There's No Place Like Utopia (2014)

Director


Main cast
Jack Cashill; Jerome Corsi; Joel Gilbert; Konstantin Preobrazhensky

Genres
Documentary

Description
Filmmaker Joel Gilbert travels across America confronting progressives.


Similar movies

Stylish film of the British progressive rock band Pink Floyd in 1971 performing a concert with no audience, in the ancient Roman Amphitheatre in the ruins of Pompeii, Italy. Songs are interspersed with interviews, and footage of Pink Floyd in the studio working on their next album, the legendary Dark Side of the Moon. [Tracklist:] 01 Echoes Part I 02 Careful With That Axe Eugene 03 A Saucerful Of Secrets 04 Us And Them 05 One Of These Days 06 Mademoiselle Nobs 07 Brain Damage 08 Set The Controls For The Heart Of The Sun 09 Echoes Part II
Humanity’s ascent is often measured by the speed of progress. But what if progress is actually spiraling us downwards, towards collapse? Ronald Wright, whose best-seller, “A Short History Of Progress” inspired “Surviving Progress”, shows how past civilizations were destroyed by “progress traps”—alluring technologies and belief systems that serve immediate needs, but ransom the future. As pressure on the world’s resources accelerates and financial elites bankrupt nations, can our globally-entwined civilization escape a final, catastrophic progress trap? With potent images and illuminating insights from thinkers who have probed our genes, our brains, and our social behaviour, this requiem to progress-as-usual also poses a challenge: to prove that making apes smarter isn’t an evolutionary dead-end.
An in-depth look at the Canadian rock band Rush, chronicling the band's musical evolution from their progressive rock sound of the '70s to their current heavy rock style
Using a specially designed transparent 'canvas' to provide an unobstructed view, Picasso creates as the camera rolls. He begins with simple works that take shape after only a single brush stroke. He then progresses to more complex paintings, in which he repeatedly adds and removes elements, transforming the entire scene at will, until at last the work is complete.
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.
Filmed live at London's Rainbow Theatre in December 1972, the innovative group Yes performs its progressive rock symphonies -- epic compositions that influenced new trends in contemporary music. "Yessongs" provides a visual record of the concert tour that became a groundbreaking tour de force in rock music. This unique concert video of Yes was filmed during their record-breaking tour and features the talents of the five original band members. The massively popular band defined the prog rock movement with their mystical epics which infused both a Medieval and Classical sound into rock music. Titles performed include "Close to the Edge," "All Good People," and "Roundabout."
Another State of Mind is a documentary film made in the summer of 1982 chronicling the adventure (and misadventure) of two punk bands – Social Distortion and Youth Brigade – as they embark on their first international tour. Along the way they meet up with another progressive punk band, Minor Threat, whom they hang out with at the Dischord house for about a week near the end of their ill-fated tour.
Mine Your Own Business is a 2006 documentary film directed and produced by Phelim McAleer and Ann McElhinney about the Roșia Montană mining project. The film asserts that environmentalists' opposition to the mine is unsympathetic to the needs and desires of the locals, prevents industrial progress, and consequently locks the people of the area into lives of poverty. The film claims that the majority of the people of the village support the mine, and the investment in their hometown. The film presents foreign environmentalists as alien agents opposed to progress, while residents are depicted as eagerly awaiting the new opportunity.
For six months of the year, renowned Spanish chef Ferran Adria closes his restaurant El Bulli -- repeatedly voted the world's best -- and works with his culinary team to prepare the menu for the next season. An elegant, detailed study of food as avant-garde art, EL BULLI: COOKING IN PROGRESS is a rare inside look at some of the world's most innovative and exciting cooking; as Adria himself puts it, "the more bewilderment, the better!"
In THE CASE FOR FAITH journalist Lee Strobel investigates two of the most emotional objections to Christianity. Barriers to faith confronted by believers and skeptics alike: Why is Jesus the only way to God? And, how could a loving God exist if there is evil and suffering in the world?
