most notably the "Mr. X" character played by Donald Sutherland. This was a technique that would be criticized in the press. He was a mix of Richard Case Nagell and retired Air Force colonel Fletcher Prouty, another adviser for the film and who was a military liaison between the CIA and the Pentagon. Meeting Prouty was, for Stone, "one of the most extraordinary afternoons I've ever spent. Pretty much like in the movie, he just started to talk." According to Stone:


title: JFK (film)

text: The screenplay's early drafts suggested a four and a half-hour film with a potential budget of $40 million – double what Stone had agreed to with Warner Bros. The director knew film mogul Arnon Milchan and met with him to help finance the film. Milchan was eager to work on the project and launch his new company, Regency Enterprises, with a high profile film like "JFK". Milchan made a deal with Warner Bros. to put up the money for the film. Stone managed to pare down his initial revision, a 190-page draft, to a 156-page shooting script.


title: JFK (film)

text: There were many advisers for the film, including Gerald Hemming, a former Marine who claimed involvement in various CIA activities, and Robert Groden, a self-proclaimed photographic expert and longtime JFK assassination researcher and author.


title: JFK (film)

text: Stone later published "JFK: The Documented Screenplay", a heavily annotated version of the screenplay in which he cites sources for nearly every claim made in the film ().


title: JFK (film)

text: Trying to cast the role of Garrison, Stone sent copies of the script to Costner, Mel Gibson, and Harrison Ford. Initially, Costner turned Stone down. However, the actor's agent, Michael Ovitz, was a big fan of the project and helped Stone convince the actor to take the role. Before accepting the role, Costner conducted extensive research on Garrison, including meeting the man and his enemies. Two months after finally signing on to play Garrison in January 1991, his film "Dances with Wolves" won seven Academy Awards and so his presence greatly enhanced "JFK"s bankability in the studio's eyes.


title: JFK (film)

text: Tommy Lee Jones was originally considered for another role that was ultimately cut from the film and Stone then decided to cast him as Shaw. In preparation for the film, Jones interviewed Garrison on three different occasions and talked to others who had worked with Shaw and knew him.


title: JFK (film)

text: Stone originally wanted James Woods to play David Ferrie, but Woods wanted to play Garrison. Stone also approached Willem Dafoe and John Malkovich, who both turned down the role.


title: JFK (film)

text: According to Gary Oldman, very little was written about Oswald in the script. Stone gave him several plane tickets, a list of contacts, and told him to do his own research. Oldman met with Oswald's wife, Marina, and her two daughters to prepare for the role. Beata Poźniak studied 26 volumes of the Warren Report and spent time living with Marina Oswald. Since the script contained few lines for the Oswalds, Poźniak interviewed acquaintances of the Oswalds in order to improvise her scenes with Gary Oldman.


title: JFK (film)

text: Many actors were willing to waive their normal fees because of the nature of the project and to lend their support. Martin Sheen provided the opening narration. Jim Garrison played Chief Justice Earl Warren, during the scene in which he questions Jack Ruby in a Dallas jail and in a TV appearance. Assassination witness Beverly Oliver, who claims to be the "Babushka Lady" seen in the Zapruder film, also appeared in a cameo in Ruby's club. Sean Stone, Oliver Stone's son, plays Garrison's oldest son Jasper. Perry Russo, one of the sources for the fictional character Willie O'Keefe, appeared in a cameo as an angry bar patron who says Oswald should get a medal for shooting Kennedy.


title: JFK (film)

text: The story revolves around Costner's Jim Garrison, with a large cast of well-known actors in supporting roles. Stone was inspired by the casting model of the documentary epic "The Longest Day", which he had admired as a child: "It was realistic, but it had a lot of stars ... the supporting cast provides a map of the American psyche: familiar, comfortable faces that walk you through a winding path in the dark woods."


title: JFK (film)

text: Cinematographer Robert Richardson was a week and a half into shooting "City of Hope" for John Sayles when he got word that Stone was thinking about making "JFK". By the time principal photography wrapped on "City of Hope", Richardson was ready to make Stone's film. To prepare, Richardson read up on various JFK assassination books starting with "On the Trail of the Assassins" and "Crossfire: The Plot That Killed Kennedy".


