title: Wazir (film)

text: At the screening of "Lakshya" (2004), Chopra informed Farhan Akhtar about the script of "Wazir", and wanted his feedback on it. Ten years later, in 2014, they met again, and Akhtar agreed to do the film because, as he later said, the revised script "moved me to my core". He went through intense training and put on eight kilograms of weight to play the role of an Anti Terrorist Squad officer. He also changed his diet and met some of his friends who were ATS officers for the preparation. He modeled his character in the film on Vishwas Nangare Patil, an Inspector-general of police from Kolhapur, Maharashtra. Akhtar agreeing for the role puzzled Chopra, who recalls: "At that time, Javed Akhtar (Farhan's father) and I were engaged in a public verbal duel. When I asked Farhan what made him agree to take up the role, he said, 'The script is so good that I will bear with you. Chopra noted that while re-writing the film in Hindi, he and Joshi "realised the protagonist can't be American. We had to bring in our own sensibilities. Our cinema is more flamboyant. So the protagonist needed to be flamboyant too. We thought of making the chess master an Indian and approached [Amitabh] Bachchan for it". Bachchan had read the original script, and remembered it when Chopra came to him. Aditi Rao Hydari was cast after Nambiar saw her pictures when she had walked the ramp for a designer and Chopra saw her dancing. After this, she went through three set of auditions: dance, acting and a screen test. John Abraham and Neil Nitin Mukesh make extended cameo appearances in the film.


title: Wazir (film)

text: Principal photography commenced on 28 September 2014 in Mumbai. Parts of the film were also shot in Delhi. Chopra claims that "some of the best lines in "Wazir" are improvised" on the set, including a joke about the Russian vodka and Russian girls between Bachchan and Akhtar. Akhtar did his own stunts in the film. He completed his schedule in March 2015 at Srinagar, while Bachchan filmed his remaining scenes the following month.


title: Wazir (film)

text: Amitabh Bachchan's legs were removed below the knee in the film with the use of visual effects to show him handicapped. He wore black socks with marks on them during filming to aid in the eventual creation of the effects. Chopra was not happy with the initial effects work on the legs, so he had changes made to improve the results.


title: Wazir (film)

text: The film's soundtrack album was composed by a number of artists: Shantanu Moitra, Ankit Tiwari, Advaita, Prashant Pillai, Rochak Kohli and Gaurav Godkhindi. The background score was composed by Rohit Kulkarni while the lyrics were penned by Vidhu Vinod Chopra, Swanand Kirkire, A. M. Turaz, Manoj Muntashir and Abhijeet Deshpande. The album rights of the film were acquired by T-Series, and it was released on 18 December 2015. "Tere Bin", the first single track, was released individually on 4 December 2015, two weeks prior to the album. The video focuses on Farhan Akhtar and Aditi Rao Hydari; the song is sung by Sonu Nigam and Shreya Ghoshal and composed by Shantanu Moitra, with lyrics penned by Chopra. The next two single tracks were released at one-week intervals after the first: "Tu Mere Pass", the second single track, was composed and sung by Ankit Tiwari with lyrics by Manoj Muntashir, and the third, "Maula Mere Maula", was composed by Moitra, sung by Javed Ali and written by Chopra and Swanand Kirkire; its release date of 18 December coincided with the album's release. Fusion rock band Advaita made their film debut with the song "Khel Khel Mein". The track "Tere Liye" was written by A. M. Turaz and composed by Prashant Pillai. It was sung by Gagan Baderiya and Pillai himself. The song "Atrangi Yaari", composed by Rochak Kohli, was sung by Bachchan and Akhtar. The theme track of the film was composed by Gaurav Godkhindi.


title: Wazir (film)

text: Joginder Tuteja of Bollywood Hungama wrote: ""Wazir" has a fair mix of songs that are situational and also that could find popularity over a period of time. Though one isn't quite hunting for any solid chartbusters here, the music does work well in the context of the film." R.M. Vijayakar of "India-West" summed up with, "In short, three decent songs and three eminently forgettable songs makes for a mixed listening experience. Take it or skip it." Aelina Kapoor from Rediff.com commented, ""Wazir" has good situational soundtracks that don't aim to set any records but go well with the theme of the film."


title: Wazir (film)

text: "Wazir" was initially set to be released on 14 November 2015, and the first teaser of the film was attached with "PK" (2014). Its planned release date was moved to 2 October and then further to 4 December, but it was ultimately released in India and worldwide on 8 January 2016. The film was given a "UA" certificate with no cuts by the Central Board of Film Certification. The first poster of the film was released on 15 November 2015 via Bachchan's and Akhtar's Twitter accounts, each unveiling the other's look from the film. The official trailer of the film was released on 18 November. Chopra showed the complete film to as many as 70 Indian film programmers and distributors.


title: Wazir (film)

text: In pre-release publicity, Nambiar said, "Casting Mr. Bachchan, who has got such a strong persona, and limiting him in a wheelchair, was a big task for us to get used to". This remark was condemned as "disparaging and extremely condescending" by Javed Abidi, the founder of the Disability Rights Group. Nambiar subsequently apologised for hurting anyone's feelings. The film was released on DVD on 25 March 2016 and is also available on Netflix.


title: Wazir (film)

text: "The Indian Express" gave the film 2.5/5 stars and wrote: "watching Farhan Akhtar and Amitabh Bachchan joust and manoeuver around each other is this film's high point". Srijana Mitra Das of "The Times of India" gave it 3.5/5 stars and opened with, "So, "Wazir" is a smart movie – which could have been way smarter". Subhash K. Jha gave it 4/5 stars, highlighted its "deviously clever script" and added, "In its 1 hour and 40 minutes of playing-time "Wazir" gives us no time to stop and ruminate." Sweta Kaushal of "Hindustan Times", in a 3/5 review, wrote that "apart from the smart storyline, powerful performances are the backbone of "Wazir"", and commended both the lead and supporting actors. Baradwaj Rangan characterized the film as "a decent relationship drama, a silly thriller". Shubhra Shetty Saha of "Mid-Day" praised Bachchan's "amazing emotional precision" and said his performance was "the best thing about this film". However, he also decried the film's "lack of subtlety" and ended with ""Wazir" is a good, one-time watch."


title: Wazir (film)

text: Many critics felt the film started well but failed to follow through. Ananya Bhattacharya of India Today felt that the film had a "taut, gripping narrative" until the interval but "stumble[d]" in its second half. According to Rajeev Masand of News18 in a 2.5/5 star review, the film was "a consistently watchable but frankly far-fetched thriller that just isn't as smart as it ought to have been". Namrata Joshi of "The Hindu" called the film "lacklustre": "Despite starting off promisingly with slick production values and good performances to boot "Wazir" unravels badly, especially in the second half as it heads towards the climax." Raja Sen of Rediff.com gave the film 2/5 stars and characterized it as "obvious"; he said that "none of the character motives in this film actually add up". Saibal Chatterjee from NDTV wrote that ""Wazir" puts all its crucial cards on the table far too quickly, robbing itself of the shock factor that would have made all the difference between edge-of-the-seat suspense and tame by-the-numbers thrills." Rachit Gupta of "Filmfare", in a 3/5 star review, was also unhappy with the film's predictability: "If you pay enough attention to the first half, you'll instantly guess how the end will pan out. So you're sitting in a thriller knowing what's coming up." Gupta added that the climax was convenient and "inane".


title: Wazir (film)

text: Among overseas reviewers, "The Guardian"s Mike McCahill gave the film three stars out of five, and described it as "a finely poised Bollywood policier". Abhinav Purohit of "The National" in Abu Dhabi also gave it three stars, and wrote that "overall, "Wazir" is sure to resonate well with the viewers".


title: Wazir (film)

text: "Wazir" was the first Hindi film of the year. It earned a total of on 8 January 2016, the opening day of its release at the domestic box office, much of it from the Mumbai, Pune, Delhi NCR and Uttar Pradesh circuits. The film had a moderate opening at the overseas box office on its first day, and collected .


title: Wazir (film)

text: Domestic revenues increased for each of the next two days of the film's opening weekend. On its second day the film earned , and collected on its third, for an opening weekend total of . Daily international revenues declined as the weekend progressed, with total overseas collections rising to Rs after two days, and after three.


title: Wazir (film)

text: "Wazir" earned at the domestic box office in its opening week, and in the overseas market, for a one-week total of . The film recovered its production budget of in that first week. "Wazir" collected in domestic revenues in its second weekend, eventually becoming the first hit of 2016 at the Hindi film box office. By the end of its five-week theatrical run, the film had grossed an estimated domestically and internationally, for an approximate worldwide total of .


title: Condemned: Criminal Origins

text: Condemned: Criminal Origins is a first-person survival horror video game developed by Monolith Productions and published by Sega. It was released worldwide in 2005 on the Xbox 360, with a Microsoft Windows version released in 2006. With the developer citing films such as "The Silence of the Lambs", "Seven" and "Saw" as inspiration, the game places an emphasis on melee combat and puzzle solving, including searching for fingerprints and gathering evidence.


title: Condemned: Criminal Origins

text: Upon release, "Condemned" was met with generally positive reviews by players and critics. Many reviewers cited its storyline and lack of progression as the game's biggest faults, while its solid controls, gameplay and fresh approach to horror were praised. A sequel, "", was released in 2008 for the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3. There was also an internet prequel and a planned film adaptation to expand the "Condemned" franchise.


title: Condemned: Criminal Origins

text: Although the game is played entirely from a first-person perspective (only broken for cutscenes), it is not a traditional first-person shooter. Firearms are present, but are somewhat uncommon. Unlike many other games from a first-person perspective, though, firearms are especially deadly, often killing enemies with a single shot. The guns that can be found, or taken from enemies, are only good for as long as the current ammo in the magazine lasts; once this is depleted, the butt of the gun can be used as a weapon. To complicate matters further, enemies operate firearms from the same ammo reserve, meaning once the enemy has been dispatched, the player only gets what ammo was left over from the fight. This encourages players to attack enemies carrying firearms quickly to maximise the amount of ammo they can obtain.


title: Condemned: Criminal Origins

text: The focus of the experience is on improvised melee, allowing players and enemies to collect, or even pull, weapons from their surrounding environments, such as pipes, locker doors, shovels and 2x4s. The developers of the game described the combat as "visceral". A quick-kick is available for attacking without, or alongside, a handheld weapon, and attacks can be unleashed in different directions and configurations, such as left to right or overhead, but combat is notable for not utilizing a combo system, unlike similar titles such as "". In many cases, blocking is necessary both before and after landing a successful hit. The player can also perform "finishing moves" when the opponent is on his knees, such as headbutting or breaking their neck.