From radical turntablism (Otomo Yoshihide) to laptop music innovation (Numb), via classical instrument hijacking (Sakamoto Hiromichi), Tokyo's avant-garde music scene is internationally known for its boldness. While introducing some of the greatest musicians of this scene, "We Don't Care About Music Anyway..." offers a kaleidoscopic view of Tokyo, confronting music and noise, sound and image, reality and representation, documentary and fiction.
AMERICAN MOVIE is the story of filmmaker Mark Borchardt, his mission, and his dream. Spanning over two years of intense struggle with his film, his family, financial decline, and spiritual crisis, AMERICAN MOVIE is a portrayal of ambition, obsession, excess, and one man's quest for the American Dream.
This dryly funny mockumentary about the lost work of a pioneering New Zealand film genius is probably one of the best examples of the faux-documentary genre. In fact, it was so successful that when it originally aired on New Zealand television, hundreds of viewers bought the premise hook, line, and sinker. If you didn't know any better yourself, it's entirely possible you might be duped into believing the extremely tall tale of one Colin MacKenzie, an ambitious filmmaker who made the world's first talking movie (years before The Jazz Singer), invented color film, and created a huge biblical epic that would put Cecil B. DeMille and D.W. Griffith to shame. Filmmaker Peter Jackson (Heavenly Creatures) shrewdly inserts himself into the film via his documentation of the "discovery" of McKenzie's lost epic, which for years was preserved in a garden shed.
The story of our growing awareness and understanding of the environmental crisis and emergence, during the 1960's and '70's, of popular movement to confront it.
A 1988 documentary film directed by Alexander Sokurov, about the later life and death of Soviet Russian filmmaker Andrei Tarkovsky. The film was originally intended to mark the 50th birthday of Tarkovsky in 1982, which would have been before his death. Controversy with Soviet authorities about the film's style and content led to significant delays in the production.
A chronicle of the production problems — including bad weather, actors' health, war near the filming locations, and more — which plagued the filming of Apocalypse Now, increasing costs and nearly destroying the life and career of Francis Ford Coppola.
Unlike the films "World Trade Center" and "United 93", which are dramatizations of the events of September 11, this is an on-the-scene documentary following the events of September 11 from an insider's view, through the lens of two French filmmakers who were in Manhattan on that fateful day. Filmmakers James Hanlon and Jules and Gedeon Naudet were filming a documentary about a rookie New York City firefighter when they noticed a plane fly overhead and hit the World Trade Center. Being with those firefighters who where the first to respond to the tragedy, James Hanlon and the Naudets accompanied them and continued filming from the firemen's perspective. It later became known that their presence allowed them to capture the only known footage of the first plane strike, and from inside the Twin Towers.
In this crazy, chaotic gospel of chance, aspiring filmmakers Chris Stamp and Kit Lambert set out to search for a subject for their underground movie, leading them to discover, mentor, and manage the iconic band known as The Who and create rock 'n' roll history.
From the acclaimed team that brought you BBC's visual feast "Planet Earth," this feature length film incorporates some of the same footage from the series with all new scenes following three remarkable, yet sadly endangered, families of animal across the globe.
Since the invention of cinema, the standard format for recording moving images has been film. Over the past two decades, a new form of digital filmmaking has emerged, creating a groundbreaking evolution in the medium. Keanu Reeves explores the development of cinema and the impact of digital filmmaking via in-depth interviews with Hollywood masters, such as James Cameron, David Fincher, David Lynch, Christopher Nolan, Martin Scorsese, George Lucas, Steven Soderbergh, and many more.
A feature length documentary on the acclaimed work and eclectic career of maverick filmmaker Larry Cohen (BLACK CAESAR, GOD TOLD ME TO, Q THE WINGED SERPENT, THE STUFF, PHONE BOOTH)
Documentary about the life of avant-garde filmmaker Maya Deren, who led the independent film movement of the 1940s.