title: JFK (film)

text: The original idea was to film the opening sequence in 1.33:1 aspect ratio in order to simulate the TV screens that were available at the time of the assassination, then transition to 1.85:1 when Garrison began his investigation, and finally switch to 2.35:1 for scenes occurring in 1968 and later. However, because of time constraints and logistics, Richardson was forced to abandon this approach.


title: JFK (film)

text: Stone wanted to recreate the Kennedy assassination in Dealey Plaza. His producers had to pay the Dallas City Council a substantial amount of money to hire police to reroute traffic and close streets for three weeks. He only had ten days to shoot all of the footage he needed and so he used seven cameras (two 35 mm and five 16 mm) and 14 film stocks. Getting permission to shoot in the Texas School Book Depository was more difficult. They had to pay $50,000 to put someone in the window from which Oswald was supposed to have shot Kennedy. They were allowed to film in that location only between certain hours with only five people on the floor at one time: the camera crew, an actor and Stone. Co-producer Clayton Townsend has said that the hardest part was getting the permission to restore the building to the way it looked back in 1963. It took five months of negotiation.


title: JFK (film)

text: The production spent $4 million to restore Dealey Plaza to 1963 conditions. Stone utilized a variety of film stocks. Richardson said, "It depends whether you want to shoot in 35 or 16 or Super 8. In many cases the lighting has to be different." For certain shots in the film, Stone employed multiple camera crews shooting at once, using five cameras at the same time in different formats. Richardson said of Stone's style of direction, "Oliver disdains convention, he tries to force you into things that are not classic. There's this constant need to stretch." This forced the cinematographer to use lighting in diverse positions and rely very little on classic lighting modes. Shooting began on April 15, 1991 and ended on July 31, lasting 78 days with filming finished four-and-a-half months before the release date.


title: JFK (film)

text: "JFK" marked a fundamental change in the way that Stone constructed his films: a subjective lateral presentation of the plot, with the editing's rhythm carrying the story. Stone brought in Hank Corwin, an editor of commercials, to help edit the film. Stone chose him because his "chaotic mind" was "totally alien to the film form." Stone also commented that Corwin "had not developed the long form yet. And so a lot of his cuts were very chaotic." Stone employed extensive use of flashbacks within flashbacks for a specific effect. He said in an interview: Because of being shot on various sized film stocks, conventional 35mm film editing was impossible. Although digital editing was in nascent form, LightWorks and AVID were still not available as editing systems when editing began on "JFK". For that reason, all the footage was transferred to 3/4" videotape and edited on videotape. The 35mm film negative, along with the other sized film stocks were then conformed to match the videotape edit.


title: JFK (film)

text: Years after its release, Stone said of the film that it "was the beginning of a new era for me in terms of film making because it's not just about a conspiracy to kill John Kennedy. It's also about the way we look at our recent history ... It shifts from black and white to color, and then back again, and views people from offbeat angles."


title: JFK (film)

text: Because of his enormous commitment to Steven Spielberg's "Hook", which opened the same month as "JFK", composer John Williams did not have time to compose a conventional score for the entire film. Instead he composed and conducted six musical sequences in full for "JFK" before he saw the film in its entirety. Soon after recording this music, he traveled to New Orleans where Stone was still shooting the film and saw approximately an hour's worth of edited footage and dailies. Williams remembers, "I thought his handling of Lee Harvey Oswald was particularly strong, and I understood some of the atmosphere of the film – the sordid elements, the underside of New Orleans." Stone and his team then actually cut the film to fit Williams' music after the composer had scored and recorded musical cues in addition to the six he had done prior to seeing the film. For the motorcade sequence, Williams described the score he composed as "strongly kinetic music, music of interlocking rhythmic disciplines." The composer remembered the moment he learned of Kennedy's assassination and it stuck with him for years. This was a significant factor in his deciding to work on the film. Williams said, "This is a very resonant subject for people of my generation, and that's why I welcomed the opportunity to participate in this film."


title: JFK (film)

text: The film has been well received by both cinema critics and regular audiences. On review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 84% based on 64 reviews, with an average rating of 7.70/10. The website's critics consensus reads, "As history, Oliver Stone's "JFK" is dubious, but as filmmaking it's electric, cramming a ton of information and excitement into its three-hour runtime and making great use of its outstanding cast." On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average of 72 out of 100 based on 29 reviews, indicating "generally favorable reviews". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "A" on an A+ to F scale.


