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Gurus

Guillermo del Toro

GUILLERMO DEL TORO says he has "a fetish for insects, clockwork, monsters, dark places, and unborn things." One of the major talents in modern cinema, the Mexican-born del Toro has directed a variety of memorable films, from comics adaptations (Hellboy and Blade II) to fantasy and horror (The Devil's Backbone, Pan's Labyrinth), all of which have been critically acclaimed. His breakout debut film, Cronos, began his long association with favorite actor Ron Perlman, who returned for Hellboy 2. His most revered monsters are Frankenstein's monster and the Creature from the Black Lagoon, neither of whom are Catholic.

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Allison Anders

ALLISON ANDERS, from the release of her first feature, Border Radio (1989; co-written and co-directed with Kurt Voss) through Things Behind the Sun (2001), has established an innovative body of work marked by ensemble acting and strong women characters. Her films as writer-director also include Gas Food Lodging (1992), Mi Vida Loca (1993) and Grace of My Heart (1996).

A professor at University Of California, Anders has also directed episodes of the TV Shows Sex In The City, Cold Case, The L-Word and What About Brian.

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Allan Arkush

A record collector and film buff from his early days, ALLAN ARKUSH brought his two loves together in directing the cult classic Rock 'n' Roll High School.

Allan's day job is directing television series like Moonlighting, Ally McBeal, Crossing Jordan, and the mini-series The Temptations, for which he won an Emmy. He currently stays busy as an Executive Producer and Director of Hellcats.

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John Badham

JOHN BADHAM, the director of Saturday Night Fever, WarGames and Short Circuit and many other films as well as TV series Heroes, Psych, The Shield and Criminal Minds. A Professor of Media Arts at Chapman University his book "I'll Be In My Trailer" has become the go-to source on Directors working with Actors.

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Rick Baker

RICK BAKER blames growing up in front of a television and Famous Monsters of Film Land for the turning him into the strange man that he is today. He turned his interest in monsters and the grotesque into a profession and became a special make-up effects artist.

His award-winning film work includes An American Werewolf in London, Men in Black, How The Grinch Stole Christmas and The Nutty Professor, to name a few. He loves classic and not so classic horror movies.

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Darren Bousman

DARREN LYNN BOUSMAN was born in Overland Park, Kansas, and is a graduate of the Film School at Full Sail University. After co-writing and directing Saw II, Darren went on to direct Saw III, Saw IV, and the Rock-Opera Repo! The Genetic Opera. Darren is currently in Post-Production on Mother's Day which will be released this year.

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Larry Cohen

The prolific writer-producer-director LARRY COHEN began his career in television creating hit shows like Branded and The Invaders.

His feature career took off with the killer baby trio of It's Alive and two sequels.
Among his movie credits are Q - The Winged Serpent, Full Moon High, The Private Life of J. Edgar Hoover, Return to Salem's Lot, Hell Up in Harlem and the screenplays for Phone Booth and Cellular.

His most recent work is the Masters of Horror episode, Pick Me Up.

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Roger Corman

Movie Legend ROGER CORMAN has been producing and directing pictures since 1954. He has directed over 50 movies and produced over 300, as well as giving starts to half the filmmakers, actors and technicians in Hollywood. His credits include a hefty portion of the titles we feature here on Trailers from Hell. In November 2009 he received an Honorary Lifetime Achievement Academy Award. And if you didn't already know this stuff, you must have stumbled on this site by accident.

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Don Coscarelli

At ten years of age DON COSCARELLI actually bribed his teenage babysitter to let him stay up late and watch "Invaders from Mars" on TV. He’s never been the same. Coscarelli is responsible for writing and directing several cult hits including the Phantasm series, The Beastmaster and Bubba Ho-tep.

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Joe Dante

JOE DANTE is a lifelong film buff who turned his obsession into a career.
He got his start cutting trailers for Roger Corman and later directed the hit movie Gremlins, as well as Gremlins 2: The New Batch, for producer Steven Spielberg. His feature films include The Howling, Innerspace, Matinee, Small Soldiers and The 'Burbs. His latest is a 3-D thriller titled The Hole, due out later in the year.

Among his TV work is The Second Civil War, Eerie, Indiana and the "Masters of Horrors" titles Homecoming and The Screwfly Solution.

