A tale of outsized ambition and outrageous excess, tracing the rise and fall of multiple characters in an era of unbridled decadence and depravity during Hollywood's transition from silent films to sound films in the late 1920s.
A feature-length documentary on the life and work of Wisconsin grindhouse cinema auteur Bill Rebane, featuring historians, critics, and filmmakers, plus cast and crew members who worked with Rebane himself.
This documentary captures the sounds and images of a nearly forgotten era in film history when African American filmmakers and studios created “race movies” exclusively for black audiences. The best of these films attempted to counter the demeaning stereotypes of black Americans prevalent in the popular culture of the day. About 500 films were produced, yet only about 100 still exist. Filmmaking pioneers like Oscar Micheaux, the Noble brothers, and Spencer Williams, Jr. left a lasting influence on black filmmakers, and inspired generations of audiences who finally saw their own lives reflected on the silver screen.
Staged behind the scenes look at the McWalter movie.
When a Hollywood star mysteriously disappears in the middle of filming, the studio sends their fixer to get him back.
A retrospective documentary about the groundbreaking horror series, Friday the 13th, featuring interviews with cast and crew from the twelve films spanning 3 decades.
A feature-length documentary focusing on the acclaimed work and eclectic career of maverick filmmaker Larry Cohen, writer-director of "Black Caesar," "It's Alive," "God Told Me To," "Q," "The Stuff," and many more.
A budding director endeavors to research a merciless gangster for making a film on gangsterism. But his secret attempts to conduct the research fail when he gets caught for snooping.
Narrated by historian, critic and filmmaker Elvis Mitchell, this documentary reflects the development of the iconic filmmaker's signature style, through the making of one of his benchmark films, Blackmail. The documentary highlights the birth of the "Hitchcock Touch" at a period when talking pictures first emerged and explores his trademark themes, like such as murder, suspense and cool blondes. While focusing on Blackmail, the documentary reveals how this film also foreshadows the director's later masterpieces, from Psycho to North by Northwest and from The Birds to Frenzy.
An honors graduate in literature, Wyman is stuck writing cheap erotic fiction, but somehow ends up starring in an AV film. Suddenly a porn superstar in Japan, he discovers a whole new world fraught with pleasure, pain and more twists and turns than he or the audience expects.
A documentary about Tim Burton's iconic 1988 fantasy comedy Beetlejuice, covering all the aspects of production: from filming in East Corinth, Vermont, to the stop-motion and special effects work, as well as a series of exclusive interviews and rare behind the scenes archives.
A crew of filmmakers shoot undercover on the streets of Hong Kong with hidden microphones and no permits. The city becomes a giant set as mounting tension and ego clashes push tempers to breaking point.
For more than 40 years Kathryn Bigelow has been making films that explore male violence. With movies like Blue Steel, Point Break, The Hurt Locker and Zero Dark Thirty, the Oscar winning American filmmaker has impressed with hard-hitting moviemaking that holds a mirror up to contemporary America and the world.
The story of the making and subsequent success of The Day of the Beast, the Spanish cult film directed by Álex de la Iglesia and released in 1995.
A brief look at the history of "Homicide: Life on the Street", one of the best shows on television and its ratings history as well as some of the people on the show, as well as behind the camera. The primary focus of this PBS documentary is the "Subway" episode which aired on December 5, 1997 on NBC. This two-hour documentary follows the "Subway" episode from conception to award nominations.
For decades Italian genre cinema dominated the world and before changing beyond recognition it went to unthinkable places. Giants don't die quietly however and this is the story of an industry's most absurd, extreme, blood-soaked fight for survival. Through dozens of brand new interviews, and never-before-seen archival materials, with the men and women who were there during one of the most unique moments in film history, MASTERS OF MAYHEM tells their stories of scandal, contradictions, drama and outrage.
The residents of a small Vermont town don't know what hit them when a beleaguered Hollywood film crew brings a chaotic shoot to their quaint village.
Dives deep into the tragicomic world of the"towns-people" stand-ins working at Warp Station Edo, a popular shooting location for samurai dramas, through a piercing study of a 63-year-old extra. Utilizing mockumentary stylings, this ambitious film forms a compelling commentary on the aspirations that shape film production and the feelings that a simple, ho-hum life can evoke.
Amazing, but true: Fort Lee, New Jersey (just across the George Washington Bridge from Manhattan), was once the epicenter of American film production. This documentary of a truly bygone era combines photographs culled from private collections, as well as restored footage from such films as Thomas A. Edison's Rescued from an Eagle's Nest and D.W. Griffith's The New York Hat, filmed at the studios in Fort Lee.
Hollywood producer Alexander Meyerheimer has hired drunken writer Richard Benson to write his latest movie. Benson has been in Paris supposedly working on the script for months, but instead has spent the time living it up. Benson now has just two days to the deadline and thus hires a temporary secretary, Gabrielle Simpson, to help him finish on time.