In 1910, the Pennsylvania Railroad successfully accomplished the enormous engineering feat of building tunnels under New York City's Hudson and East Rivers, connecting the railroad to New York and New England, knitting together the entire eastern half of the United States. The tunnels terminated in what was one of the greatest architectural achievements of its time, Pennsylvania Station. Penn Station covered nearly eight acres, extended two city blocks, and housed one of the largest public spaces in the world. But just 53 years after the station’s opening, the monumental building that was supposed to last forever, to herald and represent the American Empire, was slated to be destroyed.
Noir rock hits ACL with Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds. The Australian group’s set ranges across their 30-year career, from their first album to their latest Push the Sky Away.
New York, 1929, a war rages between two rival gangsters, Fat Sam and Dandy Dan. Dan is in possession of a new and deadly weapon, the dreaded "splurge gun". As the custard pies fly, Bugsy Malone, an all-round nice guy, falls for Blousey Brown, a singer at Fat Sam's speakeasy. His designs on her are disrupted by the seductive songstress Tallulah who wants Bugsy for herself.
Martin Scorsese and the Rolling Stones unite in "Shine A Light," a look at The Rolling Stones." Scorsese filmed the Stones over a two-day period at the intimate Beacon Theater in New York City in fall 2006. Cinematographers capture the raw energy of the legendary band.
In the 1930s, jazz guitarist Emmet Ray idolizes Django Reinhardt, faces gangsters and falls in love with a mute woman.
This previously unreleased, 35-minute documentary film that takes you deep into the bowels of Winnipeg's punk and hardcore underground circa the mid-2000s. "The Manitoba Connection" provides a rare, lightning-in-a-bottle snapshot of DIY subculture as it is on the Canadian Prairie, marked by geographical isolation, brutal winters, and a history of working-class politics.
Arguing that advertising not only sells things, but also ideas about the world, media scholar Sut Jhally offers a blistering analysis of commercial culture's inability to let go of reactionary gender representations. Jhally's starting point is the breakthrough work of the late sociologist Erving Goffman, whose 1959 book The Presentation of the Self in Everyday Life prefigured the growing field of performance studies. Jhally applies Goffman's analysis of the body in print advertising to hundreds of print ads today, uncovering an astonishing pattern of regressive and destructive gender codes. By looking beyond advertising as a medium that simply sells products, and beyond analyses of gender that tend to focus on either biology or objectification, The Codes of Gender offers important insights into the social construction of masculinity and femininity, the relationship between gender and power, and the everyday performance of cultural norms.
Through a series of interviews, 'So Which Band Is Your Boyfriend In' takes a look at gender in the UK's DIY and underground music scenes.
"Getting The Knack" chronicles the controversial career of power pop stars, The Knack. Viewers will witness a compelling tale of instant stardom and spectacular failure, a story marked by heroin addiction, alcohol abuse, vicious inner-band feuding and massive critical backlash. "Getting The Knack" explores the group's career via candid interviews with the original band, producers Mike Chapman and Jack Douglas, Sharona Alperin, (the inspiration behind their biggest hit), Steve Jones of The Sex Pistols, Rick Springfield, Elliot Easton of The Cars, Devo's Bob Mothersbaugh, comedian Weird Al Yankovic and many more. Narrated by Cherie Currie of The Runaways, "Getting the Knack" is augmented by scores of rare photos and previously unseen archival footage providing a no-holds barred look at the rise and fall and ultimate resurrection of the group.
An archival biography film about the early career of Deborah Harry told entirely through press interviews where she endures superficial, tedious, and demeaning questions from journalists.