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Jon Davison

NYU graduate and longtime film buff JON DAVISON parlayed his term as director of advertising and publicity for Roger Corman's New World Pictures into a producing career which includes two of Paul Verhoeven's best, Robocop and Starship Troopers.

Other Davison productions are Airplane!, The Sixth Day, Piranha and Sam Fuller's controversial White Dog. At this moment he's probably running a 16mm print in his living room.

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David DeCoteau

DAVID DeCOTEAU has worked professionally in the movie business since he was 18 years old. He got his start through a generous offer from movie legend Roger Corman who hired him in 1980 as a production assistant at New World Pictures. In 1986, DeCoteau directed and produced his first feature film for another generous film legend, Charles Band. DeCoteau has gone on to produce and direct more than sixty motion pictures over the past twenty five years. He resides in British Columbia, Canada. Learn more about David and his work at Rapidheart.

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Ernest Dickerson

In the tradition of Mario Bava and Jack Cardiff, Newark-born ERNEST DICKERSON is a cinematographer turned director.
The NYU grad photographed many films for director Spike Lee, including Do the Right Thing, Jungle Fever, Mo' Better Blues and Malcolm X. In 1992 he made his feature directorial debut with Juice and has been working steadily ever since with credits like Tales from the Crypt: Demon Knight, Bulletproof, Bones and Never Die Alone.
His TV work includes Our America, Good Fences and episodes of Masters of Horror, Weeds, ER and The Wire.

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Bill Duke

With a wide range of credits to his name including directing, producing, acting and writing, BILL DUKE made an auspicious directorial debut with The Killing Floor. He followed with A Rage in Harlem, based on Chester Himes’ celebrated novel. He went on to direct the action drama Deep Cover, the romantic comedy The Cemetery Club and the hit sequel Sister act 2: Back in the Habit.

Mr. Duke received a Cable ACE Award for his direction of American Dream: The Boy Who Painted Christ Black and directed two teleplays for PBS, which received an NAACP Image Award nomination: The Meeting and A Raisin in the Sun, which also earned Duke an Emmy nomination. His acting roles include American Gigolo, Predator, and Commando.

Be sure to visit Bill on Facebook

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Mark Goldblatt

A lifelong film buff and horror fan, MARK GOLDBLATT is an Academy Award nominated film editor with over 40 feature films to his credit, including The Terminator, T-2, Starship Troopers, Armageddon, and most recently Rise of the Planet of the Apes (edited with Conrad Buff). He also directed the films Dead Heat and The Punisher (1989 version).

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Stuart Gordon

STUART GORDON was traumatized as a child by The Tingler and began returning the favor with Re-Animator in 1985, and more recently as a Master of Horror on the Showtime series of the same name. Other credits include Edmond, Ray Bradbury's The Wonderful Ice Cream Suit, Fortress, RoboJox, and Dolls.

His new film, Stuck opens May 30th.

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Luca Guadagnino

Born in Palermo, Sicily, LUCA GUADAGNINO has directed 5 features, including the award-winning Il Sono Amore (I Am Love) starring Tilda Swinton which debuted at the 2009 Venice International Film Festival to critical acclaim and box office success. He has also directed music videos by major Italian artists. He is developing a number of feature film projects and is producing the remake of Suspiria that will be directed by David Gordon Green.

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Sam Hamm

Failed cartoonist SAM HAMM turned to screenwriting when he realized he would never be able to draw like Alex Toth. His feature credits include Never Cry Wolf, Batman, Batman Returns, and Monkeybone.

Hamm also created the short-lived television series M.A.N.T.I.S. in collaboration with Sam Raimi. Most recently, he has written two episodes of the cable series "Masters of Horror" for director Joe Dante: Homecoming (for which he won a Best Screenplay award at the Sitges International Film Festival) and The Screwfly Solution.

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George Hickenlooper

Writer-director GEORGE HICKENLOOPER's feature film credits include Factory Girl, about Andy Warhol and his muse, Edie Sedgwick; the internationally acclaimed documentary, Mayor of the Sunset Strip, the psycho-sexual drama The Man from Elysian Fields, The Big Brass Ring, a political thriller adapted from an Orson Welles screenplay, and Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker's Apocalypse for which George received a directing Emmy.

His interest in movies and filmmaking began in childhood – stemming in part from his Great Uncle's (conductor Leopold Stokowski) involvement with Disney's Fantasia.