title: JFK (film)

text: The film's production and release were subject to intense scrutiny and criticism. A few weeks after shooting had begun, on May 14, 1991, Jon Margolis wrote in the "Chicago Tribune" that "JFK" was "an insult to the intelligence." Five days later, "The Washington Post" ran a scathing article by national security correspondent George Lardner titled, "On the Set: Dallas in Wonderland" that used the first draft of the "JFK" screenplay to blast it for "the absurdities and palpable untruths in Garrison's book and Stone's rendition of it." The article pointed out that Garrison lost his case against Clay Shaw and that he inflated his case by trying to use Shaw's homosexual relationships to prove guilt by association. Stone responded to Lardner's article by hiring a public relations firm that specialized in political issues. Other critical articles soon followed. Anthony Lewis in "The New York Times" stated that the film "tells us that our government cannot be trusted to give an honest account of a Presidential assassination." "Washington Post" columnist George Will called Stone "a man of technical skill, scant education and negligible conscience."


title: JFK (film)

text: "Time" ran its own critique of the film-in-progress on June 10, 1991 and alleged that Stone was trying to suppress a rival JFK assassination film based on Don DeLillo's 1988 novel "Libra". Stone rebutted these claims in a letter to the magazine.


title: JFK (film)

text: Whatever one's suspicions about its use or abuse of the evidence, "JFK" is a knockout. Part history book, part comic book, the movie rushes toward judgment for three breathless hours, lassoing facts and factoids by the thousands, then bundling them together into an incendiary device that would frag any viewer's complacency. Stone's picture is, in both meanings of the word, sensational: it's tip-top tabloid journalism. In its bravura and breadth, "JFK" is seditiously enthralling; in its craft, wondrously complex.


title: JFK (film)

text: The filmmaker ended up splitting his time between making his film, responding to criticism, and conducting a publicity campaign of his own that saw him "omnipresent, from "CBS Evening News", to "Oprah"." However, the Lardner "Post" piece stung the most because Lardner had stolen a copy of the script. Stone recalls, "He had the first draft, and I went through probably six or seven drafts."


title: JFK (film)

text: Upon theatrical release, it polarized critics. "The New York Times" ran an article by Bernard Weinraub entitled, "Hollywood Wonders If Warner Brothers let "JFK" Go Too Far." The article called for intervention by the studio: "At what point does a studio exercise its leverage and blunt the highly charged message of a film maker like Oliver Stone?" The newspaper also ran a review of the film by Vincent Canby who wrote, "Mr. Stone's hyperbolic style of film making is familiar: lots of short, often hysterical scenes tumbling one after another, backed by a soundtrack that is layered, strudel-like, with noises, dialogue, music, more noises, more dialogue." Pat Dowell, film critic for "The Washingtonian", had her 34-word capsule review for the January issue rejected by her editor John Limpert on the grounds that he did not want the magazine to give a positive review to a film he felt was "preposterous." Dowell resigned in protest.


title: JFK (film)

text: The "Miami Herald" said about the controversy in its review, "the focus on the trivialities of personality conveniently prevents us from having to confront the tough questions [Stone's] film raises." However, Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert gave the film two thumbs up on their television show. Writing for the "Chicago Tribune", Siskel called the film "thoroughly compelling" and suggested that while it contained "gross alterations of fact," Stone had "the right to speculate on American history." Ebert praised the film in his review for the "Chicago Sun-Times", saying,


title: JFK (film)

text: On Christmas Day, the "Los Angeles Times" ran a critical article entitled "Suppression of the Facts Grants Stone a Broad Brush." "New York Newsday" followed suit the next day with two articles – "The Blurred Vision of "JFK"" and "The Many Theories of a Jolly Green Giant." A few days later, the "Chicago Sun-Times" followed suit with "Stone's Film Trashes Facts, Dishonors J.F.K." Jack Valenti, then president and chief executive of the Motion Picture Association of America, denounced Stone's film in a seven-page statement. He wrote: "In much the same way, young German boys and girls in 1941 were mesmerized by Leni Riefenstahl's "Triumph of the Will", in which Adolf Hitler was depicted as a newborn God. Both "JFK" and "Triumph of the Will" are equally a propaganda masterpiece and equally a hoax. Mr. Stone and Leni Riefenstahl have another genetic linkage: neither of them carried a disclaimer on their film that its contents were mostly pure fiction." Stone recalls in an interview, "I can't even remember all the threats, there were so many of them."


