title: Nadia Alexander

text: Nadia Alexander (born April 5, 1994 in Columbia, South Carolina) is an American actress. She has performed in several television series, including "The Sinner" (2017) and "Seven Seconds" (2018)"." She won the award for Best Actress in a U.S. Narrative Film at the 2017 Tribeca Film Festival for her performance in "Blame" (2017) and was nominated for a Fangoria Chainsaw Award for Best Actress for her performance in "The Dark" (2019).


title: Nadia Alexander

text: Alexander began acting at the age of six, when she was cast in a Pittsburgh-area regional stage production of "The Sound of Music" as Gretl. She worked professionally throughout her childhood at most of southwestern Pennsylvania's Equity theaters, including Pittsburgh Public Theater, where she won first place in their annual Shakespeare Monologue Competition for three consecutive years.


title: Nadia Alexander

text: In 2007, Alexander moved to New York City, and began doing commercial and episodic television work. While still in high school, Alexander performed off-Broadway in "There Are No More Big Secrets" at Rattlestick Playwrights Theater. Her first feature film performance was in the independent movie "Postales". She went on to appear in "Ten Thousand Saints" and "Fan Girl".


title: Nadia Alexander

text: In 2010, she made a guest appearance on an episode of "Law & Order." Since then, she has worked on several television series, including "Boardwalk Empire" (2011), "The Following" (2015), "The Sinner" (2017), and "Seven Seconds" (2018)"."


title: Nadia Alexander

text: In 2017, she played a lead role in "Blame" (2017). The film screened at several film festivals, and for her work Alexander won the award for Best Actress in a U.S. Narrative Film at the 2017 Tribeca Film Festival.


title: Nadia Alexander

text: Alexander identifies as pansexual. Since 2015, she has been in a relationship with her "Blame" co-star and director Quinn Shephard. On the final day of shooting the film "Not Okay", which Shephard directed and Alexander acted in, Alexander proposed marriage to Shephard, and Shephard accepted.


title: William Jefferson Blythe Jr.

text: William Jefferson Blythe Jr. (February 27, 1918 – May 17, 1946) was an Arkansas salesman of heavy equipment and the biological father of Bill Clinton, the 42nd president of the United States. Three months before his son was born, Blythe drowned following a car crash.


title: William Jefferson Blythe Jr.

text: William Jefferson Blythe Jr. was one of nine children born to William Jefferson Blythe (1884–1935), a farmer in Sherman, Texas, and his wife, the former Lou Birchie Ayers (1893–1946). Blythe Sr. was of English and Scottish descent, with a family tree in North America since the days of the thirteen colonies.


title: William Jefferson Blythe Jr.

text: Blythe was married five times. He married for the first time in December 1935 to Virginia Adele Gash; they were divorced only thirteen months later. However, Virginia Gash and Blythe remained friends, and she visited him on occasion. A son was conceived during these visits, and Henry Leon Blythe was born in Sherman, Texas in January 1938, eighteen months after his parents had been divorced.


title: William Jefferson Blythe Jr.

text: Blythe married his second wife, 21-year-old Maxine Hamilton, in August 1938; they divorced two weeks later.


title: William Jefferson Blythe Jr.

text: Blythe next married Minnie Faye Gash, his first wife's sister, in December 1940. The marriage was annulled four months later in April 1941, without children.


title: William Jefferson Blythe Jr.

text: Shortly after the annulment on May 3, 1941, Blythe married again. His fourth wife was Wanetta Ellen Alexander of Kansas City, Missouri, and the wedding was held in Jackson County, Missouri. Wanetta gave birth to Blythe's daughter on May 11, 1941, eight days after their wedding. She had become pregnant with Blythe's child prior to his short-lived third marriage to Minnie. Their daughter, Sharon Lee Blythe Pettijohn, died on April 22, 2022. Blythe and Wanetta were formally divorced three years later, in April 1944, and lost touch immediately afterward. Wanetta, who eventually settled in Tucson, Arizona, had no inkling of Blythe's subsequent history until the presidential campaign of 1992 and a "Washington Post" story. Upon seeing old photographs of Bill Clinton's father flashed on TV, Wanetta "swears on a stack of Bibles ... that that was the man she was married to", said her son-in-law Bob Pettijohn, husband of her daughter Sharon.


title: William Jefferson Blythe Jr.

text: Blythe's divorce from Wanetta was granted in court on April 13, 1944. Seven months prior on September 4, 1943, Blythe had bigamously married Virginia Dell Cassidy of Bodcaw, Arkansas. Blythe and Virginia remained married until his death in a car crash on May 17, 1946. Three months after Blythe's death on August 19, 1946, Virginia gave birth to their only child, William Jefferson Blythe III. Bill, as a teen, took his stepfather's surname and became known as Bill Clinton, the future 42nd president of the United States. Virginia Blythe-Clinton had no knowledge of Blythe's previous marriages until decades later when "The Washington Post" ran an extensive story in 1993, based on birth and marriage registry records, to mark Father's Day.


title: William Jefferson Blythe Jr.

text: Blythe's eldest son, Henry Leon Blythe, never knew his biological father or paternal siblings. After their divorce, Virginia Gash moved to California and married first a man named Coffelt, then a man named Charles Ritzenthaler. She had lost touch with Blythe when their son was an infant, after he briefly married and then divorced her sister. Later in life, Henry Leon Blythe took the name Henry Leon Ritzenthaler in honor of his stepfather. Henry ran several small businesses in Paradise, California, including a janitorial business, dying in 2009. He was unaware of his connection to the future president until the presidential campaign of 1992, when an investigation by "The Washington Post", based on birth registry records, revealed details of Bill Clinton's family. Ritzenthaler met his half-brother for the first time around that time, and the physical resemblance between the two was remarkable.


title: William Jefferson Blythe Jr.

text: Blythe was a traveling heavy equipment salesman for most of his brief career. It was while he worked as a travelling salesman that he met and married all his wives. After his fifth wedding in September 1943, Blythe shipped out for military service in World War II. He was stationed in Egypt and Italy. He worked in a motor pool as a mechanic, repairing jeeps and tanks.


title: William Jefferson Blythe Jr.

text: After the war ended, Blythe returned to Hope, Arkansas, to be with his wife. Shortly after he returned, he purchased a house in Chicago and readied it to receive his wife and expected child; he was apparently laying the ground for a more settled and conventional married life. Blythe moved to the new house in Chicago while Virginia remained behind in Hope. In Chicago, Blythe returned to his old job as a traveling salesman for the Manbee Equipment Company, which repaired heavy machinery. He died three months before the birth of his son.


title: William Jefferson Blythe Jr.

text: On May 17, 1946, while traveling from Chicago, Illinois, to Hope, Arkansas, Blythe lost control of his 1942 Buick on U.S. Route 60 outside of Sikeston, Missouri, after one of his car's tires blew out. He survived the crash after being thrown from the car, but drowned in a drainage ditch as he tried to pull his way out of the three feet (1 meter) of water in the ditch. Three months later, Blythe's widow, Virginia, gave birth to their son, whom she named William Jefferson Blythe III in honor of his father and grandfather. In 1950, Blythe's widow married Roger Clinton Sr.; 12 years later, Blythe's posthumous son legally adopted his stepfather's surname. He has a granddaughter, Chelsea Clinton, and 3 great-grandchildren.


title: William Jefferson Blythe Jr.

text: Blythe was buried at Rose Hill Cemetery in Hope, Hempstead County, Arkansas. In 1994, Virginia was interred beside him. In Clinton's 2004 autobiography, "My Life", the elder Blythe was extensively mentioned, including a visit that Clinton made to the site where his father drowned.


title: Archibald Roosevelt

text: Archibald Bulloch Roosevelt (April 9, 1894 – October 13, 1979) was a distinguished U.S. Army officer and commander of U.S. forces in both World War I and II, and the fifth child of U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt. In both conflicts he was wounded. He earned the Silver Star with three oak leaf clusters, Purple Heart with oak leaf cluster and the French Croix de Guerre. After World War II, he became a successful businessman and the founder of a New York City bond brokerage house, as well as a spokesman for conservative political causes.


title: Archibald Roosevelt

text: As a child, Archie was very quiet but very mischievous – especially when he was with his brother Quentin; growing up, Archie and Quentin were very close. They rarely left each other's side and had very few fights. But as for the other siblings, Archie was not close to either Kermit or Ethel, because they would gang up on him. Ted would help beat up Kermit for him and would also tell their mother, Edith, about Ethel, who would often get in trouble. Alice was ten years older than Archie, and he barely remembered her being around, since she would often go places with other family members and friends. Archie was an avid reader and very good at putting puzzles together quickly. His father remarked to him, "Archie, my smart boy, never give up your smartness; that goes for you and your brother Quentin."


title: Archibald Roosevelt

text: After being expelled from Groton, Archie continued his education at the Evans School for Boys, and graduated from Phillips Academy, Andover, Mass., in 1913. He went on to Harvard University, where he graduated in 1917.


title: Archibald Roosevelt

text: Archie was born in Washington, D.C., the fourth child of President Theodore "T.R." Roosevelt, Jr. and Edith Kermit Carow. He had three brothers, Ted (Theodore III), Kermit, and Quentin, a sister Ethel, and a half-sister Alice. Archie was named for his maternal great-great-great-grandfather Archibald Bulloch, a patriot of the American Revolution.


title: Archibald Roosevelt

text: His first cousin was Eleanor Roosevelt and his fifth cousin, once removed was Franklin D. Roosevelt. He was uncle to Kermit Roosevelt Jr., Joseph Willard Roosevelt, Dirck Roosevelt, Belle Wyatt "Clochette" Roosevelt, Grace Green Roosevelt, Theodore Roosevelt III, Cornelius V.S. Roosevelt, and Quentin Roosevelt II. His sister-in-law was Belle Wyatt Willard Roosevelt, and his grandniece was Susan Roosevelt Weld, the former wife of Massachusetts Governor William F. Weld.


title: Archibald Roosevelt

text: Archie volunteered for the United States Army during 1917, shipped over to France, and was wounded while serving with the U.S. 1st Infantry Division. His wounds were so severe he was discharged from the Army with full disability. He had ended the war as an Army captain. For his valor, Archie received two Silver Star Citations (later converted to the Silver Star medal when it was established in 1932) and the French government's Croix de Guerre.


title: Archibald Roosevelt

text: After the death of his father in 1919, he sent a telegram informing all his siblings that "the old lion is dead".