On October 30, 2010, George died suddenly in Colorado while prepping for the Denver Film Fest premiere of his last film, Casino Jack.
All of us connected to this site will always treasure our relationship with George, a true film buff who revered film history enough to join us here at Trailers from Hell.

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Jack Hill

JACK HILL began his career, like so many of his contemporaries, working for Roger Corman, then wrote and directed the cult classic Spider Baby, which introduced his favorite actor, Sid Haig. His The Big Doll House launched an entire genre of "Women in Prison" pix as well as Pam Grier, whom he later brought to stardom in Coffy and Foxy Brown. Other credits include The Big Bird Cage, Pit Stop, Swinging Cheerleaders and Switchblade Sisters.

He is currently exec producing a series of remakes of some of
his earlier horror films. See Jack Hill Presents.

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Tim Hunter

TIM HUNTER is the director of River's Edge, Tex, Saint of Fort Washington, and other features. In TV, he has directed episodes of Twin Peaks, Homicide, the Beverly Hills 90210 pilot, and most recently several episodes of Mad Men, among many others.

Hunter is a lifetime book and movie buff and although he doesn't see retirement coming anytime too soon, he plans to spend it repairing torn sprockets and torn splices, preferably in an ashram equipped with rewinds and lots of filmoplast tape.

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Dan Ireland

DAN IRELAND loves movies of all shapes and sizes. He's one of the co-founders of The Seattle International Film Festival and producer of over 15 films.

His directorial debut, the award winning The Whole Wide World starred Vincent D'Onofrio and introduced to the world to Renee Zellweger. His other credits as a director include Passionada and Mrs Palfrey at The Claremont. His latest film, Jolene, stars Dermot Mulroney.

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Amy Jones

Amy Holden Jones studied photography and filmmaking at MIT and was mentored by Martin Scorsese, for whom she edited the documentary American Boy. She went on to edit Hollywood Boulevard, Second Hand Hearts and Corvette Summer, then made her directing debut for Roger Corman with Slumber Party Massacre and Love Letters. A long series of writing assignments followed, including the scripts for Mystic Pizza, Indecent Proposal, The Getaway, The Relic and several Beethoven comedies. She is currently active in creating television pilots.

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Jonathan Kaplan

NYU grad and 40-episode ER producer-director JONATHAN KAPLAN began his career at Roger Corman's New World Pictures, moving on to AIP and the majors with acclaimed films like Over the Edge, Heart Like a Wheel and The Accused, which won Jodie Foster a Best actress Oscar. His iconic action credits include Truck Turner, White Line Fever and Unlawful Entry. Jonathan is the son of film composer Sol Kaplan and nephew of actor Van Heflin.

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Larry Karaszewski

LARRY KARASZEWSKI is writing, directing, and producing partners with Scott Alexander. The two are Best Screenplay Golden Globe winners for The People vs Larry Flynt and were nominated by the Writer's Guild for the cult favorite Ed Wood. Other credits include writing the Milos Forman film Man On The Moon, adapting the Stephen King story 1408, and producing Paul Schrader's Auto Focus. Check out this video for a parody of drive-in exploitation trailers that was made by a comedy group Larry was a part of called "Beyond Our Control." That's Larry with the table-saw.

And here's another video from Larry's comedy group.

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Lloyd Kaufman

LLOYD KAUFMAN, co-founder of 35 year-old Troma Entertainment, directed many of their feature films, including the The Toxic Avenger, The Class of Nuke 'Em High, Sgt. Kabukiman NYPD, Tromeo and Juliet, and Poultrygeist: Night of the Chicken Dead. He recently published the fifth installment in his world-famous "Make Your Own Damn Movie" series of books and master classes, "Produce Your Own Damn Movie!" He is currently working on preparing The Toxic Avenger Part V: The Toxic Twins.

Further thoughts from Lloyd on world peace and intellectual development:
Troma presents A Message from Tony Hayward and The Last Remains of the Squirrel.

Lloyd's latest rant is and here.

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Karyn Kusama

KARYN KUSAMAKaryn Kusama wrote and directed her first feature film, Girlfight, in 1999. Since then she has directed the science-fiction love story Aeon Flux, and the comedy-horror film Jennifer’s Body. She lives in Los Angeles.

