Oscar

Oscar, The Oscar or OSCAR may refer to:

Animals

Fictional characters

Oscar (1991 film)

Oscar is a 1991 American screwball comedy film directed by John Landis. Based on the Claude Magnier stage play, it is a remake of the 1967 French film of the same name, but the settings has been moved to the Depression-era Chicago and centers on a mob boss trying to go straight. The film stars Sylvester Stallone, Marisa Tomei, Ornella Muti, Tim Curry and Chazz Palminteri, and was a rare attempt by Stallone at doing a comedy role.

Plot

In the prologue, gangster Angelo "Snaps" Provolone promises his dying father (Kirk Douglas) that he will give up a life of crime, and instead "go straight".

A month later, Snaps awakes at his mansion and begins his important morning. He has a meeting with several prominent bankers, as he hopes to donate a large sum of cash and join the bank’s board of trustees, thereby having an honest job and keeping his word to his father. Anthony Rossano, Snaps's young, good-natured accountant, arrives at the mansion and tells his boss that he’s in love, asks for a 250% raise, then tells Snaps the true love he speaks of is actually "Snaps's daughter." Snaps is furious, does not want his daughter marrying Anthony and goes to talk to his daughter, Lisa.

Oscar (opera)

Oscar is an American opera in two acts, with music by composer Theodore Morrison and a libretto by Morrison and English opera director John Cox. The opera, Morrison's first, is based on the life of Oscar Wilde, focused on his trial and imprisonment in Reading Gaol. It was a co-commission and co-production between The Santa Fe Opera and Opera Philadelphia (formerly the Opera Company of Philadelphia). This work received its world premiere at The Santa Fe Opera on 27 July 2013. Opera Philadelphia first presented the revised version of the opera on 6 February 2015.

The genesis of the opera resulted from a 2004 meeting in London between Morrison and Cox, after the premiere of Morrison's James Joyce song cycle, Chamber Music, which he wrote for countertenor David Daniels, a former student of his. Upon learning that Morrison had never composed an opera, but wished to write one for Daniels, Cox encouraged that idea. This led to correspondence between Cox and Morrison, and an agreement to collaborate on an opera based on the subject of Oscar Wilde. Cox and Morrison had each read the biography of Wilde by Richard Ellmann, and settled on a plan for co-authorship of an opera libretto based on the writings of Oscar Wilde and his contemporaries, with Walt Whitman serving as a chorus speaking from the realm of immortality. The opera used Wilde's poem "The Ballad of Reading Gaol", documents, letters, conversations and remarks by Wilde's contemporaries as source material for the libretto. Cox also consulted Merlin Holland, the grandson of Oscar Wilde and a scholar on Oscar Wilde.

Osborne (name)

Osborne /ˈɒzbɔːrn/, along with Osbourne, Osbern, Osborn and Ausburn, is an English name influenced by the Old Norse Ásbjørn. The name means "God Bear". The English Os (see Ós) and the Norse Ás (see Aesir) mean God.

People with the name Osborne

Osborne 1

The Osborne 1 was the first commercially successful portable microcomputer, released on April 3, 1981 by Osborne Computer Corporation. It weighed 10.7 kg (23.5 lb), cost $1,795 USD, and ran the CP/M 2.2 operating system. Powered directly from a mains socket as it had no on-board battery, though it was still classed as a portable device as it could be packed away and transported by hand to another location.

The computer shipped with a large bundle of software that was almost equivalent in value to the machine itself, a practice adopted by other CP/M computer vendors at the time.

Competitors such as the Kaypro II that used double sided drives and larger 9" screens that could hold a full 80x25 display quickly appeared.

History

The Osborne 1 was developed by Adam Osborne and designed by Lee Felsenstein. It was first announced in early 1981. Osborne, an author of computer books, decided he wanted to break the price of computers.

The Osborne's design was based largely on the Xerox NoteTaker, a prototype developed at Xerox PARC in 1976 by Alan Kay. The computer was designed to be portable, with a rugged ABS plastic case that closed up, and a handle. The Osborne 1 was about the size and weight of a sewing machine and was advertised as the only computer that would fit underneath an airline seat. It is now classified as a "luggable" computer when compared to later laptop designs such as the Epson HX-20.