title: Archibald Roosevelt

text: After the end of the war, he worked for a time as an executive with the Sinclair Consolidated Oil Company, as vice president of the Union Petroleum Company, the export auxiliary subsidiary of Sinclair Consolidated. At the same time his eldest brother Ted was Assistant Secretary of the Navy. In 1922, Albert B. Fall, U.S. Secretary of the Interior, leased, without competitive bidding, the Teapot Dome Field to Harry F. Sinclair of Sinclair Oil, and the field at Elk Hills, California, to Edward L. Doheny of Pan American Petroleum & Transport Company, both fields part of the Navy's petroleum reserves. The connection between the Roosevelt brothers could not be ignored. After Sinclair sailed for Europe to avoid testifying, G. D. Wahlberg, Sinclair's private secretary, advised Archibald Roosevelt to resign to save his reputation. Eventually, after resigning from Sinclair, Roosevelt gave key testimony to the Senate Committee on Public Lands probing the Teapot Dome scandal, in which Roosevelt was not implicated, but where Sinclair and Doheny both gave "personal loans" to Secretary Fall. Following this, Roosevelt took a job working for a cousin in the family investment firm, Roosevelt & Son.


title: Archibald Roosevelt

text: In the summer of 1932, Archie, former President Calvin Coolidge, former Solicitor General William Marshall Bullitt, Admiral Richard E. Byrd, and General James Harbord, among others, formed a conservative pressure group known as the National Economy League, which called for balancing the federal budget by cutting appropriations for veterans in half.


title: Archibald Roosevelt

text: Following the Attack on Pearl Harbor, Roosevelt petitioned President Franklin D. Roosevelt to put his battlefield-honed leadership skills to worthwhile use supporting the war effort. The president approved his request and he rejoined the Army with a commission as a Major. Roosevelt was given command in early 1943 of the US Army's 3rd Battalion, 162nd Infantry Regiment also called the 162 Regimental Combat Team, (RCT), 41st Infantry Division in New Guinea commanding this unit until early 1944. Working with the Australian 3rd Division, Roosevelt and his battalion landed in New Guinea's Nassau Bay, on July 8, 1943.


title: Archibald Roosevelt

text: Overcoming significant command ambiguities between American and Australian forces because of overlapping spheres of operation, Roosevelt played an important role in the Salamaua campaign. His service was recognized when one of the hotly contested ridge-lines northwest of the island's Tambu Bay was named in his honor. This piece of key terrain during the campaign was originally referred to as "Roosevelt's Ridge" to mark the ridge nearest his battalion to higher HQ. Later, it was referred to as "Roosevelt Ridge" as it was depicted in the official American and Australian campaign histories as well as the US Army Air Force World War II Chronology. See left map.


title: Archibald Roosevelt

text: On August 12, 1943, Roosevelt was wounded by an enemy grenade, which shattered the same knee that had been injured in World War I, and for which he had been earlier medically retired, earning him the distinction of being the only American to ever be classified as 100% disabled twice for the same wound incurred in two different wars. At the time of his injury, command of his battalion passed to his executive officer, Major Taylor. Archie returned to his unit in early 1944. For these actions in the Pacific Theater of Operations, Roosevelt was awarded his second and third oak leaf clusters to the Silver Star in lieu of additional awards.


title: Archibald Roosevelt

text: Following the end of the war, Archie Roosevelt formed the investment firm of Roosevelt and Cross, a brokerage house specializing in municipal bonds. It is still a going concern with offices in New York City, Providence, Buffalo and Hartford. In 1953 he joined the Empire State Society of the Sons of the American Revolution of which both his father and elder brother had been members.


title: Archibald Roosevelt

text: During the early 1950s, Archie became affiliated with a variety of right-wing organizations and causes. He joined the John Birch Society and was the founder of the Veritas Foundation, which was dedicated to rooting out presumed socialist influences at Harvard and other major colleges and universities. Writing in the book "America's Political Dynasties" (Doubleday, 1966), Stephen Hess commented: "Archie Roosevelt has, in recent years, added the family's name to many ultra-rightist causes. As a trustee of the Veritas Foundation he was a leader among those seeking to root out subversion at Harvard. He also sent a letter to every U.S. Senator, stating 'modern technical civilization does not seem to be as well-handled by the black man as by the white man in the United States.' Present civil rights difficulties he blamed on 'socialist plotters.'" Roosevelt also compiled 1968's incendiary "Theodore Roosevelt On Race, Riots, Reds, Crime." He was also the chief sponsor behind "The Alliance," a short-lived organization of the 1950s.


title: Archibald Roosevelt

text: In 1954, when the Theodore Roosevelt Association made a decision to award the Theodore Roosevelt Medal for Distinguished Public Service to black diplomat Ralph Bunche, Archie loudly protested the award. He even went so far as to write and publish a 44-page pamphlet that attempted to prove Bunche had been working as an agent of the "International Communist Conspiracy" for more than two decades.


title: Archibald Roosevelt

text: Archie additionally served as president for an organization named The Alliance, Inc., where Zygmund Dobbs was Research Director. The Alliance published books by Dobbs such as "Red Intrigue and Race Turmoil" (New York: The Alliance, Inc., 1958), for which Archie wrote forewords. In the foreword to "The Great Deceit: Social Pseudo-Sciences", Archie wrote: "Socialists have infiltrated our schools, our law courts, our government, our MEDIA OF COMMUNICATIONS... the Socialist movement is made up of a relatively small number of people who have developed the TECHNIQUE OF INFLUENCING large masses of people to a VERY HIGH DEGREE." Johnson's book, "Color, Communism, and Common Sense", was quoted by G. Edward Griffin in his 1969 motion picture lecture "More Deadly than War ... the Communist Revolution in America". In 1958, as president of The Alliance, Inc., Roosevelt wrote the preface for Manning Johnson's semi-memoir, semi-polemical tract "Color, Communism, and Common Sense".


title: Archibald Roosevelt

text: Archie married Grace Lockwood, daughter of Thomas Lockwood and Emmeline Stackpole, at the Emmanuel Church in Boston, Massachusetts, on April 14, 1917. The couple spent most of their married life in a pre-Revolutionary house on Turkey Lane in Cold Spring Harbor, New York, not far from Oyster Bay, where they had four children:


title: Archibald Roosevelt

text: In 1971, Archie's wife, Grace Lockwood Roosevelt, died in an automobile crash near her home on Turkey Lane in Cold Spring Harbor, with her husband at the wheel.


title: Archibald Roosevelt

text: On October 13, 1979, Roosevelt died of a stroke at the Stuart Convalescent Home in Stuart, Florida. He was 85 years old, the last child of Theodore and Edith to die (although his half-sister Alice would outlive him by four months). He is buried with his wife at Youngs Memorial Cemetery, Oyster Bay. His tombstone reads: "The old fighting man home from the wars."


title: Archibald Roosevelt

text: Roosevelt's grandson is Tweed Roosevelt (b. 1942), who is the chairman of Roosevelt China Investments, and is the President of the Board of Trustees of the Theodore Roosevelt Association.


title: Begum Para

text: Begum Para (née Zubeda Ul Haq; 25 December 1926 – 9 December 2008) was an Indian Hindi film actress who was active mostly in the 1940s and 1950s. After almost 50 years of absence in the industry, she returned to films with her last role in Sanjay Leela Bhansali's "Saawariya" (2007) as Sonam Kapoor's grandmother. In her times in 1950s, she was considered a glamour girl of Bollywood, so much so, that "Life" magazine had a special session with her devoted to her fine sensuous photographs.


title: Begum Para

text: Begum Para was born as Zubeda Ul Haq in Jhelum in British India (present day in Pakistan). Her family was from Aligarh. Her father, Mian Ehsanul-Haq, was a judge who at some point in his life went into the judicial service of the princely state of Bikaner, now northern Rajasthan, where he became chief justice of its highest court. He was a fine cricketer of his time. She was brought up very disciplined yet liberal. She spent her childhood in Bikaner. She was educated at the Aligarh Muslim University. Her elder brother Masrurul Haq, had gone off to Bombay in the late 1930s to become an actor. There he had met and fell in love with the Bengali actress Protima Dasgupta, and married her.


title: Begum Para

text: Whenever she visited them in Bombay, she was quite taken up with the glitzy world of her sister-in-law. She used to accompany her on many occasions and get-togethers. People would get quite impressed with her looks and offer her a lot of roles. One such offer came from Sashadhar Mukherjee and Devika Rani. Her father consented to her wishes reluctantly, and requested her to never work in Lahore.


title: Begum Para

text: Begum Para's first break turned out to be 1944 film "Chand", from Prabhat Studios in Poona. Prem Adib was the hero, and Sitara Devi was the vamp in the film. It did extremely well and Para started getting paid about Rs. 1500 a month. Soon after, she and her sister-in-law Protima made a film called "Chhamia" (1945) based on the novel ‘Pygmalion’, which again was a huge success. Para signed a lot of films after "Chhamia", but she couldn’t quite establish herself as an actress. Because she had a highly scandalous image, people always gave her the role of glamour doll in most films. She did not mind this because she always played herself on screen.


title: Begum Para

text: She did "Sohni Mahiwal" (1946) and "Zanjeer" (1947) with Ishwarlal and Dikshit; "Neel Kamal" (1947) with Raj Kapoor; "Mehendi" (1947) with Nargis; "Suhaag Raat" (1948) with Bharat Bhushan and Geeta Bali; "Jhalka" (1948); and "Meherbani" (1950) with Ajit Khan. She also worked in "Ustad Pedro" (1951), produced and directed by the then well-known actor, Sheikh Mukhtar. It was a fun film, and was packed with action, romance, and stunts.


title: Begum Para

text: In 1951 she posed for photographer James Burke for a "Life" magazine photo shoot. Para's last role was in the movie "Kar Bhala" in 1956. She was also offered to play Nigar Sultana’s role 'Bahar' in "Mughal-e-Azam" (1960). However, she refused to play the role because she considered it against her image.


title: Begum Para

text: She made a powerful comeback on the silver screen in Sanjay Leela Bhansali's "Saawariya" in 2007 as Sonam Kapoor's grandmother (after over 50 years of disappearance in movies and eventually became her final film, before her death the following year, 2008).


title: Begum Para

text: She married actor Nasir Khan, the younger brother of Bollywood actor Dilip Kumar. They had three children, including the actor Ayub Khan. Begum Para's father Mian Ehsan-ul-Haq of Jalandhar, was a judge who joined the princely state of Bikaner, now northern Rajasthan, where he became chief justice of its highest court. Her husband died in 1974. Following her husband's death, she briefly moved to Pakistan in 1975 to be with her family, two years later she relocated back to India.


title: Manmadhudu 2

text: Manmadhudu 2 () is a 2019 Indian Telugu-language romantic comedy film directed by Rahul Ravindran. It is produced by Nagarjuna and P. Kiran under Annapurna Studios, Anandi Art Creations and Viacom18 Studios. It stars Nagarjuna and Rakul Preet Singh, with music composed by Chaitan Bharadwaj. The film is an official remake of the French film "I Do" (2006) and is a spiritual successor to Nagarjuna's "Manmadhudu" (2002).


