Making “The Shining”

This doc.6zik.com is followed around Jack Nicholson as he prepared for the ‘Here’s Johnny!’ scene and interviewed the actors about there relationship with Stanley Kubrick, the scripts and scene.
The Shining is a 1980 horror film directed by Stanley Kubrick, based on Stephen King’s novel of the same name. Kubrick co-wrote the screenplay with novelist Diane Johnson.
The film stars Jack Nicholson as tormented writer Jack Torrance, Shelley Duvall as his wife, Wendy, and Danny Lloyd as their son, Danny. The film tells the story of a writer, Jack Torrance (Jack Nicholson), who accepts the job of the winter caretaker at a hotel which always gets snowed in during the winter.
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Pink Floyd: The Making of The Dark Side of the Moon

If there are a handful of albums in the rock universe that deserve a bells-and-whistles DVD treatment, Dark Side of the Moon is clearly among them. In the ’70s and ’80s, the classic 1973 album by Pink Floyd remained on the Billboard 200 for a staggering 741 consecutive weeks, a record that will likely stand forever. Echoing themes of alienation, paranoia, and death, it is a dreamy, often trancelike tour through the subconscious of Floyd lyricist Roger Waters.
This 84-minute DVD offers a track-by-track look at the making of Dark Side of the Moon, featuring interviews with band members Waters, David Gilmour, Nick Mason, and Richard Wright, plus rare acoustic versions of “Breathe” and “Brain Damage.”
For those fans interested in the story behind the crafting of one of rock’s true landmark records, this is the equivalent of ambrosia. Discussions involve the studio-specific techniques used to create the clock loops on “Time,” the cash register sounds on “Money,” and the vocal chorus on “The Great Gig in the Sky.” Special features include alternate versions of “Brain Damage,” “Breathe,” and “Time.”
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Rize

Noted photographer David LaChapelle makes his feature directorial debut with this doc.6zik.com on a new facet of street culture in South Central Los Angeles. In 1992, after long-simmering racial tensions in Los Angeles erupted in riots following the verdicts in the Rodney King trial, a man named Tommy Johnson sought to spread a new message in a new way to the city’s African-Americans.
Creating a character called Tommy the Clown, Johnson developed an act that combined hip-hop-flavored comedy and dancing with an anti-gang and anti-violence message. Johnson’s performances became wildly popular in South Central — so much so that at one point, 50 different groups inspired by Johnson’s example were performing in the area. In time, Johnson’s loose-limbed dance style inspired a new wave of hip-hop street dancing called “krumping,” a wildly athletic style in which arms, legs, and bodies fly with a frenzied abandon that moves at almost inhuman speeds.
Rize follows the birth of clown dancing and krumping in South Central, and records how many young people have adopted the dance as a style of competition, offering a safer and healthier alternative to the gang culture that has long dominated Los Angeles. Rize premiered at the 2005… (Barnes & Noble)
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DIG!

Ondi Timoner’s wildly entertaining doc.6zik.com tells a familiar rock n’ roll tale, one filled with crazy nights, substance abuse, out-of-control parties, temper tantrums, art-versus-commerce debates, “musical differences,” onstage fights, and smashed sitars. What makes DIG! so electrifying is that you see it all unfold in front of the cameras, as Timoner follows the highs and lows of two bands — the Brian Jonestown Massacre and the Dandy Warhols — over the course of seven years.
The eye of this hurricane is BJM frontman Anton Newcombe, a walking anachronism and true believer who seems straight out of 1968 and worships at the altar of the Rolling Stones, Pink Floyd, and Love. Part genius, part snake-oil salesman, part megalomaniac, Newcombe truly believes the BJM are here to start a full-scale rock revolution. He picks the Courtney Taylor-led Dandy Warhols, with their similarly punning name and druggy riffs, as allies in the war.
The Dandys have just signed with Capitol Records as DIG! begins in 1996, and the BJM looks to be the target of a major-label bidding war. But a showcase at L.A.’s Viper Room before a crowd of A&R people quickly turns into an onstage brawl involving nearly every member of the band. It’s indicative of what’s to follow: As the Dandys’ career takes off, Newcombe’s admiration for Taylor turns to jealousy and spite, and the BJM burns through band members like disposable lighters… (Barnes & Noble)
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Elvis – Aloha from Hawaii