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Neil Labute

Neil Labute is a writer/director who has worked in radio, television, film and theater. He watches many more films
than he will ever make and is thankful that he has enough shelf space at home for the Criterion Collection. When he grows up, he would like to be a cowboy or an astronaut (a nurse or ballerina run a close third and fourth)

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Mary Lambert

MARY LAMBERT, a member of the Music Video Hall of Fame, first made her mark directing groundbreaking music videos for Madonna and Talking Heads, as well as the Stephen King adaptations, Pet Sematary and Pet Sematary II. Her credits include Siesta, Grand Isle, The In Crowd, Return To Halloweentown and the documentary 14 Women.

Her latest venture, a VOD film/webisode series titled The Dark Path Chronicles, premieres on FEARnet on November 6, 2008.

www.darkpathchronicles.com

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John Landis

JOHN LANDIS was the director of Animal House, The Blues Brothers, An American Werewolf In London, Trading Places, Coming To America, Kentucky Fried Movie, Spies Like Us, ¡Three Amigos!, Into The Night and Michael Jackson's Thriller among many other films and television shows.

His documentary Mr. Warmth: The Don Rickles Project premiered on HBO and won an Emmy for Best Music, Comedy or Variety Special and he's slated to direct Burke and Hare for Ealing Studios this spring in Edinburgh and London. He is also the subject of noted film critic Giulia D'Agnolo Vallan's latest book "John Landis".

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Michael Lehmann

MICHAEL LEHMANN has directed nine feature films, including Heathers, Hudson Hawk, The Truth About Cats and Dogs, and Because I Said So.

Among his numerous television directing credits are Homicide, The West Wing, The Larry Sanders Show and Big Love. He divides his time between Santa Monica and western Sonoma County, where he lives among the redwoods with his wife, Holland, who makes the world's best granola.

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Rod Lurie

After a career in the military, Rod Lurie went on to become an entertainment reporter and prominent film critic. After making his segue into filmmaking with his award winning short, Four Second Delay, his first major film was 2000's The Contender, which he wrote and directed, and starred Joan Allen and Jeff Bridges. He went on to direct The Last Castle with Robert Redford, Resurrecting the Champ with Samuel L. Jackson and Josh Hartnett and most recently the political thriller Nothing But the Truth starring Kate Beckinsale, Matt Dillon, Vera Farmiga, and Alan Alda. He is currently working on the remake of Peckinpah's Straw Dogs.

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Ib Melchior

Danish-born writer-director Ib Melchior has some 12 feature films, many of them science-fiction, to his credit. On the tv side he has directed over 500 shows and was the creator of Space Family Robinson, the progenitor of Lost in Space, as well as contributing scripts to such programs as Men Into Space and The Outer Limits. He has authored several acclaimed novels, many of them based on his exploits as Counter Intelligence Corps agent in WW II.

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Ed Neumeier

Raised by hippies, Ed Neumeier grew up to write RoboCop and Starship Troopers.

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Josh Olson

JOSH OLSON was the only student in his second grade class to see The House That Dripped Blood.

Many years later, he wrote and directed the no-budget horror film Infested, a brutal assault on The Big Chill, with zombies. He went on to write the screenplay for A History of Violence and was nominated for the WGA, BAFTA and Academy Awards for Best Screenplay. He kept losing to Larry McMurtry, but that's okay. Most recently, he's completed a screenplay for a sequel to the obscure art house fave The Wizard of Oz for Warner Brothers.

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Mark Pellington

MARK PELLINGTON directs feature films, television, commercials and music videos. His film credits include Going All the Way (w/Ben Affleck and Jeremy Davies), Arlington Road (w/Jeff Bridges and Tim Robbins) and The Mothman Prophecies (w/ Richard Gere and Laura Linney).

He recently co-directed the fabulous 3-D concert film U-2 3-D, and his latest, Henry Poole is Here (w/ Luke Wilson) opened in August.

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Michael Peyser

MICHAEL PEYSER is an accomplished producer of both major studio movies as well as cutting edge independent films, and has spent his career mastering the challenges of the film industry both as a producer and studio executive.

Among his producing credits are The Purple Rose of Cairo, F/X, Big Business, Ruthless People and U-2 3-D.

Peyser is also a tenured professor at the USC School of Cinematic Arts, where he teaches all aspects of producing and filmmaking.

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Adam Rifkin

ADAM RIFKIN is the versatile writer/director/producer/actor known for family fare like Disney's Underdog, Dreamwork's Mousehunt, Small Soldiers and Zoom. From his darker, grittier side Rifkin wrote and directed cult hits like The Dark Backward, Detroit Rock City, Night at the Golden Eagle, Homo Erectus and The Chase.
Most recently Rifkin unleashed Look, his critically acclaimed and award winning feature shot entirely through surveillance cameras.