title: Manmadhudu 2

text: Samba Siva Rao / Sam is an aged bachelor and a perfumer by profession who lives in Portugal, creator of Gucci Bloom. In his youth, a breakup with Suma (Keerthy Suresh) due to the traditional harassment of his family makes him averse to the concept of marriage and pushes him to believe in flings. However, his family consists of his mother (Lakshmi) and three sisters - Swarnalatha (Jhansi), Sangeetha (Devadarshini), and Swetha (Nishanthi Evani) - give an ultimatum to enter wedlock within three months. To solve the problem, Sam enters into a contract and hires a young girl named Avantika (Rakul Preet Singh) to act as his fiancé for a few weeks and ditch him on the wedding day so that his family will leave him alone. As Avantika, wants to adopt her deceased sister's son for which a bank balance is obligatory as per Portuguese rules, she also agrees. However, the situation changes when Sam's family gets emotionally closer to Avantika and even she too. According to the plan, Avantika absconds. As a result, Sam's mother collapses from a heart attack. To rescue her from danger, Sam again hires Avantika with Plan B: to act horribly towards the family so that they do not like her anymore. In that process, Avantika shifts to Sam's residence when the two start liking each other, but Sam maintains silence because of the age gap. A grief-stricken Avantika completes their contract and takes off. At last, Sam stands up to his family, confesses his schemes, and expresses his love for Avantika, which she overhears and comes back. Finally, the movie ends on a happy note with the marriage of Sam and Avantika and the couple adopting Avanthika's nephew.


title: Manmadhudu 2

text: Movie launched on March 25, 2019 with a formal puja ceremony in Annapurna Studios, Hyderabad. Naga Chaitanya, Amala Akkineni, Sumanth and Sushanth has graced the event.


title: Manmadhudu 2

text: After filming some important scenes in some locations at Portugal, the team wrapped up the schedule and returned to Hyderabad.


title: Manmadhudu 2

text: "The Times of India" gave 3.5 out of 5 stars stating "The director missed a trick or two with the climax but gets almost everything else bang on, ensuring a hilarious entertainer that you wouldn't mind watching on repeat. Too much of something can be an overkill, they often say. But when it comes to Vennela Kishore's comedy in Manmadhudu 2, that doesn't ring true. In fact, it only leaves you wanting for more". "India Today" gave 3.5 out of 5 stars stating "Manmadhudu 2, directed by Rahul Ravindran, aims to be a breezy entertainer but it barely scratches the surface. Witty one-liners and a handful of neatly crafted moments are the only takeaways from Manmadhudu 2". "Firstpost" gave 3.5 out of 5 stars stating "This could have been a meaningful drama about toxic relationships, but Rahul Ravindran does not quite dig deep into that aspect of the film. This could also have been a film about a man who is afraid of breakups because that seems more unbearable than being lonely, but we do not see enough of that. This could have been about a family trying to make Sam understand the meaning of happiness and companionship, but all we get to see is a bunch of them trying all sorts of things to convince Sam, except for pouring their hearts out to him directly. Manmadhudu 2 could have been so much more than what it is but it ends up nowhere".


title: Manmadhudu 2

text: "The Indian Express" gave 3 out of 5 stars stating "Rahul Ravindran has not set this story in a perfect world. The hero’s family is regressive in its thinking even as all of them seem lovely. The hero is a womanizer. Sam also seems to enjoy trips to strip clubs and so on. And yet, the film is not crass. It is an imperfect world and we should accept something good even if we find it in the most unlikely places". "The New Indian Express" gave 3.5 out of 5 stars stating "Save for a few comic sequences provided by Vennela Kishore, Manmadhudu 2 is a bumpy ride that struggles to take off at the right time. The convoluted plot devoid of the emotional arc makes it a dreary affair". "The News Minute" gave 2 out of 5 stars stating "The film has its moments but holds itself back too much and Nagarjuna's character, especially, needs more work".


title: Manmadhudu 2

text: Sangeetha Devi Dundoo of "The Hindu" wrote "Manmadhudu 2 doesn’t live up to that promise and here’s hoping that with the next one, Rahul will be back in form". "Hindustan Times" gave 3.5 out of 5 stars stating "Despite decent performances by the film’s lead cast, Nagarjuna and Rakul Preet Singh, the film’s writing is a huge let down. Except for a couple of funny one-liners, the film is a disgrace and shouldn’t belong to the world of Manmadhudu". "Deccan Chronicle" gave 3.5 out of 5 stars stating "Manmadhudu 2 is a big blunder from Nagarjuna, who bought the remake rights of the French film. He spoke very highly about this film but it does not come to pass. The film’s leading lights stressed many times that the film is for a family audience, it is anything but that".


title: Great Expectations (1946 film)

text: Great Expectations is a 1946 British drama film directed by David Lean, based on the 1861 novel by Charles Dickens and starring John Mills and Valerie Hobson. The supporting cast included Bernard Miles, Francis L. Sullivan, Anthony Wager, Jean Simmons, Finlay Currie, Martita Hunt and Alec Guinness.


title: Great Expectations (1946 film)

text: The script is based on a slimmed-down version of Dickens' novel. It was written by David Lean, Anthony Havelock-Allan, Cecil McGivern, Ronald Neame and Kay Walsh, after Lean had seen an abridged 1939 stage version of the novel, written by Alec Guinness. In the stage version, Guinness had played Herbert Pocket while Martita Hunt played Miss Havisham, roles that they reprised for the film. However, the film was not a strict adaptation of the play. The film was produced by Ronald Neame and photographed by Guy Green. It was the first of two films Lean directed based on Dickens' novels, the other being his 1948 adaptation of "Oliver Twist".


title: Great Expectations (1946 film)

text: John Bryan and Wilfred Shingleton won the Academy Award for Best Art Direction, Black-and-White, while Guy Green won for Best Cinematography, Black-and-White. The film was also nominated for Best Director, as well as Best Screenplay Adaptation, and Best Picture. The film is now regarded as one of Lean's best; in 1999, on the British Film Institute's Top 100 British films list, "Great Expectations" was named the 5th greatest British film of all time.


title: Great Expectations (1946 film)

text: Orphan Phillip "Pip" Pirrip lives with his shrewish older sister and her kindhearted blacksmith husband, Joe Gargery. While visiting his parents' graves alone, Pip encounters an escaped convict, Abel Magwitch, who intimidates the boy into returning the next day with blacksmith's tools to remove his chains. Pip also brings some food. Famished, Magwitch devours the food and thanks him. Magwitch is caught when he attacks a hated fellow escapee rather than fleeing.


title: Great Expectations (1946 film)

text: Miss Havisham, a rich, eccentric spinster, arranges to have Pip come to her mansion regularly to provide her with company and to play with her adopted daughter, beautiful but cruel teenager Estella. Estella mocks Pip's coarse manners at every opportunity, but Pip quickly falls in love with her. He also meets a boy, Herbert Pocket, whom he beats in an impromptu boxing match. The visits come to an end when Pip turns 14 and begins his apprenticeship as a blacksmith. Estella also leaves, for France, to learn the ways of a lady.


title: Great Expectations (1946 film)

text: Six years later, Miss Havisham's lawyer Mr Jaggers visits Pip to tell him a mysterious benefactor has offered to transform him into a gentleman with "great expectations"; Pip assumes it is Miss Havisham. He is taken to London and stays with Herbert Pocket, who is to teach him how to behave like a gentleman. From Herbert, Pip learns that Miss Havisham was left at the altar many years ago and that she is determined to avenge herself against men, with Estella as her instrument to break men's hearts.


title: Great Expectations (1946 film)

text: When Pip turns 21, Joe Gargery brings a request from Miss Havisham to visit her. There Pip is reunited with Estella, who tells him, "You must know, Pip, I have no heart." She confesses to Pip that, despite flirting with the wealthy but unpopular Bentley Drummle, she has absolutely no feelings for him.


title: Great Expectations (1946 film)

text: Back in London, Pip receives an unexpected visitor: Magwitch, who escaped from prison again and made a fortune sheep-farming in New South Wales, Australia. Magwitch reveals that he is Pip's benefactor, and that he was so touched by Pip's kindness, he resolved to prosper so Pip could live a gentleman's life. He tells the "dear boy" that he considers him his son.


title: Great Expectations (1946 film)

text: Growing suspicious of Drummle's overtures towards Estella, Pip visits Estella. She tells him she is going to marry Drummle. Pip confronts Miss Havisham, saying, "I am as unhappy as you could have ever meant me to be." Miss Havisham begs his forgiveness. Pip leaves, but when she stands to follow him, a piece of flaming wood from the fireplace rolls out and ignites her dress. Her screams alert Pip, who runs back to save her, but fails.


title: Great Expectations (1946 film)

text: After being warned that an old enemy has learned that Magwitch is in London, Pip and Herbert plot to smuggle the old man onto a packet ship leaving England, on which Pip is to accompany him. They row out to the ship, but are intercepted by waiting police, tipped off by Magwitch's old enemy. Magwitch is injured in a struggle, but his nemesis is pushed down to his death by the ship's paddlewheels. Magwitch is captured and sentenced to death.


title: Great Expectations (1946 film)

text: Magwitch had spoken to Pip of his lost daughter, and Pip's suspicion that she is Estella is confirmed by Jaggers. Pip visits Magwitch, now dying in prison, and tells him of her fate and that he, Pip, is in love with her. Magwitch dies a contented man.


title: Great Expectations (1946 film)

text: Stricken by illness and with his expectations gone, Pip is taken home and nursed back to health by Joe Gargery. He revisits Miss Havisham's deserted house, where he finds Estella. Drummle broke off their engagement when Jaggers informed him of her parentage. Learning that Estella plans to live in seclusion in the house, which she has inherited, Pip tears down the curtains and opens the boarded-up windows. Sunlight reveals cobwebs, dust and decay. Pip tells Estella that he has never stopped loving her. After hesitating, she embraces him and they leave the house together.


title: Great Expectations (1946 film)

text: Restoration House in Rochester was Dickens' inspiration for "Satis House", the decaying mansion of Miss Havisham. The production reproduced Restoration House in Denham Film Studios in Buckinghamshire.


title: Great Expectations (1946 film)

text: Dickens based Joe Gargery's house on the forge in the village of Chalk, near Gravesend, Kent – a replica was erected on St Mary's Marshes on the Isle of Grain on the Thames Estuary. Pip and Herbert Pocket arrange to meet Magwitch and help him escape at Chatham Docks where slip 8 was used for the scene as well as exterior shots of the prison hulk ships. The River Medway and the adjacent St Mary's Marshes appear in scenes where Pip and his friend, Herbert Pocket, row their boat to a small inn whilst waiting for the paddle steamer to arrive. The ship used in the film was called "Empress", dating from the latter half of the nineteenth century and owned by Cosens & Co Ltd of Weymouth. She was brought down to the River Medway for the shoot. "New masts were stepped-in with square rigging and dummy sails, the funnel was lengthened and the paddle-boxes enlarged until it looked exactly right."