Elvis Presley was a man who knew how to rise to a challenge, and, in 1973, his manager, Col. Tom Parker, came up with one of the biggest stunts of their career — staging a live concert in Hawaii that would be beamed by satellite for TV broadcast in 40 countries to a global audience of 1.5 billion people. Elvis responded with a typically dynamic show, and this home video release features the king of rock & roll singing some of his biggest hits and personal favorites, including “C.C. Rider,” “Burning Love,” “Suspicious Minds,” “Welcome to My World,” “Steamroller Blues,” and “American Trilogy.”
Due to licensing problems with music publishers, the most recent edition of the Elvis: Aloha From Hawaii home video is missing three songs from the original broadcast (“Johnny B. Goode,” “I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry,” and “I Can’t Stop Loving You”), though an outtake from the original performance… (Barnes & Noble)
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The Plow That Broke the Plains & The River

This DVD of Pare Lorentz’s remarkable agitprop documentaries… bring to light not only the poetry of their scripts… but also the spare elegance of Virgil Thomson’s music. The Plow That Broke the Plainscontains a new performance of Virgil Thomson’s renowned score for the film from the 1930s. Conductor Angel Gil-Ordonez showcases Thomson’s material from that film as well as his work from The River.
The films are filled with striking images and poetry, but in the end, it’s Thomson’s music that makes the greatest impression; truly cinematic in scope, it draws on well known tunes (“There’ll Be a Hot Time in the Old Town Tonight”), hymns (“The Doxology”) and the composer’s own brilliance to create a thoroughly American sound whose moods perfectly match and enhance what we see on the screen. An hour or so of bonus features includes discussion of all the films’ elements (Thomson himself weighs in during an old audio interview), as well as the original beginning and ending of The Plow… (Barnes & Noble)
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Woodstock – 3 Days of Peace & Music

It was 1969 — the Summer of Love — and some 400,000 people gathered on a farm in upstate New York to get down and naked to the music of Jimi Hendrix, Sly and the Family Stone, Jefferson Airplane, Arlo Guthrie, David Crosby, and many, many others. This was more than just a music festival featuring some of the most important rock and folk artists of the era.
It was a three-day celebration of the counterculture and everything for which it stood. A youthful Martin Scorsese cut his teeth as an editor on Mike Wadleigh’s Academy Award-winning film that documents the most famous rock concert of all time — and one of the defining events of the 1960s.
Monumental in its scope, this legendary documentary uses wide screen and split screen techniques and stereo sound to recreate the experience of the festival in all its peace-loving, mud-splattered glory. While some have criticized the length of the film, the performances — particularly Hendrix’s monumental rendition of the “Star-Spangled Banner” — make it all worthwhile.
The movie did big box office business and a successful three record set sold millions of copies. The Grateful Dead, The Everly Brothers, Credence Clearwater Revival and Janis Joplin performed but were not shown in the film. The Dead’s Jerry Garcia recalled that it was the worse live show the band ever did, ironic for a band known for their spirited live performances. (Barnes & Noble)
Only Part 2 available

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Thelonious Monk – Straight No Chaser

Expanding on footage of Monk’s 1967 tour shot by Christian Blackwood, Charlotte Zwering (Gimme Shelter) has created the definitive filmic portrait of the master bop pianist-composer. This captivating DVD digs deeper into the life of the famously eccentric pianist-composer than the Ken Burns’s tepid coffeetable doc.6zik.com Jazz ever thought to.
A few shades different than the Burns film’s monosyllabic, near-silent weirdo, Straight, No Chaser fleshes out Monk’s character considerably – from his harmonic theories to his use of quarter – tones (produced by hitting two adjacent piano keys simultaneously and occasionally even striking the boards with his entire forearm or his foot) to his mysterious relationship with his patron, baroness Nica de Koenigswarter.
“Pannonica,” a lyrical paean to her, is included on the soundtrack. Monk’s music, naturally, is at the center of this canny portrait, giving fans cause to rejoice since most of the movie’s performances had been previously unavailable in any form.
The more interesting excavations include footage of his near-forgotten 1967 octet and rare recordings of club performances and rehearsal takes of Monk standards like “Well, You Needn’t,” “Trinkle Tinkle,” “Evidence,” and the title song. (Barnes & Noble)
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A Hard Day’s Night

