Music

Be Here to Love Me - Chronicles the fascinating and often turbulent life of musician

Born January 22, 1961, the late Daniel Johnston began expressing himself through art as a child while doctors struggled to accurately diagnose his unusual behavior. In addition to drawing prolifically, he began using a boombox record curiously stirring songs to cassette tape in high school. Following his brother to Texas, he eventually landed in Austin, working unskilled jobs while continuing to record and self-distribute music to friends and friendly strangers. It was clear to everyone that Daniel was not a typical artist - a disquieting innocence, with references to both light and dark spiritual forces, were evident throughout his work. It was this distinctive voice that compelled local musicians to share his art beyond Austin's city limits, culminating in respected indie musicians like Tom Waits, Beck, and Wilco to either record his songs or reach out to collaborate. Four years in the making, THE DEVIL AND DANIEL JOHNSTON honors the complex artistry of Daniel Johnston while exploring how bipolar disorder and schizophrenia distorted his behavior and informed his haunting work.

Thanksgiving, 1976, San Francisco's Winterland: the Band performs its last concert after 16 years on the road. Some numbers they do alone, some songs include guest artists from Ronnie Hawkins (their first boss, when they were the Hawks) to Bob Dylan (their last, when as his backup and as a solo group, they came into their own). Scorsese's camera explores the interactions onstage in the making of music. Offstage, he interviews the Band's five members, focusing on the nature of life on the road. The friendships, the harmonies, the hijinks, and the wear and tear add up to a last waltz.

A documentary about the punk band The Sex Pistols. The film tries to lighten some of the backgrounds of their way through the punk era while telling the story of the band from zero back to zero. Features lots of interviews and comments of folks who were involved.

It's time to rock and roll - air guitar style. AIR GUITAR NATION is the feature documentary about the year that air guitar swept America - from New York to Los Angeles and then all the way to northern Finland. AIR GUITAR NATION chronicles the birth of the US Air Guitar Championships and the personal journeys of those talented contestants who are vying to become the first World Air Guitar Champion from the United States. Every August, the Air Guitar World Championships bring thousands of fans all the way to Oulu, Finland to see the world's best air guitarists battle it out for 60 seconds of mock stardom. For years, the USA was missing in action. Enter the first official US Air Guitar Championships. What starts as a friendly contest above a New York strip club becomes a battle of naked ambition played out on the national and, ultimately, the world stage. Full of triumph and disappointment, patriotic spirit and political tension - and of course invisible guitars - this tension filled competition quickly turns very real as the contest becomes even more fierce as the contestants work hard to win the title of World Air Guitar Champion. AIR GUITAR NATION captures the explosion of competitive air guitar through the eyes of former world champions, fans and media, and through the personal rivalries of those trying to attain the title of "The best Air Guitarist in the world."

Martin Scorsese and the Rolling Stones unite in "Shine A Light," a look at The Rolling Stones." Scorcese filmed the Stones over a two-day period at the intimate Beacon Theater in New York City in fall 2006. Cinematographers capture the raw energy of the legendary band.

Before Bad Brains, the Sex Pistols or even the Ramones, there was a band called Death. Punk before punk existed, three teenage brothers in the early '70s formed a band in their spare bedroom, began playing a few local gigs and even pressed a single in the hoped of getting signed. But this was the era of Motown and emerging disco. Record companies found Death's music - and band name - too intimidating, and the group were never given a fair shot, disbanding before they even completed one album. Equal parts electrifying rockumentary and epic family love story, A Band Called Death chronicles the incredible fairy-tale journey of what happened almost three decades later, when a dusty 1974 demo tape made it way out of the attic and found an audience several generations younger. Playing music impossible ahead of its time, Death is now being credited as the first black punk band (hell...the first punk band!), and are finally receiving their long overdue recognition as true rock pioneers.

Ian Curtis is a quiet and rather sad lad who works for an employment agency and sings in a band called Warsaw. He meets a girl named Debbie whom he promptly marries and his band, of which the name in the meantime has been changed to Joy Division, gets more and more successful. Even though Debbie and he become parents, their relationship is going downhill rapidly and Ian starts an affair with Belgium Annik whom he met after one of the gigs and he's almost never at home. Ian also suffers from epilepsy and has no-good medication for it. He doesn't know how to handle the feelings he has for Debbie and Annik and the pressure the popularity of Joy Division and the energy performing costs him.