title: Great Expectations (1946 film)

text: The company was based at Rochester, and stayed for six weeks at the Royal Victoria and Bull Hotel – the "Blue Boar" in Dickens' novel. The unit for the location work for the film was based on a derelict naval fort on Darnett Ness Island in the River Medway.


title: Great Expectations (1946 film)

text: The script is a slimmed-down version of Dickens' novel. It was inspired after David Lean witnessed an abridged 1939 stage version of the novel, by Alec Guinness. Guinness had played Herbert Pocket, and Martita Hunt was Miss Havisham in the stage version of 1939. The script for the film was written by David Lean, Anthony Havelock-Allan, Cecil McGivern, Ronald Neame and Kay Walsh.


title: Great Expectations (1946 film)

text: David Lean approached Clemence Dane to write the script, but considered what she wrote "so awful [-] It was hideously embarrassing" – that he decided he and Ronald Neame should write their own versions. In January 1945 they went to the "Ferry Boat Inn" at Fowey in Cornwall and wrote a continuity. When Lean worked on "Brief Encounter" Neame worked on the script with Havelock-Allan, and later with Cecil McGivern. Kay Walsh was another writer given a screen credit and wrote the ending.


title: Great Expectations (1946 film)

text: Alec Guinness admired the way Lean directed him, singling out a close-up in which he had to laugh out loud, and which he struggled to make look un-manufactured. Lean told him to forget about the whole thing, sat by his side, and made a little signal to the camera to start turning in the course of the conversation. He said something which made Guinness laugh and then said, "Cut". Guinness: "So he got this shot on a totally false premise... but thank God. I don't think I would have ever achieved it otherwise". Valerie Hobson however called the experience of working with Lean on the film "the unhappiest" and called him "a cold director – he gave me nothing at all as an actress".


title: Great Expectations (1946 film)

text: At the end of the film, a shot of Valerie Hobson staring into a mirror was taking longer than anticipated and was suspended – it was lunchtime – and returned to in the afternoon. Later, some three months after the film had been on exhibition, a cinema-goer asked what was meant by a Chad being reflected in the mirror. It seems that a worker on the film had drawn it on the wall during the break in filming, and it is dimly visible in the final scene behind John Mills' shoulder as he says "I've never ceased to love you when there seemed no hope in my love".


title: Great Expectations (1946 film)

text: The musical score is credited to Walter Goehr, known primarily as a conductor, but significant portions were actually written by Kenneth Pakeman.


title: Great Expectations (1946 film)

text: The film won critical praise on first release, with many commentators hailing it as the finest film yet made from a Dickens novel. Dilys Powell, writing for "The Sunday Times", was "grateful for cinema which includes so much of Dickens, which constructs its narrative from the original material with scarcely an intrusion" and Richard Winnington, in the "News Chronicle", wrote that "Dickens has never before been rendered effectively into cinema terms". Gavin Lambert however, writing for the short-lived, but influential "Sequence" magazine, felt "that it is not so much an attempt to recreate Dickens on the screen, as a very graceful evasion of most of the issues". In America James Agee praised the film – "almost never less than graceful, tasteful and intelligent".


title: Great Expectations (1946 film)

text: A 1999 review in the US by Roger Ebert noted the film as "the greatest of all the Dickens films" and added that "The movie was made by Lean at the top of his early form".


title: Great Expectations (1946 film)

text: It was also the third most popular film at the British box office in 1947 and most popular movie at the Canadian box office in 1948. According to "Kinematograph Weekly" the 'biggest winner' at the box office in 1947 Britain was "The Courtneys of Curzon Street", with "runners up" being "The Jolson Story", "Great Expectations", "Odd Man Out", "Frieda", "Holiday Camp" and "Duel in the Sun".


title: Great Expectations (1946 film)

text: The film's critical status has generally stayed high. Kevin Brownlow, a biographer of Lean, wrote that "Dickens' brilliance at creating characters was matched by Cineguild's choice of actors", and Alain Silver and James Ursini have drawn attention to the film's "overall narrative subjectivity", finding Lean "more than faithful to the original's first person style".


title: Great Expectations (1946 film)

text: In 1999, it came fifth in a BFI poll of the top 100 British films, while in 2004, "Total Film" named it the fourteenth greatest British film of all time. It was the first British film to win an Oscar for its cinematography.


title: Great Expectations (1946 film)

text: John Bryan (Art Direction) and Wilfred Shingleton (Set Direction) won the Academy Award for Best Art Direction, Black-and-White, while Guy Green won for Best Cinematography, Black-and-White in 1948. Lean was nominated for Best Director, Lean, Ronald Neame and Anthony Havelock-Allan for Best Screenplay and the film for Best Picture.


title: The Blue Planet

text: The Blue Planet is a British nature documentary series created and produced by the BBC. It premiered on 12 September 2001 in the United Kingdom. It is narrated by David Attenborough.


title: The Blue Planet

text: Described as "the first ever comprehensive series on the natural history of the world's oceans", each of the eight 50-minute episodes examines a different aspect of marine life. The underwater photography included creatures and behaviour that had previously never been filmed.


title: The Blue Planet

text: The series won a number of Emmy and BAFTA TV awards for its music and cinematography. The executive producer was Alastair Fothergill and the music was composed by George Fenton. Attenborough narrated this series before presenting the next in his 'Life' series of programmes, "The Life of Mammals" (2002), and the same production team created "Planet Earth" (2006).


title: The Blue Planet

text: The series took almost five years to make, involving nearly 200 filming locations. The fact that most of the ocean environment remains a mystery presented the production team with many challenges. Besides witnessing some animal behaviours for the first time, the crew also observed some that were new to science. The producers were helped by marine scientists all over the world with state-of-the-art equipment.


title: The Blue Planet

text: Blue whales – whose migration routes were previously unknown – were located by air, after some of the animals had been given temporary radio tags. The camera team spent three years on standby, using a microlight to land on the water nearby when they finally caught up with the creatures in the Gulf of California. The open ocean proved more difficult and over 400 days were spent in often unsuccessful filming trips. After six weeks, the crew chanced upon a school of spinner dolphins, which in turn led them to a shoal of tuna. Off Mexico, the behaviour of a flock of frigatebirds guided the cameramen to a group of sailfish and marlin: the fastest inhabitants of the sea. Near the coast of Natal in South Africa, the team spent two seasons attempting to film the annual sardine run, a huge congregation of predators such as sharks and dolphins, that assembles to feast on the migrating fish by corralling them into "bait balls". Meanwhile, in Monterey Bay, orca were documented attacking gray whales and killing a calf. Filming in the deep ocean required the use of special submersibles. One of them enabled the crew to dive over a mile into the San Diego trench, where the carcass of a 40-ton gray whale had been placed to attract a large variety of scavengers.


title: The Blue Planet

text: When first transmitted on BBC One, over 12 million people watched the series and it regularly achieved an audience share of over 30%.


title: The Blue Planet

text: In 2018 a newly-discovered species of phytoplankton ("Syracosphaera azureaplaneta") was named by scientists in honour of the programme, and in recognition of David Attenborough's contribution to promoting wider understanding and awareness of the oceanic environment.


title: The Blue Planet

text: The series was available as a 3-disc DVD set (BBCDVD1089, released 3 December 2001 and re-released in 2003), including interviews with the production team, a photo gallery and three additional programmes:


title: The Blue Planet

text: The first DVD has now been superseded by a 4-disc Special Edition (BBCDVD1792, released 3 October 2005), which has three extra programmes:


title: The Blue Planet

text: In the US, there is a 4-disc Collector's Set edition (Released 2002), including 8 featurettes, interviews, photo galleries and one additional programmes:


title: The Blue Planet

text: In the US, there is also a 5-disc Special Edition (BBC040754, released 6 May 2008). It contains the same features as the US 4-disc versions, but includes a fifth disk containing four special presentations:


title: The Blue Planet

text: BBC released a 3-disc "The Blue Planet: Seas of Life" on Blu-ray on 9 April 2013. It contains the featured presentations as well as a third disk containing interviews, behind-the-scenes footage and five special presentations:


title: The Blue Planet

text: The accompanying book, "The Blue Planet: A Natural History of the Oceans" by Andrew Byatt, Alastair Fothergill and Martha Holmes (with a foreword by David Attenborough), was published by BBC Worldwide on 27 September 2001 ().


title: The Blue Planet

text: The companion volume for the US market of the same book was published by Dorling Kindersley (DK) and released in 2002 ().


title: The Blue Planet

text: "Deep Blue" is a 2003 nature documentary film that is a theatrical version of "The Blue Planet". Alastair Fothergill and Andy Byatt are credited as directors, and six cinematographers are also credited. The film was premiered at the San Sebastian Film Festival in Spain on 2003. It screened in more than from 2003 to 2005 and grossed over at the box office.


title: The Blue Planet

text: "The Blue Planet" was turned into a theatrical presentation entitled "The Blue Planet Live!" which toured the UK from 2006 to 2008. The UK live shows were presented by World Class Service Ltd. George Fenton conducted the Manchester Camerata Orchestra in Manchester, Newcastle and Nottingham during December 2006, in three critically acclaimed shows. The tour continued in April 2007, again conducted by Fenton, in London, Cardiff, Birmingham and returning to Manchester and Nottingham.


title: The Blue Planet

text: For the show, some of the most spectacular sequences from the series have been edited together and are displayed on a huge screen (18 metres wide and 3 storeys high). The presentation is introduced by a special guest.


title: The Blue Planet

text: The tour continued in April 2008 with dates at Wembley Arena, Nottingham Arena, Manchester Central, Cardiff St. David's and Birmingham Symphony Hall.


title: The Blue Planet

text: In February 2017, the BBC announced a seven-part sequel had been commissioned, titled "Blue Planet II", with Sir David Attenborough returning as narrator and presenter. The sequel debuted on BBC One, BBC One HD and BBC Earth channel on 29 October 2017.


title: The Blue Planet

text: The series was sold to over 50 countries. In the United States, it was shown as "The Blue Planet: Seas of Life" with the episodes in a different order, the first one being retitled "Ocean World". The series was shown on the Discovery Channel and was narrated by Pierce Brosnan.


title: The Blue Planet

text: The series attracted some criticism when it was revealed that some of the footage was filmed at an aquarium in Wales. The series producer, Alastair Fothergill, said that around 2% of the whole series was filmed in tanks at aquariums. A BBC spokesman argued that it would've been unethical to actually disturb the breeding process of wild lobsters for one of the scenes, which was why they made the decision to use the aquarium footage.


title: Isaac Okoro

text: Isaac Nnamdi Okoro (born January 26, 2001) is an American professional basketball player for the Cleveland Cavaliers of the National Basketball Association (NBA). He played college basketball for the Auburn Tigers. Listed at and , he plays the small forward position.


