A work in constant progress (and occasional regress).
Birthplace:
Redwood City, California, USA
Michael Laren was catapulted to success early on in his dramatic journey with a career-defining portrayal of Jack Frost. His performance in the parochial chestnut "The Christmas Song Sketch" from Sister Bea DeMille's 1967 St. Mary's Grade School Yuletide Extravaganza brought down the Catholitorium. Young Master Laren received quite favorable reviews from the Vatican (Pope Paul VI). Alas, his intervening years have been spent trying to recapture that youthful pinnacle of success and the aforementioned papal adulation. Thus for many a year, and through many a succession of papal heirs to St. Peter's throne (with nary a congratulatory note or opening night bouquet from any one of them, mind you), Michael has journeyed forward with steadfast determination, ever onward in search of his next great theatrical conquest. Whether under the lights of the Broadway stage (a nice supporting part with limited dancing, modest housing and per diem) or beneath the tinsel of Hollywood (a series regular role whose character, though mute, appears in every episode of a weekly one-hour program and whose presence is integral to the story lines), Michael Laren will trod the boards, continuing to have a profound dramatic impact on monasteries and nunneries the world over. Plus a few synagogues, (from his great-great-grandmothers side)...also a couple of ashrams...oh, and a vegan commune in Topanga Canyon.
Most data and links to images for the Movies section come from TheMovieDB (TMDB).
Additional data for Film Titles come from The Open Movie Database (OMDb).
At least one plug-in comes from IMDb.
Data are -- hey, it's a plural -- subject to the limitations of their sources. (For example, TMDB search results currently max out at 20.) I am limiting myself to free data sources for now. (No, a "free trial" is not free.)
While much of the above data are retrieved directly from outside APIs and other such sources, data from American Film Institute (AFI) and British Film Institute (BFI) were manually entered the old fashioned way into a MySQL database. Re BFI I took the following liberties:
Regarding profile removals and data corrections:
Filtering is applied here to film projects flagged as "adult" by TheMovieDB. Pending "popular demand" I am contemplating a login and profile system with preferences (such as whether to allow adult images to appear) and permissions (such as data entry).
Whereas the overall purpose of this website is to serve as a personal demo/portfolio/workshop of web and data skills, this Movies section is not meant to compete with or substitute for far more definitive movie websites.
Whether or not he still clings to an award which he won in 1986 as a film critic for his college's newspaper, Jeffrey Hartmann is not responsible for the texts of overviews and biographies supplied by external data sources.