Since he was 18 years old, Blake Eckard has written and directed six feature length films in his hometown of Stanberry, Missouri (population 1186). Aside from a short distribution deal in Canada and a few festival screenings, his movies have largely gone unseen.
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6.4A documentary on the last remaining Blockbuster Video in Bend, Oregon.
6.8This documentary explores the hidden history of the American Exploitation Film. The movie digs deep into this often overlooked category of U.S. cinema and unearths the shameless and occasionally shocking origins of this popular entertainment.
6.5A cattle-vs.-sheepman feud loses Connie Dickason her fiance, but gains her his ranch, which she determines to run alone in opposition to Frank Ivey, "boss" of the valley, whom her father Ben wanted her to marry. She hires recovering alcoholic Dave Nash as foreman and a crew of Ivey's enemies. Ivey fights back with violence and destruction, but Dave is determined to counter him legally... a feeling not shared by his associates. Connie's boast that, as a woman, she doesn't need guns proves justified, but plenty of gunplay results.
6.6In the final decades of the 20th century, the Philippines was a country where low-budget exploitation-film producers were free to make nearly any kind of movie they wanted, any way they pleased. It was a country with extremely lax labor regulations and a very permissive attitude towards cultural expression. As a result, it became a hotbed for the production of cheapie movies. Their history and the genre itself are detailed in this breezy, nostalgic documentary.
6.5After railroad agents forcibly evict the James family from their family farm, Jesse and Frank turn to banditry for revenge.
6.4Tom Sawyer and his pal Huckleberry Finn have great adventures on the Mississippi River, pretending to be pirates, attending their own funeral, and witnessing a murder.
6.5Following a tense encounter with a mysterious stranger with otherworldly powers, a man finds himself banished to a parallel, tyrannical Earth, where he fights to get back to the woman he loves.
7.2Over seven decades, actor and activist George Takei journeyed from a World War II internment camp to the helm of the Starship Enterprise, and then to the daily news feeds of five million Facebook fans. Join George and his husband, Brad, on a wacky and profound trek for life, liberty, and love.
7.9Dick Proenneke retired at age 50 in 1967 and decided to build his own cabin in the wilderness at the base of the Aleutian Peninsula, in what is now Lake Clark National Park. Using color footage he shot himself, Proenneke traces how he came to this remote area, selected a homestead site and built his log cabin completely by himself. The documentary covers his first year in-country, showing his day-to-day activities and the passing of the seasons as he sought to scratch out a living alone in the wilderness.
7.3The Crash Reel tells the story of a sport and the risks that athletes face in reaching the pinnacle of their profession. This is Kevin Pearce’s story, a celebrated snowboarder who sustained a brain injury in a trick gone wrong and who now aims, against all the odds, to get back on the snow.
7.0The epic tale of the development of the American West from the 1830s through the Civil War to the end of the century, as seen through the eyes of one pioneer family.
6.7An itinerant farmer and his young son help a heart-of-gold saloon singer search for her estranged husband.
7.0Iverson is the ultimate legacy of NBA legend Allen Iverson, who rose from a childhood of crushing poverty in Hampton, Virginia, to become an 11-time NBA All-Star and universally recognized icon of his sport. Off the court, his audacious rejection of conservative NBA convention and unapologetic embrace of hip hop culture sent shockwaves throughout the league and influenced an entire generation. Told largely in Iverson's own words, the film charts the career highs and lows of one of the most distinctive and accomplished figures the sport of basketball has ever seen.
7.0Capturing Avatar is a feature length behind-the-scenes documentary about the making of Avatar. It uses footage from the film's development, as well as stock footage from as far back as the production of Titanic in 1995. Also included are numerous interviews with cast, artists, and other crew members. The documentary was released as a bonus feature on the extended collector's edition of Avatar.
7.5An oppressed Mexican peasant village hires seven gunfighters to help defend their homes.
6.4A former Union Army officer plans to sell out to Anchor Ranch and move east with his fiancée, but the low price offered by Anchor's crippled owner and the outfit's bullying tactics make him reconsider. When one of his hands is murdered he decides to stay and fight, utilizing his war experience. Not all is well at Anchor with the owner's wife carrying on with his brother who also has a Mexican woman in town.
7.6A look at the first years of Pixar Animation Studios - from the success of "Toy Story" and Pixar's promotion of talented people, to the building of its East Bay campus, the company's relationship with Disney, and its remarkable initial string of eight hits. The contributions of John Lasseter, Ed Catmull and Steve Jobs are profiled. The decline of two-dimensional animation is chronicled as three-dimensional animation rises. Hard work and creativity seem to share the screen in equal proportions.
7.1Filmmaker Lawrence Shapiro discusses voice-over acting with the talented people behind the characters.
