The art of the "pitch" and its role in society, as told by many of the pitch industry's greatest salesmen, including Arnold Morris, Sandy Mason, Lester Morris, Wally Nash and Ed McMahon as well as a look at the Popeil family.
Aja was the biggest selling album of Steely Dan's illustrious career. It was the first album by Donald Fagen and Walter Becker as a duo. Fagen and Becker recall the history of the album, along with Peg, Deacon Blues and Josie. Michael McDonald, later of the Doobie Brothers did guest backing vocals on Aja, the late British musician Ian Dury, record producer Gary Katz and the legendary session musicians who worked on Aja also contribute. This is a vivd portrait of a 70's record that is still as fresh and as memorable more than two decades after its release.
The film chronicles the history and development of "Critical Mass", the leaderless, grassroots bicycle movement from its 1992 beginnings in San Francisco to its spread across the globe to over 200 cities in 14 countries. With traffic congestion, pollution, and road rage on the rise, cyclists are advocating for transportation alternatives. Critical Mass is at the cutting edge of this mindset.
A film that describes the love-hate relationship between Werner Herzog and Klaus Kinski, the deep trust between the director and the actor, and their independently and simultaneously hatched plans to murder one another.
EXTREME is a visually stunning 45-minute journey into the soul of adventure featuring a cast of world champion athletes. Combining incredible extreme sport action with narration from the athletes and an eclectic, contemporary soundtrack, EXTREME explores the paradox of human nature: facing fear from the edge of life.
In the 1942 film "This Gun For Hire," he was only a supporting actor. But his portrayal of a cold, ruthless killer with a core of gentle sadness had an impact on audiences everywhere. Teamed with diminutive Veronica Lake, he became an immediately saleable commodity, and in the process helped launch the age of film noir. By 1954, Photoplay Magazine voted him the world's most popular male film star; his fellow award-winner was Marilyn Monroe. But Alan Ladd's fabulous success already contained within it the mechanism to self-destruct.
Trace the history of television and its impact on American culture with clips, newsreels, and exclusive interviews from television greats like Walter Cronkite, Carol Burnett, and Jay Leno.
In this retrospective tribute, acclaimed filmmaker Jean Walkinshaw hails the 100th anniversary of Mount Rainier National Park in Washington by talking to those who know it best: the scientists, naturalists, mountain climbers and artists whose lives have been touched by the peak's far-reaching shadow. The result is a harmonious blend of archival material and high-definition footage celebrating an icon of the Pacific Northwest.
A journey to seven of the most geographically dynamic locations on earth. The film features spectacular land forms, diverse wildlife and the people and cultures indigenous to these places. Distinct geographic places include the great island of Madagascar, home to unique limestone pinnacles and the playful lemur; and the greatest desert—the Namib—home of the largest sand dunes in the world that tower majestically over its western border, the Atlantic Ocean. Other locations featured are the great icecap of Greenland, Iguazu Falls in Brazil, the Okavango Delta in Botswana, the Chang Tang Plateau in Tibet, and the Amazon River in South America.
Tenor saxophone master Sonny Rollins has long been hailed as one of the most important artists in jazz history, and still, today, he is viewed as the greatest living jazz improviser. In 1986, filmmaker Robert Mugge produced Saxophone Colossus, a feature-length portrait of Rollins, named after one of his most celebrated albums.
George Hickenlooper filmed five pages (two scenes) from Orson Welles' screenplay of "The Big Brass Ring" in 1997 in the hope of attracting interest in the project. The feature film version was released in 1999.
Three decades after German-American pilot Dieter Dengler was shot down over Laos, he returns to the places where he was held prisoner during the early years of the Vietnam War. Accompanied by director Werner Herzog, Dengler describes in unusually candid detail his captivity, the friendships he made, and his daring escape. Not willing to stop there, Herzog even persuades his subject to re-enact certain tortures, with the help of some willing local villagers.
Documentary about the lifelong project of Troy Hurtubise, a man who has been obsessed with researching the Canadian grizzly bear up close, ever since surviving an early encounter with such a bear. The film documents Hurtubise's diligent work to improve his homemade "grizzly-proof" suit of armour, his efforts to test its resilience, and his forays into the Rockies to track down the grizzlies he dreams of meeting. The film manages to capture the humor of the project as well as its sincerity.
From Charlie Chaplin, Cary Grant, Jerry Lewis and Bob Hope to John Belushi, Leslie Nielsen, Eddie Murphy and Jim Carrey, this compilation features a host of comedy legends and showcases 100 years of the funniest bits, gags, moments and scenes ever seen on-screen. Included are film clips from classic movies and hilarious footage of Buster Keaton, Laurel and Hardy, The Three Stooges, Lucille Ball, Richard Pryor and many other comedy superstars.
After starring in a dozen or so HBO Special Presentations, comedian George Carlin has amassed a substantial body of work in the cable channel's vaults. Personal Favorites is a greatest-hits package, a selection of some of Carlin's best moments on HBO from 1977 to 1998 and, not coincidentally, some of his most enduring comic routines from any medium.