Starting with their conception and design in the early 1950s, "Solidbodies", focuses on the five decade competition of sounds between the two guitars that have been heard on more popular recordings than any other instruments during the rock era. The documentary features players, historians, instrument dealers and collectors expressing their views on the competitive influences
B4MD tells the story of American music at this precarious moment. Filmakers Andrew Shapter and Joel Rasmussen traveled the country, hoping to understand why mainstream music seems so packaged and repetitive, and whether corporations really had the power to silence musical innovation. The answers they found on this journey are what makes B4MD both riveting and exciting.
Director Peter Judson's semifictitious tale opens a revealing window into the indie filmmaking process, capturing the trivialities, aggravations and enthusiasm that go into completing a picture. Using footage from an indie movie set, e-mails constructing a plotline about distributor difficulties and interviews with indie mainstays such as Steve Buscemi and Sam Rockwell, the film provides a riveting look at one producer's rejections and rewards.
A filmmaker's lifelong dream quickly becomes his worst nightmare when he attempts to make a low budget horror film about an aborted fetus that seeks revenge on its family.
State of Bacon tells the kinda real but mostly fake tale of an oddball group of characters leading up to the annual Blue Ribbon Bacon Festival. Bacon-enthusiasts, Governor Branstad, a bacon queen, Hacksaw Jim Duggan, members of PETA, and an envoy of Icelanders are not excluded from this bacon party and during the course of the film become intertwined with the organizers of the festival to show that bacon diplomacy is not dead.
This award-winning, thrilling story is about a group of discarded kids who revolutionized skateboarding and shaped the attitude and culture of modern day extreme sports. Featuring old skool skating footage, exclusive interviews and a blistering rock soundtrack, DOGTOWN AND Z-BOYS captures the rise of the Zephyr skateboarding team from Venice's Dogtown, a tough "locals only" beach with a legacy of outlaw surfing.
An intimate portrayal of the everyday lives of Carthusian monks of the Grande Chartreuse, high in the French Alps (Chartreuse Mountains). The idea for the film was proposed to the monks in 1984, but the Carthusians said they wanted time to think about it. The Carthusians finally contacted Gröning 16 years later to say they were now willing to permit Gröning to shoot the movie, if he was still interested.
Near-silent and shot via a cell phone, a war veteran observes the world which has been colored by his experiences in Afghanistan.
In 1996, electric cars began to appear on roads all over California. They were quiet and fast, produced no exhaust, and ran without gasoline... Ten years later, these cars were destroyed.
Record high oil prices, global warming, and an insatiable demand for energy: these issues define our generation. The film exposes shocking connections between the auto industry, the oil industry, and the government, while exploring alternative energies such as solar, wind, electricity, and non-food-based biofuels.
In 2007 Mobile, Alabama, Mardi Gras is celebrated... and complicated. Following a cast of characters, parades, and parties across an enduring color line, we see that beneath the surface of pageantry lies something else altogether.
A documentary on the life of John Lennon, with a focus on the time in his life when he transformed from a musician into an antiwar activist.
Your Mommy Kills Animals
On August 7th 1974, French tightrope walker Philippe Petit stepped out on a high wire, illegally rigged between New York's World Trade Center twin towers, then the world's tallest buildings. After nearly an hour of performing on the wire, 1,350 feet above the sidewalks of Manhattan, he was arrested. This fun and spellbinding documentary chronicles Philippe Petit's "highest" achievement.
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.
Chronological look at the fiasco in Iraq, especially decisions made in the spring of 2003 - and the backgrounds of those making decisions - immediately following the overthrow of Saddam: no occupation plan, an inadequate team to run the country, insufficient troops to keep order, and three edicts from the White House announced by Bremmer when he took over.
Sixteen American college students drink, flirt, fight and canoodle during their Spring Break vacation in Cancun, Mexico.
At the edge of the Yangtze River, not far from the Three Gorges Dam, young men and women take up employment on a cruise ship, where they confront rising waters and a radically changing China.
You find yourself turning 30 without being initiated into the mysteries of love. What happened? LOVE ALIEN is a filmmaker's radical, subjective look at his life's problem. Accompanied by his camera, he explores the unknown world of lovers. On this journey he encounters relationship counselors, wardrobe consultants, partygoers, Valentine's Day shoppers, a neighbor's cat, his own family - and women. A filmmaker's cinematic attempt to find his first girlfriend.
Director John Dullaghan’s biographical documentary about infamous poet Charles Bukowski, Bukowski: Born Into This, is as much a touching portrait of the author as it is an exposé of his sordid lifestyle. Interspersed between ample vintage footage of Bukowski’s poetry readings are interviews with the poet’s fans including such legendary figures such as Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Joyce Fante (wife of John), Bono, and Harry Dean Stanton. Filmed in grainy black and white by Bukowski’s friend, Taylor Hackford, due to lack of funding, the old films edited into this movie paint Bukowski’s life of boozing and brawling romantically, securing Bukowski’s legendary status.