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.
Take a trip back to a time when New York City wasn't all glitz and glamour as filmmaker Celine Danhier offers a look at the birth of "No Wave Cinema" and the vibrant art scene that exploded out of the East Village in the late '70s. In the years before Ronald Reagan took office, Manhattan was in ruins. But true art has never come from comfort, and it was precisely those dire circumstances that inspired artists like Jim Jarmusch, Lizzy Borden, and Amos Poe to produce some of their best works. Taking their cues from punk rock and new wave music, these young maverick filmmakers confronted viewers with a stark reality that stood in powerful contrast to the escapist product being churned out by Hollywood. ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi
A revolutionary film about the cinematic genius of North Korea's late Dear Leader Kim Jung-IL, with a groundbreaking experiment at its heart - a propaganda film, made according to the rules of his 1987 manifesto. Through the shared love of cinema, AIM HIGH IN CREATION! forges an astonishing new bond between the hidden filmmakers of North Korea and their Free World collaborators. Revealing an unexpected truth about the most isolated nation on earth: filmmakers, no matter where they live, are family.
Bound by a shared destiny, a bright, optimistic teen bursting with scientific curiosity and a former boy-genius inventor jaded by disillusionment embark on a danger-filled mission to unearth the secrets of an enigmatic place somewhere in time and space that exists in their collective memory as "Tomorrowland."
Simon Phoenix, a violent criminal cryogenically frozen in 1996, has escaped during a parole hearing in 2032 in the utopia of San Angeles. Police are incapable of dealing with his violent ways and turn to his captor, John Spartan, who had also been cryogenically frozen when wrongfully accused of killing 30 innocent people while apprehending Phoenix.
About two student couples who become members of an obscure sect. The cult seeks a prehistoric utopia with free sex and without society's norms and values. The students are torn between ambient pressure and the sect leader's authority to organ music in the creative camera angles.
After losing his job at a scrap metal yard, Kyu-Nam finds a new job at a small pawn shop named Utopia. He is immediately drawn to the family atmosphere at Utopia, working with his new boss Jung-Sik and boss's daughter Young-Sook. Unfortunately for Kyu-Nam, his moment of happiness will only be fleeting. Cho-In lived through a brutal childhood. He has had to use a prosthetic leg since an early age, grew up with an abusive father and lived with a mother who at one point attempted to kill her own son out of despair. Cho-In also possesses an awe-inspiring supernatural gift. Cho-In can control other people's minds when they are within his field of sight. One fateful day, Cho-In walks into the Utopia pawn shop to steal whatever money exists in the safe. Not expecting much resistance, Cho-In is surprised to find one man at the Utopia pawn shop is able to break free from his mind control abilities...
In this whimsical fable, Resnais deftly interweaves three story lines: the creation of an early-20th-century utopia; romantic high jinks at a school conference; and a fantasy sparked by F/X pioneer Georges Méliès.
The Popular Front wins elections, the Spanish Civil War begins, and Hitler and Stalin are manipulating and spying. The brilliant exile, Fiodor Voronin, a general at 20, is the deputy at the White Russian Military Union, probably slated to replace the aging Général Dobrinsky soon. Fiodor's Greek wife, Arsinoé, paints and stays away from politics, befriending Communist neighbors. Her health declines; the attentive Fiodor arranges care and, against the backdrop of Stalin's Great Purge, considers his options. He plays a chess game in which love of country, love of Arsinoé, ideology, petty jealousies, and the machinations of power roil in matters of life and death.