Very little needs to be said about this trend-setting 1964 classic: Simply put, A Hard Day’s Night is the finest rock ‘n’ roll comedy ever made. It hit America shortly after the Beatles themselves did, and with the Fab Four as popular as they were, Stateside audiences would’ve been happy just to see and hear John, Paul, George, and Ringo perform such hit songs as “Can’t Buy Me Love,” “I Should Have Known Better,” “And I Love Her,” and the title tune.
But director Richard Lester (A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum), working from a script by Alun Owen, further delighted moviegoers with his wonderfully offbeat, visually inventive chronicle of a 36-hour period in the group’s hectic life.
He made no attempt to turn the Beatles into actors but encouraged them to give free rein to their naturally zany impulses; the result was a wacky, fast-paced romp with a carefully cultivated air of spontaneity and hokey sight gags reminiscent of silent-era comedies.
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Shut Up & Sing

This Chicks flick by Barbara Kopple (Academy Award winner for Harlan County, U.S.A.) and Cecilia Peck is powerful testament to the inconvenient truth that free speech can come at a very high cost. The Dixie Chicks, Texas-based and one of country music’s most successful acts, found out just how costly it was in the weeks following a March 10, 2003, concert in London. Indulging in some between-song patter, singer Natalie Maines expressed shame that “the president of the United States is from Texas.”
In politics, as in comedy, timing is everything; and at the time, President George W. Bush’s popularity among the Chicks’ traditional country fans was sky-high, and the invasion of Iraq was imminent. Reaction was fast and furious. Country radio stations boycotted the Dixie Chicks’ music. Conservative talk show hosts lambasted them.
Country superstar Toby Keith got into the act by denigrating Maines in his concerts. People destroyed Dixie Chicks CDs in public protests that echoed the furor sparked by John Lennon’s 1966 “We’re more popular than Jesus now” comment. The trio’s tour had to be scaled back and rerouted to include friendlier climes (Canada). (Barnes & Noble)
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Before the Music Dies (B4MD)

Ever since MTV arrived in our living rooms, there has been an inordinate amount of emphasis on beauty and youth and appearance – none of which enters our consciousness through our ears. Never have so few companies controlled so much of the music played on the radio and for sale at retail stores. At the same time, there are more bands and more ways to discover their music than ever. Music seems to have split in two – the homogeneous corporate product that is spooned to consumers and the diverse independent music that finds devoted fans online and at clubs across the country.
Before the Music Dies tells the story of American music at this precarious moment. Filmmakers Andrew Shapter and Joel Rasmussen traveled the country, hoping to understand why mainstream music seems so packaged and repetitive, and whether corporations really had the power to silence musical innovation. The answers they found on this journey–ultimately, the promise that the future holds–are what makes Before the Music Dies both riveting and exhilarating.
At the heart of Before the Music Dies are interviews with musicians, industry insiders, music critics, and fans that reveal how music has reached this moment of truth. Featured performances from a truly diverse group of artists, ranging from The Dave Matthews Band and Erykah Badu to Seattle street performers and Mississippi gospel singers show us that great music is always out there… as long as you know where to look. Before the Music Dies will renew your passion for great music, and inspire you to play an active part in its future.
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Alternative link at Hulu which streams only in USA.

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Scratch

Scratch is a feature-length film/ DVD that explores the world of the hip-hop DJ. From the birth of hip-hop, when pioneering DJ’s began extending breaks on their party records (which helped inspire break dancing and rap), to the invention of scratching and “beat-juggling” vinyl, to its recent explosion as a musical movement called “turntablism”, it’s a story of unknown underdogs and serious virtuosos who are radically changing the way we hear, play and create music.
The film features some of the world’s best DJ’s, whether they’re famous for solo scratching, competing in international DJ battles, playing for rap artists, or just rocking parties with the most insane records ever dug up.
Check out dynamic performances and interviews with DJ’s Q-bert, Mix Master Mike (of the Beastie Boys) Rob Swift and the X-ecutioners, Cut Chemist & NuMark (of Jurassic 5), DJ Craze, The Bullet Proof Space Travelers, Babu (of Dilated Peoples), DJ Krush, DJ Premier (Gang Starr), and others, along with “old-school” innovators like Afrika Bambaataa and GrandWizard Theodore (who is widely acknowledged as having invented the idea of scratching vinyl in the first place).
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Man on Wire

