When Playboys Ruled the World (2010)
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Lightbulbs, fire, barbed wire, mousetraps, staple guns, thumbtacks and glass are weapons of choice in The Backyard. This undercover documentary takes you deep into the controversial arena of backyard wrestling where the limits are constantly being tested...and broken. The Backyard follows several backyard wrestlers in different countries as they pursue their dream to become professional wrestlers.
The story of the child refugees who were transported to Britain to escape the Nazi Holocaust.
A documentary about the White family of Boone County, West Virginia. The 1991 documentary The Dancing Outlaw focused on Jesco White, a famous mountain dancer. This film focuses on the other members of his family.
The Captains is a feature length documentary film written and directed by William Shatner. The film follows Shatner as he interviews the other actors whom have portrayed Starship captains within the illustrious science-fiction franchise.
The Death of 'Superman Lives': What Happened? feature film documents the process of development of the ill fated "Superman Lives" movie, that was to be directed by Tim Burton and star Nicolas Cage as the man of steel himself, Superman. The project went through years of development before the plug was pulled, and this documentary interviews the major players: Kevin Smith, Tim Burton, Jon Peters, Dan Gilroy, Colleen Atwood, Lorenzo di Bonaventura and many many more.
A reporter interviews fighters and promoters about Bruce Lee, intercut with footage from old Bruce Lee films and pseudo-documentary footage.
Documentary chronicaling the rise and fall of the punk movement with rare interview footage of Sid Vicious and Nancy Spungen. Also concert and news footage.
Delving into our collective nightmares, this horror-documentary investigates the origins of our most terrifying urban legends and the true stories that may have inspired them.
A revealing look at the outspoken, flamboyant founder of the Playboy empire. With humor and insight, the film captures Hefner's fierce battles with the government, the religious right and militant feminists. Rare footage and compelling interviews with a remarkable who's who of 20th Century American pop culture, present a brilliant and entertaining snapshot of the life of an extraordinary man and the controversies that surrounded him.
Delve into the world of Batman and the vigilante justice that he brought to the city of Gotham. Batman is a man who, after experiencing great tragedy, devotes his life to an ideal--but what happens when one man takes on the evil underworld alone? Examine why Batman is who he is--and explore how a boy scarred by tragedy becomes a symbol of hope to everyone else.
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Blind blues musician Paul Pena is perhaps best known for his song "Jet Airliner". In 1993, Pena heard Tuvan throat singing over his shortwave radio and subsequently taught himself how to reproduce these extraordinary sounds. This documentary follows him to Tuva, where he takes part in a throat singing competition.
The fascinating complexity of high school debate gives way to a portrait of the equally complex racial and class bias of American education in Greg Whiteley's riveting documentary.
A documentary on Al Gore's campaign to make the issue of global warming a recognized problem worldwide.
In this wildly entertaining vision of one of the twentieth centuryâs greatest artists, Bob Dylan is surrounded by teen fans, gets into heated philosophical jousts with journalists, and kicks back with fellow musicians Joan Baez, Donovan, and Alan Price.
The academy award winning documentary depicting the lives of child prostitutes in the red light district of Songachi, Calcutta. Director Zana Briski went to photograph the prostitutes when she met and became friends with their children. Briski began giving photography lessons to the children and became aware that their photography might be a way for them to lead better lives.
Hosted by Ben Stein, this controversial documentary examines how pro-intelligent design scholars and scientists are often chastised, fired or denied tenured positions by those who believe in Darwin's theory of evolution. Nathan Frankowski's film explores how scientists who believe in God are oppressed and how the acceptance of Darwinism might have played a role in the formation of the Nazi regime.
Part documentary, part expose, this film follows one-time child evangelist Marjoe Gortner on the "church tent" Revivalist circuit, commenting on the showmanship of Evangelism and "the religion business", prior to the start of "televangelism".
Documentary about the Freddy Awards, similar to Broadway's Tony Awards, that gives high school musical theater geeks one night of the year to shine in a Pennsylvania town that devotes all its resources to high school sports.
'Running from Crazy' is a documentary examining the personal journey of model and actress Mariel Hemingway, the granddaughter of Ernest Hemingway, as she strives for a greater understanding of her family history of suicide and mental illness.