In the '40s, three brothers decide to live a great adventure and enlisting in the Roncador-Xingu Expedition, which has a mission to tame the Central Brazil. The Villas Boas brothers: Orlando, 27, Claudius, 25, and Leonardo, 23, engage in a fantastic and incredible saga. Soon start to lead the expedition that opens new paths 1,500 km, navigates over 1,000 miles of unspoilt rivers, opens 19 airfields for airplanes Army, gives rise to the creation of 43 towns and 14 make contact with wild Indian tribes, unknown, as the Xavante, courageous and feared warriors, no casualties on both sides. This adventure allows the Villas Boas brothers the creation of the Xingu National Park, the first major Amerindian reservation in Brazil, the size of Belgium, transforming them into true contemporary heroes.
In the midst of a vast ocean stands the Elysium Tower – a glistening vertical city – a sanctuary for challenging times. Powered by sun and earth, designed by the greatest architectural visionary of the new millennium, Elysium is a self contained world. A world of commerce, cuisine and entertainment, featuring restaurants, swimming pools, libraries, cinemas, even a research hospital. It is not just the tallest and most technologically advanced work of modern architecture, but one that embodies the world's highest aspirations. Dr. Robert Laing, a new arrival, settles in and adjusts to this hermetic life. But before long he becomes aware of something unsettling in the building. In an escalating atmosphere of unrest the residents break into tribal factions. Laing watches in horror as the myth of a utopian society is shattered.
Ken Park focuses on several teenagers and their tormented home lives. Shawn seems to be the most conventional. Tate is brimming with psychotic rage; Claude is habitually harassed by his brutish father and coddled, rather uncomfortably, by his enormously pregnant mother. Peaches looks after her devoutly religious father, but yearns for freedom. They're all rather tight, or so they claim.
Duke & Chester on a ship to Skagway, Alaska, find a map to a secret gold mine, which had been stolen by thugs, McGurk & Sperry. Meanwhile, Sal Van Hoyden is in Alaska to try and recover her fathers map. She falls in with Ace Larson, who wants to steal the gold mine for himself. Duke & Chester, McGurk & Sperry, Ace, his henchmen & Sal, chase each other all over the countryside, all after the map.
Allie Fox, an American inventor exhausted by the perceived danger and degradation of modern society, decides to escape with his wife and children to Belize. In the jungle, he tries with mad determination to create a utopian community with disastrous results.
Inspired by events that took place in Massachusetts, Delphine and Muriel Coulin's provocative debut focuses on a group of bored teenage girls who all make an irrevocable pact. When Camille (Louise Grinberg) accidentally becomes pregnant, she encourages her friends and fellow high school classmates to follow suit. It's only a matter of time, before 17 girls in the high school are pregnant and the town is thrown into a world of chaos. Set in the writer/directors' small, seaside hometown of Lorient in Brittany, 17 Girls is a reflection on adolescence, body image, friendship and the perplexing realities of growing up.
A massive underwater volcano erupts and puts a group of investigative scientists in danger. They are rescued by an atomic super submarine named The Alpha under the command of Captain McKenzie. The group is quickly taken to a vast underwater city known as Latitude Zero, a fantastic, Atlantean type utopia, a world beneath the ocean with its own sun. It is soon discovered that Captain McKenzie is at war with the evil Dr. Malic, a cruel scientist who wishes to rule mankind all the while conducting genetic experiments on humans and animals. Malic sends his agents to kidnap Dr. Okada, a human scientist who has created a serum that can immunize exposure to radiation.
In France of the late 19th century, the wife of a wealthy general, the Countess Louise, sells the earrings her husband gave her on their wedding day to pay off debts; she claims to have lost them. Her husband quickly learns of the deceit, which is the beginning of many tragic misunderstandings, all involving the earrings, the general, the countess, & her new lover, the Italian Baron Donati.
Based on a true story, MRS RATCLIFFE'S REVOLUTION, is the tale of a family from Bingley in Yorkshire, who defect to East Germany. Here they find a nightmare of rationing, censorship and the most spied upon people in history rather than the Marxist utopia they were expecting. But if they thought getting in was difficult wait until they try to get out.
An idyllic sci-fi future has one major drawback:, all citizens get a chance of being 'renewed' in a Civic Ceremony, at their 30th birthday, unless you run and escape before your time.