title: Condemned: Criminal Origins

text: The artificial intelligence displayed by enemies requires the player to think on their feet a great deal more than similar games. Enemies are able to flee and hide effectively, often surprising the player by quickly appearing from a concealed spot. Enemies can also effectively feint, in order to trick the player into blocking at an inopportune time, leaving themselves open for the real attack.


title: Condemned: Criminal Origins

text: Some melee weapons fall under the class of "entry tool" (like a fire axe for a rotten door, or a crowbar for a locked safe) and act as keys in the gameworld, allowing the player to access new areas or locked boxes.


title: Condemned: Criminal Origins

text: The player also has a taser which when used stuns the target, does some damage and allows the player to seize the stunned enemy's weapon. Later in the game, Lieutenant Rosa gives the player a new upgraded taser, which is much more powerful, causing the enemy's legs to give out. One hit or shot after that will kill any enemy. Common uses for it are safely attacking enemies with guns (since it allows players to stun them from a distance and then seize the gun while the enemy is incapacitated), countering an immediate attack (since using the taser does not require the precise timing that blocking does) and obtaining the chance to make a free hit (a hit where the player does not risk being hit first). However, it has to recharge between shots so it cannot be used to bypass the game's system of carefully fighting enemies.


title: Condemned: Criminal Origins

text: The entire game takes place in derelict urban environments, with minimal lighting. The player must use a flashlight to navigate through the game's constantly darkened environments, while dealing with frequent enemy ambushes.


title: Condemned: Criminal Origins

text: Near the end of the game, the player loses both the flashlight and the taser. This means all strategies which required the taser become impossible and the only personal light source becomes burning planks, which means carrying a gun reduces visibility. This effectively forces the player to rely exclusively on blocking, hiding and evasion for defense and close range attacks for offense.


title: Condemned: Criminal Origins

text: "Condemned" directly involves the player in crime scene investigations, offering the ability to, at the press of a context-sensitive button, call upon a suite of forensic tools to find and record evidence. The player character is linked to an FBI lab via his mobile phone throughout the investigation, allowing (almost immediate) remote examination and analysis by his support worker, Rosa. Crime scene evidence can be used to solve puzzles, allowing the player to pass previously impassable barriers, and provide clues to the overall mysteries of the story.


title: Condemned: Criminal Origins

text: Examples of evidence include fingerprints, footprints, fibers, fluids (such as blood or chemicals), particles, residues, markings/etchings, material, imprints, wounds, small objects, documents and body parts.


title: Condemned: Criminal Origins

text: The player character is gifted with the instinctual ability to detect when forensic evidence is nearby, allowing players to bring up the detection and collection tools when appropriate. However, the "instincts" of the character only vaguely highlight the area in which the evidence resides; it is up to the player to methodically sweep the scene and catalog any findings.


title: Condemned: Criminal Origins

text: "Condemned: Criminal Origins" is set in the fictional American city of Metro. The player takes on the role of Ethan Thomas, a crime scene investigation agent with the FBI's Serial Crime Unit, as he traverses the seedier sides of the city. His journey takes him through a number of condemned buildings as he searches for the one who framed him for murder, the evasive Serial Killer X. Along the way, Ethan must use his investigative intuition and technology to examine evidence left behind by SKX, all the while fighting off the violently psychotic denizens of Metro City, who seem to be driven to such madness by a mysterious, yet seemingly extraneous force.


title: Condemned: Criminal Origins

text: The game's protagonist is Ethan Thomas (voiced by Greg Grunberg), an SCU investigator with unusually acute investigative instincts. He also is stated to have superhuman durability, as demonstrated by his ability to recover quickly from electrocution, long falls and blunt trauma to the head, among others. He is aided in his investigations by Rosa, a forensics investigator at headquarters.


title: Condemned: Criminal Origins

text: The primary antagonist of the game is Serial Killer X, who is hunting the serial killers that Ethan is searching for, killing them by the methods that they themselves use. Near the end of the game, he is revealed to be Leland Vanhorn, nephew of Ethan's friend Malcolm. Malcolm believes that Leland is being influenced by mysterious mutilated humanoid creatures that are causing an increase in insanity throughout the city.


title: Condemned: Criminal Origins

text: The game begins with the protagonist, SCU agent Ethan Thomas, arriving at the scene of a murder. He and his fellow officers go into an abandoned building that is surrounded by psychopaths and criminals. The crime scene they investigate is one of a young woman. She is on the floor with strangulation wounds, sitting across a table from a male mannequin. Ethan, along with his colleagues, agree that the murder was most likely committed by the Match Maker, a serial killer that Ethan has been investigating. After they collect evidence from the scene, one of the officers smells cigarette smoke. Believing that the smoke must be coming from their suspect, they decide to split up and go after him. While searching for the suspect, Ethan tries to restore power from an electrical box. Due to an electrical surge, Ethan is shocked and drops to the floor, causing his weapon to be thrown from his hand. A man hiding in the shadows takes it and flees. Ethan manages to chase the man into a small, dead-end room, where the man holds Ethan at gunpoint and tells him they have similar goals. Ethan's colleagues enter the room and tell the man to drop his weapon and are promptly shot by the man with Ethan's gun, who then shoves Ethan out a window onto the street.


title: Condemned: Criminal Origins

text: Ethan wakes in his apartment with Malcolm Vanhorn, a friend of Ethan's father, at his side. Malcolm warns Ethan that he is wanted for the deaths of the two officers who were shot with Ethan's gun. Ethan is determined to prove his innocence, although his own sanity appears to be slipping, as throughout the game he suffers numerous horrific visions, and all the while is forced to fight to the death in self-defence against homeless men and women who have inexplicably been driven insane.


title: Condemned: Criminal Origins

text: He soon learns that the killer is interested in Ethan's SCU career. Later, he finds the body of the Match Maker, killed by his own modus operandi in an old department store. He presumes that the man at the original crime scene, referred to in the game as "Serial Killer X", is the culprit and that he is trying to kill the serial killers that Ethan is looking for. Ethan searches for the one that he thinks is next, a serial killer dubbed "The Torturer".


title: Condemned: Criminal Origins

text: Ethan tracks the Torturer and Serial Killer X to an abandoned apple orchard in the rural town of Brier. Shortly before finding the Torturer in the farmhouse, Ethan is attacked by a strange man-like creature. Ethan kills the creature and continues in his search. He searches through the farm where he eventually finds the Torturer dead, also killed by his own modus operandi. Soon, Ethan finds the mysterious killer, who is revealed to be Leland Vanhorn, nephew of Malcolm Vanhorn. Malcolm arrives and knocks Ethan out with a shovel to prevent him from hurting Leland. Leland then knocks Malcolm out.


title: Condemned: Criminal Origins

text: When Ethan awakens, he is tied up and at the mercy of Leland. He explains to Ethan that he has been killing the serial killers that Ethan had been hunting, and that he intends to kill Ethan as well. As Leland thinks of all the ways that he can kill Ethan, cutting Ethan's finger off in the process, Ethan notices another man-like creature hiding in the rafters. This creature is known as "The Hate" and is identified as the source of the madness gripping Metro City. Malcolm attacks Leland from behind and succeeds in wrestling him to the ground. Ethan manages to free himself and Malcolm tells him to kill The Hate, saying that it is the cause of Leland's madness. Ethan pursues The Hate as it tries to escape, fighting waves of hideously burned homeless men along the way, and eventually corners it in a barn and kills it.


title: Condemned: Criminal Origins

text: As Malcolm drives Ethan home, Ethan discovers that Leland is alive and in the trunk of the car. Malcolm still believes that Leland can be saved from The Hate's influence, but Ethan does not and is furious at the revelation. When Ethan opens the trunk, he is given the option to shoot the tied-up Leland. If he does not shoot Leland, Leland pulls out his own gun and waves it at Ethan before committing suicide.


title: Condemned: Criminal Origins

text: Some time later, Ethan and Rosa are having a conversation in a diner when Rosa tips him off that she is wired and the FBI is investigating Ethan, while revealing that she still trusts him. Rosa then leaves the diner and Ethan goes to the bathroom. While in the restroom, Ethan apparently experiences another vision while watching his reflection in the mirror, and his mouth becomes deformed and wide open just like The Hate's mouth, before the game comes to an abrupt halt.


title: Condemned: Criminal Origins

text: The version of "Condemned: Criminal Origins" for the Xbox 360 console employs the achievements system mandated by Microsoft. As the criteria for the achievement awards are met, bonus content is unlocked, which can then be accessed from a special menu. Content includes concept and production sketches and paintings, work-in-progress animation, video from motion capture sessions and a rather lengthy video showcasing a complete level from an early version of the game. These features were later carried over to the PC version of the game.


title: Condemned: Criminal Origins

text: "Condemned: Criminal Origins" was originally known as "The Dark", quite far into production. Under this name, the game was largely similar but differed in several key areas. The player character was known as Agent Cross, and the game appeared to follow him on a government-sanctioned investigation, or investigations, rather than acting as a rogue on the run from the law. Although Cross possessed the supernatural leanings of Thomas from the final game, he could actually use various magical spells. For example, a spell could be uttered to pull a gun from an enemy's hands and another spell saw doors and other obstacles break in front of the player, seemingly negating the need for a fire axe. The forensic tools used by Cross also differed, as the detection and collection tools were typically one individual itemthe UV light, for instance, could illuminate clues and then be used to physically swipe across them to take samples.


title: Condemned: Criminal Origins

text: "Condemned: Criminal Origins" received "generally favorable reviews" on both platforms according to the review aggregation website Metacritic. GameSpot said of the Xbox 360 version that "it captures hand-to-hand combat with intense, lifelike brutality like no other game before it". In Japan, where the same console version was ported for release under the name "Famitsu" gave it a score of 25 out of 40, while "Famitsu Xbox 360" gave it a score of two nines and two eights for a total of 34 out of 40.


