“Answered Prayers” was meant to be Truman Capote’s greatest masterpiece, an epic portrait of NYC’s glittering jet-set society. Instead, it sparked his downfall. Through never before heard audio archive and interviews with Capote’s friends and enemies, this intimate documentary reveals the rise and fall of America’s most iconic gay writer.Read More »
Explore the life of Flannery O’Connor whose provocative fiction was unlike anything published before. Featuring never-before-seen archival footage, newly discovered journals and interviews with Mary Karr, Tommy Lee Jones, Hilton Als and more.
The first feature-length documentary with full access to the Flannery O’Connor trust, Flannery explores the life and legacy of the literary icon with never-before-seen archival footage, original animations, O’Connor’s newly discovered personal letters and excerpts from her stories read by actress Mary Steenburgen. Featuring new, original interviews with Mary Karr, Hilton Als, Alice Walker, Tobias Wolff, Tommy Lee Jones, Alice McDermott and others, alongside archival interviews of friends and family.Read More »
Steven Soderbergh’s 1996 film is a free-form satire with a broad range of targets, chief among which is the form itself. Shot guerilla-style between The Underneath and Out of Sight, Schizopolis is an uninhibited, stream-of-consciousness window into Soderbergh (in goofy dual starring roles here) at play, with all commercial considerations stripped away. This is what it looks like when a gifted Hollywood filmmaker makes a student film.Read More »
Kirsa Nicholina records the birth of a child at home by the Lamaze method. The father assists in the birth, while a physician guides him. At the moment of birth, the mother reaches down and grasps the hand of the emerging child and guides it out of her body and into her arms.Read More »
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Two icons of 60s cinema, Terence Stamp and Peter Fonda, go head-to-head in Steven Soderbergh’s stylish reworking of the lone avenger theme. Stamp plays Wilson, an ageing Cockney villain newly out of jail, who arrives in Los Angeles to ask some awkward questions. His beloved daughter, mistress of powerful rock promoter Terry Valentine (Fonda), has died in a car crash; but Wilson’s far from convinced it was an accident. With his gaunt, grim features and sparse white hair, Stamp’s a dead ringer for the angel of death. Or maybe, as Soderbergh hints with some intricate flashback and flash-forward cutting, the whole story is a dying man’s dream of vengeance. Echoes of Get Carter and Point Blank aren’t far to seek. Read More »
Gil and Inez travel to Paris as a tag-along vacation on her parents’ business trip. Gil is a successful Hollywood writer but is struggling on his first novel. He falls in love with the city and thinks they should move there after they get married, but Inez does not share his romantic notions of the city or the idea that the 1920s was the golden age. When Inez goes off dancing with her friends, Gil takes a walk at midnight and discovers what could be the ultimate source of inspiration for writing. Gil’s daily walks at midnight in Paris could take him closer to the heart of the city but further from the woman he’s about to marry. (imdb)Read More »
A Los Angeles telephone operator who tires of mate-swapping and turns to a religious sect for spiritual guidance.Read More »
Police Beat is a highly unconventional crime film in which the protagonist Z is so preoccupied with his possibly unfaithful girlfriend that he never once acknowledges criminal world that swirls around him. The crimes Z encounters become mirrors of the his turbulent inner state, allowing him to philosophize about his unstable romantic relationship as well as his own development as an emotional being. While Z’s regular interactions are in English, his thoughts the film’s narration are in his native Wolof, the primary language of West Africa. In this way, Police Beat is an unusual portrait of an immigrant new to the United States that focuses less on the protagonist’s socio-economic difficulties than on his emotional responses to American life.Read More »
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Wes Craven has had one of the most unusual careers of any genre director. He started out pretty late in life (33 maybe), made some classic exploitation and horror films, and then jumped into the dreaded realm of made for television flicks. Why I wonder? To pay the rent I suppose. The story of Chiller begins in a very atmospheric cryogenic chamber setting and it really got my hopes up. It was a creepy beginning and it was Craven at the helm. So why didn’t I like the movie? Production values for starters. They really hindered this project. Also, the made for TV quality was really hard to get past. The story was lacking something too.Read More »