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The Day the Earth Blew Up A Looney Tunes Movie 2024 - Movies (Feb 19th)
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Bangers and Cash - (Feb 20th)
Tribunal Justice - (Feb 20th)
Gangland Chronicles - (Oct 1st)
Ruby Wax- Cast Away - (Oct 1st)
Deadliest Catch - (Oct 2nd)
Murder in a Small Town - (Oct 2nd)
Slow Horses - (Oct 2nd)
Bad Monkey - (Oct 2nd)
Midnight Family - (Oct 2nd)
Wheres Wanda - (Oct 2nd)
Tell Me Lies - (Oct 2nd)
Seoul Busters - (Oct 2nd)
American Sports Story - (Oct 2nd)
The Bay - (Oct 2nd)
The Kelly Clarkson Show - (Oct 2nd)
Reacher - (Feb 20th)
Zero Day - (Feb 20th)
INVINCIBLE - (Feb 20th)
Harley Quinn - (Feb 20th)
Hollywood Squares - (Feb 20th)
Francis Ford Coppola's film Apocalypse Now was one of the most infamously troubled productions in the history of Hollywood, so resonating in collective memory that it can still be parodied in new-millennium like Tropic Thunder. A typhoon struck the set in the Philippines, local officials were difficult to work with, Martin Sheen had a heart attack during filming, and Coppola was constantly troubled how to bring his script to a powerful ending. The 1991 documentary Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker's Apocalypse chronicles these trials and tribulations through audio recordings that Coppola's wife Eleanor made for her filming diary, informal footage of life on the set and interviews with cast and crew. If all Hearts of Darkness did was rehash the same general trivia one can get from Wikipedia, like so many documentaries, it wouldn't be very good. I was pleased to find that it reveals a lot about the story that I never knew before. The genesis of the screen adaption of Joseph Conrad's novel in earlier attempts by Orson Welles and George Lucas is charted. Dennis Hopper's maniacal performance is placed in the context of his own nervousness at a career slump and his thankfulness that Coppola was giving him a second chance. Perhaps the strongest point of the film is how it reveals the mind of someone tormented by his drive to create, and how a film can result from spontaneous choices on set that go far beyond any script. When the film was first shown at Cannes, Coppola said of the production "little by little we went insane", and indeed his highs of inspiration and lows of self-doubt are captured here. The opening of the film where Sheen's character drunkenly breaks a mirror and slumps, bleeding and crying next to his hotel room bed, is shown to have resulted from the cameras rolling when Sheen did drunkenly stumble on set. Upon its 1991 release this documentary must have been even more interesting as it contains much footage that appeared only in the Apocalypse Now Redux director's cut in 2001: the French Plantation scene, the interlude in the abandoned, muddy camp, etc. I was surprised to hear Coppola insist on cutting the French Plantation scene because he was unsatisfied with the quality of the French actors and the lighting, not because of its place in the story. But what remains remarkable about Hearts of Darkness is that it betrays nothing of the scenes out of the 5-hour workprint that remain cut from commercial release, such as the prominent role given to Lt. Colby and his murder of the American photographer. There's also absolutely no shots of Harvey Keitel as Captain Williard before he was replaced.
