Dancing the Bear Review

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(More customer reviews)Most people would never find the strength it takes to run a 100 mile race up and down mountains in a lifetime. I'm not a long distance runner / ultra-runner, but I do enjoy running. This film let me know what it would take to compete in such an intense endeavour. This documentary takes place in the beautiful Northen Utah mountains. The movie has interviws, and it cuts to the chase about what it takes to run the Bear. It covers the entire race, from early morning until the next. If you're a long distance runner that competes / or a jogger that wonders what it might take to be one, than this film is for you. It's the type of film one would expect to come across at a Banff Film Festival.
Deffinitley a worthwhile short film.

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The ancient tradition of long distance trail running continues in modern times, stripped of its mythology but still potent as a transformative event. The Bear 100-Mile Endurance Run is the backdrop for the story of two women and their emotional journey through southern Idaho's Bear River Mountain Range. Pushing their bodies to the limit, they strive to accomplish the impossible, to run 100 miles of wild mountain trails in less than 35 hours.

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Western Lights Review

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(More customer reviews)This is an excellent portrayal of a group of young French boys who travel by way of a small schooner along the general route believed taken by Christopher Columbus when he made his maiden voyage to the New World. The film features the boys as they work aboard the sailing vessel, explore, & generally have fun during their expedition.
This movie is well worth the money.

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Hotel Terminus: The Life and Times of Klaus Barbie (1988) Review

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(More customer reviews)This film is a great masterpiece. Despite the nominal subject, Klaus Barbie, the "Butcher of Lyons" during the occupation of France by Germany during World War II, it delves deeply into a much broader subject. Master filmmaker Marcel Ophuls, so unpretentiously and with a mastery of English, German, and French, takes us back in time to the days when the Gestapo Headquarters in Paris was at the train station--Hotel Terminus--still standing with its moniker in the 1980s. He follows through interviews with famed French Nazi-hunters the Klarsfelds, to Barbie's bodyguard in South America, to Germans associated with the Germanization of Bolivia...around the globe, the story of the lowly Barbie from childhood to trial as a War Criminal in France in the 1980s is told masterfully--even with an occasional note of sardonic humor. Could it be otherwise?
This is a spellbinding four hour, twenty eight minute documentary, which won the Oscar for Best Documentary film in 1988. Yes, it rings as true 16 years later as it did then, perhaps even more so! It is as timeless a documentary as Leni Riefenstahls "Triumph of the Will" documenting the aspirations of the Third Reich itself. Interlaced with Barbies story, Ophuls hangs out in pool halls with "everyday" Frenchmen, hears their opinions, visits Barbie's childhood home where the high school he attended has no institutional memory of him, to the mountains of Bolivia where even the uniforms of the President and his minions are reminiscent of Hugo Boss's designs of uniforms for the Third Reich...
This is a fascinating trip through the Western World of the 20th century that, in my opinion stands the test of time as one of the best on the personalities of the Third Reich. The legal problems facing Jackson at Nuremberg reappear in the 1980s as Barbie is finally, after many years, extradited back to France although his whereabouts are known. France struggles to deal with its own complicity, the failings of its own legal system...and in the days to come, we will see this drama re-emerge in the post-Iraq War II.
Barbie re-emerges as a brutal man, though ill in late life, and the witnesses bring him to life. The Jewish children, hidden in the countryside, whom he deported to Auschwitz are heard from once again. A deported Jew is but vaguely remembered by an apartment-house neighbor. The stench of Evil remains, even in the prevarications of common bureaucrats.
Although not rated, this film is not appropriate for pre-teens, and should be seen by teenagers and young adults only when the context can be discussed with informed adults.
Had Marcel Ophuls produced no other work, and this one obviously took years, it would have been enough.
Although repeated many times, those who do not learn from history seem bound to repeat it. Globally, we're not doing very well, as it would seem so aptly demonstrated here.

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Transworld Skateboarding - Sight Unseen (Video No. 12) Review

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(More customer reviews)One of the best skate video's ever made in my opinion (and ever since watching the Bones Brigade Video Show I've seen most of them), it's worth buying for John Cardiel's mind-blowing part alone!
The version you can buy ...(produced by Redline) whilst being amazing does not have any of the extras that you get if you buy this DVD from a skate shop (or direct from TWS), so it's up to you - 40 minutes from here, or an hour plus (including a guide to the accordian with Matt Hensley, outtakes, photo gallery, chomp trailer and alternate edits) if you get the "real" version....