Nick Brandestini is a filmmaker based in Zurich, Switzerland. His first documentary, Return to Florence (2006), about a small group of young American and British artists studying classical methods at an unconventional school in Florence, screened at numerous film festivals across North America, winning several awards. His next documentary, H.R. Giger's Sanctuary (2007), about the renowned and reclusive artist, H.R. Giger, most famous as the creator of Ridley Scott's âAlienâ, was an official selection at the AFI Film Festival in Los Angeles.
The definitive zombie culture documentary, brought to the screen by the makers of THE PEOPLE vs. GEORGE LUCAS.
A documentary about the production of From Dusk Till Dawn (1996) and the people who made it.
Werner Herzogâs documentary film about the âGrizzly Manâ Timothy Treadwell and what the thirteen summers in a National Park in Alaska were like in one manâs attempt to protect the grizzly bears. The film is full of unique images and a look into the spirit of a man who sacrificed himself for nature.
The documentary explores the enigmatic life and music of Harry Nilsson in an attempt to answer the question, "Who is Harry Nilsson?" The film includes new and archive audio and film including interviews with Robin Williams, Yoko Ono, Van Dyke Parks, Randy Newman, Ray Cooper, the Smothers Brothers, and Micky Dolenz. "Who is Harry Nilsson?" uses promotional films, music videos, and home movies; segments from the unreleased documentary made during the recording of Son of Schmilsson (Did Somebody Drop His Mouse?); and excerpts from Nilsson's rare TV appearances in his BBC specials, the "Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour", "Playboy After Dark", and in an episode of "The Ghost and Mrs. Muir".
The Fruit Hunters explores the little known subculture and history of rare fruit hunters who travel the globe in an obsessive search for the exotic, in this stylish and sometimes erotic documentary.
A Royal Hangover is a feature length documentary about the ambivalent alcohol culture of Britain. Think Bowling For Columbine, only with alcohol instead of guns. Drinking for Britain: We don't shoot ourselves to death here, we kill ourselves with drink - much more dignified!
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From go-kart champs, NASCAR winners are bred -- or so goes the thinking of the drivers (and their families) involved in the World Karting Association's National Pavement Series. This documentary follows three of the series' top contenders. Although small in stature, the adolescent racers harbor big dreams as they hit speeds of 60 to 70 miles per hour in their quest to ascend the first rung on their way to NASCAR in this film from Marshall Curry.
ReGeneration is a 2010 American documentary film written and directed by Phillip Montgomery that looks at the issues facing today's youth and young adults, and the influences that contribute to America's current culture of apathy toward to political and social causes.
A behind-the-scenes documentary about the Clinton for President campaign, focusing on the adventures of spin doctors James Carville and George Stephanopoulos.
Documentary about legendary Paramount producer Robert Evans (the film shares the same name as Evans's famous 1994 autobiography).
A documentary about fraud and fakery.
A documentary focusing on the life of dot-com entrepreneur Josh Harris, and his exploits over the last decade.
By the mid-1980s, the fabled animation studios of Walt Disney had fallen on hard times. The artists were polarized between newcomers hungry to innovate and old timers not yet ready to relinquish control. These conditions produced a series of box-office flops and pessimistic forecasts: maybe the best days of animation were over. Maybe the public didn't care. Only a miracle or a magic spell could produce a happy ending. Waking Sleeping Beauty is no fairy tale. It's the true story of how Disney regained its magic with a staggering output of hits - "Little Mermaid," "Beauty and the Beast ," "Aladdin," "The Lion King," and more - over a 10-year period.
This acclaimed documentary film chronicles multi-platinum Grammy-nominated artist Hanson, and their four year struggle to make their third studio album "Underneath".
Inspired by Steven Blush's book "American Hardcore: A tribal history" Paul Rachman's feature documentary debut is a chronicle of the underground hardcore punk years from 1979 to 1986. Interviews and rare live footage from artists such as Black Flag, Bad Brains, Minor Threat, SS Decontrol and the Dead Kennedys.
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Winner of the 2010 Sundance Film Festival Grand Jury Prize for a Documentary, Restrepo chronicles the deployment of a U.S. platoon of courageous American soldiers in Afghanistan's Korengal Valley, considered to be one of the most dangerous postings in the U.S. military.
