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Like a weird Kafka-esque dream comes the Strange Stories of a tale-telling father. On board a train, a young girl requests that her father tell her some of his unique and entertaining stories to help take away the "hum-drum" of looking at the world pass by the window. Like all good fathers, he obliges by making up weird and ridiculous stories on the spot, turning the other train passengers into his fictitious world's characters. In the first story, a man has his air cut off for not paying his bill.
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Blending legend, myth, and modern news footage, Ramona S. Diaz documents a powerful and touching story of women's struggles in the Philippines with Spirits Rising. More than simply a Filipina history, Diaz juxtaposes tales of heroines, past and present, showing the integral role women have played toward independence for "Las Islas Filipinas." Beginning with the shocking assassination of Benigno Aquino on August 21, 1983, Spirits Rising chronicles, with news footage and personal interviews, Corazon Aquino's rise to power and Ferdinand Marcos' fall from grace.
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Craig Baldwin makes documentaries the way David Lean made small, intimate little dramas. Don't go into this film with preconceptions; you'll be disappointed. The subject matter - fair use, intellectual property, copyright-infringement - may seem dry, but certainly not in this inventive director's hands. Court TV this ain't. It all started when the alternative Bay Area band, Negativland, sampled the work of - one- time alternative band, now mega-group - U2. U2's label, Island, soon brought suit. It lead to Negativland losing it's contract with SST Records and, eventually, bankruptcy.
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Once upon a time, ten-year-olds Carrie and Kevin were wisked away on a once-in-a-lifetime adventure to a magical faraway land called Seldom. That adventure, however, is now over and Carrie, returning from college to pursue her dream as a writer, is becoming an adult and hasn't heard from Kevin in years. Things seem pretty normal, as Carrie comfortably returns to her uneventful, suburban life with her family and other childhood friend Eric. That is until the phone call. Enter Kevin once again into Carrie's life, but this time he makes an unexpected request of her.
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Dante wrote about the seven levels of hell in his Inferno. Rupert Wainwright's film THE SADNESS OF SEX illuminates each level of love. There are fifteen to be exact, and each one is traversed with a swirl of emotional and intellectual depth. THE SADNESS OF SEX is a hilarious tale told from the viewpoint of a helpless romantic along his stream or consciousness journey to the center of a human soul searching for life's unanswered questions about love.
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Let's get this out of the way right at the start: Beverly D'Angelo - thanks to a shaman named Salvador Dali - has been turned into a pterodactyl (or, at least, her character, Pixie, has). So begins one of the most twisted pieces of celluloid to come down the pike since the Ice, Bronze, or any other Age, Pterodactyl Woman From Beverly Hills. You see: Pixie's paleontologist husband, Dick, while doing some very unPC digging one day, pisses off said shaman and...Whammo! Pixie gets hexed.
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Procedure 769 is a powerful film about the execution of Robert Alton Harris, in 1992, the first person to be executed in California in 25 years. Although this is the story of a specific prisoner it has much broader relevance to the general capital punishment issue. The dispassionate and even-handed approach to the material avoids the usual special pleading associated with such documentaries and therefore makes it more accessible for both supporters and opponents of capital punishment.
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"It's Fellini on an Ed Wood budget," says director Trent Harris. No kidding! Throw out all those American History texts that tell you why the Mormons settled in Utah and not someplace else. At last--believe it or not--the true origins of that fabled migration can now be told! Follow the adventures of the intrepid Lucinda, a slightly befuddled, non-practicing Mormon, as she seeks to unravel the deep dark secrets behind Brigham Young and his little-known twenty-eighth wife.
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Out Of Sight is a powerfully ironic film of considerable power. Diane Starin, sightless since an infant, openly reveals the most intimate details of her life--considerable warts and all--to the probing eye of filmmaker David Sutherland's camera. Bravely--but also rather matter-of-factly, she provides an unflinching look into a life that is always full, albeit one that is also achingly complicated and messy. Here the stereotypical image of the noble blind person, heroically coping with the world in darkness, is not only rejected; it is summarily blown to pieces.
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The film that swept the Thai Academy Awards is a warm and insightful charmer that introduces us to a wonderful ensemble cast. This is the story of a young, modern family which is experiencing the pain of divorce and separation and its effects on the children. What is striking here are the many similarities to western life (working parents, child care problems, tensions between parents and children) along with problems such as homelessness, drugs, and crime.