title: JFK (film)

text: "TIME" magazine ranked it the fourth best film of 1991, while also including it in "Top 10 Historically Misleading Films" in 2011.


title: JFK (film)

text: Roger Ebert went on to name Stone's film as the year's best and one of the top ten films of the decade as well as one of The Great Movies. Gene Siskel ranked it the seventh best film of the year. The "Sydney Morning Herald" named "JFK" as the best film of 1991. "Entertainment Weekly" ranked it the 5th Most Controversial Movie Ever.


title: JFK (film)

text: Ebert's future colleague Richard Roeper was less complimentary: "One can admire Stone's filmmaking skills and the performances here while denouncing the utter crapola presented as 'evidence' of a conspiracy to murder." Roeper applauded the film's "dazzling array of filmmaking techniques and a stellar roster of actors" but criticized Stone's narrative: "As a work of fantastical fiction, "JFK" is an interesting if overblown vision of a parallel universe. As a dramatic interpretation of events, it's journalistically bankrupt nonsense."


title: JFK (film)

text: Harry Connick Sr., the New Orleans district attorney who defeated Garrison in 1973, criticized Stone's view of the assassination: "Stone was either unaware of the details and particulars of the Clay Shaw investigation and trial or, if he was aware, that didn't get in his way of what he perceived to be the way the case should have been." In his book "", a history of the assassination published 16 years after the film's release, Vincent Bugliosi devoted an entire chapter to Garrison's prosecution of Shaw and Stone's subsequent film. Bugliosi lists thirty-two separate "lies and fabrications" in Stone's film and describes the film as "one continuous lie in which Stone couldn't find any level of deception and invention beyond which he was unwilling to go." David R. Wrone stated that "80 percent of the film is in factual error" and rejected the premise of a conspiracy involving the CIA and the so-called military-industrial complex as "irrational." Warren Commission investigator David Belin called the film "a big lie that would make Adolf Hitler proud". Former Indiana Representative Floyd Fithian, who had served on the House Select Committee on Assassinations said the film had manipulated the past.


title: JFK (film)

text: "JFK" was released in theaters on December 20, 1991. In its first week of release, "JFK" tied with "Beauty and the Beast" for fifth place in the U.S. box office and its critics began to say it was a flop. Warner Brothers executives argued that this was at least partly because the film's long running time meant it had had fewer screenings than other films. Box-office picked up momentum, however, in part due to a $15 million marketing campaign from the studio. By the first week in January 1992, it had grossed over $50 million worldwide, eventually earning over $200 million worldwide and $70 million in the United States during its initial run.


title: JFK (film)

text: Garrison's estate subsequently sued Warner Bros. for a share of the film's profits, alleging fraud perpetrated through a book-keeping practice known as "Hollywood accounting." The lawsuit contended that "JFK" made in excess of $150 million worldwide but the studio claimed that, under its "net profits" accounting formula, the film earned no money, and that Garrison's estate did not receive any of the more than $1 million net profits income he was due.


title: JFK (film)

text: Upon winning the Golden Globe Award for Best Director – Motion Picture, Stone said in his acceptance speech: "A terrible lie was told to us 28 years ago. I hope that this film can be the first step in righting that wrong."


title: JFK (film)

text: "Entertainment Weekly" ranked "JFK" as one of the 25 "Powerful Political Thrillers". In 2012, the Motion Picture Editors Guild listed the film as the ninth best-edited film of all time based on a survey of its membership.


title: JFK (film)

text: The final report of the Assassination Records Review Board (ARRB) partially credited concern over the conclusions in "JFK" with the passage of the President John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection Act of 1992, also known as the JFK Act.