Time Is Illmatic is a feature length documentary film that delves deep into the making of Nas' 1994 debut album, Illmatic, and the social conditions that influenced its creation.
A documentary that weaves together the stories of Theodore, Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt, three members of one of the most prominent and influential families in American politics.
The German film director Werner Herzog sets out to the Scottish Highlands to make a documentary, "Enigma of Loch Ness", exploding the myth of the Loch Ness Monster. Meanwhile, another documentary film crew is making a film about Werner Herzog, and we see the production of "Enigma" from their point of view. Shooting on a rented boat, tensions begin to rise as director Herzog and his producer, Zak Penn, find themselves at cross-purposes on the black surface of Loch Ness. Things get very edgy when the film crew starts seeing shapes in the murky water.
The passion the original Star Wars trilogy inspires in its fans is unparalleled; but when it comes to George Lucas himself, many have found their ardor has cooled into a complicated love-hate relationship. This hilarious, heartfelt documentary delves deep into Lucasâs cultural legacy, asking all the tough questions. Has Lucas betrayed his masterwork? Should he just have left the original trilogy alone? Is The Phantom Menace so bad it should carry a health warning? Utilizing interviews taken from over 600 hours of footage, and peppered with extraordinary Star Wars and Indiana Jones recreations lovingly immortalized in song, needlepoint, Lego, claymation, puppets and paper-mâché, above all this film asks the question: who truly owns that galaxy far, far awayâthe man who created it, or the fans who worship it?
In his most recent work, Christian Frei turns to an age-old dream of man: to leave our planet as a «normal person» and travel into outer space. For 20 million dollars, the American Anousheh Ansari was able to fulfil this childhood dream. This documentary follows her journey into space and shows everyday life as it is on the International Space Station.
When Allied forces liberated the Nazi concentration camps in 1944-45, their terrible discoveries were recorded by army and newsreel cameramen, revealing for the first time the full horror of what had happened. Making use of British, Soviet and American footage, the Ministry of Informationâs Sidney Bernstein (later founder of Granada Television) aimed to create a documentary that would provide lasting, undeniable evidence of the Nazisâ unspeakable crimes. He commissioned a wealth of British talent, including editor Stewart McAllister, writer and future cabinet minister Richard Crossman â and, as treatment advisor, his friend Alfred Hitchcock. Yet, despite initial support from the British and US Governments, the film was shelved, and only now, 70 years on, has it been restored and completed by Imperial War Museums.
Legendary martial artist Bruce Lee is the subject of this thoughtful documentary by Lee aficionado John Little. Using interviews, behind-the-scenes footage and action sequences from Lee's last (unfinished) film, Game of Death, Little paints a textured, complex portrait of the world's most famous action hero
Gerrymandering is a 2010 documentary feature film written and directed by Jeff Reichert. The film explores the history and the ethical, moral and racial problems raised by redistricting, i.e., the drawing of boundaries of electoral districts in the United States.Gerrymandering covers the history of the redistricting practice, how it is used and abused, how it benefits the two major major political parties, Democrats and Republicans. The documentary draws on the perspectives from different individuals, reporters, pundits and politicians.
Based on the journal of Knud Rasmussen's "Great Sled Journey" of 1922 across arctic Canada. The film is shot from the perspective of the Inuit, showing their traditional beliefs and lifestyle. It tells the story of the last great Inuit shaman and his beautiful and headstrong daughter; the shaman must decide whether to accept the Christian religion that is converting the Inuit across Greenland.
The Age of Stupid is the new movie from Director Franny Armstrong (McLibel) and producer John Battsek (One Day In September). Pete Postlethwaite stars as a man living alone in the devastated future world of 2055, looking at old footage from 2008 and asking: why didnât we stop climate change when we had the chance?
A French documentary or, one might say more accurately, a mockumentary, by director William Karel which originally aired on Arte in 2002 with the title Opération Lune. The basic premise for the film is the theory that the television footage from the Apollo 11 Moon landing was faked and actually recorded in a studio by the CIA with help from director Stanley Kubrick.
