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RoboCop is a 1987 American science fiction action film directed by Paul Verhoeven and written by Edward Neumeier and Michael Miner. Set in a crime-ridden Detroit in the near future, it centers on police officer Alex Murphy, played by Peter Weller(pictured), who is murdered by a gang of criminals and revived by the megacorporation Omni Consumer Products as a cyborg. The director emphasized violence throughout the film, making it so outlandish that it became comical. RoboCop was a financial success upon its release in July 1987, earning $53.4 million. Reviewers praised it as a clever action film with deeper philosophical messages and satire, but were conflicted about the violence. The film won the Academy Award for Best Sound Editing. RoboCop has been critically reevaluated since its release and hailed as one of the best films of the 1980s for its depiction of a cyborg coming to terms with the lingering fragments of its humanity. (Full article...)
The oceanic whitetip shark is a large requiem shark inhabiting tropical and warm temperate seas. It has a stocky body with long, white-tipped, rounded fins. The species is typically solitary but can congregate around food concentrations. It is found worldwide between 45°N and 43°S latitudes in deep, open oceans. Bony fish and cephalopods are the main components of its diet. Females give live birth after a gestation period of nine to twelve months. Though slow-moving, it is opportunistic, aggressive, and reputed to be dangerous to shipwreck survivors. The shark was once extremely common and widely distributed; up to the 16th century, mariners noted that this species was the most common ship-following shark. The species has now been listed as critically endangered, and recent studies show steeply declining populations worldwide as the sharks are harvested for their fins and meat, like many other shark species. (Full article...)
... that schoolchildren in the town of Kirkby were paid 25 pence an hour to help build Kirkby Ski Slope, even though the slope never opened?
... that Lois E. Trott ran the first lodging house for homeless girls in America, providing shelter and support for over 1,000 girls annually, all without receiving any payment?
... that Jerzy Kosinski: A Biography described its subject as a "liar", and yet, one reviewer felt that the author's "studiously neutral position ends up sounding like an apologia for Kosinski"?
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