title: JFK (film)

text: The ARRB stated that the film "popularized a version of President Kennedy's assassination that featured U.S. government agents from the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), and the military as conspirators." While describing the film as "largely fictional", the ARRB acknowledged Stone's point that official records were to be sealed from the public until 2029, and his suggestion that "Americans could not trust official public conclusions when those conclusions had been made in secret." By ARRB law, all existing assassination-related documents were to be made public by 2017, and most are now released.


title: JFK (film)

text: The original theatrical cut of "JFK" was released on VHS and Laserdisc on May 20, 1992. The "Director's Cut" of the film, extending it to 206 minutes, was released on VHS and laserdisc in 1993. The Director's Cut was released on DVD in 1997. The theatrical cut has not been released on physical media in the US since the 1992 laserdisc, although it has been released on both DVD and Blu-ray internationally. As of 2018, the theatrical cut and the director's cut are both available for digital download and streaming in the United States.


title: JFK (film)

text: On January 16, 2001, the Director's Cut was re-released on DVD as part of the Oliver Stone Collection box-set, with the film on one disc and supplemental material on the second. Stone contributed several extras to this edition, including an audio commentary, two multimedia essays, and 54 minutes' worth of deleted/extended scenes with optional commentary by Stone.


title: JFK (film)

text: On November 11, 2003, a "Special Edition" DVD of the Director's Cut was released with the film on one disc and all of the extras from the 2001 edition on a second disc, in addition to a 90-minute documentary entitled, "Beyond JFK: The Question of Conspiracy".


title: JFK (film)

text: The Director's Cut was released on Blu-ray on November 11, 2008. The disc features many of the extras included on the previous DVD releases, including the "Beyond JFK: The Question of Conspiracy" documentary.


title: JFK (film)

text: The "back and to the left" scene was parodied on an episode on the cult animated sitcom "The Critic".


title: JFK (film)

text: The film is referenced twice in the 90s sitcom "Family Matters" by Waldo Faldo, who pronounces the name literally. During a date with Laura Winslow, he says "We should've seen 'Jifkuh'." When Laura corrects him with "Oh you mean JFK.", he responds "I know how it's spelled!" The second time was following his date with Maxine, where the movie choices were either "Malcolm X" (which he believes stood for the Roman numeral 10) or "Jifkuh".


title: The Butterfly Effect

text: The Butterfly Effect is a 2004 American science fiction thriller film written and directed by Eric Bress and J. Mackye Gruber. It stars Ashton Kutcher, Amy Smart, Eric Stoltz, William Lee Scott, Elden Henson, Logan Lerman, Ethan Suplee, and Melora Walters. The title refers to the butterfly effect.


title: The Butterfly Effect

text: Kutcher plays 20-year-old college student Evan Treborn, who experiences blackouts and memory loss throughout his childhood. Later, in his 20s, Evan finds he can travel back in time to inhabit his former self during those periods of blackout, with his adult mind inhabiting his younger body. He attempts to change the present by changing his past behaviors and set things right for himself and his friends, but there are unintended consequences for all. The film draws heavily on flashbacks of the characters' lives at ages 7 and 13 and presents several alternative present-day outcomes as Evan attempts to change the past, before settling on a final outcome.


title: The Butterfly Effect

text: The film had a poor critical reception; however, it was a commercial success, generating box-office revenues of $96 million on a budget of $13 million. The film won the Pegasus Audience Award at the Brussels International Fantastic Film Festival, and was nominated for Best Science Fiction Film at the Saturn Awards and Choice Movie: Thriller in the Teen Choice Awards, but lost to "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" and "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre", another film from New Line Cinema, respectively.


title: The Butterfly Effect

text: Growing up, Evan Treborn and his friends, Lenny Kagan and Kayleigh Miller, and Kayleigh's brother Tommy, suffered many severe psychological traumas that frequently caused Evan to experience amnesia. These traumas include being forced to take part in child pornography by Kayleigh and Tommy's father, George Miller; being nearly strangled to death by his institutionalized father, Jason Treborn, who is then killed in front of him by guards; accidentally killing a mother and her infant daughter while playing with dynamite with his friends; and seeing his dog, Crockett, burned alive by Tommy.


