Credit: Columbia Pictures/Marvel Studios

Spider-Man: No Way Home (2021) has become the first motion picture to earn $1 billion during the COVID-19 pandemic era. The movie is the latest in a trilogy about the Marvel Comics superhero Spider-Man. British actor Tom Holland and American actress, dancer, and singer Zendaya star in the new blockbuster.

The COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted every aspect of our lives over the last two years. Hollywood is no exception—the movie industry has suffered, with crowds nervous to venture in public and theaters shuttered to prevent the spread of the disease. It appears that Spider-Man, however, has come to the rescue, defeating the pandemic malaise. The motion picture was released on Dec. 17, 2021, and has been drawing out reluctant theater-goers around the world.

Spider-Man was created by the American writer Stan Lee and the American artist Steve Ditko. He first appeared as the Amazing Spider-Man in Amazing Fantasy comic book #15, published by Marvel Comics in August 1962. By the end of the 1960’s, Spider-Man had become one of the most popular comic book characters in American publishing history. Spider-Man is the superhero identity of Peter Benjamin Parker. As a high school science student, Parker was bitten by a radioactive spider, which gave him superhuman powers.

Spider-Man has been featured in many motion pictures, television series, and video games. Recent Spider-Man movies include Spider-Man (2002), starring Tobey Maguire, and The Amazing Spider-Man (2012), starring Andrew Garfield.

British actor Tom Holland
© Tinseltown, Shutterstock

Tom Holland has starred as Spider-Man in Marvels’ Captain America: Civil War (2016); Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017); Spider-Man: Far From Home (2019); and now Spider-Man: No Way Home (2021). He also played Spider-Man in other Marvel superhero movies of the 2010’s, including Avengers: Endgame (2019). Zendaya has played MJ, short for Mary Jane Watson, in the three Spider-Man films with Holland. She made her first theatrical motion-picture appearance in a supporting role in Spider-Man: Homecoming.

American actress, singer, and dancer Zendaya
© Tinseltown/Shutterstock

The success of Spider-Man: No Way Home is giving hope to the movie industry. There is nothing like the Spider-Man’s “spider-sense” and powerful webs pulling people into the theaters!

April 13, 2020

In late March, the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) in New York City named the computer scientists Ed Catmull and Pat Hanrahan as the recipients of the annual A. M. Turing Award. The award is given to one or more individuals each year in recognition of contributions of lasting importance in the field of computing. Catmull and Hanrahan were honored for their work on three-dimensional (3-D) computer graphics and the impact of these techniques on computer-generated imagery (CGI). Their work has greatly influenced the motion picture and video game industries as well as the fields of augmented reality and virtual reality.

The 1995 film Toy Story used 3-D animation software created in part by Ed Catmull and Pat Hanrahan, the winners of this year’s A. M. Turing Award. Credit: © Walt Disney Pictures/ZUMA Press

Ed Catmull is a former president of Pixar and Disney Animation Studios. Pat Hanrahan, a founding employee at Pixar, is a professor in the Computer Graphics Laboratory at Stanford University. Catmull and Hanrahan helped guide Pixar through its early years (the animation studio was created in 1986), and they helped create the “RenderMan” graphics system that gives two-dimensional images a 3-D appearance.

Under Catmull, Pixar used the RenderMan software to produce the motion picture Toy Story (1995), the first fully computer-animated feature film. Pixar then used RenderMan in a number of highly successful Toy Story sequels and other animated films. RenderMan software has also been used in numerous video games and in such blockbuster live-action films as Avatar, Titanic, and movies in the “Lord of the Rings,” “Jurassic Park,” and “Star Wars” series.

Alan M. Turing (at right) was an English mathematician and computer pioneer. He made important contributions to the development of electronic digital computers. Credit: Heritage-Images/Science Museum, London

The A. M. Turing Award is named after Alan Mathison Turing, a British mathematician and computer pioneer. Turing made key contributions to the development of electronic computers, including his work helping to build the first British electronic digital computer. In 1950, he proposed a test for determining if machines might be said to “think.” This test, now called the Turing test, is still central to discussions of artificial intelligence.

The first Turing Award was given to the American computer scientist Alan J. Perlis in 1966 for his role in developing influential computer-programming techniques. Since then, an award has been given every year. As of 2014, the award includes a $1 million cash prize. Catmull and Hanrahan are scheduled to receive the A.M. Turing Award at ACM’s annual awards banquet on June 20, 2020, in San Francisco, California. That event is contingent, of course, on the containment or continued spread of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.

February 12, 2020

On Sunday, February 9, the 92nd Academy Awards—commonly known as the Oscars—were held at the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood, California. The Oscars celebrate the past year’s achievements in filmmaking. As happened in 2019, the award ceremony went without a host. Instead, the comedians Steve Martin and Chris Rock opened the show, and a variety of celebrities introduced and handed out the awards.