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The twelfth video from AOL/Time Warner's TransWorld Skateboarding and the third collaboration between producers Jon Holland and Greg Hunt, this video features some of the best skating locations as well as the fantastic footage of: John Cardiel, Dustin Dollin, Tosh Townsend, Henry Sanchez and Heath Kirchart. Guest appearances by Arto Saari, Bob Burnquist and Tony Hawk.

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Hunt the Dogman Review

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(More customer reviews)This is one intriguing piece of documentary filmmaking. John Johnsen (Grendel Films) is a veteran producer/director/cinematographer/videographer of nature films and has taken viewers who generally don't know his name on many excursions into the back country to see the lives and behavior of bears, cougars,elk, and all manner of woodland creatures; all of the recognized,scientifically named and catalogged,academically-approved-of
types of fauna. Now,officially in retirement, though, Johnsen has begun stepping out of the "factual parameters" set by scientific orthodoxy and headed off in the "Monsterquest" direction.
Collaborating initially with Marlon (M.K.) Davis,the photo analyst who has done so much on the 1967 Patterson-Gimlin Bluff Creek bigfoot film footage, he launched Grendel Films with a documentary short on Davis and his bigfoot work.
Then he met a writer-woodsman-Fortean researcher from western Kentucky named Bart Nunnelly and documentary project number two was soon up and going. This time the subject was NOT something anthropologically debatable, but, rather, something just plain WEIRD. Yet this something weird came as anecdotal accounts of strange encounters across parts of the U.S. by average Americans, common folk,who avow doggedly to have seen
things that are just NOT supposed to be.
We are essentially talking what seem like "were-creatures" here, and entering the realm of Linda Godfrey's books "The Beast of Bray Road" and
"Hunting the American Werewolf". Fortean strangeness. We encounter here two folkloric Kentucky "monsters" (neither of which is Bigfoot); the "Spottsville Monster" of Henderson County, which terrorized the Nunnelly family in the 1970s, and the "Beast of the LBL" (Land Between the Lakes), another "something" that has a legend trailing back to the days of Daniel Boone and which may---MAY----have slaughtered a family of campers in Kentucky in the early 1980s.
Johnsen's movie features Bart Nunnelly (author of the Amazon-available book "Mysterious Kentucky"), covering old "stomping grounds" where his Spottsville beast once roamed, a Nunnelly ex-neighbor (now a minister) who well remembers his own sightings of this terrifying creature (as well as shimmery "portals" where it may have intermittently entered and exited OUR version of "reality"), writer-researcher Linda Godfrey, speaking of "wolf things" in general, and paranormal researcher Jan Thompson, giving a harrowing recounting of her own run-ins with what may well have been the infamous
LBL beast.
There are no fancy graphics in this documentary, no CGI, and no "Unsolved Mysteries"style re-enactments. What there IS are people telling their stories. Powerfully.Effectively. This is a very good piece of indie documentary filmmaking on a shoestring. Give it a look. I think you'll be surprised.


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Porn Stars - the Real Story (Uncensored Interviews) Review

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(More customer reviews)If your did a search of your favorite porn star and she came up on this, you'll get a 30 to 40 second interview (mostly clothed)

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Mario Barth: Under the Skin - Japanese tattoo documentary Review

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(More customer reviews)It is a nice video but nothing real special about the movie. I watched it once and now it sits on the self. It starts out with Mario telling you how great he is and then gets into the japanese element

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Shockumentaries, Vol. 2 : Africa Addio / Goodbye Uncle Tom / The Godfathers Of Mondo (2005) Review

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(More customer reviews)"Africa Addio" is well worth the cost, documenting the change from Rhodesia to what ultimately became Zimbabwe, which will be similar to America's future if current policies remain in effect. And it's nice to be able to watch this film in its entirety, rather than the censored version of "Africa Blood & Guts," and also to hear it in English (as opposed to subtitles). It is interesting to see what happened back then, as it helps us put the current situation into perspective. The tragic dispossession of the white people's land, taken from them and auctioned off; the brutal murders that ensued; the mercenaries that were brought to restore order; the Arabs who were chased into the sea by the blacks; the animals that were slaughtered by white poachers after the disorder began; the half-wits in the streets who rioted; the negative depictions of whites in government-sponsored slides; the aftermath of the violence, with dead bodies piling--these are all things caught during the filming of this documentary, which few people would dare to do today. "Africa Addio" is dangerous in that it doesn't throw on the heaps of political correctness (though there is a certain extent of it) but, rather, shows the whole, dark picture. "Goodbye Uncle Tom" was, essentially, the director's response to accusations of "racism" (for documenting the truth in "Africa Addio"). They felt it necessary to "redeem" themselves by making an anti-white flick, which has a scene of a black on the beach visualizing killing white folks and babies--a "bit" twisted (though going hand-in-hand with today's PC-climate). And this is the reason why I don't give the combination of videos a 5-star, as it would've been better if it were bundled with "Mondo Cane" rather than the politically correct "Goodbye Uncle Tom." "The Godfathers of Mondo" is somewhat interesting, as it shares the directors' perspectives on these and other cult-classics they've produced, and the film also shows clips of their projects to help keep it interesting. I have to disagree strongly with the other person who calls these films "boring," as they're quite the opposite; but I don't know what he's watching in comparison that could make such a film "boring."