title: Condemned: Criminal Origins

text: "Detroit Free Press" gave the Xbox 360 version a score of all four stars and said: "Though the game could be longer and could stand more diversity, the cold shivers that run down your spine while playing it are an undeniable rush". "Maxim" gave it a score of eight out of ten and stated that the game, "while not entirely original, still creatively mixes the first-person punching of "" with the jump-out-at-you frights of "Doom 3" and the investigative thrills of the best "" episode". "The New York Times" gave it a favorable review and wrote that "the game is also creepy in another way; you spend much of it essentially beating homeless people to death with pipes. Admittedly, these people attack you, and in fact will often attack and kill one another if you just get out of their way, but I still found it disturbing". However, "The Sydney Morning Herald" gave it a score of three stars out of five: "Frights are common as disturbingly psychopathic vagrants lunge at you from the shadows. The violence is raw, barbaric and unsettling". "Edge" gave it a score of six out of ten and called it "a scary, vicious, visually progressive if rather hollow next-gen showcase that doesn't outstay its welcome. If you want to spend a night or two in the company of the future of horror videogaming, you could do a lot worse".


title: Condemned: Criminal Origins

text: In February 2008 all copies of "Condemned" were confiscated in Germany because of , which outlaws the dissemination or public display of media "which describe cruel or otherwise inhuman acts of violence against human beings in a manner which expresses a glorification or rendering harmless of such acts of violence or which represents the cruel or inhuman aspects of the event in a manner which injures human dignity". Distribution in Germany is now prohibited by law.


title: Condemned: Criminal Origins

text: A six-part episodic online game was released on the "Condemned: Criminal Origins" website. The protagonist is Agent Mallory, who is searching for a serial killer. In the last episode, Mallory is killed by Serial Killer X. The game ends where "Condemned: Criminal Origins" begins.


title: Condemned: Criminal Origins

text: A direct sequel to the game was released in 2008. It was titled "Condemned 2: Bloodshot" to show the character evolution in protagonist Ethan Thomas. The game was developed by Monolith and published by Sega, the same companies as the original. It expanded on the gameplay elements from "Condemned" and added several new features such as online multiplayer and environmental kills.


title: Condemned: Criminal Origins

text: Warner Brothers Studios announced plans to release a film adaptation which is set in the same "universe" as the then upcoming "Condemned: Criminal Origins" in October 2005.


title: Condemned: Criminal Origins

text: A report from "The Variety" stated that Kurt Sutter, co-executive producer of the television series "The Shield", was to be a writer of screenplay for the film under the working title "Unforgettable".


title: Condemned: Criminal Origins

text: According to earlier drafts of the script, a police officer hunts down a serial killer in an attempt to clear his name from murder, but during the process he discovers that he may be tied to other ongoing murder cases in an unusual way. The cop soon begins to question throughout his investigation upon discovering his supernatural abilities, "who he is as a man, until he realizes he's not a man. A tug-of-war emerges among a faction of good and evil aliens".


title: Condemned: Criminal Origins

text: Also connected with the project is Jace Hall, a former Monolith CEO who joined Warner Bros. to become vice president of operations over their gaming division. Hall, along with Nathan Henderickson, was responsible for the film's concept and claimed that he seeks to "come up with something specifically designed to use multiple mediums to tell stories that had some continuity and connective thread... We wanted to create a universe that, like a "Star Wars", was big enough where different stories could exist". "Variety" indicated that the plan was to introduce audiences to the "universe" of "Condemned" with "Criminal Origins", followed by a film adaptation which will tie-in with a sequel video game gradually expanding the story's universe.


title: Richard Brautigan

text: Richard Gary Brautigan (January 30, 1935 – c. September 16, 1984) was an American novelist, poet, and short story writer. A prolific writer, he wrote throughout his life and published ten novels, two collections of short stories, and four books of poetry. Brautigan's work has been published both in the United States and internationally throughout Europe, Japan, and China. He is best known for his novels "Trout Fishing in America" (1967), "In Watermelon Sugar" (1968), and "" (1971).


title: Richard Brautigan

text: Brautigan began his career as a poet, with his first collection being published in 1957. He made his debut as a novelist with "A Confederate General from Big Sur" (1964), about a seemingly delusional man who believes himself to be the descendant of a Confederate general from Big Sur. Brautigan would go on to publish numerous prose and poetry collections until 1982. He died by suicide in 1984.


title: Richard Brautigan

text: Brautigan was born in Tacoma, Washington, the only child of Bernard Frederick "Ben" Brautigan Jr. (July 29, 1908 – May 27, 1994), a factory worker and laborer, and Lulu Mary "Mary Lou" Keho (April 7, 1911 – September 24, 2005), a waitress. In May 1934, eight months before Richard's birth, Bernard and Mary Lou separated. Brautigan said that he met his biological father only twice, although after Richard's death, Bernard was said to be unaware that Richard was his child, saying "He's got the same last name, but why would they wait 45 to 50 years to tell me I've got a son?"


title: Richard Brautigan

text: In 1938, Brautigan and his mother began living with a man named Arthur Martin Titland. The couple produced a daughter named Barbara Ann, born on May 1, 1939, in Tacoma. Brautigan claimed that he had a very traumatic experience when, at age six, his mother left him and his two-year-old sister unattended in a motel room in Great Falls, Montana, for two days.


title: Richard Brautigan

text: On January 20, 1943, Mary Lou married a fry cook named Robert Geoffrey Porterfield. The couple had a daughter named Sandra Jean, born April 1, 1945, at Salem General Hospital in Salem, Oregon. Mary Lou told Brautigan that Porterfield was his biological father, and Brautigan began using "Richard Gary Porterfield" as his name. Mary Lou separated from Porterfield in 1946, and married William David Folston Sr. on June 12, 1950. The couple produced a son named William David Jr., born on December 19, 1950, in Eugene. Folston was recalled as being a violent alcoholic, whom Richard had seen abusing his mother.


title: Richard Brautigan

text: Brautigan was raised in poverty; he told his daughter stories of his mother sifting rat feces out of their supply of flour before making flour-and-water pancakes. Brautigan's family found it difficult to obtain food, and on some occasions they did not eat for days. The family lived on welfare and moved about the Pacific Northwest for nine years before settling in Eugene, Oregon in August 1944. Many of Brautigan's childhood experiences are included in the poems and stories that he wrote from as early as the age of 12. His novel "So the Wind Won't Blow It All Away" is loosely based on childhood experiences, including an incident in which Brautigan accidentally shot the brother of a close friend in the ear, injuring him only slightly.


title: Richard Brautigan

text: On September 12, 1950, Brautigan enrolled at Eugene High School, having graduated from Woodrow Wilson Junior High School. He wrote for his high school newspaper, the "Eugene High School News". He also played on his school's basketball team, and stood tall by the time of his graduation. On December 19, 1952, Brautigan's first published poem, "The Light", appeared in the school newspaper. Brautigan graduated with honors from Eugene High School on June 9, 1953. After graduation, he moved in with his best friend Peter Webster, and Peter's mother Edna Webster became a surrogate mother to Brautigan. According to several accounts, Brautigan stayed with Webster for about a year before leaving for San Francisco for the first time in August 1954. He returned to Oregon several times, apparently for lack of money.


title: Richard Brautigan

text: On December 14, 1955, Brautigan was arrested for throwing a rock through a police station window, supposedly to be sent to prison and fed. He was arrested for disorderly conduct and fined $25. He was then committed to the Oregon State Hospital on December 24, 1955, after police noticed patterns of erratic behavior.


title: Richard Brautigan

text: At the Oregon State Hospital Brautigan was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia and clinical depression, and was treated with electroconvulsive therapy 12 times. While institutionalized, he began writing "The God of the Martians", a manuscript of 20 very short chapters totaling 600 words. The manuscript was sent to at least two editors but was rejected by both, and remains unpublished. (A copy of the manuscript was recently discovered with the papers of the last of those editors, Harry Hooton.) On February 19, 1956, Brautigan was released from the hospital and briefly lived with his mother, stepfather, and siblings in Eugene. He then left for San Francisco, where he would spend most of the rest of his life except for periods in Tokyo and Montana.


title: Richard Brautigan

text: In San Francisco, Brautigan sought to establish himself as a writer. He was known for handing out his poetry on the streets and performing at poetry clubs. In early 1956, Brautigan typed a three-page manuscript and sent it to The Macmillan Company for publication. The manuscript consisted of two pages with 14 poems and a page with the dedication "for Linda". Of the poems, only "stars" and "hey" were titled. In a letter dated May 10, 1956, Macmillan rejected the manuscript, stating, "... there is no place where it will fit in". In 2005, the X-Ray Book Company published the manuscript as a chapbook titled "Desire in a Bowl of Potatoes".


title: Richard Brautigan

text: Brautigan's first poetry book publication was "The Return of the Rivers" (1957), a single poem, followed by two collections of poetry: "The Galilee Hitch-Hiker" (1958) and "Lay the Marble Tea" (1959). During the 1960s Brautigan became involved in the burgeoning San Francisco counterculture scene, often appearing as a performance poet at concerts and participating in the various activities of The Diggers. He contributed several short pieces to be used as broadsides by the Communication Company. Brautigan was also a writer for "Change", an underground newspaper created by Ron Loewinsohn.


title: Richard Brautigan

text: In the summer of 1961, while camping in southern Idaho with his wife and daughter, Brautigan completed the novels "A Confederate General From Big Sur" and "Trout Fishing in America." "A Confederate General from Big Sur" was his first published novel and met with little critical or commercial success. But when "Trout Fishing in America" was published in 1967, Brautigan was catapulted to international fame. Literary critics labeled him the writer most representative of the emerging countercultural youth movement of the late 1960s, even though he was said to be contemptuous of hippies. "Trout Fishing in America" has sold over 4 million copies worldwide.


title: Richard Brautigan

text: During the 1960s Brautigan published four collections of poetry as well as another novel, "In Watermelon Sugar" (1968). In the spring of 1967 he was Poet-in-Residence at the California Institute of Technology. During this year, he published "All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace", a chapbook published by The Communication Company. It was printed in an edition of 1,500 copies and distributed free. From 1968 to 1970 Brautigan had 23 short pieces published in "Rolling Stone" magazine. From late 1968 to February 1969, Brautigan recorded a spoken-word album for The Beatles' short-lived record-label, Zapple. The label was shut down by Allen Klein before the recording could be released, but it was eventually released in 1970 on Harvest Records as "Listening to Richard Brautigan".