On August 7th 1974, a young Frenchman named Philippe Petit stepped out on a wire illegally rigged between New York’s twin towers, then the worlds tallest buildings. After nearly an hour dancing on the wire, he was arrested, taken for psychological evaluation, and brought to jail before he was finally released.
Following six and a half years of dreaming of the towers, Petit spent eight months in New York City planning the execution of the coup. Aided by a team of friends and accomplices, Petit was faced with numerous extraordinary challenges: he had to find a way to bypass the WTCs security; smuggle the heavy steel cable and rigging equipment into the towers; pass the wire between the two rooftops; anchor the wire and tension it to withstand the winds and the swaying of the buildings.
The rigging was done by night in complete secrecy. At 7:15 AM, Philippe took his first step on the high wire 1,350 feet above the sidewalks of Manhattan James Marshs doc.6zik.com brings Petits extraordinary adventure to life through the testimony of Philippe himself, and some of the co-conspirators who helped him create the unique and magnificent spectacle that became known as the artistic crime of the century. (Excerpt from imdb.com)
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Baby Beauty Queens

As the American phenomenon of the children’s beauty pageant hits the UK, this doc.6zik.com uncovers a surreal new world where nine-year-olds get fake tans and seven-year-olds wear contact lenses.
With the grand final of the first ever Mini Miss UK beauty contest taking place at a leisure center in Milton Keynes, it soon becomes clear that tantrums and tiaras may prevail over perfect poses and pouts. The mastermind behind the pageant is a middle-aged ex-beauty queen, who plans the entire event from her stairwell in Colchester.
The film follows three girls and their mothers in the lead up to the big event, and as they prepare to dazzle the judges the real reasons why they are all desperate to be crowned Mini Miss UK become apparent.
From the evangelical Christians who are convinced that God will help them win the pageant to the disadvantaged kid for whom the contest holds the key to a better life, the film portrays an eccentric, and at times disturbing, snapshot of modern Britain.
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Mini Miss, Miss Mini Photogenic and Universal Royalty (playlist – 1 hour, 25 minutes)

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War Dance

The superb doc.6zik.com War/Dance reveals the redemptive power of music, even in the most horrific places. Focusing on three children in their early teens in war-torn Uganda–stoic Nancy, driven Dominic, and soft-spoken Rose–War/Dance tracks the efforts of the school of a refugee camp called Patongo to compete in Uganda’s countrywide music competition.
The contrasts are staggering; in interviews, the children describe their parents being killed by rebel soldiers, then footage of rehearsal shows them joyfully singing and dancing with their classmates.
Some of the sequences are harrowing (a scene where Nancy grieves for her murdered father is painful to watch), but without them, we wouldn’t understand how hard-won are the feelings of pride and accomplishment as their school performs for the competition’s judges.
The built-in structure of the competition gives this doc.6zik.com a clear and engrossing storyline, much like Spellbound or Mad Hot Ballroom, but the heartbreaking circumstances and the emotional openness of the three teenagers makes War/Dance even more compelling.
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Metal – A Headbanger’s Journey

Metal: A Headbanger’s Journey is a 2005 doc.6zik.com directed by Sam Dunn with Scot McFadyen and Jessica Wise. The film follows 31-year-old Sam Dunn, a Canadian anthropologist, who has been a heavy metal fan since the age of 12.
He sets out across the world to uncover the various opinions on heavy metal music, including its origins, culture, controversy, and reasons it is loved by so many people. The film made its debut at the 2005 Toronto International Film Festival, and was released as a two-disc special edition DVD in the US on September 19, 2006.
The film discusses the traits and originators of some of metal’s many subgenres, including the New Wave of British Heavy Metal, power metal, Nu metal, glam metal, thrash metal, black metal, and death metal. Dunn uses a family-tree-type flowchart to document some of the most popular metal subgenres.
The film also explores various aspects of heavy metal culture. Notable segments include Dunn taking a trip to the Wacken Open Air festival, an interview with Dee Snider providing an analysis of the PMRC attack on heavy metal music, and an interview with several Norwegian black metal bands, many of whom are Satanists.
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Flamenco at 5:15

