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The Decline of Western Civilization
: :Centered on the early '80s punk movement, this remains the best of Penelope Spheeris's three attempts to chronicle the musical and angst-ridden subculture of urban Los Angeles. The film's style, like the music, is abrasive, frank, and packed with energy, as it moves swiftly from hilarious band and fan interviews to the loud, raucous shows inside seedy L.A. nightclubs. Despite its tongue-in-cheek title, Spheeris neither condemns, nor glamorizes, the movement, though she definitely has an eye for talent and ...
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Leonard Bernstein: Reaching for the Note
: :Originally aired on PBS's American Masters series, this evocative biography of the American composer, conductor, and de facto musical evangelist Leonard Bernstein offers a compelling balance of musical scholarship and personal insight. It's a fitting approach to the brilliant--and emotional--life and art of Bernstein, who elevated Broadway musical theater, demystified and democratized classical music for two generations of American children, and brought a true New Yorker's vigor and directness to his conducting. Writer-director Susan Lacy establishes the film's sympathetic ...
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Jazz - A Film by Ken Burns
: essential video:Accompanied by a menagerie of products, Ken Burns's expansive 10-episode paean, Jazz, completes his trilogy on American culture, following The Civil War and Baseball. Spanning more than 19 hours, Jazz is, of course, about a lot more than what many have called America's classical music--especially in episodes 1 through 7. It's here that Burns unearths precious visual images of jazz musicians and hangs historical narratives around the music with convincing authority. Time can stand still as images ...
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Rock and Roll Heart
:Description:An incredible retracing of the evolution of Reed's remarkable career over three decades. Filled with interviews with Reed, his friends and some of the major artists influenced by Reed including David Bowie, David Byrne, Patti Smith, Suzanne Vega, Dave Stewart, Philip Glass and more.
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Wild Man Blues
: :In 1996, with his public image at a low ebb after a messy breakup with Mia Farrow, clarinetist and filmmaker Woody Allen set off on a tour of Europe with his New Orleans jazz band. Accompanying him were his sister, his soon-to-be wife Soon-Yi Previn, and Oscar-winning documentary maker Barbara Kopple. Like Allen says as the beginning of the tour, 'Theoretically, this should be fun for us.' Woody Allen has always been more widely appreciated in Europe than in ...
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The Who - The Kids Are Alright
: :Half its members may be dead and its leader may be keeping a low profile, but the Who remains enormously popular. Devotees who haven't availed themselves of Jeff Stein's thrilling, self-mocking 1979 documentary about the group shouldn't wait another minute now that the film has been painstakingly--perhaps heroically--restored to its theatrical-release length from original elements. The sound is clearer than on previous video releases, images are once more crisp and color-rich, and adjustments in tape speed make the Who ...
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Sing Faster: The Stagehands' Ring Cycle
:Description:WINNER OF THE SUNDANCE FILMMAKERS TROPHY With its four operas, seventeen-hour running time and months of rehearsal, staging Wagner's Ring Cycle is a daunting undertaking for any opera company. Director Jon Else goes backstage to show this rare event entirely from the point of view of union stagehands at the San Francisco Opera. As they go about their astonishing feats of stagecraft, the stagehands give their own interpretation of the Ring Cycle's fantastic stories. During scene changes the stage ...
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Girl Groups: The Story of a Sound
:Description:WINNER OF THE SUNDANCE FILMMAKERS TROPHY With its four operas, seventeen-hour running time and months of rehearsal, staging Wagner's Ring Cycle is a daunting undertaking for any opera company. Director Jon Else goes backstage to show this rare event entirely from the point of view of union stagehands at the San Francisco Opera. As they go about their astonishing feats of stagecraft, the stagehands give their own interpretation of the Ring Cycle's fantastic stories. During scene changes the stage ...
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America's Great Barbershop And Close Harmony Singers
:Description:WINNER OF THE SUNDANCE FILMMAKERS TROPHY With its four operas, seventeen-hour running time and months of rehearsal, staging Wagner's Ring Cycle is a daunting undertaking for any opera company. Director Jon Else goes backstage to show this rare event entirely from the point of view of union stagehands at the San Francisco Opera. As they go about their astonishing feats of stagecraft, the stagehands give their own interpretation of the Ring Cycle's fantastic stories. During scene changes the stage ...
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Black Wax
: :The poet, vocalist, and songwriter Gil Scott-Heron is both the descendant of the African griots and the forefather of rap. In the early '70s, he boldly proclaimed that 'the revolution will not be televised,' and in the '80s he warned us of the 'New World Order' with his prophetic and satirical single, 'B Movie.' The gifted filmmaker Robert Mugge filmed the controversial artist in performance at the now-defunct Wax Museum in Washington, D.C., in 1982. Mugge alternates between the ...
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