In the 1930s, jazz guitarist Emmet Ray idolizes Django Reinhardt, faces gangsters and falls in love with a mute woman.
This 2005 documentary film chronicles the life of Daniel Johnston, a manic-depressive genius singer/songwriter/artist, from childhood up to the present, with an emphasis on his mental illness and how it manifested itself in demonic self-obsession.
After the death of her father, Little Voice or LV becomes a virtual recluse, never going out and hardly ever saying a word. She just sits in her bedroom listening to her father's collection of old records of Shirley Bassey, Marilyn Monroe and various other famous female singers. But at night time, LV sings, imitating these great singers with surprising accuracy. One night she is overheard by one of her mother's boyfriends, who happens to be a talent agent. He manages to convince her that her talent is special and arranges for her to perform at the local night club, but several problems arise.
Two former geeks become 1980s punks, then party and go to concerts while deciding what to do with their lives.
Lisbon Story is Wim Wenders' homage to Lisbon and films. A sound engineer obtains a mysterious postcard from a friend who at the moment is filming a film in Lisbon. He sets out across Europe to find him and help him.
At an old farmhouse, a family mysteriously dissapears at the hands of evil. Years later, hair metal band The Tritons comes to the farmhouse, whose barn now features a 24-track recording studio. Lead singer John Triton gets the band to perform their first night in the farmhouse after dinner, and weird little beasties suddenly appear, and strange things start to happen. Band members (and their tagalong girlfriends) begin to act strangely and vanish one by one. Soon, only John Triton remains, and he holds a secret. Finally, the evil shows itself and a battle between heaven and hell ensues....
In Depression-era Winnipeg, a legless beer baroness hosts a contest for the saddest music in the world, offering a grand prize of $25,000.
This hilariously smart satire tells the story of Johnny Vince, a swingin' hepcat who meets hitman Sam and Harvey on a road trip to pull a "botched robbery" in Las Vegas. Along the way they take a deeply unfulfilled not-so-good-girl hostage, encounter the mysterious Mechanic, get harassed by a foul-mouthed answering machine... and did we mention the lesbians? The result - hilarity ensues!
Misfits in their lives back home, a group of young people live it up at musical-theater camp. While the sports counselor is completely ignored, the kids' spend all their time in rehearsal for a grueling schedule that involves a new show every two weeks. Several personal stories come to the fore.
The band Fugazi is documented over a period of more than ten years (1987-1998) through performance footage and interviews with the band and their fans. Director Jem Cohen's relationship with band member Ian MacKaye extends back to the 1970s when the two met in high school in Washington, D.C.. The film takes its title from the Fugazi song of the same name, from their 1993 album, In on the Kill Taker. Editing of the film was done by both Cohen and the members of the band over the course of five years. It was shot from 1987 through 1998 on super 8, 16mm and video and is composed mainly of footage of concerts, interviews with the band members, practices, tours and time spent in the studio recording their 1995 album, Red Medicine. The film also includes portraits of fans as well as interviews with them at various Fugazi shows around the United States throughout the years.
In 2007 the legendary American duo White Stripes toured Canada. Besides playing the usual venues they challenged themselves and played in buses, cafés and for Indian tribal elders. Music video director Emmett Malloy followed the band and managed to capture both the special tour, extraordinary concert versions of the band's minimalist, raw, blues-inspired rock songs and the special relationship between the extroverted Jack White and the introspective Meg White - a formerly married couple who for a long time claimed to be siblings. The film makes striking use of the band's concert colors: red, white and black.
Bruce Macdonald follows punk bank Hard Core Logo on a harrowing last-gasp reunion tour throughout Western Canada. As magnetic lead-singer Joe Dick holds the whole magilla together through sheer force of will, all the tensions and pitfalls of life on the road come bubbling to the surface.
A series of musical performances showcasing the diverse facets of fado, a musical genre from Lisbon.
A guitar playing car thief meets an autistic savant piano player, and together they transform a group of reluctant halfway house convicts into The Killer Diller Blues Band.
Two disc jockeys have a friend's murder to solve in the fringe-group melting pot of 1977 London.
Bringing his unique sense of humor to this bizarre and original piece of moviemaking, Tom Waits takes the audience through a musical journey with his jazzy, quirky, bluesy tunes presented as you would never, ever, ever expect.
Yusef, a first-generation Pakistani engineering student, moves off-campus with a group of Muslim punks in Buffalo, New York. His new "un-orthodox" housemates soon introduce him to Taqwacore: a hardcore, Muslim punk-rock scene that only exists out west. As the seasons change, Taqwacore influences the house more and more. The living room becomes a mosque during the day, while it continues to host punk parties at night. Ultimately, Yusef is influenced by Taqwacore too, as he begins to challenge his own faith and ideologies. 'The Taqwacores' deals with the complexities of being young and Muslim in modern-day America.
A small but growing Texas town, filled with strange and musical characters, celebrates its sesquicentennial and converge on a local parade and talent show.
In 1959, Berry Gordy Jr. gathered the best musicians from Detroit's thriving jazz and blues scene to begin cutting songs for his new record company. Over a fourteen year period they were the heartbeat on every hit from Motown's Detroit era. By the end of their phenomenal run, this unheralded group of musicians had played on more number ones hits than the Beach Boys, the Rolling Stones, Elvis and the Beatles combined - which makes them the greatest hit machine in the history of popular music. They called themselves the Funk Brothers. Forty-one years after they played their first note on a Motown record and three decades since they were all together, the Funk Brothers reunited back in Detroit to play their music and tell their unforgettable story, with the help of archival footage, still photos, narration, interviews, re-creation scenes, 20 Motown master tracks, and twelve new live performances of Motown classics with the Brothers backing up contemporary performers.
When college rock darlings the Pixies broke up in 1992, their fans were shocked and dismayed. When they reunited in 2004, those same fans and legions of new listeners were ecstatic and filled with high hopes. loudQUIETloud follows the rehearsals and live shows of the band as they struggle through the reunion tour "Sell Out"