Parasite, which won best picture at the 2020 Academy Awards, stars (from left) Choi Woo Shik, Song Kang Ho, Chang Hyae Jin, and Park So Dam. Credit: CJ Entertainment

The biggest headline on Oscars night was the naming of the South Korean black comedy Parasite as best picture. Black comedy is characterized by bizarrely or morbidly humorous plots and situations. Directed by Bong Joon Ho, Parasite is the first movie in a language other than English to win best picture. Parasite also won best original screenplay and best international film. Bong too made history as the first South Korean to win best director. The World War I drama 1917—the favorite to win best picture before the ceremony—missed out on the top award but took home the best cinematography, best sound mixing, and best visual effects Oscars.

Renée Zellweger won the best actress award for her portrayal of the former Hollywood star Judy Garland in the biopic Judy. Joaquin Phoenix earned best actor for his leading role in the origin story of the Batman villain Joker. Brad Pitt won best supporting actor for his stuntman sidekick role in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, and Laura Dern was named best supporting actress as a divorce lawyer in Marriage Story. Toy Story 4 won best animated feature, and American Factory won best documentary. American Factory, the story of a Chinese-run glass factory in Ohio, was the first film made by Higher Ground Productions, a company run by former United States President Barack Obama and former First Lady Michelle Obama. The World War II satire Jojo Rabbit earned the Oscar for best adapted screenplay.

Each trophy given out at the ceremony (there were a total of 24 this year) is officially called an Academy Award of Merit, but the small golden statues have been known as “Oscars” since the 1930′s. The origin of the nickname is uncertain, but most histories center on Margaret Herrick, a former director of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Apparently, upon seeing the statuettes for the first time in 1931, Herrick remarked that they looked a lot like her Uncle Oscar. Oscar came into common usage for the award soon after.

February 27, 2019

On Sunday, February 24, the 91st Academy Awards—commonly known as the Oscars—were held at the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood, California. The Oscars celebrate the past year’s achievements in filmmaking. For the first time since 1989, the award ceremony went without a host. Instead, a variety of celebrities introduced and handed out the awards. The comedy drama Green Book took home the coveted best picture award, and Alfonso Cuarón won best director for his film Roma.

Viggo Mortensen (left) and Mahershala Ali starred in Green Book, the best picture winner at the 2019 Academy Awards in Hollywood. Credit: © Universal Pictures

Hollywood’s biggest night began with a rousing performance by the rock group Queen, the subject of the best picture-nominated film Bohemian Rhapsody. Later in the ceremony, that film’s star, Rami Malek, became the first Arab American to win best actor for his charismatic portrayal of former Queen lead singer Freddie Mercury. British star Olivia Colman won best actress for her role as Queen Anne in the period dark comedy The Favourite. Anne was the first queen of Great Britain, which was formed when the Kingdom of Scotland united with the Kingdom of England and Wales in 1707.

Roma, a Mexican film that follows the life of an indigenous domestic worker, lost out on the best picture award, but it did top the best foreign language film category. Green Book told the story of a black musician and his white driver and bodyguard on a tour of the American south in 1962. The film’s title was taken from the The Negro Motorist Green Book, a guidebook that once helped African American travelers navigate dangerous racial discrimination in the southern United States. African American actor Mahershala Ali won the best supporting actor award for his role in the film, which also won best original screenplay.

As for the other top awards on Sunday, Regina King won  best supporting actress for her role in If Beale Street Could Talk, a movie based on a 1974 novel by African American author James Baldwin. Director Spike Lee’s  BlacKkKlansman earned the best adapted screenplay award. That film told the story of a black detective who investigated the Ku Klux Klan hate group in the 1970′s. Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse won best animated feature film, and Free Solo won best documentary.

Each trophy given out at the ceremony (there were a total of 24 this year) is officially called an Academy Award of Merit, but the small golden statues have been known as “Oscars” since the 1930′s. The origin of the nickname is uncertain, but most histories center on Margaret Herrick, a former director of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Apparently, upon seeing the statuettes for the first time in 1931, Herrick remarked that they looked a lot like her Uncle Oscar. Oscar became common usage for the award soon after.

Feb. 27, 2012

The Artist, a mostly silent, black-and-white motion picture about a silent-film actor who can’t make it in “talkies,” swept the 84th Annual Academy Awards presented in Los Angeles on February 26. The film’s star, well-known French actor Jean Dujardin, won for best actor. The film also collected the awards for best picture, best director, best costume design, and best score. American actress Meryl Streep, who had won Oscars in 1979 and 1982, collected the best-actress award for her performance as former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher in The Iron Lady.

Heavily favored actress Octavia Spencer won the Oscar for best supporting actress for her role in The Help, about African American maids working in the South during the Civil Rights Era of the 1960′s. The Oscar for best supporting actor went to British actor Christopher Plummer for his performance in Beginners, the story of the relationship between a father and son, told in flashbacks. Plummer also became the oldest actor or actress to win a performance Academy Award.

Additional World Book articles:

• Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences
• Back in Time (Motion Picture 1932)
• Hollywood