During the transportation of a Space Shuttle a Boeing 747 crashes in the Atlantic Ocean yet when they go to look for the destroyed shuttle it is not there. James Bond investigates the missing mission space shuttle and soon learns that the shuttles owner Hugo Drax wants to kill all of mankind.
Jeff, a down on his luck office worker finds out he is the last living relative of horror novelist H.P. Lovecraft. What he doesn't know is that Lovecraft's monsters are real and will soon threaten the very existence of mankind. Jeff and his best friend Charlie are forced to embark on a perilous adventure and they enlist the help of high school acquaintance, Paul, a self proclaimed Lovecraft specialist. Together the three unlikely heroes must protect an alien relic and prevent the release of an acient evil, known as Cthulhu.
Captain Adams and the crew of the Starship C57D fly towards planet Altair 4 in search for the Bellerphon spaceship that has been missing for twenty years. To their surprise they are already being expected. A classic science fiction film from 1957 starring Leslie Nielsen.
When household tensions and a sense of worthlessness overcome Evan, he finds escape when he clings with the orphans of a throw-away society. The runaways hold on to each other like a family until a tragedy tears them apart.
In the far future, peace and violence walk hand in hand. The citizens of Jesus Town, a false utopia ruled by the iron fist of Gurjev and his cyborg enforcer Michael, long for a savior from their veil of peace. While a small band of rebels search for a new weapon to aid in their fight against Gurjev, a dark force begins to stir. Hidden far from civilization lies what could be the answer to everyone's prayers. After a long imprisonment, Hakiader, the destruction rider, is discovered by the rebel forces. Kaoru, a member of the rebellion, enlists Hakaider to aid in their fight. Now aware of the new menace, Gurjev seeks to crush the rebels and remove the threat Hakaider once and for all. Will Hakaider prove to be a long desired savior, or an unstoppable force that will destroy all?
In September 2011 writer Michel Houellebecq briefly disappeared off the face of the earth. Wild rumours began circulating on the Internet that he’d been abducted by Al-Qaeda or aliens from outer space. Some Twitter users even expressed relief that the controversial author was suddenly no longer around. This film now reveals what really happened: Three tough guys variously with impressive hairstyles and bodybuilder physiques carried off the star intellectual, taking him out of the daily stress of dodging autograph hunters and having his flat renovated and bringing him to a beautiful rural underdog idyll, full of dog grooming, bodybuilding demonstrations, junk cars and Polish sausages. But who was to pay the ransom?
The Progressive Party convention is deadlocked for governor, and so both sides nominate the dark horse Zachary Hicks (Guy Kibbee). Kay Russell (Bette Davis) suggests they hire Hal Blake as campaign manager; but first they have to get him out of jail for not paying alimony. Blake (Warren William) organizes the office and coaches Hicks to answer every question by pausing and then saying, "Well yes, but then again no." Blake will sell Hicks as dumb but honest. Russell refuses to marry Blake, while Joe (Frank McHugh) keeps people away from Blake's office. Blake teaches Hicks a speech by Lincoln. At the debate when the conservative candidate Underwood recites the same speech, Blake exposes him as a plagiarist. Hicks is presented for photo opportunities and gives his yes-and-no answer to any question, including whether he expects to win.
Christina, on arriving in Japan, acquaints a Japanese man at the airport who looks like a sap. He takes her to his apartment where he brutally rapes her and keeps her hostage and bound in chains. Christina's alluring beauty eventually enchants the rapist and he is soon consulting his 'How to Stimulate a Woman' sex book in an effort to please her...
A fashion photographer is traveling to meet his sister at Eden Parish. Once there, his friends begin to film interviews with the Eden Parish inhabitants, all of whom speak of the commune in glowing terms. However, they soon discover that there is a sinister edge to the commune that belies the seemingly peaceful setting.
A naive California teen plans to remain above the fray at his Nebraskan family reunion, but a strange encounter places him at the center of a long-buried family secret.
