Good Copy Bad Copy

Good Copy Bad Copy is a documentary about copyright and culture in the context of Internet, peer-to-peer file sharing and other technological advances, directed by Andreas Johnsen, Ralf Christensen, and Henrik Moltke.

It features interviews with many people with various perspectives on copyright, including copyright lawyers, producers, artists and filesharing service providers.

A central point of the documentary is the thesis that "creativity itself is on the line" and that a balance needs to be struck, or that there is a conflict, between protecting the right of those who own intellectual property and the rights of future generations to create.

Shanghai Express 1932

Shanghai Express is a 1932 American pre-Code film about a group of train passengers held hostage by a warlord during the Chinese Civil War. It was directed by Josef von Sternberg and stars Marlene Dietrich, Clive Brook, Anna May Wong and Warner Oland. The screenplay was written by Jules Furthman based on a 1931 short story by Harry Hervey. Shanghai Express was the fourth of seven films that Sternberg and Dietrich created together.

Short Cuts (1993)

Short Cuts is a 1993 American comedy-drama film, directed by Robert Altman. Filmed from a screenplay by Altman and Frank Barhydt, it is inspired by nine short stories and a poem by Raymond Carver. The film is set in Los Angeles, in contrast to the original Pacific Northwest backdrop of Carver's stories. Short Cuts traces the actions of 22 principal characters, both in parallel and at occasional loose points of connection.
"Los Angeles always seems to be waiting for something. Permanence seems out of reach; some great apocalyptic event is on the horizon, and people view the future tentatively. Robert Altman's 'Short Cuts' captures that uneasiness perfectly in its interlocking stories about people who seem trapped in the present, always juggling." - Roger Ebert

How Clubbing Changed the World

A overly produced documentary about the development of club culture, from rave to stage. Has some interesting contributions to make but should not be taken too seriously. For me the real crucible of rave happened in fields and abandoned factories, with little documentation surviving the night/day in question.

B-Movie - Lust & Sound in West-Berlin 1979-1989 [2015]

B-MOVIE: LUST & SOUND IN WEST BERLIN is a documentary about music, art and chaos in the Wild West Berlin of the 1980s. The walled-in city which became the creative melting pot for a special kind of sub and pop culture, attracting ingenious dilettantes and world famous celebrities alike. However, before the iron curtain would fall, artists and communards, squatters and hedonists of all kinds would enjoy Berlins unconventional lifestyle. It was not about long-term commercial success, but about living for the moment - the kick - the here and now. With mostly unreleased TV and film footage, photos and original interviews, B-MOVIE tells the story of life in the divided city, a cultural interzone in which everything and anything seemed possible in a place unlike anywhere else in Europe. It's a fast-paced collage of stories from a frenzied but creative decade, starting with punk and ending with the Love Parade, all from a city where the days are short and the nights are endless. This is a time when Berlin was like a B-MOVIE: Colourfully cheap and trashy, threatened and thrown together, anxious and ambitious, clubbed and caned, stoned and strung out, drunk, drugged and - just very special. Click on the image above to be taken to the film.

„B-Movie“ ist eine Dokumentation über Musik, Kunst und Chaos im wilden West-Berlin der 80er Jahre. Bevor der eiserne Vorhang fiel, tummelten sich hier Künstler und Kommunarden, Hausbesetzer und Hedonisten.

Alice in Wonderland (1966)

With music by Ravi Shankar. Alice in Wonderland is a 1966 BBC television play, shot on film, based on Lewis Carroll's 1865 book Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. It was adapted, produced and directed by Jonathan Miller, then best known for his appearance in the satirical revue Beyond the Fringe. Miller's production is unique among live-action Alice films in that he consciously avoided the standard Tenniel-inspired costume design and "florid" production values. Most of the Wonderland characters are played by actors in standard Victorian dress, with a real cat used to represent the Cheshire Cat. Miller justified his approach as an attempt to return to what he perceived as the essence of the story: "Once you take the animal heads off, you begin to see what it's all about. A small child, surrounded by hurrying, worried people, thinking 'Is that what being grown up is like?'"

Guru: Bhagwan, His Secretary & His Bodyguard (2010)

The rise of the so called "sex-guru" Bhagwan and his model commune in Poona and Oregon in the 1970s and 1980s told by his former close disciples, his personal secretary and bodyguard.

Fist of Jesus

 

Fist of Jesus is a 2012 Spanish splatter comedy short film about Jesus Christ in a zombie apocalypse.

During a sermon, Jesus learns from Jacob that Jacob's son Lazarus has died. Jesus promises Jacob to resurrect him. Lazarus is resurrected, but as a zombie. He attacks Jacob and Jesus can only barely escape alongside Judas. The zombie epidemic spreads rapidly, as Jesus and Judas run from the zombie hordes, which now include the Roman occupying forces and a gang of cowboys. Judas hangs himself out of panic, but is successfully resurrected by Jesus.

When the pair are surrounded by zombies, Jesus asks Judas for a weapon, receiving only a fish. Jesus then multiplies the fish, which he and Judas use to kill the zombies. After a bloody battle, Judas laments that they were unable to evangelize anyone. Jesus reassures him by saying that they have at least sent many souls to Heaven.

The plot of Fist of Jesus and the accompanying short films are peppered with visual references to special effects from other great horror and splatter films.

Sans toit ni loi / Vagabond (1985)

Vagabond (French: Sans toit ni loi, "without roof or law") is a 1985 French drama film directed by Agnès Varda, featuring Sandrine Bonnaire. It tells through flashbacks the story of a vagabond who wanders through the Languedoc-Roussillon wine country one winter, beginning after her body is found. The film premiered at the 42nd Venice International Film Festival, where it won the Golden Lion. Vagabond was nominated for four César Awards, with Bonnaire winning Best Actress. The film was the 36th highest-grossing film of the year with a total of 1,080,143 admissions in France.

Click on the image above and you are there for the entire film.

Daises/Sedmikrásky (1966)

If the entire world is bad, why shouldn’t we be? Adopting this insolent attitude as their guiding philosophy, a pair of hedonistic young women (Ivana Karbanová and Jitka Cerhová), both named Marie, embark on a gleefully debauched odyssey of gluttony, giddy destruction, and antipatriarchal resistance, in which nothing is safe from their nihilistic pursuit of pleasure. But what happens when the fun is over? Matching her anarchic message with an equally radical aesthetic, director Věra Chytilová, with the close collaboration of cinematographer Jaroslav Kučera, unleashes an optical storm of fluctuating film stocks, kaleidoscopic montages, cartoonish stop-motion cutouts, and surreal costumes designed by Ester Krumbachová, who also cowrote the script. The result is Daisies, the most defiant provocation of the Czechoslovak New Wave, an exuberant call to rebellion aimed squarely at those who uphold authoritarian oppression in any form.