The story of the Great War told from a unique new aerial perspective. Featuring two remarkable historical finds, including a piece of archive footage filmed from an airship in summer 1919, capturing the trenches and battlefields in a way that has rarely been seen before. It also features aerial photographs taken by First World War pilots - developed for the first time in over ninety years - that show not only the devastation inflicted during the fighting, but also quirks and human stories visible only from above.
A documentary film that explores the early Boston Hardcore music scene from the years 1981 through 1984. This film delves into the social and communal aspects of that particular era. The community, culture, straight edge and DIY (do it yourself) ethic of the time are all explored in the film. Never before seen archival footage, photographs, interviews and dramatizations make up the body of the film. Bands included are SS Decontrol, DYS, Gang Green, The FU's, Jerry's Kids, Negative FX, The Freeze, and more.
A Sunday in Hell (original title: En Forårsdag i Helvede) is a 1977 Danish documentary directed by Jørgen Leth. The film is a chronology of the 1976 Paris-Roubaix bicycle race from the perspective of participants, organizers and spectators.
Did you know that the first open-heart surgery was performed by a Black doctor, Daniel Hale Williams? Not many people did in 1968, the year this eye-opening film, narrated by Bill Cosby, was first released. Many still don't today. "Black History: Lost, Stolen or Strayed" reviews the numerous contributions of African-Americans to the development of the United States. From the perspective of the turbulent late 1960s, the fact that their positive roles had not generally been taught as part of American history, coupled with the pervasiveness of derogatory stereotypes, was evidence of how Black people had long been victims of negative attitudes and ignorance. Viewing this film today offers students and adults an opportunity to explore their own perspectives - to examine how things have changed in their lives and those of their parents, as well as how troubling stereotypes still persist four decades later.
Far outside what's normally taught as "history", this 6-hour documentary attempts to explain what's normally glossed over - Germany's actions prior to WWII, Hitler's popularity, the support of the Nazis by the Germans, the basis for hardline Nazi stances against Jews, and why Nazism was such a danger to the established world powers. It chronicles the German WWI defeat, communist attempts to take over Germany; hyperinflation during the Weimar Republic, widespread unemployment and misery that served as the foundation of Nazi principles, and Hitlerâs amazing rise to power. It also reveals a personal side of Hitler: his family background, his artwork and struggles, and what motivated him to pursue a career in politics. While open to criticism for being "pro-Nazi" in its perspectives, the documentary does present many factual foundations for those perspectives, highlighting an endless list of hypocrisies and double-standards imposed on Germany in the years before, during, and after WWII.
20 years after Calvin and Hobbes stopped appearing in daily newspapers, filmmaker Joel Allen Schroeder has set out to explore the reasons behind the comic strip's loyal and devoted following.
"Fixed: The Science/Fiction of Human Enhancement" questions commonly held beliefs about disability and normalcy by exploring technologies that promise to change our bodies and mind forever. Told primarily through the perspectives of five people with disabilities, a scientist, journalist, community organizer, bionics engineer and exoskeleton test pilot, FIXED takes a close look at the implications of emerging human enhancement technologies for the future of humanity.
It takes two or three generations for the monarch butterfly to reach the Canadian breeding grounds, but it is one "supergeneration" that makes the 2,000 mile return trip back south into central Mexico. The documentary film covers Dr Fred Urquhart's interest in monarch butterflies, with perspectives of Urquhart as a child wondering where the butterflies went, his years of research and study into their life and migration, to his time decades-later as a senior scientist looking back at his investigations and discoveries about the insect's life pattern.
Maximum Tolerated Dose is the first feature-length documentary by Decipher Films. Equal parts found-footage mash-up, verité investigation, and artful meditation, the film charts the lives of both humans and non-humans who have experienced animal testing first-hand, with hauntingly honest testimony of scientists and lab technicians whose ethics demanded they choose a different path, as well as the simultaneously heartwarming and heartbreaking stories of animals who have seen both sides of the cage. MTD aims to re-ignite the debate about animal testing by bringing these rarely-heard perspectives to the fore.
First Descent is a 2005 documentary film about snowboarding and its beginning in the 1980s. The snowboarders featured in this movie (Shawn Farmer, Nick Perata, Terje Haakonsen, Hannah Teter and Shaun White with guest appearances from Travis Rice) represent three generations of snowboarders and the progress this young sport has made over the past two decades. Most of the movie was shot in Alaska.
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