This Oscar®-winning short doc.6zik.com is an impressionistic record of a flamenco dance class given to senior students of the National Ballet School of Canada by two great teachers from Spain, Susana and Antonio Robledo.
For a few weeks each year, in the depths of winter, senior students at the National Ballet School of Canada are treated to a style of dance that is unlike any other – flamenco. Susana – dancer, teacher and choreographer – comes from Spain with her husband, Antonio Robledo, to introduce the students to the rhythms of another culture; the secrets of an ancient art that speaks of the passion of itinerant gypsies, the songs of Spanish Jews, the ways of the Moors.
Beautifully illuminated, with a dynamic visual style that emulates the staccato rhythms of the dance, Flamenco at 5:15 is a thrilling introduction to the most visceral art form. It is a wonderful opportunity for dancers and non-dancers alike to learn what is at the heart of the passionate discipline that is, in Susana’s words, “earth and sky and always the contradiction.”
Yet it’s mesmerizing once you get into it. What Susana and Antonio do is magical. These types of teachers go beyond just teaching dance moves – they passionately teach you about life and a bit of what it has to offer. Why shouldn’t learning be fun?
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Eminem: Diamonds and Pearls

Diamonds and Pearls is a doc.6zik.com film which tells the story of Eminem’s extraordinary life and incredible musical career, via the use of the rarest footage, interviews with his closest friends, associates and loved ones and contributions from the finest music writers and journalists around.
This doc.6zik.com also features extensive news reports, location shoots, rare photographs and numerous other features to make for the finest film about Eminem so far.
Follow the amazing career of Grammy- and Oscar-winning superstar Eminem – whose hit records “The Slim Shady LP,” “The Marshall Mathers LP” and “The Eminem Show” are hip-hop touchstones – from a rough childhood to worldwide acclaim.
Interviews with friends, colleagues, writers, journalists and others combine with news footage, backstage clips and vintage photographs to create an indelible portrait of the rap icon.
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Rip!: A Remix Manifesto

Join filmmaker Brett Gaylor and mashup artist Girl Talk as they explore copyright and content creation in the digital age.
In the process they dissect the media landscape of the 21st century and shatter the wall between users and producers.
Creative Commons founder, Lawrence Lessig, Brazil’s Minister of Culture, Gilberto Gil, and pop culture critic Cory Doctorow also come along for the ride.
Immerse yourself in the energetic, innovative and potentially illegal world of mash-up media with RiP: A remix manifesto. Let web activist Brett Gaylor and musician Greg Gillis, better known as Girl Talk, serve as your digital tour guides on a probing investigation into how culture builds upon culture in the information age.
Biomedical engineer turned live-performance sensation Girl Talk, has received immense commercial and critical success for his mind-blowing sample-based music.
Utilizing technical expertise and a ferocious creative streak, Girl Talk repositions popular music to create a wild and edgy dialog between artists from all genres and eras.
But are his practices legal? Do his methods of frenetic appropriation embrace collaboration in its purest sense? Or are they infractions of creative integrity and violations of copyright?
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From Mao to Mozart

Murray Lerner’s Oscar-winning film From Mao to Mozart: Isaac Stern in China chronicles with affection and intelligence the great violinist’s 1979 visit to China.
Stern had accepted the government’s invitation to attend a rehearsal and give one recital but instead wound up playing a formal concert, touring two cities, and teaching many master classes due to his overwhelming love for music and even more so for the musicians he met, some as young as 10.
Communicating his instructions less through the translator than his energetically gleeful gestures and plosive vocalizations, Stern offers a wealth of technical tips, bowing techniques, and motivational nuggets that all boil down to one theme: don’t play the music, live it.
Not every moment is joyous; filmed shortly after the final dismantling of the Cultural Revolution, From Mao to Mozart offers a brief but harrowing portrait of Tan Shuzhen, a violinmaker imprisoned for over a year for the crime of crafting Western instruments.
But after this remembrance of the past, the movie ends as it should, eyes and ears on the future, as adolescent cellist Wang Jian serenades the appreciative audience.
A fascinating postscript, Musical Encounters, follows Stern’s return to Beijing two decades later and catches up with Wang, now a successful recording artist, as well as others from the original film.
Especially heartening is conductor Li Delun, wheeled onto the stage but still magisterial as he reteams with Stern to once again perform Mozart’s Concerto in G; and through the music, two men raised a world apart who have met only twice in their lives are again made the best of friends.
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