This documentary focuses on AIDS activist, novelist and film writer and National Book Award winner Paul Monette’s life, from his childhood in Massachusetts up to his life in Hollywood and diagnosis and death from AIDS. His story is told in readings from his memoirs and by those who knew him. Narrated by Linda Hunt.
Category: Biography
The story of how Norma Jean, once an orphan in Hollywood, becomes Marilyn Monroe, the movie star and celebrity. The movie begins with her as a child and ends with the mysterious way she dies. Throughout the movie, we see the highlights and lowlights of her career, including the parts of her private life not so widely known. Based loosely on Norman Mailer’s highly suspect biography of the actress, Marilyn: The Untold Story premiered on September 28, 1980.
The life story of the famed rocket scientist Dr. Werner von Braun, one of the most brilliant and controversial figures of the space age. Dr. von Braun helped pioneer man’s adventure into space through his rocket experiments; his was the brain behind the V-2 rockets which blasted London in World War II; his was also the brain which led America into the development and the launching of space satellites.
A must-see for all Rainer Werner Fassbinder fans. Radu Gabrea’s campy 1984 biopic about the late director stars the very talented Eva Mattes in drag in the title role, manipulating his Munich stock company in a variety of perverse ways while coming on as a slob enfant terrible. Funny, insightful, and packed with inside references that enthusiasts of the director and his myth will particularly enjoy, this is good, decadent fun even for spectators with only a casual acquaintance with Fassbinder; Mattes’s hallucinatory performance has a fascination all its own.
Between October 11 and November 5 of 1968, teenager Norio Nagayama murdered four people in a killing spree across Japan with a shotgun stolen from a U.S. Army base. Adachi Masao, together with cultural theorist Matsuda Masao, scriptwriter Sasaki Mamoru and other collaborators, set out to trace the young man’s footsteps with a camera in hand. The result is an experimental documentary comprised purely of landscape shots, each of which shows scenery that Nagayama may or may not have seen during his upbringing and journey. Seeking an alternative to the sensationalism found in the media’s depiction of serial killers (which continues to this day), Adachi’s sparse voice-over provides only the hard facts while the increasing number of billboards in the landscapes slowly reveal the hegemony of capitalism in contemporary Japan.
A puppy was born in Akita Prefecture and sent as a gift to Professor Ueno of Tokyo University. Although professor’s wife does not want keep the dog. Professor Ueno loves the puppy so much and names it Hachi. Professor goes to work by railways everyday. Hachi walks to Shibuya Station with Professor each morning and greets him in the evening, no matter what the weather is. One day, Professor Ueno has a stroke and passed away. His family sold the house and moved to another city, but Hachi keeps visiting the house and waiting at the Shibuya station, believing his master will return. Based on a true story of Hidesaburo Ueno and his Akita breed dog “Hachiko.”
An exploration of certain conspiracy theories surrounding the JFK assassination from Jack Ruby’s perspective. Ruby owns a run-down strip club in Dallas, and does what he can for credibility, both by giving information to the FBI and by doing the odd favor for his mafia contacts. When hitman Action Jackson is hit, Louie Vitali asks him to help get crime boss Santos out of a Cuban jail. When they get back, the bosses take his headliner Candy Cane under their wing to develop her career in Vegas. A mysterious government man named Maxwell expresses his displeasure to Ruby over his Cuban activities. Slowly all the pieces of a massive conspiracy begin to emerge to Ruby, who can do nothing to stop it.
Joey Deacon, born in 1920 with brain damage, grew up with severe cerebral palsy, unable to talk or walk. When, in 1928, his mother died, he was sent to an institution where he lived for years, quite unable to make himself understood. Then, in 1941, he met Ernie Roberts who had one remarkable skill – he could understand Joey. This led to a new and richer life, and this film tells Joey’s remarkable story. Based on Joey Deacon’s book “Tongue tied”.