title: Isaac Okoro

text: Okoro played basketball for McEachern High School in Georgia for four years, helping his team win the state championship and achieve national success in his senior season. He was considered a five-star recruit by Rivals and a four-star recruit by 247Sports and ESPN. After his freshman college season at Auburn, he was named to the second team All-SEC.


title: Isaac Okoro

text: Okoro was born in Atlanta, Georgia to Nigerian parents and was raised close to metro Atlanta. His father, Godwin, emigrated from Nigeria in the 1980s. His mother, Gloria, is also from Nigeria. Okoro started playing basketball in his local church league. When he was around seven to eight years old, he began training under the guidance of Amateur Athletic Union (AAU) coach Omar Cooper, the father of his future high school teammate, Sharife Cooper. He played for the A.O.T. Running Rebels of the Nike EYBL circuit.


title: Isaac Okoro

text: Okoro played high school basketball for McEachern High School in Powder Springs, Georgia. In his freshman season, he averaged 15 points and eight rebounds per game, helping his team win the regional title and reach the Georgia High School Association Class 7A state quarterfinals. As a sophomore, Okoro averaged 22.5 points per game, leading McEachern to the regional championship and the Class 7A state semifinals. He earned "Atlanta Journal-Constitution" Class 7A All-State second team and MaxPreps Sophomore All-American third team honors. In his junior season, Okoro averaged 20.3 points and 6.4 rebounds per game, helping McEachern reach the Class 7A state quarterfinals. He was named to the "Atlanta Journal-Constitution" Class 7A All-State first team and the "USA Today" All-USA Georgia first team. In the offseason, Okoro had success on the Nike Elite Youth Basketball League, a prominent amateur circuit, with Athletes of Tomorrow.


title: Isaac Okoro

text: In his senior season, Okoro averaged 19.7 points, 10.6 rebounds, 3.2 assists and 2.7 steals per game. He led McEachern to titles at the City of Palms Classic and the Tournament of Champions. His team ended the regular season with a 32–0 record, becoming the first undefeated team in the highest Georgia classification since 1995 and receiving a 1 national ranking from multiple websites, including MaxPreps. Okoro scored 16 points to help his team win its first Class 7A state championship. He shared "Atlanta Journal-Constitution" state most valuable player recognition with teammate Sharife Cooper. Okoro was named to the MaxPreps All-American second team and the "USA Today" All-USA Georgia first team. On April 12, 2019, Okoro competed in the Nike Hoop Summit, an international all-star game. On April 26, 2019, Okoro became only the second basketball player in McEachern history to have his jersey retired.


title: Isaac Okoro

text: By the end of his high school career, Okoro was considered a five-star recruit by Rivals and a four-star recruit by 247Sports and ESPN. On July 25, 2018, he committed to play college basketball for Auburn over offers from Florida, Florida State, Oregon and Texas, among others. Okoro became the second-highest ranked commit in program history, according to 247Sports composite rankings, behind only Mustapha Heron.


title: Isaac Okoro

text: Okoro scored 12 points in his Auburn debut, a 84–73 win over Georgia Southern. The following game, he attained 17 points in a 76–66 victory over Davidson. Okoro was named Southeastern Conference (SEC) Freshman of the Week on November 18, 2019. He scored a season-high 23 points in a 83–79 win over Vanderbilt on January 8, 2020. Okoro did not play in a February 15 game against Missouri due to a hamstring injury.


title: Isaac Okoro

text: After the regular season, he was named to the All-SEC Second Team, the SEC All-Freshman Team and the SEC All-Defensive Team by the league's coaches. Okoro averaged 12.9 points, 4.4 rebounds and two assists per game. After his freshman season, he announced that he would enter the 2020 NBA draft.


title: Isaac Okoro

text: Okoro was selected with the fifth pick overall by the Cleveland Cavaliers in the 2020 NBA draft. Three days later on November 21, the Cleveland Cavaliers announced that they had signed Okoro. In the Cleveland Cavaliers first preseason game of the 2020–21 NBA season, he got the game winning and-one to make it 114–116 and converted the free throw to make it 114–117 and win against the Indiana Pacers. On December 23, 2020, Okoro made his NBA debut, starting and recording 11 points, five assists, and three rebounds in a 121–114 win over the Charlotte Hornets. On May 4, 2021, Okoro scored a career-high 32 points during an overtime loss to the Phoenix Suns.


title: Isaac Okoro

text: Okoro played for the United States at the 2018 FIBA Under-17 Basketball World Cup in Argentina. In seven games, he averaged 4.3 points, 1.9 rebounds and 1.6 steals per game, helping his team win the gold medal.


title: Seven Seas Entertainment

text: Seven Seas Entertainment is an American publishing company located in Los Angeles, California. It was originally dedicated to the publication of original English-language manga, but now publishes licensed manga and light novels from Japan, as well as select webcomics. The company is headed by Jason DeAngelis, who coined the term "world manga" with the October 2004 launch of the company's website.


title: Seven Seas Entertainment

text: In April 2005, Seven Seas became the first manga publisher to release downloadable manga content for the PlayStation Portable and, as a result, gained over 12,000 downloads in the first five days. Seven Seas followed the PlayStation Portable announcement with enlisting the platinum-selling Filipino group the J Brothers to create a theme song for its web OEL manga series "Aoi House" entitled "Itsumo Futaride". During Comic-Con 2005, Seven Seas Entertainment premiered the pilot of its "No Man's Land" flash anime series and later followed it with a flash animation music video based on "Aoi House".


title: Seven Seas Entertainment

text: In October 2005, it announced plans for its first Japanese license for novels and manga from the "Boogiepop" series by Kouhei Kadono and Kouji Ogata.


title: Seven Seas Entertainment

text: In September 2006, Seven Seas announced a project to translate and publish Japanese light novels, including popular titles such as "Strawberry Panic!".


title: Seven Seas Entertainment

text: In March 2008, Seven Seas Entertainment began publishing new editions of Rachel Robert's popular children's fantasy novel series "" in conjunction with Red Sky Entertainment. A three-volume manga spin-off titled "Avalon: The Warlock Diaries" followed which started in June 2009. Seven Seas and Red Sky Entertainment also launched a dedicated website for the "Avalon" novel series in September 2008 at AvalonMagic.com.


title: Seven Seas Entertainment

text: On August 1, 2012, Seven Seas Entertainment launched the ad-supported free webcomic portal Zoom Comics in partnership with Pixie Trix Comix. The initial launch titles included "Amazing Agent Jennifer", "Dracula Everlasting", "Paranormal Mystery Squad", and "Vampire Cheerleaders".


title: Seven Seas Entertainment

text: On January 20, 2017, Seven Seas Entertainment announced that it had partnered up with online light novel publisher J-Novel Club to release their licensed properties in print.


title: Seven Seas Entertainment

text: On October 11, 2017, Seven Seas Entertainment announced a new manga imprint called Ghost Ship for its mature titles. Manga series licensed under this imprint are distributed through Diamond Book Distributors.


title: Seven Seas Entertainment

text: On October 5, 2018, Seven Seas Entertainment won the Harvey Award for Best Manga for its English version of "My Lesbian Experience With Loneliness".


title: Seven Seas Entertainment

text: On November 13, 2020, Seven Seas Entertainment announced a new imprint called "Airship" for its light novel and Japanese prose novel licenses.


title: Seven Seas Entertainment

text: On November 20, 2020, Seven Seas Entertainment announced that it would be switching distributors worldwide, with all imprints moving to Penguin Random House Publisher Services from July 1, 2021.


title: Seven Seas Entertainment

text: On December 21, 2020, Seven Seas Entertainment announced that they would publish Hiveworks webcomics in print.


title: Seven Seas Entertainment

text: In early 2021, it was found that Seven Seas Entertainment had been making alteration to their English translations of certain light novels. This resulted in multiple lines or paragraphs being omitted from the English release. Some of the titles affected were "Classroom of the Elite", "I'm in Love with the Villainess, and" "Mushoku Tensei: Jobless Reincarnation".


title: Seven Seas Entertainment

text: On August 4, 2021, Seven Seas Entertainment began licensing Danmei novels from China, beginning with "The Scum Villain's Self-Saving System", "Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation", and "Heaven Official's Blessing", all written by Mo Xiang Tong Xiu.


title: Seven Seas Entertainment

text: On January 5, 2022, Seven Seas Entertainment began releasing Korean webtoons in print, beginning with "PULSE", "Love is an Illusion!", and "Killing Stalking" all published on the Lezhin Comics web platform.


title: Seven Seas Entertainment

text: On January 26, 2022, Seven Seas Entertainment announced a new imprint called "Steamship" for its "shōjo", "josei" and teens' love romance manga titles, beginning with "GAME: Between the Suits", "I'll Never be Your Crown Princess!", "Ladies on Top", and "Outbride: Beauty and the Beasts".


title: Seven Seas Entertainment

text: On May 23, 2022, employees of Seven Seas announced the formation of "United Workers of the Seven Seas", a union working with Communications Workers of America. On May 29, 2022, Seven Seas management announced that it would not voluntarily recognize the union and has requested an election with the NLRB.


title: Seven Seas Entertainment

text: On May 25, 2022, Seven Seas Entertainment began licensing manhuas from China, beginning with the manhua adaptation of Mo Xiang Tong Xiu's "Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation".


title: Seven Seas Entertainment

text: On May 31, 2022, it was revealed that Seven Seas had hired the law firm of Ogletree, Deakins, Nash, Smoak & Stewart to represent them in their NLRB case with their employees. In response the United Workers of the Seven Seas tweeted out that Seven Seas had hired "the union-busting firm Ogletree Deakins" to counter their union efforts.


title: Seven Seas Entertainment

text: On June 24, 2022, the United Workers of the Seven Seas announced that Seven Seas had agreed to voluntarily recognize the union after a majority card check.


title: British Motor Corporation

text: The British Motor Corporation Limited (BMC) was a UK-based vehicle manufacturer, formed in early 1952 to give effect to an agreed merger of the Morris and Austin businesses.


title: British Motor Corporation

text: BMC acquired the shares in Morris Motors and the Austin Motor Company. Morris Motors, the holding company of the productive businesses of the Nuffield Organization, owned MG, Riley, and Wolseley.


title: British Motor Corporation

text: The agreed exchange of shares in Morris or Austin for shares in the new holding company, BMC, became effective in mid-April 1952.


title: British Motor Corporation

text: In September 1965, BMC took control of its major supplier of bodies, Pressed Steel, acquiring Jaguar's body supplier in the process. In September 1966, BMC absorbed with Jaguar Cars. In December 1966, BMC changed its name to British Motor Holdings Limited (BMH).


title: British Motor Corporation

text: BMH merged, in May 1968, with Leyland Motor Corporation Limited, which made trucks and buses and owned Standard-Triumph International Limited, becoming British Leyland.