title: The Butterfly Effect

text: Some time later, while entertaining a girl in his college dorm room, Evan discovers that when he reads from his adolescent journals, he can time travel and redo parts of his past. His time-traveling episodes account for the frequent blackouts he experienced as a child since those are the moments that his adult self occupied his consciousness. After a traumatized Kayleigh kills herself, he travels back in time and convinces George to never touch her. He comes back to a reality where he and Kayleigh are a happy couple living in college. However, in this reality, George took out his frustrations in Tommy, who grew to be even more unhinged. Tommy eventually attacks Evan, who kills him in a fit of rage and goes to prison for it. There, he manages to travel back to when Tommy was going to kill his dog and stops him from doing so, but Lenny, who is bullied by Tommy and has become mentally unstable after the dynamite accident, kills the boy. Evan wakes up in a reality where Lenny has been institutionalized and Kayleigh has become a drug-addicted prostitute. He now travels back and stops the woman and her daughter from being killed with the dynamite, but is himself caught up in the explosion. In the new reality, Lenny and Kayleigh are a happy couple and Tommy has become religious, but Evan is a double amputee and his mother developed lung cancer after becoming a chainsmoker due to Evan's condition. To save his mother and himself from such a fate, Evan goes back to before the explosion to try and get rid of the dynamite, but accidentally kills Kayleigh in the process.


title: The Butterfly Effect

text: Evan wakes up in a mental hospital and finds that, in this reality, the journals do not exist and his brain has suffered irreversible damage (the assimilation of dozens of years' worth of new memories from the alternative timelines causes him progressively worsening brain lesions). At one point, Evan has a conversation with a doctor who reveals that his father had the same abilities before losing the photographs (in the new reality) that allowed him to time jump, causing everyone to believe him to be crazy (he tried to kill Evan when he realized his son inherited his curse). Evan ultimately reaches the conclusion that he and his friends will never have good futures as long as he keeps altering the past.


title: The Butterfly Effect

text: After escaping the hospital staff and barricading himself in an office, Evan travels back one final time, via the use of an old home-movie, to the day he first met Kayleigh as a child. He intentionally upsets her so that she and Tommy will choose to live with their mother in a different neighborhood, instead of with their father when they divorce. As a result, they are not subjected to a destructive upbringing, do not grow up with Evan, Lenny is never bullied, and all go on to have happy, successful lives. Evan awakens in a college dorm room, where Lenny is his roommate. As a test, he asks where Kayleigh is, to which Lenny responds "Who's Kayleigh?" Satisfied that his friends' futures are secure, Evan burns his journals and videos to avoid altering the timeline ever again.


title: The Butterfly Effect

text: Eight years later in New York City, Evan exits an office building and passes Kayleigh on the street. Despite a brief look towards each other, they both keep walking.


title: The Butterfly Effect

text: With his brain terribly damaged and aware that he is committed to a psychiatric facility where he will lose access to his time travel ability, Evan makes a desperate attempt to change the timeline by watching a family video, which shows his mother just before she was about to give birth to Evan. Evan travels back to that moment and strangles himself in the womb with his umbilical cord so as to prevent the multi-generational curse from continuing, consistent with an added scene where a psychic palm reader tells Evan "you have no lifeline" and that he does "not belong to this world".


title: The Butterfly Effect

text: Kayleigh is then seen as a child in the new timeline having chosen to live with her mother instead of her father, and a montage suggests that the lives of the other childhood characters have become loving and less tragic.


title: The Butterfly Effect

text: In addition, Callum Keith Rennie plays Jason, Evan's father, while Nathaniel Deveaux plays Dr. Redfield.


title: The Butterfly Effect

text: Critical reception for "The Butterfly Effect" was generally poor. On review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds a 33% approval rating based on 172 reviews; the rating average is 4.8/10. The site's consensus reads: "The premise is intriguing, but it's placed in the service of an overwrought and tasteless thriller." On Metacritic, another review aggregator, it has a score of 30 out of 100 based on 35 reviews, indicating "generally unfavorable reviews".


