Brontosaurus

Brontosaurus (/ˌbrɒntəˈsɔːrəs/bron-tə-SAWR-əs), meaning "thunder lizard" (from Greek βροντή, brontē = thunder + σαυρος, sauros = lizard), is a genus of sauropod dinosaurs. Originally named by its discoverer Othniel Charles Marsh in 1879, Brontosaurus had long been considered a junior synonym of Apatosaurus; its original species Brontosaurus excelsus having been reclassified as A. excelsus in 1903. However, an extensive study published in 2015 by a joint research team of England and Portugal concluded that Brontosaurus was a valid genus of sauropod distinct from Apatosaurus. Nevertheless, not all paleontologists agree with this division.

The same study classified two additional species that had once been considered Apatosaurus as Brontosaurus parvus and Brontosaurus yahnahpin. Species of Brontosaurus range in age from 155 to 152 million years ago, during the Kimmeridgian age of the lower to middle Morrison Formation in Wyoming and Utah, USA.

As the archetypal sauropod, Brontosaurus is one of the best-known dinosaurs, and has been featured in film, advertising, and postal stamps, as well as many other types of media.

King Kong (2005 film)

King Kong is a 2005 epic monster film co-written, produced, and directed by Peter Jackson. A remake of the 1933 film of the same name, the film stars Naomi Watts, Jack Black, Adrien Brody, and, through motion capture, Andy Serkis as the title character. Set in 1933, King Kong tells the story of an overly ambitious filmmaker who coerces his cast and hired ship crew to travel to the mysterious Skull Island. There they encounter Kong, a legendary giant gorilla, whom they capture and display in New York City, with tragic results.

The film's budget climbed from an initial US$150 million to a then-record-breaking $207 million. It was released on December 14, 2005 in Germany and on December 16 in the United States, and made an opening of $50.1 million. While it performed lower than expected, King Kong made domestic and worldwide grosses that eventually added up to $550 million, becoming the fourth-highest grossing film in Universal Pictures history. It also generated $100 million in DVD sales upon its home video release. The film garnered generally positive reviews from critics and appeared on several "top ten" lists for 2005, though some reviewers criticized it for its three-hour running time. It won three Academy Awards for Best Sound Editing, Best Sound Mixing, and Best Visual Effects.

Lanford Wilson

Lanford Wilson (April 13, 1937 – March 24, 2011) was a Pulitzer Prize winning, American playwright, whose work, as described by the New York Times, was "earthy, realist, greatly admired [and] widely performed". Wilson also helped to advance the Off-Off-Broadway theater movement with his earliest plays, which were first produced in New York at the Caffe Cino beginning in 1964. He was one of the first playwrights to move from Off-Off-Broadway, to Off-Broadway, then Broadway, and beyond. He received the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1980 and was elected in 2001 to the Theater Hall of Fame. In 2004, Wilson was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters and received the PEN/Laura Pels International Foundation for Theater Award as a Master American Dramatist. He was nominated for three Tony Awards and has won a Drama Desk Award and five Obie Awards.

His 1964 short play, The Madness of Lady Bright, was his first significant success and led to further works throughout the 1960s that expressed a variety of social and romantic themes. In 1969, he was a co-founder of Circle Repertory Company, for which he wrote many plays in the 1970s. His 1973 play, The Hot l Baltimore, was the company's first major hit with both audiences and critics; its Off-Broadway run exceeded 1,000 performances.