An hour-long workout with a BDSM theme on a NYC rooftop, taught by a variety of instructors.
The post-70’s explosion of independent music in America has many traceable roots, each with a compelling story. One of its most significant has never been told until now. Drawing on never-before-seen archival footage, in-depth-interviews with musicians and producers, and a mighty soundtrack, THE SMART STUDIOS STORY reveals the pivotal Midwest link to the global rise of 1990's Alternative Rock and the unassuming Madison, Wisconsin recording studio at its center. If you’ve ever been touched by the music of Nirvana, Smashing Pumpkins, Garbage, L7 or their peers, you’ve been touched by the music created at Smart Studios, the legendary recording facility founded by Butch Vig and Steve Marker.
A look at NYC’s gentrification and growing inequality in a microcosm, Class Divide explores two distinct worlds that share the same Chelsea intersection – 10th Avenue and 26th Street. On one side of the avenue, the Chelsea-Elliot Houses have provided low-income public housing to residents for decades. Their neighbor across the avenue since 2012 is Avenues: The World School, a costly private school. What happens when kids from both of these worlds attempt to cross the divide?
The story of the New York accent, as told by New Yorkers.
Italy, 1970. An increasing legion of harmless warriors begins a peaceful struggle for sexual freedom through pornography, shaking and shocking religious authorities and conservative political institutions. They are ironic, happy, crazy. They are dreamers, defenders of definitive communion between body and soul. But they were censored and humiliated. They were mistreated and arrested for demanding loud a new cultural renaissance.
The poet and painter, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, is among the world's living monuments to arts and letters. For well over a half century, Ferlinghetti helped shape the currents of poetry and literature with his forceful engagement with society and an ideological position that often found him at odds with the political currents of his day. Ferlinghetti's quiet, behind the scenes demeanor and disarming mien may have assuaged, or even fooled, certain opponents, while in reality he was a literary mercenary, a rebel at the forefront of our own cultural revolution.
A reckless joyride into the darkest corners of popular music that delves deep into the mind of Mick Rock, the genius photographer who immortalized the seventies and the rise to rock stardom of many legendary musicians.
Recently widowed from a man 50 years her senior and bored to tears with covering ladies fashion, Lady Grace leaped at the chance to be the only woman onboard one of the media sensations of the decade. At journey's end she returned to America a star, thanks to her good looks and gutsy charm. But her reports on the ship's travels for the front pages of the Hearst press empire only told part of the story. In her diary she recorded a far more intimate journey-her struggle to get over her secret affair with shipmate, mentor, and married man Karl von Wiegand. Combining spectacular archival footage of the journey across New York, Siberia, Tokyo, and the Pacific with narration drawn from Drummond's articles and her private journals, this sweeping black and white documentary stands as a vision of technological marvels and global hope in that narrow window between world wars when everything seemed possible except true love.
The story of the legendary wits who lunched daily at the Algonquin Hotel in New York City during the 1920s. The core of the so-called Round Table group included short story and poetry writer Dorothy Parker; comic actor and writer Robert Benchley; The New Yorker founder Harold Ross; columnist and social reformer Heywood Broun; critic Alexander Woollcott; and playwrights George S. Kaufman, Marc Connelly, Edna Ferber and Robert Sherwood.
An independent documentary directed by Bobbito Garcia and Kevin Couliau. The film explores the definition, history, culture, social impact and global influence of New York's outdoor summer basketball scene, the worldwide 'Mecca' of the sport.
Driving through New York City in his Sexmobile, Dr. Harrison Rogers of the Bureau of Sexological Investigation, searches out luminary figures in the world of sex.
An impressionistic, graphic history of one of the world's most infamous streets: Manhattan's 42nd Street. Likened to a DNA strip of New York City, the street has ranged from the glamorous to the derelict, housing everything from peep shows to such international institutions as the United Nations. The documentary is an exploration of the street's expansion from the farmland where Washington bivouacked his troops to the flashy, commercial center that it is today. With historical information, musical performances and personal narratives, the film traces the rise, subsequent dilapidation, and eventual resurgence of a street that has come to represent a place where, notoriously, anything may and has happened.
Filmmaker Jonas Mekas follows his friend, film director Martin Scorsese, and his cast and crew, through various locations during the shooting of his film The Departed, released in 2006.
A visual celebration of Manhattan and its waterways on the 300th anniversary of purchase from the local Native Americans.
A short, avant-garde movie, starring twelve-year-old ballet student Gwen Thomas, Nymphlight is a lovely blend of fact and fiction, using Bryant Park at the New York Public Library as a stage set for the fantasy inclusion of a certain nymph. A meditation on an ephemeral day in the the life of a park shared by birds, the young and the old.
"Man in Red Bandana" is about Welles Remy Crowther, an extraordinary 9/11 hero. However, how his heroics became known is even more remarkable. Eight months after the disaster, his parents learned about how their son spent his last hour due to an ordinary object ... a red bandana. This revelation dramatically shifts their perspective on their loss. After hearing his remarkable story and how it unfolds, viewers will see how the actions of one man have touched 1,000s. This inspirational segment of the film depicts the unique, diverse and folklore ways that Welles is honored throughout the United States including in art, sports and song. Even President Barack Obama pays homage to this young man in the film. Our uplifting ending culminates in the revelation of a secret about Welles that can only be described as "perfect".
A meteoric rise and tragic fall are captured in this brief history of a beloved sports team and a man who took a chance. When the New York Islanders first burst on the national hockey scene, the team was unstoppable. Winning four straight Stanley Cups, it became the pride of Long Island, until subsequent years of turmoil left the Islanders in dire straits. Enter John Spano, an obscure Texas millionaire with big dreams and a persuasive smile. Director and avid Islanders fan Kevin Connolly of HBO’s Entourage gets an earnest play-by-play from a man who exaggerated his social and monetary profile so vastly that he actually took control of an NHL franchise. With testimony from sports analysts and federal investigators, Connolly skillfully pieces together this unbelievable story.
Part of BBC Four's Black Music Legends of the 1980s, this documentary explores how Prince - showman, artist, enigma - revolutionized the perception of black music in the 1980s with worldwide hits such as "1999," "Kiss," "Raspberry Beret" and "Alphabet Street." He became a global sensation with the release of the Oscar-winning, semi-autobiographical movie "Purple Rain" in 1984, embarking on an incredible journey of musical self-discovery that continues to this day.
The life and career of American rapper Vanilla Ice, showcasing his start as a breakdancer in South Dallas to his mainstream international success and the hardships that followed through archive personal, TV, news and concert footage.
Director Christina Voros and producer James Franco pull back the curtain on the fetish empire of Kink.com, the Internet's largest producer of BDSM content. In a particularly obscure corner of an industry that operates largely out of public view, Kink.com's directors and models strive for authenticity. In an enterprise often known for exploitative practices, Kink.com upholds an ironclad set of values to foster an environment that is safe, sane, and consensual.