Follow Adam on Twitter
Adam on MySpace
Adam on Facebook

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Howard Rodman

HOWARD A. RODMAN, a Professor and former Chair of the screenwriting program at USC's School of Cinematic Arts and an artistic director of the Sundance Screenwriting Labs, wrote Savage Grace with Julianne Moore, August with Josh Hartnett and David Bowie, and the opening night film of the 2000 Sundance Film Festival, Joe Gould's Secret, with Ian Holm and Stanley Tucci.

The sleaziest character in Steven Soderbergh's film The Underneath is named "Howard Rodman," for reasons which need not be enumerated here.

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Bernard Rose

BERNARD ROSE was one of the pioneering music video directors in the early days of MTV shooting Relax – Frankie Goes To Hollywood, and Red Red Wine for UB40. Rose’s feature credits as writer and director include; PaperhouseCandymanImmortal BelovedAnna Kareninaivans xtcThe Kreutzer SonataMr NiceCommentaries

Eli Roth

ELI ROTH wrote, directed, and produced the horror films Cabin Fever, Hostel, and Hostel: Part II, all made independently and on a low budget, in the tradition of his heroes.

As a child Roth was obsessed with horror movies, and was sawed in half with a chain saw at his Bar Mitzvah, much to the horror of his entire extended family. His future projects include an adaptation of Stephen King's bestseller Cell and Trailer Trash, an entire movie of fake trailers, but currently he's co-starring with Brad Pitt in Quentin Tarantino's Inglorious Basterds.

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John Sayles

JOHN SAYLES is an actor, screenwriter, film director and novelist. He's just completed his 17th feature, Amigo, and his novel A Moment in the Sun will be published by MacSweeney's in 2011. He would rather watch a good trailer than a bad movie.

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Katt Shea

Writer-director KATT SHEA has been honored by retrospectives of her critically acclaimed films at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City, The British Film Institute in London and various festivals throughout Europe.

Her work includes: Poison Ivy starring Drew Barrymore and Tom Skerritt, The Rage: Carrie II, and Dance of the Damned.

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Brian Trenchard-Smith

BRIAN TRENCHARD-SMITH has been burning to make genre films ever since seeing Hitchcock's VERTIGO at age 13. So far he has directed 40 Crimes Against Cinema, and counting. (He's an enthusiastic recidivist.)

His cult favorites include The Man from Hong Kong, Turkey Shoot, BMX Bandits, Stunt Rock, The Siege of Firebase Gloria. He has also made over 100 trailers ranging from Hammer horrors to Australian films of the 70's and 80's. He has just competed The Cabin, a romantic comedy starring Lea
Thompson..

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Jesus Trevino

Writer-director Jesús Salvador Trevino has more than a hundred hours of American prime-time television to his credit, including episodes of such shows as NYPD Blue, ER, Resurrection Blvd, Third Watch, Crossing Jordan, Criminal Minds, Bones, The Unit, and Law and Order Criminal Intent. He began his career as an activist documentary filmmaker covering the 1960s Chicano civil rights movement.

But throughout all these efforts, he was hounded by his demanding and persistent Inner Nerd, which triumphed when he began directing episodes of Seaquest, Star Trek Voyager, Star trek Deep Space Nine, Babylon Five, Space Avove and Beyond, and the two-hour TNT movie Babylon Five: Third Space.

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Chris Wilkinson

CHRISTOPHER WILKINSON only works in the movie business to support his music habit -- so many guitars, so little time.
His screenwriting credits include Nixon, for which he was nominated for an Academy Award, Ali, starring Will Smith, and Copying Beethoven, which he also produced.
In addition, he was the second unit director of The River, For The Boys, and Intersection. He began his career writing and directing documentaries and commercials.

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Edgar Wright

Writer-director EDGAR WRIGHT is best known for Spaced, the BAFTA-nominated tv series he created with Simon Pegg for Britain's C-4, as well as the recently-released feature film Hot Fuzz (2007) and the zombie romantic-comedy Shaun Of The Dead (2004). The latter earned Wright a BAFTA nomination along with a Bram Stoker and a British Independent Film Award.

Edgar's latest film, Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, is scheduled for US release on August 13. Here's a link to the trailer.

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