title: British Motor Corporation

text: BMC was the largest British car company of its day, with (in 1952) 39% of British output, producing a wide range of cars under brand names including Austin, Morris, MG, Austin-Healey, Riley, and Wolseley, as well as commercial vehicles and agricultural tractors. The first chairman was Lord Nuffield (William Morris), but he was replaced at the end of 1952 by Austin's Leonard Lord, who continued in that role until his 65th birthday in 1961, but handing over, in theory at least, the managing director responsibilities to his deputy George Harriman in 1956.


title: British Motor Corporation

text: BMC's headquarters were at the Austin Longbridge plant, near Birmingham and Austin was the dominant partner in the group mainly because of the chairman. The use of Morris engine designs was dropped within three years and all new car designs were coded ADO from "Amalgamated Drawing Office". The Longbridge plant was up to date, having been thoroughly modernised in 1951, and compared very favourably to Nuffield's 16 different and often old-fashioned factories scattered over the Midlands. Austin's management systems, however, especially cost control and marketing, were not as good as Nuffield's and as the market changed from a shortage of cars to competition, this was to tell. The biggest-selling car, the Mini, was famously analysed by Ford Motor Company, which concluded that BMC must have been losing £30 on every one sold. The result was that although volumes held up well throughout the BMC era, market share fell as did profitability and hence investment in new models, triggering the 1966 merger with Jaguar Cars to form British Motor Holdings (BMH), and the government-sponsored merger of BMH with Leyland Motor Corporation in 1968.


title: British Motor Corporation

text: At the time of the mergers, a well established dealership network was in place for each of the marques. Among the car-buying British public was a tendency of loyalty to a particular marque and marques appealed to different market segments. This meant that marques competed against each other in some areas, though some marques had a larger range than others. The Riley and Wolseley models were selling in very small numbers. Styling was also getting distinctly old-fashioned and this caused Leonard Lord, in an unusual move for him, to call upon the services of an external stylist.


title: British Motor Corporation

text: As well as the car manufacturing arms, the company had its own printing and publishing firm, the Nuffield Press, inherited from the Morris Motors group.


title: British Motor Corporation

text: In 1958, BMC hired Battista Farina to redesign its entire car line. This resulted in the creation of three "Farina" saloons, each of which was badge-engineered to fit the various BMC car lines.


title: British Motor Corporation

text: The compact Farina model bowed in 1958 with the Austin A40 Farina. This is considered by many to be the first mass-produced hatchback car: a small estate version was produced with a horizontally split tailgate, its size and configuration would today be considered that of a small hatchback. A Mark II A40 Farina appeared in 1961 and was produced through 1967. These small cars used the A-Series engine.


title: British Motor Corporation

text: The mid-sized Farinas were launched in 1958 with the Wolseley 15/60. Other members of the group included the Riley 4/68, Austin A55 Cambridge Mk. II, MG Magnette Mk. III, and Morris Oxford V. Later, the design was licensed in Argentina and produced as the Siam Di Tella 1500, Traveller station wagon and Argenta pick-up. The mid-size cars used the B-Series straight-4 engine.


title: British Motor Corporation

text: Most of these cars lasted until 1961, though the Di Tellas remained until 1966. They were replaced with a new Farina body style and most were renamed. These were the Austin A60 Cambridge, MG Magnette Mk. IV, Morris Oxford VI, Riley 4/72, and Wolseley 16/60 and in 1964 the Siam Magnette 1622 alongside the Siam Di Tella in Argentina. These mostly remained in production until 1968, with no rear-wheel drive replacement produced.


title: British Motor Corporation

text: Farina also designed a large car. Launched in 1959 as the Austin A99 Westminster, Vanden Plas Princess 3-Litre, and Wolseley 6/99, it used the large C-Series straight-6 engine. The large Farinas were updated in 1961 as the Austin A110 Westminster, Vanden Plas Princess 3-Litre Mk. II, and Wolseley 6/110. These remained in production until 1968.


title: British Motor Corporation

text: Most BMC projects followed the earlier Austin practice of describing vehicles with an 'ADO' number (which stood for 'Austin Design Office' but after the merger 'Amalgamated Drawing Office'). Hence, cars that had more than one marque name (e.g. Morris Mini Minor and Austin Mini) would have the same ADO number. Given the often complex badge-engineering that BMC undertook, it is common amongst enthusiasts to use the ADO number when referring to vehicles which were a single design (for example, saying 'The ADO15 entered production in 1959'- this encompasses the fact that when launched, the ADO15 was marketed as the Morris Mini Minor and, later, the Austin Seven—soon replaced with Austin Mini). The ADO numbering system did continue for some time after the creation of British Leyland - notable models being the Austin Allegro (ADO67) and the prototype version of the Austin Metro (ADO88).


title: British Motor Corporation

text: Most BMC-era commercial vehicles were sold as Morris, but there were sometimes Austin equivalents. Radiator badges on the larger vehicles were often BMC.


title: British Motor Corporation

text: With the merger of the Nuffield and Austin interests, the Nuffield Organization's tractor range, the Nuffield Universal, was incorporated into BMC.


title: British Motor Corporation

text: In the 1950s and the 1960s, BMC set up 21 plants overseas, some as subsidiaries, and some as joint ventures, to assemble its vehicles. One was British Motor Corporation (Australia) which was established in 1953 at the Nuffield Australia site on the one-time Victoria Park Racecourse, Sydney. This facility went from a marshalling area for fully imported Morris cars (Austins were up until then being assembled in Melbourne from an earlier Austin Motors establishment), to a facility for making CKD cars, to the total local fabrication and construction of vehicles, engines, and mechanicals.


title: British Motor Corporation

text: Denmark was a particularly strong market for BMC products in Europe. In the postwar period, the Danish government closely regulated exports and imports to maintain the country's balance of trade. High-value imports such as cars were heavily taxed. Britain bought large amounts of agricultural and meat produce from Denmark, and in response, British cars were subject to a much lower import tax than cars from other countries, making BMC products very popular in the country until the 1970s, when these regulations were relaxed.


title: British Motor Corporation

text: From 1963 to 1975, a company was established in Spain to produce BMC cars under licence, its name was: 'AUTHI' -'Automoviles de Turismo Hispano-Ingleses' -'Spanish-English Tourism Automobiles'. The factory was in Pamplona, Navarra, Spain, and when the production of Austin and Mini cars was discontinued, Sociedad Española de Automóviles de Turismo (SEAT), owned by the state and some banks and industrial investors, purchased the factory. After the takeover of SEAT by Volkswagen, SEAT made an 'internal' resale of the Pamplona factory, formerly Authi, to Volkswagen, which soon started producing there the 'Polo'.


title: British Motor Corporation

text: The Wilson Labour government (1964–1970) came to power at a time when British manufacturing industry was in decline and decided that the remedy was to promote more mergers, particularly in the motor industry. Chrysler was already buying into the Rootes Group, Leyland Motors had acquired Standard Triumph in 1961 (and would buy Rover in 1967) and had become a major automotive force. BMC was suffering a dramatic drop in its share of the home market. Tony Benn, appointed Minister of Technology in July 1966, brought pressure to bear on the industry.


title: British Motor Corporation

text: In mid-1965 BMC offered to buy its major supplier Pressed Steel and took control in September with 27,000 employees. Twelve months later, BMC merged with Jaguar Cars adding a further 7,000 employees. On 14 December 1966 BMC shareholders approved the change of its name to British Motor Holdings (BMH) and it took effect from that date.


title: British Motor Corporation

text: Little more than 12 months later in January 1968, under pressure from the Labour British Government and Minister of Technology Tony Benn, a further wave of mergers occurred in the British car industry. BMH merged with the Leyland Motor Corporation (LMC) to form the British Leyland Motor Corporation (BLMC). BMC Ltd (which contained most of the operations of the former British Motor Corporation) remained a subsidiary company of BLMC after the merger, although its name was changed to "Austin-Morris Ltd" shortly after, and the BMC name subsequently disappeared from public view.


title: British Motor Corporation

text: Within the new conglomerate, the various marques were grouped together into two main divisions, based largely on the original BMC and LMC businesses; with the former mass market BMC marques becoming part of the "Austin-Morris" division of BLMC, whilst LMC stablemates Rover and Triumph became part of the Specialist Division, of which Jaguar was also officially part. This basic structure remained in place right up until the creation of the Austin Rover Group in the early 1980s, by which time BLMC had been nationalised and renamed British Leyland Limited. (later just BL plc), although by this time both Jaguar and Land Rover had been placed in their own independent subsidiaries which were separate from the old BMC/LMC divisions.


title: British Motor Corporation

text: Following the merger with Leyland, a review of company records undertaken with the support of the new board, author Graham Turner stated that at the time of the merger, 16 versions of the Mini were being produced, yielding an average profit of just £16 per car, while every Morris Minor sold lost the group £9 and every Austin Westminster sold lost £17. This helps to explain why the Westminster and Minor were among the early casualties of the merger, as well as the introduction of the , capable of being built for less, but sold for more than a standard Mini thanks to simplified ("modernised") front panels. Even the UK's best seller, the Austin/Morris 1100, had to be subjected to an emergency cost-reduction programme which removed about £10 from the cost of each car, applying changes that included the omission of lead sealing from body joints (£2.40 per car), removing provision for optional reversing lamps (£0.10) and "changes in body finish" (£0.75). Rebuilding the Cowley plant to include "new automated body building facilities" saved £2.00 in transport costs per car for bodies that no longer needed to be transported from the corporation's Swindon plant and in the longer term further transport costs were saved by concentrating assembly of the model at a single plant, rather than splitting it between plants at Cowley and Longbridge. Because of the high proportion of auto-production costs represented by fixed costs that needed to be allocated over a planned production volume, and the use in the 1960s of investment appraisal criteria that were ill-suited to accounting for volume fluctuations and the rapidly changing value of the UK currency in the 1960s, the precise figures quoted may be open to challenge, but the new management's diagnosis that BMC's profitability was insufficient to fund support and new model investment to cover its disparate range of brands and models was hard to refute. Throughout the 1960s, the failure of the United Kingdom to join the European Economic Community meant that the company could not exploit the lucrative European markets due to high import tariffs, whereas BMC's key rivals Ford and General Motors both had German subsidiaries producing and selling within the bloc, and were therefore immune from those import tariffs.


title: British Motor Corporation

text: In 2002, BMC (Turkey), a Turkish commercial vehicle builder, originally set up by the British Motor Corporation to build its designs under licence in the 1950s, began exporting its vehicles to Britain. This allowed the return of the BMC brand to British roads for the first time in over 40 years.


title: The Wire (India)

text: The Wire is an Indian nonprofit news and opinion website which publishes in English, Hindi, Marathi, and Urdu. It was founded in 2015 by Siddharth Varadarajan, Sidharth Bhatia, and M. K. Venu. The publication's reporters have won several national and international awards, including three Ramnath Goenka Excellence in Journalism Awards and the CPJ International Press Freedom Award. It has also been subject to several defamation suits by businessmen and politicians.