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Brother's Keeper (2002) Review

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(More customer reviews)Stunningly bad drama that I suggest you do not bother to waste your time with.
Lucinda Pond had overcome an abusive childhood with her single parent father. She became a successful Police officer, and used no small amount of her time protecting her baby brother Ellis from the repercussions of his petty crime, a habit developed from her taking care of him during their childhood.
Lucinda's world came apart when she led a "ruby-ridge" style raid that leads to the death of an innocent man rather than the serial killer she was trying to capture. She leaves the force, takes up drinking, and abandons her husband and child.
Almost four years later some one is copycatting those murders and Lucinda is brought back onto the force against her will to help track down the killer. In no time it all she figures out that it is her wayward Brother, Ellis. She also realizes that this is another of the many games and puzzles that the two siblings shared growing up. He leaves her clues and she is to use their common history to decipher them and hunt him down. Ellis's goal is to "free" her from having to protect him by killing so very many people that Lucinda will be forced to kill him. A plan she does not intend to follow through on.
As the bodies and the clues mount, Lucida is forced into a confrontation with Ellis and a choice that only she can make.
Now, I like movies about siblings who are forced into murderous situations with each other as much as the next person, BUT this movie was just a waste of time.
There was NO suspense. There was no emotional involvement with any of the characters and honestly you could pretty much see exactly where everything was heading from about 15 minutes into the movie.
My only regret is that I didn't have enough sense to turn the VCR off at that moment and just take the tape back. My advice to you is to not even bother to get the tape in the first place.

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Beef 4 : Beef Ain't Dead (2007) Review

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(More customer reviews)This beef dvd is just bad, I mean I thought it was just me. Other than the whole Houston piece this dvd is worthless. The queen of the south beef was just stupid, two of the three beefing are nobodies outside of MIA so that could have been a portion for hood to hood or something. The LL and Jamie Fox thing seems old and a waste of time and the Game is just getting boring to see or watch. I would love to know about more oldschool beefs like Rakim vs Big Daddy, Rakim vs EPMD, Dj Quick vs MC Eith, Treach vs YZ or tell us what really was going on with No Limit and Cash Money or Rap a lot and Sauve House.

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New York Firefighters: The Brotherhood of 9/11 (2002) Review

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(More customer reviews)As the wife of a retired NYC Firefighter, I thought this DVD was excellent. It showed the daily lives of firefighters and what 9/11 did to change all that. The two families that were interviewed who lost their husbands and dads were not rehearsed and little things that we all have taken for granted (such as a father walking his daughter down the aisle) makes you realize that you have to love and appreciate your family while you have them. It is not overdone, it is an honest look at men doing a job for low pay (John Travolta made 20 million to PLAY a firefighter, what's wrong with this picture?) because they are dedicated to helping people. I also believe that whatever monies made from buying the DVD new part of it goes to the families of firefighters.

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One Summer Day In Rural Iowa Review

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(More customer reviews)THE TITLE SAYS IT ALL. LOOKS LIKE SOMETHING I SHOT IN MY BACKYARD,DON'T WASTE YOU'RE TIME OR MONEY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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The Battle of Franklin: Five Hours in the Valley of Death Review

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(More customer reviews)I am probably a little biased considering I took place in the reenactment in which they filmed many of their shots. When I saw the finished result I was very impressed. They brilliantly captured the horror of the battle of Franklin, and showed why it was truly the valley of death.

They also give you a very good look at the men who fought this battle. By taking excerpts from letters and eyewitness accounts, you see the battle from the fighting man's perspective. You also see why this battle may have been the most horrifying battle throughout the entire war. I would definitely recommend this documentary for any history buff's collection, or for anyone wanting to learn more about the Civil War.


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Battle of Franklin: Five Hours in the Valley of Death depicts Confederate General John Bell Hood s fateful attempt to gain control of Tennessee from Federal forces in one of the Civil War s fiercest battles. As cannons and muskets roar, this film presents the decisive conflict of the 1864 Battle of Franklin, told through the actual thoughts and words of the soldiers who experienced this ferocious and bloody struggle. Partially filmed on the original battlefield in stunning high-definition, Battle of Franklin is the recipient of a 2007 Emmy award and a 2007 Telly Award. The film has aired locally on Nashville Public Television.