title: Richard Brautigan

text: In the 1970s Brautigan experimented with literary genres. He published five novels (the first of which, "", had been written in the mid-1960s) and a collection of short stories, "Revenge of the Lawn" (1971). In 1974 The Cowell Press collected seven of his broadside poems into the book "Seven Watermelon Suns". The limited edition of ten copies included embossed color etchings by Ellen Meske. "When the 1960s ended, he was the baby thrown out with the bath water," said his friend and fellow writer, Thomas McGuane. "He was a gentle, troubled, deeply odd guy." Generally dismissed by literary critics and increasingly abandoned by his readers, Brautigan's popularity waned throughout the late 1970s and 1980s. His work remained popular in Europe, however, as well as in Japan, where Brautigan visited several times. To his critics, Brautigan was willfully naive. Lawrence Ferlinghetti said of him, "As an editor I was always waiting for Richard to grow up as a writer. It seems to me he was essentially a naïf, and I don't think he cultivated that childishness, I think it came naturally. It was like he was much more in tune with the trout in America than with people."


title: Richard Brautigan

text: Brautigan's writings are characterized by a remarkable and humorous imagination. The permeation of inventive metaphors lent even his prose works the feeling of poetry. Evident also are themes of Zen Buddhism like the duality of the past and the future and the impermanence of the present. Brautigan's last publication before his death in 1984 was his novel "So the Wind Won't Blow It All Away", published in 1982.


title: Richard Brautigan

text: "The Edna Webster Collection of Undiscovered Writings" was published in 1999. This collection of writings was gifted by a twenty-one year old Richard Brautigan to Edna Webster in 1955, when he left Oregon for San Francisco.


title: Richard Brautigan

text: In 2002, a proposed edition of Brautigan's collected poems was rejected by his estate. In November 2016 the French publisher Le Castor Astral published a bilingual edition entitled "Tout ce que j'ai à déclarer: œuvre poétique complète."


title: Richard Brautigan

text: On June 8, 1957, Brautigan married Virginia Dionne Alder in Reno, Nevada. The couple had one daughter together, Ianthe Elizabeth Brautigan, born on March 25, 1960, in San Francisco. Brautigan's alcoholism and depression caused him to become increasingly abusive and Alder ended the relationship on December 24, 1962, though the divorce was not finalized until July 28, 1970. Brautigan continued to reside in San Francisco after the separation, while Alder settled in Manoa, Hawaii, and became a feminist and an anti-Vietnam War activist.


title: Richard Brautigan

text: Brautigan remarried on December 1, 1977, to the Japanese-born Akiko Yoshimura, whom he met in July 1976 while living in Tokyo. The couple settled in Pine Creek, Park County, Montana, for two years. Brautigan and Yoshimura divorced in 1980.


title: Richard Brautigan

text: Brautigan had a relationship with Marcia Clay of San Francisco from 1981 to 1982. He also pursued a brief relationship with Janice Meissner, a woman from the North Beach community of San Francisco. Other relationships were with Marcia Pacaud, who appears on the cover of "The Pill Versus the Springhill Mine Disaster"; Valerie Estes, who appears on the cover of "Listening to Richard Brautigan"; and Sherry Vetter, who appears on the cover of "Revenge of the Lawn".


title: Richard Brautigan

text: Brautigan was an alcoholic throughout his adult life; according to his daughter, he often mentioned suicide over a period of more than a decade before ending his life.


title: Richard Brautigan

text: In 1984, at age 49, Richard Brautigan had moved to Bolinas, California, where he was living alone in a large, old house that he had bought with his earnings years earlier. He died of a self-inflicted .44 Magnum gunshot wound to the head. His decomposed body was found by Robert Yench, a friend and private investigator, on October 25, 1984. The body was found on the living room floor, in front of a large window that, though shrouded by trees, looked out over the Pacific Ocean. Due to the decomposition of the body it is speculated that Brautigan had ended his life over a month earlier, on September 16, 1984, days after talking to friend Marcia Clay on the telephone (neighbors heard a loud noise that Sunday while watching an NFL game). Brautigan was survived by his parents, both ex-wives, and his daughter Ianthe.


title: Richard Brautigan

text: According to Michael Caines, writing in the "Times Literary Supplement", the story that Brautigan left a suicide note that simply read: "Messy, isn't it?" is apocryphal. Ianthe Brautigan has confirmed that her father did not leave such a message. Brautigan once wrote, "All of us have a place in history. Mine is clouds."


title: Richard Brautigan

text: Because Brautigan frequently wrote in first-person and included locations and events with which he is associated, readers might assume his work is autobiographical. Writing in 1972, Long Island University professor Terrence Malley points out that "Brautigan's books are for the most part both directly autobiographical and curiously elusive . . . It's usually difficult to separate confession from whimsy in Brautigan's writing" (18).


title: Richard Brautigan

text: Several later authors have cited Brautigan as an influence, including Haruki Murakami, W. P. Kinsella, Christopher Moore and Sarah Hall.


title: Richard Brautigan

text: The Library for Unpublished Works envisioned by Brautigan in his novel "The Abortion" was housed at the Brautigan Library in Burlington, Vermont, until 1995 when it was moved to the nearby Fletcher Free Library where it remained until 2005. Although there were plans to move it to the Presidio branch of the San Francisco Public Library, these never materialized. However, after an agreement was made between Brautigan's daughter, Ianthe Brautigan, and the Clark County Historical Museum (in Vancouver, Washington), the Brautigan Library was moved to the museum in 2010.


title: Richard Brautigan

text: "Kumquat Meringue" was a literary journal published in Rockford, Illinois, dedicated to the memory and work of Brautigan.


title: Richard Brautigan

text: Saltpeter, a London-based production company, launched an international creative society, the Brautigan Book Club (BBC), which uses Brautigan and his work as a creative jumping off point. , Saltpeter was developing the world premiere of "the Brautigan opera" developed from "Tonseisha – The Man Who Abandoned the World", a play by Los Angeles screenwriter Erik Patterson.


title: Richard Brautigan

text: The industrial rock band Machines of Loving Grace took its name from one of Brautigan's poems. The album "Boo, Forever" by indie rock band Field Guides takes its title from the Brautigan poem of the same name. John Markoff titled his 2015 book "Machines of Loving Grace: The Quest For Common Ground Between Humans and Robots".


title: Richard Brautigan

text: Trout Fishing in America is a musical duo which performs folk rock and children's music. Neko Case based her song "Margaret vs. Pauline" on the female characters of "In Watermelon Sugar". The band b-flower is named after Richard Brautigan, being a shortened version of "Brautigan Flower". They also reference his work in songs such as "The Eternal 59th Second" (titled after a line in "Trout Fishing in America"). The Lovely Eggs praise Brautigan in their song "Have You Ever Heard A Digital Accordion?". The song "Brought Again" by Atlanta band "Insane Jane" on their 1993 album "Each Finger" is a reference to Brautigan. The Boo Radleys' song "Boo Forever", released in 1992, was written about Brautigan and songwriter Martin Carr released a solo album, "All Watched Over By Machines Of Loving Grace", in 2004. The documentarian Adam Curtis produced a series of films for the BBC about the effect of computers on society called "All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace".


title: Richard Brautigan

text: In March 1994, a teenager named Peter Eastman Jr. from Carpinteria, California, legally changed his name to Trout Fishing in America, and now teaches English at Waseda University in Japan.


title: Richard Brautigan

text: The short story 'Your Clothes are Dead' by Dave McKean, included in a collection of short comics called Pictures That Tick, is about a meeting provoked by memories of, and buying a copy of, Brautigan's .


title: Richard Brautigan

text: Brautigan's daughter, Ianthe Elizabeth Brautigan, describes her memories of her father in her book "You Can't Catch Death" (2000).


title: Richard Brautigan

text: In March 2018, poet Francis Daulerio published "Please Plant This Book" – a reinterpretation of and homage to Brautigan's book of the same name on its 50th anniversary. The publication contained seeds to be planted, packed in sleeves which carry poems by Daulerio and illustrations by Scott Hutchison. Profits from the book were to go to The American Foundation for Suicide Prevention. Hutchison took his own life in May 2018, and in September an expanded version was published as a chapbook, the original edition having sold out, containing a foreword by Ianthe Brautigan and an afterword by Scottish poet Michael Pedersen.


title: Richard Brautigan

text: The music video for Kat Meoz's "Here I Wait" directed by Kansas Bowling recreates Brautigan's book covers and features the only footage in existence of the actual Willard which inspired "".


title: Richard Brautigan

text: Brautigan is mentioned in the song "I Like the Way You Walk" by the Donkeys from the 2011 album "Born With Stripes", and by Shawn Mullins in "Twin Rocks, Oregon".


title: Richard Brautigan

text: "A Beautiful Poem" is read by Matthew McConaughey and plays a significant role in the 2019 movie "The Beach Bum".


title: Demetrius Grosse

text: Demetrius Grosse (born February 26, 1981) is an American actor and producer. He is best known for his role as Rock in the feature film "Straight Outta Compton", Emmett Yawners in the Cinemax television series "Banshee," Errol in the FX television series "Justified", and Baron Samedi in NBC's "Heroes".


title: Demetrius Grosse

text: Born and raised in Washington, D.C., Grosse began honing his performance skills at the age of ten. Spending time at the Summer Musical Theater Workshop, Grosse was able to practice singing, acting, and dance. As a theatre actor he honed his craft on the stage starring in more than five plays with SMTW. Through training and performance, acting, singing, and dance were all elements of performance that were developed early on as Grosse began to build his repertoire. Grosse was not always considering acting though. For a time he was interested in veterinary medicine, coding, and even cut hair as a barber at Legends, a well-known LA barber shop. By 17 Grosse pursued his dreams of acting and studied at Gonzaga College High School. Grosse then went on and achieved an award for the Andrew Carnegie Undergraduate Grant for artistic merit and later graduated from Carnegie Mellon University with a degree from its School of Drama. In 2002, Grosse completed a visiting student program in which he finished two semesters of intensive study at the Howard University College of Fine Arts in his home of Washington DC. During July, Grosse took his craft to the international arena, studying and performing both classical and contemporary drama with the British American Drama Academy in Oxford, England. In the summer of 2007, Grosse joined Shakespeare Santa Monica. He had performed on the stages of Oxford, England with the BADA group, in Washington DC with The Shakespeare Theatre, and in Cape Town, South Africa with UCT.


title: Demetrius Grosse

text: Grosse appeared in the HBO series "Westworld" based on the 1973 film of the same name. He also appeared in Michael Bay's feature film "" (2016). Grosse is known for taking on many characters from various background and of all different genres. He made his acting debut in "Numbers" (2005) and is well known for his roles in "Straight Outta Compton" (2015), "Saving Mr. Banks" (2013), "This Is Martin Bonner" (2013) and "Banshee" (2013). His other television credits include "Justified", "Criminal Minds", "ER", "NCIS", "Heroes", "Bones", "Dexter", " and Frontier." Grosse also made appearances in "The Inheritance" (2011), and "Hollywoo" (2011). Grosse has credits for producing "Last Cry for Katrina" (2013), "Moonshiners", and "A Quiet Fire" (2009).