Late 1960 and the world consists of feudal cities after decades of a global war and plague. 2035 and the world has been rebuilt with fantastic technology, but has progress gone too far and has man learned anything.
When the fun of double dating begins to grow old, Richard and Bettina share a dirty little secret with their friends Diego and Emilia: They live a double life as swingers, and would love to share this practice with them.
In Babylon A.D Vin Diesel stars as a veteran-turned-mercenary who is hired to deliver a package from the ravages of post-apocalyptic Eastern Europe to a destination in the teeming megalopolis of New York City. The "package" is a mysterious young woman with a secret.
The mainly evil Mantis Fist school and the righteous Eagle Claw have fought out a bitter rivalry over many years. The culmination in this progressive clash is the death of the Eagle's Claw school master due to a severe beating by his savage, eccentric rival. With the school now in turmoil, the dying master leaves the responsibilities of his legacy to his second most senior pupil (Wong Tao) while ignoring the quietly seething senior student (Chi Kwan Chun). The forgotten man cannot contain his rage for long though and storms off to the Mantis Fist school out of spite. While at his new school, the senior student begins to attract the attention of his new master's daughter and makes strong progress in the Mantis Fist school. However, his former friends continue to harbor resentment after his sudden exit and refuse to let the rivalry end. All is not as obvious as it seems though and the real motives of each character is revealed before the classic fight finale.
In the 26th century the inhabitants of Utopia have so lost their individuality, which varies in number. They live in glass houses (this was written before the invention of television), which allows the political police, called “Keepers” can easily supervise them. They all wear the same uniform and usually turn to each other or as a ”cipher-so” or "UNIFEM" (uniform). They feed on artificial food and rest hour marching in fours in a row the anthem of the One State, pouring out of the loudspeakers. As they are allowed to put a break on the hour (known as the ”sexy time“), draw the curtains of their glass houses. At the head of the One State is one called The Benefactor, which are replaced every year the whole population, usually unanimously. The guiding principle of the State is that happiness and freedom are incompatible.
Naruto, Shikamaru, and Sakura are executing their mission of delivering a lost pet to a certain village. However, right in the midst of things, troops led by the mysterious knight, Temujin, attack them. In the violent battle, the three become separated. Temujin challenges Naruto to a fight and at the end of the fierce battle, both fall together from a high cliff...
There are breakpoints in the history, the result of a single event may change the whole course. In 1909, an assassination attempt of a Japanese governor fails. Now, in 2009, Korea is just another state of Japan's Empire & Seoul has become a major city. A Korean resistance group fights for liberty, independence & the restoration of true history. Two cops, Japanese & Korean, investigate the group.
The main character of the film Sergey Dobrolyubov is a news anchor of a music channel. Because of his conservatism he looks strange among his progressive colleagues. And his skeptical and negative attitude to all things new and unusual is a constant target of their mockery. He is definitely not a star of the channel. Sergey and his wife want to have a baby but have no success. Only a miracle can help them but Sergey does not believe in miracles till one particular moment. He makes a wish to have a baby, and a miracle happens - he gets pregnant! Now Sergey must prove to everyone - dreams can come true. But his friend Zhora sees a practical side of this situation. He suggests Sergey to use his pregnancy to gain money and glory by launching a new TV show. The Show Pregnant becomes very popular, and the protagonist Sergey Dobrolyubov is a star of it. But it is not easy to be a man in the family way and a TV star.
A tough cop's (Sylvester Stallone) seemingly frail mother (Estelle Getty) comes to stay with him and progressively interferes in his life. She buys him an illegal MAC-10 machine pistol and starts poking around in his police cases. Eventually, the film draws to a denouement involving the title of the film and the revelation that even though she seems frail and weak she is capable of strong actions in some circumstances, i.e. when her son is threatened by thugs and she shoots herself in the shoulder.

© Valossa 2015–2024