***Outstanding documentary on the making of the hallowed "Apocalypse Now"*** Released in 1991, "Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker's Apocalypse" chronicles the making of 1979's "Apocalypse Now," combining footage shot by Eleanor Coppola during the shooting of the film with more recent interviews with the cast & crew. Documentaries or commentaries on how a particular film was made don't interest me because I'm not a filmmaker and only care about the final product. As a writer and former musician I'm familiar with the creative process and understand how some ideas fail to deliver the goods and must be thrown out, etc. As an example, I heard some demos of a couple of my favorite songs and they were lousy compared to the final product and almost ruined my view of those songs. This explains why I'm generally not interested in the harrowing details of how my favorite movies were made and the parts that were thrown out, etc. This documentary is an exception because (1.) "Apocalypse Now" is my all-time favorite movie (the original theatrical version, that is) and (2.) the documentary is just so well-done. In fact, it's fascinating from beginning to end. "Hearts of Darkness" shows the monumental problems Coppola and crew encountered in making the movie: The sudden firing of their leading man (Harvey Keitel) after three weeks of shooting and replacing him with Martin Sheen; the delays in filming due to the Philippine Army taking back their rented helicopters to quell an uprising; a hurricane that ruins the sets; Sheen having a heart attack at only 36 years of age and the corresponding delay; overweight Brando arriving to the set unprepared and making $1 million a week with an unwritten, improvised ending; the amusing tiger incident; Francis venting in genuine uncertainty at various stages of the creative process, particularly the entire ending; etc. The interviews with cast and crew are also very informative and entertaining, like Frederic Forrest's commentary on the tiger sequence and John Milius' insights on his original screenplay and his encounter with Francis during filming where the latter convinced him that it'd be "the first film to win the Nobel prize." This documentary came out ten years before the "Redux" version of the film was released and, as such, it was the public's first glimpse of various scenes that ended up on the cutting room floor, like the French Plantation sequence and the typhoon-with-the-bunnies sequence. In my opinion, "Redux" is a failure and those scenes should've never been inserted into the movie as very little of the added footage works, but those sequences ARE interesting as deleted scenes or viewing them (in part) in the context of "Hearts of Darkness." For some good laughs, be sure to check out the spoof of this documentary: "Hearts of Hot Shots Part Deux: A Filmmaker's Apology," which was released in 1993 and is available on Youtube in a couple parts. The film runs 96 minutes. GRADE: A
To Live or Let Die is a 1982 American short documentary film directed by Terry Sanders, about the neonatal I.C.U. of the Children's Hospital in Los Angeles, where life and death decisions must be made while ethical dilemmas are also posed by new technologies.. It was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Documentary Short.
In this Oscar Winning documentary short film, students in their final year at the National Ballet School of Canada are seen learning the flamenco from Susana and Antonio Robledo, who come to the school every winter to conduct classes which are held after the day's regular schedule has ended.
Featurette about the making of Sergio Corbucci's 'Il grande silenzio' consisting mostly of footage from 'Western Italian Style'.
Filmmakers Sue Marx and Pamela Conn document the romance between Sue's father Louis Gothelf and Reva Shwayder, each in their mid-80s. Both artists and residents of the Detroit suburbs, they met on a group tour of England after being widowed, and quickly formed a strong connection over shared interests. The two discuss concerns over living together without being married; Louis also talks about his caring for his first wife during her ten-year struggle with Alzheimer's disease, while Reva talks about the deaths of two sons several years after her husband's death.
Silence - the stuff of assumptions and confusion - is a legacy inherited by many grandchildren of Japanese Americans interned during WWII. Shortly after Japan attacked Pearl Harbor, Masuo Yasui, a respected figure of Hood River Valley, Oregon was arrested by the FBI as a "potentially dangerous enemy alien." In A FAMILY GATHERING, Lise Yasui, a granddaughter that Masuo never knew, shows that courageous journeys into the past can bring greater understanding of family and personal history to the present.
This 1991 Academy Award®-winning documentary uncovers the disastrous health and environmental side effects caused by the production of nuclear materials by the General Electric Corporation.
A young boy with down syndrome attends his first year in a "regular" classroom. This documentary traces that year and the changes that take place for Peter, his teacher, and the other students. Oscar-winning documentary short from 1992.
When an unidentified hiker is found deceased in the Florida wilderness, authorities release a sketch. Multiple hikers call in claiming to have met the man. There's only one problem – he never told them his name. It would take two years, thousands of devoted internet sleuths, and a miracle of science to identify him, and that's when the trouble really starts.
LOOKING LIKE MY MOTHER is a film about family relationships and personal destiny, about realizing one's own potential and one's limitations. It traces the individual experience, showing the emptiness one can feel as well as the discovery of a sense of meaning in life. It is a very personal and courageous film that doesn’t search for scientific explanations but instead uses documentary and fictional material to weave an intimate biography. This combination of perception and memory suggests a deep reconciliation and allows tender feelings of a mother’s love to emerge.
This feature-length documentary by Alanis Obomsawin examines the plight of Native people who come to Montreal searching for jobs and a better life. Often arriving without money, friends or jobs, a number of them quickly become part of the homeless population. Both dislocated from their traditional values and alienated from the rest of the population, they are torn between staying and returning home.