title: The Wire (India)

text: Siddharth Varadarajan resigned from his position as editor at "The Hindu" citing the return of the editorship of the paper to being family run in 2013. On 11 May 2015, "The Wire" was started by Siddharth Varadarajan, Sidharth Bhatia and M. K. Venu who had initially funded the website. Later, it was made part of the Foundation for Independent Journalism, a non-profit Indian company. The Independent and Public Spirited Media Foundation has provided "The Wire" with funding as well.


title: The Wire (India)

text: Varadarajan claims that the publication was created as a "platform for independent journalism", and that its non-corporate structure and funding sources aim to free it from the "commercial and political pressures" that supposedly afflict mainstream Indian news outlets. "The Wire"s founding is construed to be a result of, and reaction to, a political environment that has "discouraged dissent" against the present Indian ruling Bharatiya Janata Party.


title: The Wire (India)

text: According to a 2017 article of the "Mint", the websites coverage primarily focused on the topics of development, foreign policy, political economy, politics and science.


title: The Wire (India)

text: Karan Thapar's regular show "The Interview with Karan Thapar" covers current affairs and events on "The Wire".


title: The Wire (India)

text: Three journalists, working for "The Wire", have won the Ramnath Goenka Excellence in Journalism Awards. Neha Dixit, reporting on extrajudicial killings and illegal detentions, won the CPJ International Press Freedom Award in 2017, Chameli Devi Jain Award for Outstanding Women Mediapersons in 2016 and the Lorenzo Natali Journalism Prize. A story published in the "Columbia Journalism Review" in late 2016 identified "The Wire" as one of several independent and recently founded internet-based media platforms - a group that also included "Newslaundry", Scroll.in, "The News Minute", "The Quint" and ScoopWhoop - that were attempting to challenge the dominance of India's traditional print and television news companies and their online offshoots.


title: The Wire (India)

text: Siddharth Vardarajan was awarded with the Shorenstein Prize in 2017; jury member of the award Nayan Chanda mentioned Vardarajan's independent web-based journalism-venture and distinguished body of well-researched reports to be an epitome of journalistic excellence and innovation. In November 2019, The Network of Women in Media, India criticised "The Wire" for providing a platform to Vinod Dua for making fun of an allegation of sexual harassment against him. A December 2019 article by Dexter Filkins of "The New Yorker", noted "The Wire" is one of the few small outfits and the most prominent (other than "The Caravan"), to have engaged in providing aggressive coverage of the current Indian Govt ruled by BJP at a time when mainstream media is failing to do so.


title: The Wire (India)

text: In September 2021, "The Wire" received the 2021 Free Media Pioneer Award given by the International Press Institute for being 'an unflinching defender of independent, high-quality journalism'.


title: The Wire (India)

text: On 10 October 2022, "The Wire" alleged Meta (formerly Facebook) to have provided Amit Malviya, the head of the Information Technology Cell of the incumbent ruling party in India, with the ability to delete any post on Instagram bypassing the usual content moderation system. As per the article Amit Malviya had these privileges since his account had the XCheck tag. Facing Meta's categorical denials, the publication went on to publish a purported "internal message" from Andy Stone, the Communications Director, expressing frustration at the leak of Malviya's privileges. Further detailed report was also published, that featured email-communication from two anonymous "experts" verifying the integrity of Stone's email and a semi-redacted video of an in-house moderation tool attesting to Malviya's privileges.


title: The Wire (India)

text: Soon, numerous flaws were spotted in the evidence that pointed to fabrication and skeptics, including former Facebook whistle-blowers, began to cast doubts. Afterwards, as both the experts denied involvement with "The Wire", the reports were subject to an internal review and retracted; later, the publication would concede its failure to verify the evidence and accuse the reporter, Devesh Kumar, of deceit. The developments also brought back focus on the publication's earlier investigative coverage of an app called Tek Fog — supposedly used by the ruling party to spread disinformation and harass dissenters, that Kumar had been responsible for. This story also was removed from the site, and The Wire issued a formal apology, admitting to have rushed the story without having it double checked independently.


title: The Wire (India)

text: Editors Guild of India also later retracted their coverage of Tek Fog, which was solely based on "The Wire"'s reporting. The Guild, in its statement, urged newsrooms 'to resist the temptation of moving fast on sensitive stories, circumventing due journalistic norms.' The Guild also called the lapses by The Wire 'condemnable' in a subsequent statement.


title: The Wire (India)

text: In response to one of their video-shows covering the Rafale deal controversy, Reliance Infrastructure had lodged a defamation case in Ahmedabad civil court for a cost of . It was part of a slew of defamation cases, filed against multiple media-organisations and were perceived by some to fall under the category of strategic lawsuits against public participation.


title: The Wire (India)

text: Indian Member of Parliament (Rajya Sabha) for the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and venture capitalist Rajeev Chandrasekhar filed a defamation suit in a Bangalore civil court, after two articles – "Arnab's Republic, Modi's Ideology" by Sandeep Bushan and "In Whose Interests Do Our Soldiers March?" by Sachin Rao – were published, suggesting that Chandrasekhar's major investments in the Indian media and defence industries represented conflicts of interest with some of his roles as a legislator.


title: The Wire (India)

text: On 2 March 2017 the court passed an ex-parte injunction, ordering "The Wire" to block access to the two articles. "The Wire" complied but decided to challenge the court order. In February 2019, the court lifted the injunction and ruled in favour of The Wire, leading to reinstatement of the articles.


title: The Wire (India)

text: Amit Shah's son Jay Shah filed a criminal defamation case against the editors of "The Wire" for publishing an article titled 'The Golden Touch of Jay Amit Shah', an investigative story by Rohini Singh. A BJP-led coalition had formed the government at the centre following their win in the 2014 Indian general election, and Narendra Modi had become the Prime Minister. The article alluded to possible irregularities in Jay Shah's business dealings, claiming that the turnover of a company owned by him increased 16,000 times over in the year following the election.


title: The Wire (India)

text: Jay Shah filed the case in court 13 of the Ahmedabad Metropolitan Magistrate against four editors/reporters of "The Wire". Additional chief metropolitan magistrate SK Gadhvi ordered a court inquiry into the matter under CrPC section 202 to inquire into the case to decide whether or not there is sufficient ground for a case to be filed. Observing that "prima facie it seems there is a case" against "The Wire" for its defamatory article against Shah, a metropolitan court issued summons to the reporter of the article and editors of the website to appear before it on 13 November in the criminal defamation case filed against them. The order also mentions Shah's contention that "the news portal didn't give enough time to him to send his response, the article didn't include the loss incurred by his company in the year 2015-2016, and created confusion over the turnover to defame him."


title: The Wire (India)

text: The Ahmedabad civil court on 23 December vacated the ex parte and interim injunction. The court lifted all restrictions except the use of words (after) "Narendra Modi becoming Prime Minister/elected as Prime Minister." "The Wire" called the lifting of the injunction a "victory for The Wire", and that the "decision by the civil court is a vindication of "The Wire"s fundamental stand that its article had been a legitimate exercise of the freedom of expression in the public interest." However, the Gujarat High court later reinstated the gag order and refused to quash the criminal defamation case filed by Jay Shah. "The Wire" had appealed in the Supreme Court of India against this order. The Supreme Court of India asked the Gujarat trial court not to proceed until 12 April with the criminal defamation complaint. Later, Chief Justice of India Dipak Misra listed the matter to be heard on 18 April by a different bench of the Supreme Court. However, the bench had not been specified.


title: The Wire (India)

text: "The Wire" pleaded for the withdrawal of its plea, seeking the defamation proceedings against it to be quashed. The portal said they were ready for further proceedings in the Gujarat trial Court. The Supreme Court bench allowed the withdrawal on 27 August 2019. The court remarked that, ""it has become a fashion to serve notice to a person for explanation and even before it can be answered, the articles are published within five to six hours"" expressing its anguish and also ordered that the trial be completed ""as expeditiously as possible"."


title: The Wire (India)

text: In response to the now retracted article in "The Wire" related to Meta XCheck, Amit Malviya, the BJP's IT Department Head filed a police complaint against "The Wire" and its editors. In response to the complaint Delhi Police searched the residence of wire founding editors Siddharth Varadarajan, MK Venu, Sidharth Bhatia, Jahnavi Sen as well as "The Wire"'s offices. The raids have been condemned by the International Press Institute and one more press organization.


title: The Wire (India)

text: During the COVID-19 pandemic, "The Wire" came under the Yogi Adityanath government's crackdown on journalists reporting on administrative failures and humanitarian crises, a part of a pattern of escalading press freedom violations in Uttar Pradesh, use of the Epidemics Diseases Act of 1897 to pressurise journalists, and democratic backsliding in India. Between April 2020 and June 2021, four separate FIRs alleging false information were lodged by the Uttar Pradesh Police against various journalists working for the news outlet, including against one of its founding editors. According to "Reporters sans frontieres", the cases had no tangible evidence and amounted to harassment through litigation. In September 2021, the Supreme Court of India responding to a petition against the FIRs, extended a 2 month protection from arrest to the journalists at "The Wire" over press freedom concerns but declined to quash them, instead directed the petitioners to approach the Allahabad High Court stating that it would set a bad precedent and open a floodgate of quashing petitions under Article 32, which grants the right to constitutional remedies for violation of fundamental freedoms.


title: The Wire (India)

text: In February 2022, Bharat Biotech filed a defamation lawsuit of against "The Wire" and its editors over 14 articles that had reported on the pharmaceutical company and Covaxin, the Covid-19 vaccine developed by it. The defamation suit also named all those who had contributed to the articles which included several journalists and medical professionals. The lawsuit was filed at a local district court in Rangareddy, Telangana where an additional district judge passed an ex-parte injunction, a restraining order directing the news publication to take down its articles within the next 48 hours. The court said that the articles published by "The Wire" would lead to vaccine hesitancy. The editor-in-chief of "The Wire" stated that they would challenge the legality of the order as no notice was served to them and the organisation was not given an opportunity to defend itself against Bharat Biotech's allegations.


title: Bandai Namco Studios

text: Bandai Namco Studios was established in April 2012 as the spin-off company of publisher Namco Bandai Games's video game development divisions. Originally known as Namco Bandai Studios Inc., the decision was based on its parent company's restructuring efforts and need for a decrease in development times and increase in productivity. Studios absorbed over 1,000 employees from Namco Bandai Games, and 80 employees from the defunct Namco Tales Studio division. The company opened divisions in Singapore and Vancouver in 2013 to expand operations overseas; the Vancouver division later closed in 2018. Its Malaysia division was established in 2016.