title: Demetrius Grosse

text: On "Banshee", Grosse portrayed series regular character Deputy Emmett Yawners for the first two seasons. Grosse's character was the Deputy for the Banshee County Sheriff's Department in the town of Banshee, Pennsylvania. Known as a family man and the moral compass of the show, Deputy Yawners fought until the end protecting his pregnant wife in the season 2 finale episode "Bullets & Tears".


title: Demetrius Grosse

text: On "Justified", Grosse portrayed recurring character Errol Butler who is Ellstin Limehouse's right-hand man in Noble's Holler. Errol's hand is also shown to be badly burned from lye, possibly by Limehouse for disobeying him at some point. In Season 3, Errol is shown to resemble Boyd's own former right-hand Johnny Crowder, as he is willing to turn on his leader any chance he gets and attempts to make several power plays to increase Limehouse's wealth and power, all without his boss's permission. These plays eventually get Errol kicked out of Noble's Holler in the finale "Slaughterhouse", but he returns to defend Limehouse when he sees Robert Quarles returning with Raylan Givens and another hostage. Errol takes a bullet for Limehouse and his fate is left ambiguous as the season ends. In the Season 6 episode "Sounding", Errol is revealed to be alive and on better terms with Limehouse and is ordered by him to accompany Ava into gathering supplies at a hardware store in order to excavate Boyd's money from a bank robbery to pay off Limehouse for a car. Bob Sweeney and Raylan approach the hardware store, Bob having tracked down Errol from Noble's. Bob and Errol have a stand-off as Bob attempts to lure Errol out of the store on a bogus charge so that Raylan can get Ava back into his custody. Bob then tases Errol when he refuses to cooperate and leaves with him out of the store.


title: Demetrius Grosse

text: On "Heroes", Grosse portrayed recurring character Baron Samedi. "Baron Samedi" was the alias used by a warlord in Haiti who escaped from Level 5. Baron Samedi has impenetrable skin, which grants him a greater resistance to physical injury than an average human. His skin is a virtually indestructible armor, impenetrable by bullets, blades, or any other known weapon. When flown into a car by Nathan, Samedi is able to stand up unscathed. According to his assignment tracker profile, Samedi's control index is 82%. His data analysis show his biological level at 80, cerebral at 45, elemental at 15 and temporal/spatial at 25.


title: The Company You Keep (film)

text: The Company You Keep is a 2012 American political thriller film produced, directed by and starring Robert Redford. The script was written by Lem Dobbs based on the 2003 novel of the same name by Neil Gordon. The film was produced by Nicolas Chartier (Voltage Pictures), Redford and Bill Holderman.


title: The Company You Keep (film)

text: The story centers on recent widower and single father Jim Grant, a former Weather Underground anti-Vietnam War militant wanted for a bank robbery and murder. Grant has hidden from the FBI for over 30 years, as an attorney in Albany, New York. He becomes a fugitive when his true identity is exposed by Ben Shepard, an aggressive young reporter. Grant must find his ex-lover, Mimi, the one person who can clear his name, before the FBI catches him. Otherwise, he will lose everything, including his 11-year-old daughter Isabel. While Ben struggles with ethical issues as a journalist, Jim and his old friends from the Weather Underground must live with the consequences of their radical past.


title: The Company You Keep (film)

text: After film festival screenings in September 2012, the film's first theatrical release was in Italy in December 2012. A U.S. limited release began in April 2013, followed by wider release later in the month and releases in various foreign markets through December 2013. The film received a mixed reception from the critics in the U.S. but a generally favorable one abroad. It grossed $5.1 million in the U.S. and Canada, with foreign sales reaching $14.5 million.


title: The Company You Keep (film)

text: A recently widowed single father, Jim Grant (Robert Redford), is a former Weather Underground militant wanted for a 1980 Michigan bank robbery and the murder of the bank's security guard. He has been hiding from the FBI for over thirty years, establishing an identity as a defense attorney near Albany, New York. When Sharon Solarz (Susan Sarandon), another former Weather Underground member, is arrested on October 3, 2011, an ambitious young reporter, Ben Shepard (Shia LaBeouf), smells an opportunity to make a name for himself with a national story. His prickly editor, Ray Fuller (Stanley Tucci), assigns him to follow up. Ben's ex-girlfriend, Diana (Anna Kendrick), is an FBI agent, and he presses her for information about the case. She tells him to look up a Billy Cusimano (Stephen Root). Billy, an old hippie with a history of drug arrests who runs an organic grocery, is an old friend of Sharon Solarz and a former client of Jim's. Billy is disappointed that Jim doesn't want to take Sharon's case, and he conveys this information to Ben when Ben questions him.


title: The Company You Keep (film)

text: Ben pursues Jim and tries to question him, but Jim is evasive. Spooked by the federal investigation, Jim takes his 11-year-old daughter Isabel (Jackie Evancho) on "a little trip", driving north at first to throw off his pursuers. Ben learns that Mimi Lurie (Julie Christie), an accomplice in the Michigan bank robbery, was last seen in Canada. A private investigator helps Ben find out that Jim had no Social Security number prior to 1979 and finds a copy of Jim Grant's California death certificate. Ben concludes that Jim is really Nick Sloan, another former Weatherman, and writes an article breaking this news, creating a sensation and accelerating the FBI's interest.


title: The Company You Keep (film)

text: Meanwhile, Jim and Isabel arrive in New York City. They go sight-seeing and check into a fancy hotel. The manhunt for Jim/Nick is now national news. While Isabel is sleeping, Jim leaves the room key hidden in the hotel lobby, along with legal papers giving Jim/Nick's brother, Daniel Sloan (Chris Cooper), guardianship of Isabel. Daniel retrieves them, and Isabel. FBI agents, under the direction of Diana's boss Cornelius (Terrence Howard), have been tracking Daniel and follow him to the hotel. They nearly catch Jim there, but Jim creates a diversion and escapes; FBI agents spot Daniel leaving with Isabel and stop them. Sharon Solarz refuses to provide any information to the FBI, but she agrees to talk to Ben. She is unrepentant about her radical activism in the Weather Underground and reveals that Nick and Mimi had a love affair long ago. Ben also questions Daniel and writes a gratuitously unflattering piece about him, annoying Ben's boss.


title: The Company You Keep (film)

text: Jim/Nick goes to Milwaukee to find Donal (Nick Nolte), his old best friend, who owns a lumber yard. Donal discourages him from looking for Mimi, but tells him to contact former SDS member, history professor Jed Lewis (Richard Jenkins). Jed disagreed with Nick over using violence, resenting the Weather Underground for endangering their nonviolent counterparts. He initially refuses to help Jim, but when he finds out that Jim has a young daughter, he uses his connections with their old radical friends to track down Mimi. At Big Sur, California, Mimi imports marijuana into the U.S. aboard a sailboat as part of an operation run by Mac McLeod (Sam Elliott), Mimi's boyfriend. Through Jed, Jim reaches Mac, who informs him that Mimi left to go "inland". Jim knows where she is going.


title: The Company You Keep (film)

text: Ben begins to feel that Jim's actions make no sense for a guilty man. Defying his boss, he goes to Michigan to investigate the original crime. He meets with retired cop Henry Osborne (Brendan Gleeson), who was the first person to investigate the robbery. Osborne refuses to talk in front of his adopted daughter Rebecca (Brit Marling), and Ben senses that he is hiding something important. Ben does some research, finding that Osborne had strong connections to Mimi's family before the bank robbery. He learns of the Linder-Lurie company property on the Michigan upper peninsula near Ontario, Canada. Osborne acknowledges that if Mimi were to come forward with the information that Jim was not present at the robbery (although Jim's car was used during it), Jim would be cleared of all charges. Later, Ben flirts with Rebecca.


title: The Company You Keep (film)

text: Jim meets Mimi in a secluded cabin on the Linder-Lurie property. She is still passionate about the goals of the Weathermen and unapologetic about her old actions, but Jim argues that life has changed. Jim asks Mimi to turn herself in and confirm his alibi, for the sake of his daughter Isabel. He doesn't want to leave Isabel behind and repeat the mistake that he and Mimi made 30 years earlier by giving up their own daughter. Mimi reveals that their daughter is a beautiful young woman living in Ann Arbor. Meanwhile, Ben realizes that Jim is searching for Mimi, and that Rebecca is their daughter. He advises Rebecca to speak to her father. The next morning, Mimi flees the cabin to sail to Canada just as Ben arrives to find Jim. Ben reveals that he knows the truth about Rebecca and Osborne; Jim says that Ben must decide whether or not to keep the secret. Jim leaves the cabin so that the FBI will chase him instead of Mimi. Cornelius catches Jim, and Rebecca soon learns of the circumstances of her adoption. Meanwhile, Mimi turns her boat around and returns to the U.S. to give herself up. The next day, Jim is freed from jail and reunites with Isabel. Ben decides not to expose Osborne's actions of 30 years before and to protect Rebecca's true identity.


title: The Company You Keep (film)

text: Produced by Nicolas Chartier (Voltage Pictures), Redford and Bill Holderman, the movie filmed in Vancouver in autumn 2011. The film's "moody ... contemporary" score is by Cliff Martinez, its editor is Mark Day, and cinematography is by Adriano Goldman. The first trailer for the movie was released on August 30, 2012.


title: The Company You Keep (film)

text: The film premiered on September 6, 2012, at the 69th Venice International Film Festival and then played at the 2012 Toronto International Film Festival on September 9, 2012. Sony Pictures Classics distributed the movie in the United States, and StudioCanal acquired the United Kingdom distribution rights.


title: The Company You Keep (film)

text: "The Company You Keep" was released in Italian theatres in December 2012, earning more than $4.8 million there. Its limited release in the U.S. began in New York and Los Angeles on April 5, 2013, after which it received wider North American release. European, Australasian, South American, Middle-Eastern and Asian releases continued from April to December 2013. The first run of the film concluded in the U.S. in July 2013.


title: The Company You Keep (film)

text: The film grossed $5.1 million in the U.S. and Canada, with foreign box office sales reaching $14.5 million (excluding China), for a worldwide theatrical total of $19.6 million. "The Company You Keep" was released on DVD and Blu-ray on August 13, 2013.


