When Nirvana burst onto the scene in 1991, the music they played spoke directly to an angry and disenfranchised generation. As grunge took over MTV and radio, the music industry was transformed overnight. But just three years later, the drug-related deaths of several musicians, capped by the suicide of Kurt Cobain, closed the books on an all too brief era. Hit So Hard follows the rise to fame (and the near-fatal fall from it) of Patty Schemel, drummer for Courtney Love’s seminal rock band, Hole. Given a Hi-8 video camera just before Hole’s infamous Live Through This world tour, Patty captured stunningly intimate footage of the scene that has never been seen… until now. Not just an all-access backstage pass to the music that shaped a generation, Hit So Hard is a harrowing tale of overnight success, the cost of addiction, and ultimately, recovery and redemption.
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Captain Kirk. T.J. Hooker. Denny Crane. Big Giant Head. Alexander the Great. Henry V. Priceline’s Negotiator. These are but a handful of the innumerable masks worn by William Shatner over seven extraordinary decades onstage and in front of the camera. A peerless maverick thespian, electrifying performer, and international cultural treasure, Bill (as he prefers to be called), now 91 years young, is the living embodiment of his classic line “to boldly go where no man has gone before.” In unprecedented fashion, You Can Call Me Bill strips away all the masks he has worn to embody countless characters, revealing the man behind it all.
A look at the Miami-Dade County Corrections and Rehabilitation Boot Camp Program, which allows young inmates undergo a strict six-week course in order to learn from their past mistakes and make a better future for themselves.
In the world of off-road motorcycle racing, Destry Abbott is one of the most iconic riders. His story is about life, triumph, a battle with leukemia, and how love for the sport and family can reignite the desire to fulfill one’s dreams.
Political commentator, author and filmmaker Dinesh D’Souza puts forth the notion that America’s history is being replaced by another version in which plunder and exploitation are the defining characteristics. D’Souza also posits that the way the country understands the past will determine the future. Using historic re-enactments, D’Souza explores the lives and sacrifices of some of America’s greatest heroes, including George Washington and Frederick Douglass.
“Radioactive Veteran” is a documentary short about Marine Corps veteran Donald Guy and his widow Mary. When Donald was serving in the early 1950s, the military ordered him to the Nevada Test Site, where they had begun conducting nuclear testing. Along with thousands of other Marines and soldiers, Donald was assured he was safe as he gazed at the billowing mushroom cloud and marched through the desert toward the atomic blast. Within only a few years, however, Donald began experiencing serious medical issues resulting from radiation exposure and soon became disabled. For the rest of his life, he fought for disability benefits with Veterans Affairs, but in 2009 he died before receiving his due compensation. Over the next seven years, his widow Mary continued his fight for justice, as documented in “Radioactive Veteran.”
When it seems that all the stories about World War II have already been told, a new one is often found. Marthe Cohn is a French Jew, whose life resembles a real-world blockbuster. During the war, she took the cover name Chichinette, became a spy, and gathered intel that helped organize an important military operation. Chichinette suffered many losses during the war, having been born in a Jewish family in a small industrial town close to the border between France and Germany. Now Marthe is 98 years old. Despite her age, she is savvy in modern technology and loves traveling the globe – she is often invited to go abroad and tell the story of her military achievements.
American 11, United 175, American 77, and United 93 tells the riveting and emotional human stories of those aboard each doomed jetliner.
This film explores the daily lives of two aging, eccentric relatives of Jackie Kennedy Onassis. Edie Bouvier Beale and her mother, Edith, are the sole inhabitants of a Long Island estate. During the course of the documentary, they discuss their habits, desires and former loves with filmmakers Albert and David Maysles. The women reveal themselves to be misfits with outsized, engaging personalities. Much of the conversation is centered on their pasts, as mother and daughter now rarely leave home.
Seventy years on, brothers Colin and Ewan McGregor take viewers through the key moments of the Battle of Britain, when ‘the few’ of the RAF faced the might of the Nazi Luftwaffe. As they fly historic planes, meet the veterans, explore the tactics and technology, Colin and Ewan discover the importance of the Battle and the surviving legacy of the 1940’s campaign for the modern RAF.
How do perfectly ordinary, normal people cope with the extraordinary challenge of an embarrassing, provocative, famous or unbelievable name? This documentary examines the phenomena of “strange names.”
Illusionist Derren Brown reinvents the concept of “faith healing” through a series of stunts that debunk the confines of fear, pain and disbelief.
Part film, part baptism, in BLACK MOTHER director Khalik Allah brings us on a spiritual journey through Jamaica. Soaking up its bustling metropolises and tranquil countryside, Allah introduces us to a succession of vividly rendered souls who call this island home. Their candid testimonies create a polyphonic symphony, set against a visual prayer of indelible portraiture. Thoroughly immersed between the sacred and profane, BLACK MOTHER channels rebellion and reverence into a deeply personal ode informed by Jamaica’s turbulent history but existing in the urgent present.
