2004-10-27
0
The film is about the formation of a music channel that has shaped modern pop culture. On August 1, 1981, the life of a whole generation of Americans changed forever - on this day MTV began its broadcasting day, making VJ a new teen hero and creating a canon of music video as a vivid artistic statement.
This hard-edged postmodern production of Giuseppe Verdi's haunting masterpiece brings the story of Shakespeare's bloody tragedy to vivid life, characterized by spine-tingling atmospherics and a triumphant debut by American baritone Thomas Hampson in the title role. This Zurich Opera House production also features a mesmerizing turn by Paoletta Marrocu as the beautiful, power-hungry Lady Macbeth, while striking sets and costumes further enhance the duality of the main character whose rise and fall mirror the darkest impulses of man. Replete with supernatural mystery, sexual tension, and violent power plays, this timeless story remains gripping and chilling for today's audiences and boasts some of the most astonishing music of Verdi's legendary body of work.
Claude D'Anna's film of Verdi's Macbeth is a gloomy affair, stressing the descent into madness of the principal villains. It's acted by the singers of the Decca recording of the opera (with two substitutions of actors standing in for singers) and the lip-synching is generally unobtrusive. The musical performance is superb, conducted by Riccardo Chailly with admirable fire, and sung by some of the leading lights of the opera stages of the 1980s. Shirley Verrett virtually owned the role of Lady Macbeth at the time, and she delivers a terrific performance, the voice equal to the role's wide register leaps and it's suffused with emotion, whether urging her husband on to murder or maddened by guilt in the Sleepwalking Scene. Leo Nucci's resonant Macbeth may lack the ultimate in vocal color and steadiness (his last notes of the great aria Pietà, rispetto, amore are wobbly) but he compensates with intensity in both singing and acting.
A young woman comes to country music's capital city to pursue her music-making dreams. The source of her heart-wrenching songs is a brutal secret she has tried desperately to hide, but the past she has fled is reaching out to control her future—and it may destroy everything she has worked for.
The Nidarosdomen in Trondheim is probably the most important church in Norway, the seat of the Norwegian metropolitans and bishops for almost 900 years and the coronation site of the Norwegian kings in historical times. In 2017, the exceptional 21-year-old Norwegian singer AURORA had the honor of giving a concert in the holy cathedral, also known as the "Heart of Norway". She performed in front of a sold-out audience together with her band and the TrondheimSolistene (ensemble/orchestra), Oslo Fagottkor (choir), Petra Bjørkhaug (organist) and Ruth Potter (harpist). This concert was recorded on November 2, 2017 and broadcast by NRK (Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation) shortly after Christmas on December 28, 2017. However, some songs that were originally played that evening were cut from the broadcast.
This is Poe and Král's first effort, shot on small-gauge stock, before their more well-known endeavor The Blank Generation (1976) came to be. A "DIY" portrait of the New York music scene, the film is a patchwork of footage of numerous rock acts performing live, at venues like Madison Square Garden, Radio City Music Hall, the dive bars of Greenwich Village and, of course, CBGB.
While studying at a Catholic boarding school, the young Luisa meets a boy, Julio, who talks to her from the street and through the gate. However, the girl's arrogant older brother removes her from the establishment and takes her to live in her family house. The beginning of love between Luisa and Julio is made even more difficult by what seems to be the beginning of a disease in her.
In the woods there lives a mouse and his friends, and they are always scared of getting eaten by the fox or other predators who can't get food in a fair way. They have to make some laws so they all can live togheter in peace.
Emerging from the Detroit music scene of the 1970s in a flurry of long hair and sequins, Alice Cooper restored hard rock with a sense of showmanship, while simultaneously striking fear into the hearts of Middle America with the chicken-slaughtering, dead-baby-eating theatrics that would cement his identity as a glam metal icon. Meticulously crafted from rare archival footage, Super Duper Alice Cooper tells the story of the man behind the makeup, Vincent Furnier, the son of a preacher, who got caught in the grip of his own monster.
A hapless inventor finally finds success with a flying car, which a dictator from a foreign government sets out to take for himself.
In this fascinating Oscar-nominated documentary, American guitarist Ry Cooder brings together a group of legendary Cuban folk musicians (some in their 90s) to record a Grammy-winning CD in their native city of Havana. The result is a spectacular compilation of concert footage from the group's gigs in Amsterdam and New York City's famed Carnegie Hall, with director Wim Wenders capturing not only the music -- but also the musicians' life stories.
Two-hour special featuring an all-star group of music superstars paying tribute to Elvis, recreating the spectacle - even the staging - of that legendary night.
"Finding Joseph I" is a feature documentary chronicling the eccentric life and struggles of punk rock reggae singer, Paul "HR" Hudson, a.k.a. Joseph I, the legendary lead singer from Bad Brains.
Madonna: the Queen of Pop. Every tune, dance step and decision over four decades has shaped today's contemporary musical landscape. Over a career that has lasted for decades, Madonna has ushered underground sounds and trends into the mainstream - she arrived at the dawn on the MTV music video era and utilised the medium to create a series of stylish, sexy clips that garnered her a reputation as a provocateur, whilst establishing the fledgling TV network as a hub for popular culture in the 1980s. Madonna is unstoppable, her impact on pop culture, undeniable, inspiring almost every other female act to come after her. Repeatedly re-inventing herself, she has changed the blueprint of how to be a successful woman in the music business in the process.
The second film in the Take Me to the River series celebrates the rich musical history, heritage, legacy, and influence of New Orleans and Louisiana.
Guiseppe Verdi’s Requiem is still heard mainly in theatre and concert halls. However, the author himself intended this composition to be performed in church, and on special occasions. Conducted by Teodor Currentzis and performed by soloists and musicAeterna choir and orchestra, Verdi’s famous funeral mass returns from the concert stage to Milan’s Church of San Marco, the same place where it was premiered in 1874. The seven parts of the Requiem become steps on the way to comprehending the sacrament of death, the operatic character of orchestral and vocal writing acquires the strictness of the Catholic tradition, and musical images of rage, despair, and rebellion against the inevitable end are crowned with appeasement.
A documentary film honoring the King of Pop showcasing how Michael Jackson's groundbreaking musical legacy has influenced performers of the past, present and future.
When a popular radio singer is knocked unconscious during a robbery, a squeaky-voiced college boy fills in for him. To everyone's amazement, especially his recent girlfriend, who just broke up with him, he becomes an overnight sensation.
A successful songwriter, dazzled by high society, falls for a society girl who is just playing around.