title: The Company You Keep (film)

text: In early reviews from the Venice Film Festival, "Variety" called the film an "unabashedly heartfelt but competent tribute to 1960s idealism ... in its stolid, old-fashioned way, it satisfies an appetite, especially among mature auds, for dialogue- and character-driven drama that gets into issues without getting too bogged down in verbiage. ... There is something undeniably compelling, perhaps even romantic, about America's '60s radicals and the compromises they did or didn't make". "The Hollywood Reporter" praised the cast, especially Sarandon and Marling, and termed the film "a tense yet admirably restrained thriller ... Adapted with clarity and intelligence ... and lent distinguishing heft by its roster of screen veterans, this gripping drama provides an absorbing reflection on the courage and cost of dissent. ... While it provides for some passing commentary on the journalistic process and the slow death of print media, making the ambitious reporter such a driving figure perhaps mutes the focus a little. ... The storytelling is nonetheless robust and thematically rich".


title: The Company You Keep (film)

text: In its U.S. release, the film received mixed reviews. On Rotten Tomatoes the film has an approval rating of 54%, based on 123 reviews, with an average rating of 6.10/10. The site's critical consensus reads, ""The Company You Keep" is a (frustratingly) slow-burning thriller about very contemporary issues." "Time" magazine wrote: "With a welcome mixture of juice and grit, the movie dramatizes the lingering conundrums of young people in the time of the Vietnam morass. ... [The film] is streaked with melancholy: a disappointment that the second American Revolution never came. ... Nonetheless, this is a pulsating drama of a man who goes on an intricate, often interior journey to outrun his past." NPR's Linda Holmes called the story "undercooked" and thought that "it all seems to have been a lot of noise and running for nothing". Rex Reed wrote in "The New York Observer" that "From ... a dazzling display of perfect performances, to the complex emotional relationships that result in guilt by association, the disparate elements in "The Company You Keep" are robustly collated by the keen, well-crafted direction of a master filmmaker at the top of his form."


title: The Company You Keep (film)

text: In July 2015 TCYK LLC, a US-based company, obtained a court order requiring that Sky Broadband, a UK company, disclose customer information corresponding to IP addresses that it alleged had infringed its copyright to "The Company You Keep" by unlawfully downloading and sharing the film on the internet during 2013. TCYK LLC then sent letters to dozens of these customers accusing them of such sharing and demanding a response, threatening "adverse costs consequences" for a failure to respond. Sky suggested that its customers contact for assistance Citizens Advice, an organization critical of this practice, known as a "speculative invoicing claim". TCYK LLC later sent a follow-up letter to Sky customers offering to settle the claim for a proposed amount of money and other conditions. BBC News reported that the file could have been shared by someone using a customer's wi-fi signal.


title: Accession of North Macedonia to the European Union

text: The accession of North Macedonia to the European Union has been on the current agenda for future enlargement of the EU since 2005, when it became a candidate for accession. Macedonia submitted its membership application in 2004, thirteen years after its independence from Yugoslavia. It is one of eight current EU candidate countries, together with Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Moldova, Montenegro, Serbia, Turkey and Ukraine.


text: The use of the country name "Macedonia" was the object of a dispute with neighboring Greece between 1991 and 2019, resulting in a Greek veto against EU and NATO accession talks, which lasted from 2008 to 2019. After the issue was resolved, the EU gave its formal approval to begin accession talks with North Macedonia and Albania in March 2020.


text: However, in November 2020, Bulgaria effectively blocked the official start of North Macedonia's EU Accession Negotiations over what it perceives as slow progress on the implementation of the 2017 Friendship Treaty between the two countries, state-supported or tolerated hate speech, and minority claims towards Bulgaria.


text: On 24 June 2022, Bulgaria's parliament approved lifting the country's veto on opening EU accession talks with North Macedonia. On 16 July 2022, the Assembly of North Macedonia also approved the revised French proposal, allowing accession negotiations to begin. The start of negotiations was officially launched on 19 July 2022.


text: North Macedonia began its formal process of rapprochement with the European Union in 2000, by initiating negotiations about the EU's Stabilisation and Association Process, and it became the first non-EU country in the Balkans to sign the Stabilisation and Association Agreement (SAA), on 9 April 2001 in Luxembourg. The agreement was ratified by the Macedonian parliament on 12 April 2001 and came into force on 1 April 2004.


text: On 22 March 2004, Macedonia submitted its application for EU membership. On 6 September 2004, the Macedonian government adopted a National Strategy for European integration, supported by the country's parliament through its Commission for European Issues. The government subsequently began the procedure of answering the questionnaire of the European Commission regarding its performance in preparation for membership in accordance with the Copenhagen criteria, a process that was finished by 31 January 2005. The European Council officially granted the country candidate status on 17 December 2005, after a review and a positive recommendation of the candidacy by the European Commission.


text: After the naming dispute with Greece was solved in 2019, accession negotiations were expected to start within the same year, but in June 2019 the EU General Affairs Council decided to postpone the decision to October, due to objections from a number of countries including the Netherlands and France. France vetoed the decision again in October. On 25 March 2020 the Council of the European Union decided to open accession negotiations, which was endorsed by the European Council the following day.


text: On 17 November 2020 Bulgaria blocked the official start of accession talks with the country. North Macedonia was told to offer further guarantees to Bulgaria that it would honour the 2017 friendship treaty, which deals with historical issues.


text: A major obstacle for the accession process was the Republic's unresolved objection by Greece over its name, as Greece argued that it implied territorial ambitions towards Greece's own northern province of Macedonia. While the country preferred to be called by its constitutional name, Republic of Macedonia, the European Union, in acknowledgment of concerns raised by Greece, maintained a practice of recognising it only as the "former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia", a compromise of "provisional reference" introduced by the United Nations in 1993. Greece, as any other EU country, has veto power against new accessions, and blocked Macedonian accession due to the naming dispute.


text: On 12 June 2018, an agreement was reached between Greek prime minister Alexis Tsipras and his Macedonian counterpart Zoran Zaev, known as the Prespa agreement, under which the country would be renamed the "Republic of North Macedonia". As part of this deal, Greece explicitly withdrew its previous opposition, allowing the EU to approve on 26 June 2018 a pathway to starting accession talks.


text: Although Bulgaria was the first country to recognize the independence of the then Republic of Macedonia, most of its academics, as well as the general public, do not recognize the Macedonian language and nation formed after the Second World War as being separate from Bulgarian proper. As part of the efforts to find a solution to the Macedonia name dispute with Greece, the Macedonian constitution was changed twice (in 1995, and then again in 2018) to formally exclude any possible territorial aspirations towards neighboring countries.


text: Some Macedonian politicians consider Bulgarian territory to be part of a greater Macedonia, claiming the majority of the population there are oppressed ethnic Macedonians. Macedonia and Bulgaria signed a friendship treaty to improve their complicated relations in August 2017. A joint commission on historical and educational issues was formed in 2018 to serve as a forum where controversial historical and educational issues could be raised and discussed. This commission has made little progress in its work for a period of one year.


text: In October 2019, Bulgaria set out a “Framework position” warning that it would block the accession process unless North Macedonia fulfilled demands regarding anti-Bulgarian ideology in the country, and ultimately over an 'ongoing nation-building process' based on historical negationism of the Bulgarian identity, culture and legacy in the broader region of Macedonia.


text: Bulgarian politicians claim North Macedonia remains the only country in NATO, that is an EU-candidate, whose politics is based on communist historical and linguistic dogmas accepted by ASNOM. Concerning the Macedonian language, Bulgaria advises the EU to avoid using the term “Macedonian language” during the accession talks, and instead use the term “Official language of Republic of North Macedonia”, reaffirming that it does not recognize the language as separate from Bulgarian. In North Macedonia this is widely perceived as a direct attack on its national identity and language.


text: In September 2020 Bulgaria has sent an explanatory memorandum to the Council of the European Union containing its framework position on the accession of North Macedonia. On 17 November 2020, Bulgaria refused to approve the European Union's negotiation framework for North Macedonia, effectively blocking the official start of accession talks with this country over slow progress on the implementation of the 2017 Friendship Treaty between the two countries, state-supported or tolerated hate speech and minority claims towards Bulgaria.


text: The veto received condemnation by some intellectuals, and criticism from international observers. A survey conducted in November 2020, by Alpha Research of 803 people from all over Bulgaria, found that 83.8% of Bulgarians were against the accession of North Macedonia in the EU until the historical dispute is solved, only 10.2% of Bulgarians supported the accession with the rest not having an opinion.


text: In June 2022 at the very end of the French Presidency of the Council of the European Union (January–June), an urgent proposal has been put by the president Emmanuel Macron to resolve the dispute between the two countries. The proposal provoked a political crisis in Bulgaria. On June 8, Slavi Trifonov withdrew his party from Bulgaria’s governing coalition, citing the issue of North Macedonia. This faced criticism from President Rumen Radev, who said the proposal was relatively good. However, the government abdicated its responsibility and delegated it entirely to the parliament. As result on 22 June the Bulgarian government faced a motion of no confidence, which it lost. Nevertheless, on 24 June, after heated discussions, the parliament approved lifting the veto. President Macron claimed that the European leaders have put a lot of pressure on Bulgaria to accept this deal, confirming its approval was a “very good signal”. On June 25th, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Sofia stated in a standpoint that the speed with which North Macedonia would approach the EU membership, already depended on itself. Two days before the end of the French presidency of the EU, the Prime Minister of North Macedonia Kovačevski stated that the government remains of the opinion that the agreement proposed from Paris and approved by Bulgaria is unacceptable for the country. However since then, the proposal has been backed by the government of North Macedonia. In early July 2022, protests began in North Macedonia against the French proposal. However, the proposal was accepted by the Assembly of North Macedonia on 16 July 2022.


text: On July 17 in Sofia, the foreign ministers of Bulgaria and North Macedonia signed a second bilateral protocol to the Treaty of Good Neighborhood and Friendship between the two countries. Such protocols were supposed to be signed every year, but in practice they have not been signed since 2019. According to the decision of the Bulgarian National Assembly of June 24, the signing of this protocol is a condition for Bulgaria to approve the Negotiating Framework for the Republic of North Macedonia. The protocol contains specific measures and deadlines for the implementation of agreements on historical issues between the two countries, measures against hate speech, etc.


text: North Macedonia has so far received €1.3 billion of development aid until 2020 from the Instrument for Pre-Accession Assistance, a funding mechanism for EU candidate countries.