It's been 20 years since an Australian film has reached number one at the yearly Box Office and our films have consistently grossed under 5% for the years. So what can we do to make a change?
Four lives that could not be more different and a single passion that unites them: the unconditional love for their cinemas, somewhere at the end of the world. Comrades in Dreams brings together six cinema makers from North Korea, America, India and Africa and follows their efforts to make their audiences dream every night.
7.0Documentary showing one day of work of over 90 actors and filmmakers from French cinema on the same day. On 27 March 2002, 27 teams filmed actors, directors, producers and technicians at work, from Hawaii to Paris and from New York to Lisbon.
Homo Cinematographicus is a human species whose unit of measurement and point of reference is the cinema and its derivative, television. Filmed at the 1998 Cannes Film Festival, the film offers an unspecified number of statements, talking about memories and a thousand fragments of stories, titles and film scenes, the warp of a gigantic collective Chanson de geste.
6.7More than anyone in the cynical film industry, legendary artist Robert Redford embodies the United States' brightest side: perseverance, independence, idealism, and integrity. A champion of active environmentalism and the right to openly criticize any institutional abuse, he has put his artistic work at the service of his political commitments, whether as an actor, director, producer, or founder of the Sundance Festival, a formidable forum for his struggles since 1985.
0.0A crew of filmmakers shoot undercover on the streets of Hong Kong with hidden microphones and no permits. The city becomes a giant set as mounting tension and ego clashes push tempers to breaking point.
9.0Eva Ebner is a Berliner who gives the appearance of being rather eccentric. She knows the film business inside out – regardless of whether she’s work- ing behind the camera as an assistant director or in front of it as an actor. Her name is closely associated with a series of now-legendary adaptations of Edgar Wallace’s crime novels which were made in Germany during the 1960s. Upcoming young directors from local film schools have also profited from Ms. Ebner’s unbroken enthusiasm and passion for film. However, this eighty-year-old has a more than broken relationship to the events of her childhood and youth in Gdansk – a time when her life was characterised by an anti-Semitic step-mother and the dangers posed by the Nazi regime. This film portrait does not eschew any of the long dark shadows of that era, nor does it sidestep any friction between portrayer and his subject. (Lothar Lambert)
7.3A documentary about the making of 1976's "Obsession" featuring interviews with director Brian De Palma, stars Cliff Robertson and Genevieve Bujold and more.
6.8As artificial intelligence becomes ever more sophisticated, the film industry is split between enthusiasm at what the technology can achieve and concern over the future for human workers in the industry. Will actors and actresses be replaced by machines? An overview on the coming wave of AI in cinema.
6.0A ritual of grids, reflections and chasms; a complete state of entropy; a space that devours itself; a vertigo that destroys the gravity of the Earth; a trap that captures us inside the voids of the screen of light: «That blank arena wherein converge at once the hundred spaces» (Hollis Frampton).
0.0The catastrophic and avoidable coal mining disaster at the Knox Mine is recounted by the people who lived through the tragedy.
5.4Dan Aykroyd, John Candy, Gilda Radner and Cheech and Chong present this compilation of classic bad films from the 50's, 60's and 70's. Special features on gorilla pictures, anti-marijuana films and a special tribute to the worst film maker of all-time, Ed Wood.
Documentary short that covers the airplane sequence in the James Bond movie Die Another Day (2002) and its filming at Heathrow Airport.
7.0A documentary following Terry Gilliam through the creation of "Twelve Monkeys."
7.6A look at the first years of Pixar Animation Studios - from the success of "Toy Story" and Pixar's promotion of talented people, to the building of its East Bay campus, the company's relationship with Disney, and its remarkable initial string of eight hits. The contributions of John Lasseter, Ed Catmull and Steve Jobs are profiled. The decline of two-dimensional animation is chronicled as three-dimensional animation rises. Hard work and creativity seem to share the screen in equal proportions.
5.0Promotional documentary filmed at the London East End Docklands area and River Thames for the filming of the opening boat chase for The World Is Not Enough (1999).
3.7Gory real-life footage of blood and guts on the German Autobahn, drug smugglers getting blown away, a parachutist landing in a crocodile pit, torture and murder in El Salvador, a PCP addict getting stoned, a videotaped rape/murder, a car thief getting ripped apart by two junkyard dogs, and much more.
6.7Documentary about filmmakers of the New German Cinema who were members of the legendary Filmverlag für Autoren (Film Publishing House for Authors). Among them are Werner Herzog, Rainer Werner Fassbinder, and Wim Wenders.
7.7Nagisa Oshima interviews Akira Kurosawa, leading him to share his thoughts about filmmaking, his life and works, and numerous anecdotes relating to his films and his various film activities.
8.2Documentary about the life and career of a comic genius, Peter Sellers.