Legendary poet, singer/songwriter and alleged ladies man Leonard Cohen is interviewed in his L.A. home about his extraordinary life and times, interspersed with old footage from his private photo collection and lavish praise plus elaborately performed Cohen cover songs from a motley crew of colleague musicians, amongst whom Kate & Anna McGarrigle, Rufus & Martha Wainwright, Nick Cave, Jarvis Cocker and U2's Bono and The Edge. By way of dessert the latter two and their band mates even get to back up the man for a special performance of his own.

The documentary presents the untold story of John Lennon's iconic Imagine album. It's also a story about Yoko meeting John and East meeting West. Two artistic minds connecting and inspiring each other both personally and professionally, ultimately co-authoring a radical worldview. Director Michael Epstein gained access to the extensive Lennon video, audio, and photo archive, including much previously unseen material, and the film features never before seen or heard footage such as the first demo of Imagine (discovered by their audio archivist in an unmarked eight-track box) as well as unheard audio interviews with John and film footage of the couple working together in the studio. The film also features new interviews with those closest to the couple during the period of creating the Imagine album.

The July 3rd, 1973 historic concert of the 'leper Messiah'. This was to be David Bowie's last concert with the Ziggy persona and the Spiders from Mars. A great medley of 'Wild Eyed Boy From Freecloud'/'All The Young Dudes'/'Oh! You Pretty Things', a Lou Reed cover, and a Rolling Stones cover are but some of the highlights.

The documentary explores the enigmatic life and music of Harry Nilsson in an attempt to answer the question, "Who is Harry Nilsson?" The film includes new and archive audio and film including interviews with Robin Williams, Yoko Ono, Van Dyke Parks, Randy Newman, Ray Cooper, the Smothers Brothers, and Micky Dolenz. "Who is Harry Nilsson?" uses promotional films, music videos, and home movies; segments from the unreleased documentary made during the recording of Son of Schmilsson (Did Somebody Drop His Mouse?); and excerpts from Nilsson's rare TV appearances in his BBC specials, the "Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour", "Playboy After Dark", and in an episode of "The Ghost and Mrs. Muir".

An intimate and moving meditation on the late musician and artist Kurt Cobain, based on more than 25 hours of previously unheard audiotaped interviews conducted with Cobain by noted music journalist Michael Azerrad for his book "Come As You Are: The Story of Nirvana." In the film, Kurt Cobain recounts his own life - from his childhood and adolescence to his days of musical discovery and later dealings with explosive fame - and offers often piercing insights into his life, music, and times. The conversations heard in the film have never before been made public and they reveal a highly personal portrait of an artist much discussed but not particularly well understood.

A chronological look at The Doors, focusing on lead singer, Jim Morrison (1943-1971), from the formation of the band in 1965, it's first gigs, and first album, to Morrison's death, after years of alcohol and drug use. Along the journey, we see archival footage of rehearsals, performances, and private moments including a Miami concert resulting in Morrison's arrest and trial for indecency. His love of the spotlight, his desire to be a poet, and his alcohol-fueled mood swings lead to a back and forth between public and private desires, successes, and failures. The band's music plays throughout.

Long before punk rock inflicted its puncture wound on the map of mainstream music, the Descendents were in a van brewing a potent mix of pop, angst, love and coffee and influencing a generation to come. FILMAGE: The Story of DESCENDENTS/ALL follows drummer and square-peg Bill Stevenson as he pushes himself and a rotating door of band-mates to "achieve ALL," his relentless concept of "going for greatness, the utmost possible" despite any and all setbacks. Interviews with the band and contemporaries such as Dave Grohl (Foo Fighters, Nirvana), Mark Hoppus (Blink-182), Mike Watt (Minutemen), Brett Gurewitz (Bad Religion) and many more reveal the untold tale of one of the most overachieving and influential bands in punk, serving as a reminder to always "go for greatness," because sometimes you're gonna get it.

A documentary on the 30th anniversary of Britain's best-known music festival.

Biographical film about Janis Joplin, from her Texas origins to Woodstock, and super-stardom, featuring performances by Big Brother and The Holding Company.

BEAUTIFUL NOISE is an in-depth exploration of a music movement in the late twentieth century, a fascinating period when some innovative musicians mixed guitar noise into conventional pop song structures while maintaining a philosophy of letting the music speak for itself. Although many of the people interviewed are notoriously press shy they have opened up about their music and experiences from over 20 years ago, how they defied the rules and became sonic innovators that have inspired so many.