title: The Butterfly Effect

text: Roger Ebert wrote that he "enjoyed "The Butterfly Effect", up to a point" and that the "plot provides a showcase for acting talent, since the actors have to play characters who go through wild swings." However, Ebert said that the scientific notion of the butterfly effect is used inconsistently: Evan's changes should have wider reverberations. Sean Axmaker of the "Seattle Post-Intelligencer" called it a "metaphysical mess", criticizing the film's mechanics for being "fuzzy at best and just plain sloppy the rest of the time". Mike Clark of "USA Today" also gave the film a negative review, stating, "Normally, such a premise comes off as either intriguing or silly, but the morbid subplots (there's prison sex, too) prevent "Effect" from becoming the unintentional howler it might otherwise be." Additionally, Ty Burr of "The Boston Globe" went as far as saying, "whatever train-wreck pleasures you might locate here are spoiled by the vile acts the characters commit."


title: The Butterfly Effect

text: Matt Soergel of "The Florida Times-Union" rated it 3 stars out of 4, writing, ""The Butterfly Effect" is preposterous, feverish, creepy and stars Ashton Kutcher in a dramatic role. It's a blast... a solidly entertaining B-movie. It's even quite funny at times..." "The Miami Herald" said, ""The Butterfly Effect" is better than you might expect despite its awkward, slow beginning, drawing you in gradually and paying off in surprisingly effective and bittersweet ways," and added that Kutcher is "appealing and believable... "The Butterfly Effect" sticks to its rules fairly well... overall the film is consistent in its flights of fancy." The "Worcester Telegram & Gazette" praised it as "a disturbing film" and "the first really interesting film of 2004," adding that Kutcher "carries it off":


title: The Butterfly Effect

text: In a retrospective, Peter Bradshaw of "The Guardian" wrote that critics, including himself, were too harsh on the film at the time of its release. Describing the film as having been patronized, Bradshaw cited critical disdain for Kutcher as making the film uncool to like.


title: The Butterfly Effect

text: The film was a commercial success, earning $17,065,227 and claiming the #1 spot in its opening weekend. Against a $13 million budget, "The Butterfly Effect" grossed around $57,938,693 at the U.S. box office and $96,060,858 worldwide.


title: The Butterfly Effect

text: The film was released on both VHS, as well as DVD as the Infinifilm edition on July 6, 2004. This edition was released with the theatrical cut (113 minutes) on one side and the director's cut (120 minutes) on the other. The DVD also includes two documentaries (""The Science and Psychology of the Chaos Theory"" and ""The History and Allure of Time Travel""), a trivia subtitle track, filmmaker commentary by directors Eric Bress and J. Mackye Gruber, deleted and alternative scenes, and a short feature called "The Creative Process" among other things.


title: The Butterfly Effect

text: "The Butterfly Effect 2" was released on DVD on October 10, 2006. It was directed by John R. Leonetti and was largely unrelated to the original film. It features a brief reference to the first film in the form of a newspaper headline referring to Evan's father, as well as using the same basic time travel mechanics. It received a negative reception from Reel Film Reviews, which called it "An abominable, pointless sequel."


title: The Butterfly Effect

text: The third installment in the series, "", was released by After Dark Films in 2009. This sequel follows the life of a young man who journeys back in time in order to solve the mystery surrounding his high school girlfriend's death. This film has no direct relation to the first two and uses different time travel mechanics. Reel Film Reviews characterized the third installment as "A very mild improvement over the nigh unwatchable "Butterfly Effect 2"."


title: Evil Dead Rise

text: Evil Dead Rise is an upcoming American supernatural horror film written and directed by Lee Cronin. The film serves as the fifth installment in the "Evil Dead" franchise. The film stars Alyssa Sutherland, Lily Sullivan, Gabrielle Echols, Morgan Davies, Nell Fisher, and Mia Challis. The film follows two sisters trying to survive and save their family from demonic creatures known as Deadites.


title: Evil Dead Rise

text: The film's development was preceded by scrapped plans for sequels to "Evil Dead" (2013) and "Army of Darkness" (1992) that would have led to a crossover. By October 2019, Raimi announced that a new film was in development, with Robert G. Tapert producing, while Raimi and Bruce Campbell executive produce, and Cronin writing and directing the project. New Line Cinema (the first film's distributor) was announced as a production company involved, alongside Ghost House Pictures.


title: Evil Dead Rise

text: Originally intended for a digital release on HBO Max, "Evil Dead Rise" is scheduled to be released theatrically on April 21, 2023, by Warner Bros. Pictures.