text: The government's motto for the candidacy is ""The Sun, too, is a star."", referring to the sun from the flag of North Macedonia being displayed among the other stars in the flag of Europe.


text: North Macedonia's government has established a management infrastructure for the European integration process on the basis of a paper adopted in 1997 under the title "The strategic bases of the Republic of [North] Macedonia on achieving the membership of the European Union". It consists of the following institutions:


text: 79% of the population of North Macedonia is in favor of EU accession. However, those who think North Macedonia is closer to EU entry today than it was in 2005, when it first received candidate member status, dropped from 57% to 32% between 2018 and 2021.


text: On 1 January 2008 the visa facilitation and readmission agreements between Macedonia and the EU entered into force.


text: Macedonia began a visa liberalisation dialogue with the EU in February 2008 and was added to the list of visa exempt nationals on 19 December 2009, allowing their citizens to enter the Schengen Area, Bulgaria, Cyprus and Romania without a visa when travelling with biometric passports.


title: Provo Canyon School

text: Provo Canyon School (PCS) is a psychiatric youth residential treatment center, owned and operated by Universal Health Services (UHS) since 2000. The school uses an “Acuity Based Care” (ABC) model that identifies and re-assesses the strengths and needs of its students. Students receive a wide range of interventions including recreational and occupational therapies; individual, group, and art therapies; and substance abuse therapy.


title: Provo Canyon School

text: The highly restrictive treatment center has a reputation for abuse according to many previous students.


title: Provo Canyon School

text: PCS offers year round academics to all of its students. The school offers a variety of educational programs to the students including career counseling, competitive sports, special education and more. PCS is fully accredited by the Northwest Accreditation Commission.


title: Provo Canyon School

text: Since its inception, the school has been subject to a large number of individual and class-action lawsuits, particularly throughout the 1980s and 1990s. These lawsuits ranged from verbal, physical, and sexual abuse and medical negligence, to violating students' First Amendment rights and invasion of privacy, to false imprisonment and battery, to intentional infliction of emotional distress, civil conspiracy, and loss of parental consortium.


title: Provo Canyon School

text: In September 2020, media personality and socialite Paris Hilton premiered her YouTube Originals documentary "This Is Paris", in which she attributes her chronic insomnia to PTSD developed as a result of being sent to four different "troubled teen" industry programs: CEDU School in Running Springs, California, Ascent Wilderness Program in Ruby Ridge, Idaho, Cascade School in Whitmore, California, and Provo Canyon School. After running from the first three, she spent 11 months at PCS in the late 1990s. Hilton reported that she and other students were physically and psychologically abused. Some of the instances she details include how she and the other students were allegedly drugged with unknown medications, how she was allegedly restrained and forcibly transported to the school and how she was strip searched and placed in a seclusion room for nearly twenty-four hours. She claims PCS as "the worst of the worst" of all troubled youth facilities.


title: Provo Canyon School

text: In October 2020, tattoo artist and television personality Kat Von D alleged her parents sent her to the school for a three-week program, but she was ultimately there for six months. She claimed to witness students being force-fed medications, sedated, and isolated. Von D said that she left with "major PTSD and other traumas due to the unregulated, unethical and abusive protocols of this 'school'" and wrote that she couldn't "call them schools because they're not schools they're fucking lockdown facilities". Von D said that she was "spared of the sexual abuse and the physical abuse" but "definitely saw" it happen.


title: Provo Canyon School

text: On October 9, 2020, Hilton and a group of friends who attended PCS with her led a silent protest with hundreds of other protesters through the streets and neighborhoods of Provo, Utah to bring awareness to the facility.


The 2020 United States presidential election in West Virginia was held on Tuesday, November 3, 2020, as part of the 2020 United States presidential election in which all 50 states plus the District of Columbia participated. West Virginia voters chose electors to represent them in the Electoral College via a popular vote, pitting the Republican Party's nominee, incumbent President Donald Trump, and running mate Vice President Mike Pence against Democratic Party nominee, former Vice President Joe Biden, and his running mate California Senator Kamala Harris. West Virginia has five electoral votes in the Electoral College.


title: 2020 United States presidential election in West Virginia

text: Trump easily carried West Virginia on Election Day by 38.9 points, down from 42.1 points in 2016. Prior to the election, all 16 news organizations declared West Virginia a safe red state.


text: With 68.62% of its vote, this would prove to be Trump’s second strongest state in 2020, only behind Wyoming, and overall would be the largest share of the vote won by any presidential candidate in West Virginia.


text: The primary elections were originally scheduled for May 12, 2020. In April, they were moved to June 9 due to concerns over the COVID-19 pandemic.


text: Vice President Joe Biden won the Democratic primary and received all of West Virginia's 28 pledged delegates, as well as all six unpledged PLEO (party leaders and elected officials) delegates, to the 2020 Democratic National Convention.


text: Incumbent President Donald Trump won the Republican primary and received all of West Virginia's 35 delegates to the 2020 Republican National Convention.


text: West Virginia's Green Party affiliate conducted an online party-run primary, utilizing the state's original primary date of May 12, 2020 as its deadline.


text: West Virginia, which was solidly Democratic territory for much of the 20th century, has consistently voted Republican in presidential elections since 2000. Republicans started making gains in the state in the 21st century due to championing of environmentalism by Democrats such as 2000 Democratic nominee Al Gore, which challenged entrenched coal-mining interests.


text: West Virginia gave Trump his second-highest vote share in 2020, swapping places with Wyoming, after having been Trump's strongest state by vote share in 2016. West Virginia was one of two states where Trump won every county, the other being Oklahoma. The closest county in the state, and the only one Trump won without a majority of the vote, was Monongalia County, home to Morgantown and the main campus of West Virginia University. Trump's margin of victory of 1.24% in Monongalia marked the closest a Democrat has come to winning any county in West Virginia since 2008. This was the third consecutive presidential election where every county within the state voted Republican, but the first since 1996 in which the Democratic vote share increased relative to the preceding election. Biden received 40% of the vote only in 4 counties - Monongalia; Kanawha County, home to state capital and largest city Charleston; Cabell County, home to Marshall University and to the state's second largest city Huntington; and Jefferson County, home to Washington, D.C. exurbs.


text: Trump's weakening of Obama-era coal emissions standards appeared to benefit him in the state. Per exit polls by the Associated Press, Trump's strength in West Virginia came from White voters who prioritized protecting and expanding production of fossil fuels, such as coal, who comprised 58% of voters and broke for Trump by 90%. Trump's strongest region was southern West Virginia. This coal-mining, union-heavy region was once among the most heavily Democratic places in the nation; Logan County, for example, broke 72% of its ballots for Bill Clinton in 1996, 61% for Al Gore in 2000, 52% for John Kerry in 2004, and even 51% for George McGovern in his only statewide county win in 1972; but by 2008, John McCain flipped it to the Republican column with 54% of the vote, which increased to 68% for Mitt Romney in 2012 and by 2016 and 2020, it had voted 79.6% and 80.9% for Trump, respectively.


text: During the same election cycle, incumbent Republican Senator Shelley Moore Capito was re-elected by a margin slightly larger than Trump's, beating out Democrat Paula Jean Swearengin by 43.3 points.


The Lithuania men's national basketball team () represents Lithuania in international basketball competitions. They are controlled by the Lithuanian Basketball Federation, the governing body for basketball in Lithuania. Despite Lithuania's small size, with a population of less than 3 million, the country's devotion to basketball has made them a traditional force of the sport in Europe.


title: Lithuania men's national basketball team

text: The Lithuanian national team won the last EuroBasket tournaments prior to World War II, in 1937 and 1939. The 1939 team was led by Frank Lubin, who helped popularize basketball in the country and was called the "grandfather of Lithuanian basketball". Following the country's annexation by the Soviet Union during the war, Lithuanian players frequently formed the core of the Soviet national team. The most prevalent example was the 1988 Olympic basketball gold medal-winning team, which got most of its scoring from four Lithuanians: Valdemaras Chomičius, Rimas Kurtinaitis, Šarūnas Marčiulionis and Arvydas Sabonis.


text: After the restoration of Lithuanian independence in 1990, the national team was resurrected. Lithuania won bronze medals at the first three Summer Olympics to include NBA players – 1992, 1996, and 2000 - in addition to finishing fourth in 2004 and 2008, and in eighth place in 2012. The Lithuanian national team won the EuroBasket for the third time in 2003, and also a bronze medal at the 2010 FIBA World Cup.


text: On 13 December 1925 in the Latvian capital Riga, Lithuanians played their first international game against their neighbors. Given the Latvians had international knowledge provided by coaches of the American YMCA (Young Men's Christian Association), they easily won 41–20. Later on, Latvians were crushing the future three-times European champions Lithuanians as well (41–29 or even 123–10). Another game the following year was won by the Latvians 47–12. During the period, basketball saw its Lithuanian popularity decrease and get overshadowed by football. The cold climate and lack of suitable indoor arena only allowed for basketball to be played during the summer period, and even then those who practiced preferred other sports.


text: Things started to improve in 1934, when the Physical Culture Palace was opened in Kaunas, featuring a spacious hall with 200 seats and cork floor built for tennis that was suitable for indoor basketball. In 1935, Lithuania decided to promote a World Lithuanian Congress in temporary capital Kaunas, inviting ethnic Lithuanians from many countries to unite the Lithuanian culture. The following year, a delegation of Lithuanian American athletes from Chicago arrived in Kaunas as participants of World Lithuanian Congress. Two of the players, Juozas "Joseph" Zukas and Konstantinas "Konnie" Savickus, stayed to teach basketball secrets to Lithuanians and be a part of the national team. Savickus in particular became a player-coach, and while the national team had just been trounced by inaugural European champions Latvia 123–10, one year later, with Savickus leading the team and exploiting stalling techniques, Lithuania trailed only 14–7 at halftime before losing 31–10.


text: In 1936, Lithuania applied to become a member of FIBA and take part in international basketball competitions, including EuroBasket 1937, the second European basketball tournament that the Latvia Basketball Association as reigning champions would host in Riga. While Savickus had returned to America, another descendant of Lithuanians would arrive to aid the country's basketball rise. Frank Lubin, who won a gold medal at the first basketball Olympic tournament at the 1936 Summer Olympics in Berlin, was invited to visit the Baltic nation by a Lithuanian official in attendance. Going by the Lithuanian name Pranas Lubinas, he spent five months there and served as the country's first knowledgeable coach, helping spread various basketball techniques. Lubinas, along with Zukas, helped the Lithuanians beat the Latvians for the first time, 35 to 27.