title: Bandai Namco Studios

text: Bandai Namco Studios has worked on many successful video game franchises, including "Tekken", "Pac-Man", "The Idolmaster", "Ace Combat", "Tales", and "Soulcalibur", in addition to original intellectual properties such as "Code Vein" and "Scarlet Nexus". Much like Namco developed games for Nintendo as a publisher since the GameCube, the company has also developed several games for them as Bandai Namco Studios, namely the "Super Smash Bros." series beginning with the fourth installment, "Wii Sports Club", and spin-offs in the "Pokémon" franchise like "Pokkén Tournament" and "New Pokémon Snap". The company is a strong advocate of video game preservation, preserving master arts, design documents, and other resources for its games.


title: Bandai Namco Studios

text: Established on March 31, 2006, Namco Bandai Games was the amalgamation of Namco and Bandai's video game development operations being merged and consolidated into one company. The developer produced the majority of its video games in-house, through its subsidiaries such as Banpresto and D3 Publisher, or lending production to external studios. However, as the company was recovering from financial losses and was undergoing a reorganization, Namco Bandai Games believed it was necessary to spin-off its game development operations into a separate division. The company requested for faster development times and healthy relations between its multiple business areas, and believed the formation of a new company would remedy this.


title: Bandai Namco Studios

text: Namco Bandai's video game operations were transferred to a new subsidiary, Namco Bandai Studios Inc., on April 2, 2012. Located in Shinagawa, Tokyo, the company was headed by company veteran Hajime Nakatani and became a wholly owned subsidiary of Namco Bandai Games. Its parent company stated that Studios would allow for faster development times, tighter cohesion with aligning production teams, and more creative freedom and developer skills for its employees. Namco Bandai's consecutive financial increases in its year-over-year profits also contributed to its establishment. Studios inherited 1,000 employees from Namco Bandai Games and all 80 staff members from the former Namco Tales Studio, which ceased operations a year earlier. It would focus on the development of new intellectual properties and follow-ups to established franchises, such as "Tekken", "Pac-Man", and "Ace Combat". The two companies would work in conjunction with one another as a keiretsu, where Namco Bandai Studios would develop and plan games and Namco Bandai Games would handle marketing, publishing, and distribution.


title: Bandai Namco Studios

text: Namco Bandai Studios opened two international divisions on March 1, 2013: Namco Bandai Studios Singapore Pte. Ltd. in Media Circle, Singapore, and Namco Bandai Studios Vancouver Inc. in Vancouver, Canada. The Singapore division was assigned as Namco Bandai's head video game development branch in Asia, and to establish working relationships with fellow developers in the region. The Vancouver division was to design online network games and provide content for North America and Europe, while simultaneously focusing on contributing to the country's growing game industry. Namco Bandai Studios Singapore employed several staff members from the Singapore division of Lucasarts, who had previously worked on the cancelled "Star Wars 1313". Its Japanese division established a working relationship with Nintendo with "Wii Sports Club", a high-definition remaster of the original "Wii Sports" (2006) for the Wii U; several Nintendo games to follow were developed by Bandai Namco Studios, including "Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS and Wii U" (2014), "Pokkén Tournament" (2015), "Super Smash Bros. Ultimate" (2018) and "New Pokémon Snap" (2021).


title: Bandai Namco Studios

text: On April 1, 2014, Namco Bandai Studios was renamed Bandai Namco Studios Inc., following an effort by its parent company to unify the Bandai Namco brand across its international divisions. The company began development on virtual reality arcade games the same month, which were designed for Bandai Namco Entertainment's VR Zone chain of video arcades. In 2016, Bandai Namco Studios released "Summer Lesson", a virtual reality game designed for the PlayStation VR headset. The Vancouver division closed on November 16, 2018, though a "skeleton crew" was kept to support "Tekken Mobile", and opened a Malaysia division in 2016. Bandai Namco Studios won the "Grand Prize" award at the Japan Game Awards for its work on "Super Smash Bros. Ultimate", as well as the "Japan Game Awards 2019 Minister of Economy, Trade and Industry Award" from the organization.


title: Bandai Namco Studios

text: Bandai Namco Studios identifies itself as the successor to Namco, focusing on its predecessor's design philosophies and corporate environment. The company emphasizes creating unique and immersive experiences in games, and is against copying ideas from other developers. Many of its employees were originally employed at Namco:


title: Bandai Namco Studios

text: Bandai Namco Studios is a strong advocate of video game preservation. In particular, it sees the master art used for supplementary material in games, such as "Galaxian" (1979) and "Pac-Man" (1980), as being of historical importance; the company believes preserving these master arts allows for further appreciation of its predecessor's games as well as the arts themselves. Studios has amassed a collection of 400 master arts, including those from "Xevious" (1983), "Ridge Racer" (1993), and "J-League Soccer Prime Goal" (1993), which it stores in an internal department named the "Banarchive". Many of its pieces were originally deemed lost during its move to Kōtō in 2015, though most have since been recovered. Bandai Namco Studios hopes to easily share its master arts to the public in the form of YouTube retrospective videos and a virtual reality museum through its "Namco Museum of Art" project.


title: Bandai Namco Studios

text: In addition to its master arts, Bandai Namco Studios has also preserved promotional pamphlets, source code, master models for characters, design documentation, and release dates for all video games by Namco, Bandai, and Banpresto. Other divisions within Bandai Namco Holdings and external companies have used these arts for products such as apparel and posters. Hisaharu Tago, the producer of the Nintendo Switch release of "Namco Museum", hopes the company will be able to bring the entirety of Namco's back catalog for modern gaming platforms.


title: The Swimmer (1968 film)

text: The Swimmer is a 1968 American surrealist drama film starring Burt Lancaster. The film was written and directed by Academy Award-nominated husband-and-wife team of Eleanor Perry (screenplay adaptation) and Frank Perry (director). The story is based on the 1964 short story "The Swimmer" by John Cheever, which appeared in the July 18, 1964, issue of "The New Yorker". The 95-minute movie adds new characters and scenes consistent with those in the original 12-page short story.


title: The Swimmer (1968 film)

text: On a sunny day in an affluent suburb in Connecticut, a fit and tanned middle-aged man in a bathing suit, Ned Merrill, drops by a pool party being held by old friends. They offer him a cocktail while nursing hangovers from the night before. As they share stories, Ned realizes there is a series of backyard swimming pools that could form a "river" back to his house, making it possible for him to "swim his way home". Ned dives into the pool, emerging at the other end and beginning his journey. Ned's behavior perplexes his friends, who apparently know worrisome things about his recent past which he seems to have forgotten.


title: The Swimmer (1968 film)

text: As Ned travels, he encounters other neighbors. He meets 20-year-old Julie, who used to babysit his daughters (whom he repeatedly refers to as "at home playing tennis"), and reveals his plan to her; she joins him. They crash another pool party and sip champagne. While chatting in a grove of trees, Julie reveals that she had a schoolgirl crush on Ned. After she tells him about two incidents of sexual harassment in her workplace, Ned begins talking about how he will protect her, making plans for the two of them. Discomfited by his intimate approaches, Julie runs away.


title: The Swimmer (1968 film)

text: Ned meets a wealthy, nudist, older couple, who are unbothered by his eccentric behavior but also unimpressed by his posturing. He then encounters Kevin, a lonely young boy, whom he tries to teach how to swim. They use an abandoned, empty pool, which Ned urges the boy to imagine is filled with water. The boy warms to this method, and soon is "swimming" the length of the empty pool. As Ned takes his leave, he glances back and sees the boy bouncing on the diving board over the deep end of the empty pool. He rushes back to remove him from the diving board, then departs.


title: The Swimmer (1968 film)

text: Ned fails to make more than a superficial connection with the people he meets, being obsessed with his journey, and becoming increasingly out of touch with reality. The neighborhood consists of judgmental, well-heeled people intent on one-upmanship, and Ned is confused by hints that his life might not be as untroubled as he believes.


title: The Swimmer (1968 film)

text: Ned walks into another party where the hostess calls him a "party crasher". He encounters a bubbly girl named Joan, who does not know him. Ned asks her to join him, and Joan is intrigued until his speech becomes more fantastical. A friend leads her away from him. Ned jumps into the pool, making a big splash which grabs the attention of the guests. When he emerges from the water, he notices a hot dog cart that used to be his. Ned gets into a spat with the homeowner, who claims to have bought it at a white elephant sale.


title: The Swimmer (1968 film)

text: Ned shows up at the backyard pool of Shirley Abbott, a stage actress with whom he had an affair several years earlier. His warm memories of their time together contrast with her own experience of being "the other woman". Unable to reconcile his feelings with the pain he caused, Ned wades into the deep end of the pool.


title: The Swimmer (1968 film)

text: Ned trudges barefoot alongside a busy highway, then reaches a crowded public swimming pool. After being treated demeaningly by the gatekeeper, he encounters a group of local shop owners who derisively ask him "How do you like our water?" They indicate surprise at his appearance at such a plebeian location and ask him when he will settle his unpaid bills. When some of them make vicious comments about his wife's snobbish tastes and his out-of-control daughters' recent troubles with the law, Ned flees.


title: The Swimmer (1968 film)

text: The skies darken and rain begins falling. Amid a downpour at sunset, a shivering, limping Ned staggers home; the tennis court where his daughters were supposedly playing is in disrepair, and his house is locked and deserted, with several windows broken. Anguished, Ned repeatedly tries to open the door, before slumping to the ground in the doorway.


title: The Swimmer (1968 film)

text: "The Swimmer" was produced by Sam Spiegel, a three-time Academy Award for Best Picture winner, who ultimately removed his name from the film (although the logo of his company, Horizon Pictures, remains). It was filmed largely on location in Westport, Connecticut, hometown of director Frank Perry.


title: The Swimmer (1968 film)

text: Although he was a trained athlete, star Burt Lancaster had a fear of the water, and took swimming lessons from former Olympian and UCLA water polo coach Bob Horn to prepare for the film.


title: The Swimmer (1968 film)

text: After principal photography from July to September 1966, Perry expected to shoot additional transition scenes but was ultimately fired by Spiegel. The producers instead brought in Lancaster's friend, the young director Sydney Pollack and cinematographer Michael Nebbia for January 1967 reshoots in California. Pollack reportedly shot several transitions and scenes, including scenes with Kim Hunter replacing Sally Gracie, Charles Drake replacing Larry Haines, Bernie Hamilton replacing Billy Dee Williams and Janice Rule replacing Barbara Loden. According to Eleanor Perry, Sam Spiegel and Elia Kazan both had an interest in getting the scene where Merrill assaults Abbott toned down and subsequently each blamed the other for Loden's replacement. In addition to the above scenes, Pollack and Nebbia also shot the scene with Lancaster and the horse as well as some retakes of the Song of Songs scene. According to Lancaster, when the film still needed an additional day of shooting, he paid $10,000 for it out of his own pocket.