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Almost Illegal #1 (2008) Review

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(More customer reviews)I love tits and street fighting as much as the next guy but this just fell short. It's just an hour of 20 second clips. The girls were hot but over all the movie just wasn't worth watching. Ninety percent of the movie doesn't even have sound, it's just rap music playing threw the whole damn movie. The worst part was that the director tried to get artsy with it by using fish eye lenses, black and white scenes, slow motion, and rewind. It's hard to mess up something so simple but the managed to do it. They actually made tits and fighting unwatchable.

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Endless Orgy for the Goddess of Perversion Review

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(More customer reviews)The title and cover art of this DVD titillated my hopes, but is is basically just a string of bad movie trailers interspersed with some bad comedy; and it does end (thankfully) at around the 82-minute mark.

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Masters of the Pillow (2003) Review

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(More customer reviews)There are a growing number of docs on porn, but few examine porn and race at the same time. Also, oppressive stereotypes present Asian Americans as asexual. Thus, a tenured professor proposes that a porn film, really a porn scene, with an Asian-American couple be made. This work speaks about the production of the scene as well as interviewing well-known Asian-American scholars and actors about the matter.
Talk about tenure setting professors free! One reason why a Kinsey or Masters & Johnson were considered so revolutionary is because many naysayers deem sex and sexuality unimportant for serious study. Dr. Hamamoto tries to go against this grain. However, even a progressive or horny student may be shocked seeing their gray-haired professor obsessed with writing about and making porn. Part of Hamamoto's project is to promote yellow-on-yellow action. Along that line you learn that he is in an INTRAracial, heterosexual relationship. The film tries to walk a fine line and not alienate biracial Asian Americans or those in interracial relationships.
Like "The Slanted Screen" and other projects, this work focuses on East and Southeast Asians. It completely ignores South Asians and that may upset some viewers.
When I saw this at an arthouse screening, they showed the blue scene that was produced. I don't think this disc include it, unfortunately. So if you are looking for the real action, you gotta visit a certain type of store or a video store with a certain money-making section, if you know what I mean.
One of the most poignant scenes to me was when Hamamoto and his girlfriend disagreed on whether to film a controversial, though almost requisite, act in blue movies. The point is that this film doesn't leave gender at the door. It tries to be gender-diverse, though it is clearly not sexual orientation-diverse.
In brief, I liked this documentary immensely and I bought a copy for my cousin as a Christmas gift. I think it will be incredibly useful for Ethnic Studies or Asian-American studies majors. Though risqu'e, this was a needed and quality work.

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All Boys (2010) Review

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(More customer reviews)In the intriguing documentary "All Boys," film maker Markku Heikkinen travels to Prague and takes on the rise and stagnation of the Czech Boys gay porn phenomenon. While he talks to many in the scene, he concentrates on four particular men; Director Dan Komar, and three of his actors Rudy (stage name Aaron Hawke), Josef and Filip. While each of these men has a striking story, it is Aaron's that forms the film's emotional core.
Komar is an adult trapped in arrested development, surrounding himself with perpetual 18 to 20 year olds and making movies of them having sex. It's hard to tell if he's got any emotional investment in his charges; frankly, he is a blank slate emotionally. Josef is a boy who only wants to provide for his impoverished mom. Filip is a straight boy and a go-getter, who works three jobs and does porn for the extra money. These three stories seem to work on the supply and demand theory. Komar has money and jobs, the boys are broke and in desperate need. In a country that has just broken into uncharted territory, these fresh and innocent faces lunge right into an industry that would die without a constant conveyor belt of fresh names.
However, the dark side of this story is Rudu, who gets discovered sleeping under a bridge. He is the hot new kid on the DVD player, makes a load of fast money, and when his features no longer fit the Czech Boys mold, he doesn't have the maturity to move on. He goes from being a "superstar...like Jim Carrey" to a homeless drunk sleeping in a junkyard. From fresh new face to junkie in barely two years is a depressing arc to behold.
While Josef and Filip found their way out of porn and into a life after their twinky expiration dates, it is Rudu's face that stays with you. There's another man who appears briefly, admitting to being a prostitute after being in porn and is already damaged beyond likely repair...at the age of 27. (I won't even go into the fact that these boys are almost all barebacking.) "All Boys" takes a hard look behind the bright lights and gaudy colors to stare at what happens after the clock runs out.


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