text: The preparations for the EuroBasket 1937 started slowly, with players training only 4 hours a week. At first, it was decided that the national team at the tournament would not include any Lithuanian Americans; however the decision was reversed with only one month remaining, once a Latvian newspaper had printed an extensive article about the second European championship considering Lithuania the weakest of all contestants. Lithuanian player Leonas Baltrūnas was shocked at the article and along with journalist Jonas Narbutas, used a translated version of it to request the inclusion of Lithuanian Americans to Vytautas Augustauskas, director of the Physical Culture Palace. After a telegram was sent to the US, two players arrived one month prior to the tournament, Pranas Talzūnas and Feliksas Kriaučiūnas, the latter of whom was designated as player-coach. To keep secrecy on how Lithuanian Americans were strengthening the team, all preparation games were cancelled and instead prolonged training sessions before the trip to Riga were held behind closed doors. The national team was being prepared not only technically, but also physically. Even once the reinforcements were made public, opponents were skeptic, with Talzūnas later remembering other teams felt he and Kriaučiūnas were not quality players as "everyone thought that a good player must be tall, raising his hand and dunking into the basket.".


text: The efforts were successful - the Lithuanians became the champions of Europe for the first time, defeating all their opponents and with Talzūnas being picked as the tournament's most valuable player. Following the final victory over Italy, the famous Lithuanian tenor Kipras Petrauskas even interrupted his performance at the State Theatre to joyfully announce the triumph of the national basketball team. The crowd then rose to their feet and together sang the Lithuanian anthem. The team returned to a warm reception, with thousands gathering at a train station in a way Kriaučiūnas compared to "like we, here in America, greet the president." Basketball regained its ground immediately, and had its popularity rise abruptly, especially among students. Gymnasium teams from almost all counties competed in student games, teams were assembled in firms and basketball courts appeared all around the country. According to future player Stepas Butautas, "In every yard hoops are being made from barrels. Children, teenagers are throwing balls into them, others - even a sock crammed with clouts. Our Veršvai Primary School teacher K. Požemecka built two poles, made hoops from a willow and said: 'We will play basketball'." Future team coach Vladas Garastas added that "as kids we started using a barrel to make a hoop. We didn't have a ball, we stuffed in grass or whatever we could find".


text: Lithuania was granted the right to organize the EuroBasket 1939. In addition, the Kaunas Sports Hall, Europe's first dedicated basketball arena, was built. In the competition, the team roster mostly consisted of Lithuanian Americans, with five American-born players: the returning Feliksas Kriaučiūnas (Chicago), Juozas Jurgėla (Chicago), Vytautas Budriūnas (Waukegan), Mykolas Ruzgys and Pranas Lubinas (Glendale). As a result, there were several protests from other nations. Lubinas, who was the designated player-coach, lead Lithuania to a second continental title, even scoring the buzzer-beater in the decisive game against Latvia, which warranted a 37–36 victory.


text: After Lithuania's independence was restored, the country wanted to stand on its own in the basketball community again, complete with the standout players from the 1988 Soviet squad - Sabonis, Marčiulions, Chomičius and Kurtinaitis - expressing a desire to represent Lithuania. The National Olympic Committee of Lithuania (LTOK) and Lithuanian Basketball Federation (LKF) were restored, Lithuanian athletes withdrew its athletes from all Soviet national competitions, and both Sabonis and Marčiulions refused a request to play for the Soviet Union during the 1990 Goodwill Games. In 1991, the International Olympic Committee welcomed Lithuania back to its ranks in September, and in December, LKF president Stanislovas Stonkus attended the FIBA congress in Springfield, Massachusetts, and requested the right to be a full member of FIBA once again. FIBA president George E. Killian granted Stonkus' request and invited Lithuania to participate in all of the FIBA organized events. Sabonis and his agent started looking for Lithuanian-born or descended players, sending phone calls and faxes over Europe and North America.


text: However, Lithuania's economic transition left the country in a difficult financial situation, and LKF could hardly count on state funding. As a result, the team had to search for the financial supporters by themselves in order to play internationally. Šarūnas Marčiulionis had experience and contacts in the United States from being the first USSR player in the NBA, playing for the Golden State Warriors. Consequently, he, along with Donnie Nelson (son of Marčiulionis' then-coach Don Nelson), searched for financial supporters that could finance Lithuania's participation in the international games and the 1992 Summer Olympics. George Shirk wrote a story about this on the "San Francisco Chronicle", and once American rock band Grateful Dead read the newspaper, they decided to help the team. Drummer Mickey Hart added that the story resonated with the bandmembers for being "a struggle for life, liberty and freedom." The bandmembers donated $5,000 to Marčiulionis, and helped launch a tie-dyed jerseys trade that would feature Lithuania's national colors and the iconic, trademarked 'Slam-Dunking Skeleton' created by N.Y. artist Greg Speirs. The skeleton dunking a flaming basketball, nicknamed "Skully", was the artist's interpretation of how the Lithuanian team rose from the ashes to victory. The artist's profits would be passed onto the Lithuania national basketball team and a fund for Lithuanian children. The Lithuanians were favourable to the garish shirts because, according to Nelson, it was a great contrast to "all those years of those Soviet colors, nothing but blues and grays". Arvydas Sabonis even said that "My first impression of [the jerseys] was: Wow, this really is a free Lithuania". The skeleton, nicknamed "Skully", was enshrined into the Basketball Hall of Fame, being the only cartoon character to be enshrined in any sports Hall of Fame. New versions of the Skully jerseys were featured in the following two Olympic Games.


text: To assume the head coach position, American Dan Peterson, then in Italy, was invited but declined. BC Žalgiris manager Raimundas Sargunas became coach, but problems with the players made him demoted to assistant, a job shared with Donnie Nelson and Spanish Javier Imbroda, who was invited following Sabonis' suggestion of a Liga ACB veteran. The eventual choice was Vladas Garastas, another Žalgiris veteran who was assistant in the 1988 Soviet squad.


text: Preparation for Lithuania's first major international tournament since regaining independence began in May 1992, as it was the first time a squad of players mostly playing outside the country could get together and train. While missing Sabonis, Marčiulionis and Artūras Karnišovas, Lithuania competed in the eight-teams Nordic Countries Championship. They took the second place there, losing only to the well-known opponents Latvia 80–95 in the final. Standout players included Gintaras Krapikas (22.5 points per game) and Rimas Kurtinaitis (19 points).


text: Afterwards, the country celebrated 70 years of Lithuanian basketball, and among the events was a competition featuring two Lithuanian teams, Latvia, Belarus, Finland, and Illinois State University basketball team. The superiority of the Lithuanians, now counting with Sabonis and Marčiulionis, made them handily beat the opponents. Following it, Lithuania national team was invited to compete in the prestigious annual Acropolis Tournament hosted by Greece, along with Italy and France. Lithuanians began the competition shockingly, immediately crushing the EuroBasket 1991 silver medalists Italians 116–94 (at one point leading by 87–49). Though, then they narrowly lost to the host Greece squad 81–83 and after easily defeating the French squad 109–78, took the second place. Despite not winning the cup, this was a perfect first major international challenge for the Lithuania national team, giving the solid hopes of success for the newly reborn state. Shortly before the opening of the Olympic Games, Lithuanians also overcame the Olympics host Spain 107–97 in Ibiza.


text: Lithuania was among the many European independent states that due to the dissolutions of the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia, would return to the Olympic competition for the 1992 games. For the 1992 Pre-Olympic Basketball Tournament, held in Spain from June 22 to July 5, Lithuania was joined by the debuting Croatia, Slovenia, Latvia, and Estonia, along with the non-Baltic Soviet republics in a Commonwealth of Independent States. The latter was a particularly awaited adversary for the Lithuanians, as according to LTOK president Artūras Poviliūnas, "We have dreamed all of our lives about playing against the Soviet Union. Although it's not called the Soviet Union any more, this game will be very important and very symbolic. It will be as important as the Olympics themselves." With a trip funded by the Spanish city of Melilla, Lithuania managed to get one of the four qualifying spots disputed by 25 participants, winning all their 11 games in the tournament.


text: The Olympic tournament for the Lithuania national team began against China, with an overwhelming 112–75 win that featured 31 points by Rimas Kurtinaitis (5 of 6 three-pointers). Afterwards a tough match with FIBA Americas silver medalist Venezuela had the lead frequently changing, with Lithuania depending on Marčiulionis (27 points) and Sabonis (24) to win by 87–79. The third game was easier, with the Lithuanians beating Puerto Rico 104–91, with 80 points scored by the "golden trio" Sabonis, Marčiulionis, and Kurtinaitis. Then awaited the hardest adversary in the group stage, the former USSR states in an Unified Team. Lithuania managed to beat the team during the qualifying tournament, and during the Olympics even got a 59–57 lead at the second quarter. Then the Unified Team managed to overcome its defector state and win 92–80, despite the 42-points combined efforts of Sabonis and Marčiulionis. In order to qualify for the quarter-finals, the Lithuania national team had to overcome the Australian squad. Lithuanians lost the first half 45–46, though later they mightily grabbed the lead till the end of the game, winning it 98–87 and qualifying in second place for the playoffs.


text: Lithuania met the respected and powerful Brazilian squad at the quarter-finals. The coaching staff decided to use only the most reliable players, with only six Lithuanians scoring. The tense game had the Brazilians leading at half-time, and Lithuania only taking full advantage with five minutes remaining: from 87 to 83, the score built up to a 114–96 Lithuanian wins. Sabonis played all the 40 game minutes and scored 32 points, while Marčiulionis added 29, and Kurtinaitis 20.


text: At the semi-final Lithuanians met the United States squad nicknamed "Dream Team". It was the first time the Americans brought a team composed of NBA players, including the widely regarded all-time greatest basketballer Michael Jordan, and the superiority of the "Dream Team" left the Lithuanians absolutely no chances for victory, with the Baltic state taking a lopsided 76–127. It is still the biggest loss ever suffered by the Lithuanian squad, who scored only 34.2% of their shots. The Americans still recognized that they aimed to ramp up their game specially to counter the Lithuanians, with Larry Bird acknowledging that "we knew the Lithuanians were capable of scoring, (so) we didn't take them lightly", and Magic Johnson saying that "they're a dangerous team, so we had to pick up our intensity, play better defense". Afterwards, the Lithuanian team coaches decided to start resting the primary players for the bronze medals game.