In a country where bella figura is a national pastime, Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi is the maestro of media manipulation. Having risen to political primacy with the aid of his Mediaset empire, he now controls 90% of the bel paese’s television channels including the state-run RAI network. Quantity, it seems, does not equal quality. Fed on a diet of semi-naked dancing girls, inane competitions and rickety reality shows built around the most ridiculous of premises, is it any wonder that Italians are becoming a nation of fame-hungry wannabes?
An action-adventure documentary chronicling the most notorious and dangerous race in the world--the Tecate SCORE Baja 1000. Rivaling the Indy 500 and 25 Hours of Daytona, the race across Baja's peninsula is unpredictable, grueling and raw--just like the uncharted American West of yesteryear.
This film is about the vast, invisible world of government secrecy. By focusing on classified secrets, the government's ability to put information out of sight if it would harm national security, Secrecy explores the tensions between our safety as a nation, and our ability to function as a democracy.
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.
This film describes a psychological state "kin to moonstruck, its images emblems (not quite symbols) of suspension-of-self within consciousness and then that feeling of falling away from conscious thought. The film can only be said to describe or be emblematic of this state because I cannot imagine symbolizing or otherwise representing an equivalent of thoughtlessness itself. Thus the actors in the film, Jane Brakhage, Tom and Gloria Bartek, Williams Burroughs, Allen Ginsberg, Peter Olovsky and Phillip Whalen are figments of this 'Thought-Fallen Process', as are their images in the film to find themselves being photographed."
An underwater exploration beneath kelp forests in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of Southern California. The film captures the birth of a shark, squids mating, a lobster molting, a fish protecting its nest from an octopus and a sea urchin, and the sea bed covered with brittle stars.
A sex columnist gains popularity even while a ban on comprehensive sex education in schools is adopted by approximately a third of India’s states.
Sixteen American college students drink, flirt, fight and canoodle during their Spring Break vacation in Cancun, Mexico.
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.
An insider's account of Jack Warner, a founding father of the American film industry. This feature length documentary provides the rags to riches story of the man whose studio - Warner Bros - created many of Hollywood's most classic films. Includes extensive interviews with family members and friends, film clips, rare home movies and unique location footage.
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.
Filmmaker Alain Resnais documents the atrocities behind the walls of Hitler's concentration camps.
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.
Narrated by Academy Award winners Sissy Spacek and Herbie Hancock, River of Gold is the disturbing account of a clandestine journey into Peru's Amazon rainforest to uncover the savage unraveling of pristine jungle. What will be the fate of this critical region of priceless biodiversity as these extraordinarily beautiful forests are turned into a hellish wasteland?
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.
Near-silent and shot via a cell phone, a war veteran observes the world which has been colored by his experiences in Afghanistan.
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.
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.
Examines the public scandal and private tragedy which led to legendary director Roman Polanski's sudden flight from the United States.
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.
This five part epic war drama gives a dramatized detailed account of Soviet Union's war against Nazi Germany during world war two. Each of the five parts represents a separate major eastern front campaign.
The Venice Hongwanji Buddhist Temple had an opportunity to take part in an episode of East of Main Street, an HBO documentary series that has been produced for the past three years to celebrate Asian Pacific American Heritage Month. This year’s episode, Milestones, focuses on how different groups of Asian Americans mark the milestones throughout their lives.
Brent Weinbach is weird. In this show, Brent attempts to adjust his quirky personality so that he can fit in with the world around him, which would be valuable to his career as a comedian and entertainer. Through an absurd and abstract discourse, Brent explores the ways in which he can appeal to a broader, mainstream audience, so that ultimately, he can become successful in show business.
Seenu loves Sunaina but they're chased by a stalking cop, an infatuated beauty and her mafia don dad - can Seenu's heroics work?
In the absence of Behzat Ç., a superintendent named Himmet gets replaced as the president of the murder Bureau. When the murder of minister of Interior makes a big impact, Himmet decides to take advantage of it and he makes his team help the fight against terrorism bureau.
Rahul and Riana meet each other for the first time, get drunk, and awake the next morning to find that they have gotten legally married to each other.
In answer to an orphan boy's prayers, the divine Lord Krishna comes to Earth, befriends the boy, and helps him find a loving family.
Luke Skywalker leads a mission to rescue his friend Han Solo from the clutches of Jabba the Hutt, while the Emperor seeks to destroy the Rebellion once and for all with a second dreaded Death Star.
Anakin Skywalker, a young slave strong with the Force, is discovered on Tatooine. Meanwhile, the evil Sith have returned, enacting their plot for revenge against the Jedi.
Divers go to work on a wrecked ship (the battleship Maine that was blown up in Havana harbour during the Spanish-American War), surrounded by curiously disproportionate fish.
Princess Leia is captured and held hostage by the evil Imperial forces in their effort to take over the galactic Empire. Venturesome Luke Skywalker and dashing captain Han Solo team together with the loveable robot duo R2-D2 and C-3PO to rescue the beautiful princess and restore peace and justice in the Empire.
Dr Samir is an absolute charmer when it comes to women, but he poses as a married man to keep them at bay. Love becomes a three-ring-circus for him after he ends up tangled in his web of lies with his girlfriend Sonia and pretend wife Naina.
The story of a virtuoso piano player who lives his entire life aboard an ocean liner. Born and raised on the ship, 1900 learned about the outside world through interactions with passengers, never setting foot on land, even for the love of his life. Years later, the ship may be destroyed, and a former band member fears that 1900 may still be aboard, willing to go down with the ship.
In honor of his birthday, San Francisco banker Nicholas Van Orton, a financial genius and a cold-hearted loner, receives an unusual present from his younger brother, Conrad: a gift certificate to play a unique kind of game. In nary a nanosecond, Nicholas finds himself consumed by a dangerous set of ever-changing rules, unable to distinguish where the charade ends and reality begins.
In the looming shadows of Gotham City, two villainous souls devise twin schemes of revenge against the city's dark guardian. Two-Face, disfigured by chance and fueled by vengeance, is obsessed with destroying Batman, while the Riddler, a disillusioned genius, pursues the destruction of billionaire Bruce Wayne. Together they've hatched a plot to absorb and control the minds of all of Gotham City's residents, and only Batman and his new partner, Robin, can stop them! But the Dark Knight is hindered by a mystery from his own childhood. He must hope that a new found love can help him overcome the incident that made him what he is. In the end, he must decide: will he be Batman—forever?
In a small town in Nazi-occupied Slovakia during World War II, decent but timid carpenter Tono is named "Aryan comptroller" of a button store owned by an old Jewish widow, Rozalie. Since the post comes with a salary and standing in the town's corrupt hierarchy, Tono wrestles with greed and guilt as he and Rozalie gradually befriend each other. When the authorities order all Jews in town to be rounded up, Tono faces a moral dilemma unlike any he's known before.
A heroic version of Lex Luthor from an alternate universe appears to recruit the Justice League to help save his Earth from the Crime Syndicate, an evil version of the League. What ensues is the ultimate battle of good versus evil in a war that threatens both planets and, through a devious plan launched by Batman's counterpart Owlman, puts the balance of all existence in peril.
Raoul Duke and his attorney Dr. Gonzo drive a red convertible across the Mojave desert to Las Vegas with a suitcase full of drugs to cover a motorcycle race. As their consumption of drugs increases at an alarming rate, the stoned duo trash their hotel room and fear legal repercussions. Duke begins to drive back to L.A., but after an odd run-in with a cop, he returns to Sin City and continues his wild drug binge.
The evil Darth Sidious enacts his final plan for unlimited power – and the heroic Jedi Anakin Skywalker must choose a side.