The week in a minute: 2/18/06 Video
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Bill Gates tells a little joke about Dick Cheney.
"The Notorious Bettie Page" trailer
The story of Bettie Page, uber-successful 1950's pin-up model, one of the first sex icons in America, and the target of a Senate investigation (based on her bondage photos).
Little Red Riding Hood: A classic story, but there's more to every tale than meets the eye. Before you judge a book by its cover, you've got to flip through the pages. For this story, we begin at the end. Furry and feathered cops from the animal world investigate a domestic disturbance at Granny's cottage, involving a girl, a wolf, and an axe. The charges are many: breaking and entering, disturbing the peace, intent to eat, and wielding an axe without a license. Not to mention, this case might be tied to the elusive "Goody Bandit" who has been stealing the recipes of goody shops everywhere.
"Why Dance?" is an in-depth, behind the scenes look at the world of dance. It examines what attracts so many to this wondrous art form, including young students, former ballerina?s, and current dancers. It explores why they dance and what drives them from their early introduction to the neighborhood dance studio to the stages of Ballet San Jose Silicon Valley, a professional dance company in San Jose, California. The full-length documentary discusses the benefits of dance competitions, including substantial footage of one of many competitions and conventions held in many cities throughout the country every year. It includes interviews with various winners including Peter Chursin (Mr. Dance of America 2003) and Ashley Canterna (Miss Dance of America 2002). The rigorous training, stretching, and rehearsing is also shown, as many of these young people put everything they have into trying to impress the judges during a 2-minute dance routine. Parents discuss the benefits of both dance and competing with respect to the positive influence it has had on their children?s scholastic achievement and self confidence. Not only do ballerina?s (including former dancers with American Ballet Theatre and Dance Theatre of Harlem) share their early experiences growing up in the world of dance, but we get insight from such notables as Dennis Nahat(world renown choreographer/ Artistic Director), Karen "KB" Brown (Artistic Director of the Oakland Ballet), and Daryl Gray(choreographer). Other contributors to the film include photographers Roger Ele, Hubert Worley, Christopher Jean-Richard, and world renown Martha Swope. It examines the USA International Ballet Competition in Jackson, Mississippi which is held every four years where dancers from all over the world attend and compete for "The Gold". Dance as a career is discussed in numerous conversations with current professional dancers and former dancers with such notable dance companies as American Ballet Theatre, The Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre, and the Stuttgart Ballet. Advice is given freely and quite candid in format. The darker side of dance is also explored including injuries, eating disorders, and insecurities, issues that all dancers will face sooner or later. This film goes behind the scenes of a professional dance company?s production of "The Pirates of Penzance", a ballet staged by Ballet San Jose Silicon Valley in San Jose, California. Behind the scenes footage includes actual choreography being set in the rehearsal hall as well as footage of the actual performance and extensive discussion by the choreographer, Daryl Gray. Included is a heart-warming "Billy Elliott" type story of a young boy who not only overcomes the objections of his father, but turns him into one of his biggest supporters at the same time. This film is not only an informative look at the world of dance, but often times an entertaining look as well.
Filmmaker Ralph Arlyck first met Sean while living as a graduate student in San Francisco's Haight Ashbury neighborhood at the height of the 1960s. The city was awash with the trappings of America's cultural revolution-the San Francisco State University campus flooded with cops in riot gear, the Haight filled with drifters and idealists, and, on the third floor of Arlyck's building, a come-one-come-all crashpad apartment. It was from this top floor commune that the precocious 4-year-old Sean would occasionally wander downstairs to visit and talk-and one day Arlyck turned on his camera. Sean's casual commentary on everything from smoking pot to living with speed freaks was delivered in simple sincerity throughout the soon-to-be famous 15-minute film. This First Child of the notorious decade may have shaken the audience with his simple sentence- "Sure, I smoke pot"-but it was his barefoot impishness which would encapsulate the hope that lay in front of the nation: a promise of infinite possibility. Thirty years, three generations, and a lifetime later, Arlyck has returned to San Francisco in search of who the adult Sean might have become. And what he finds, to his surprise, tells him as much about his own east-coast migration as it does about the Californian life he left behind-that the choices we're handed and the choices we make are, very often, quite odd bedfellows.
As a New York playwright, Nicky Rogan made his name in boulevard comedy, and now has ventured closer to home and written something he really cares about. Though he won?t admit it, he is desperate for another success. From the outset, things begin to go wrong. His daughter informs him that his wife wants a divorce. His mistress notifies him that his lead actor has a parasite in his brain and can?t remember his lines, and an old acquaintance regales him with tales of Steven Schwimmer, a new and powerful critic who is so poisonous, so destructive, that the New York theater community lives in terror. Although Nicky has grown up and lived his entire life in New York, he is a die-hard Red Sox fan and the film is set on October 25, 1986, the day of the most Shakespearian of sporting events, "Game 6" of the 1986 World Series. The Red Sox are poised to win. At the last minute, Nicky decides to skip his opening night in order to watch his beloved team. This could be it. If his "cursed" Red Sox can finally win the World Series, maybe Nicky can break his own downward spiral. Scripted by acclaimed writer Don DeLillo, "Game 6" is an intelligent, witty, unsettling tale of one man's encounter with his demons, his passions and his infatuation with failure. Michael Keaton stars, along with Robert Downey Jr., Griffin Dunne, Bebe Neuwirth, and Catherine O'Hara.
Brutal Legend is the latest from legendary game designer Tim Schafer, who is responsible for such classics as Grim Fandango and Psychonauts. His latest adventure, undoubtedly the most mainstream yet, stars Jack Black as the voice of Eddie Riggs, a roadie for a metal band who finds himself transported to demonic, metal-infused world.
Far Cry Instincts Launch trailer
The prey will be hunted.
Tim Allen transforms from family dad to family dog and back again in this fresh update of the Disney comedy classic, "The Shaggy Dog." It all begins when a workaholic Deputy D.A. Dave Douglas (Tim Allen) takes on a case involving an animal laboratory - one that will take him away yet again from his wife (Kristin Davis) and kids (Zena Grey and Spencer Breslin), who already yearn for his all-too-distracted attention. But when Dave is accidentally infected with a top-secret, genetic mutation serum, everything he thought he knew about being himself and his family changes. Yet with his newly perked-up ears, and his front-row seat on the household carpet, Dave is able to gain a whole new perspective into his family's secrets and dreams. Now, he wants nothing more than to stop fetching and return to fathering - only first he'll have to stop the evil forces behind the serum...in an adventure that will bring the whole family together. The film also stars Robert Downey, Jr., Danny Glover, and Philip Baker Hall.
David Schwimmer stars as "Duane Hopwood," a down-on-his-luck divorced father who works the night shift as a pit boss at Caesars Palace in Atlantic City. Heartsick about the demise of his marriage to Linda (Janeane Garofolo), Duane does nothing much in his daily life but work and drink. When his visitation rights are threatened after he's caught driving while intoxicated with his daughter in the backseat, Duane confronts the realization that the time has come to get his life back on track before he loses everything. A moving and humorous look at the limits of unconditional love, what defines a family, and how we're all responsible for our own happiness, "Duane Hopwood" was written and directed by Matt Mulhern.
Set in the cold, windswept world of an Atlantic City November, "Duane Hopwood" also stars Judah Friedlander as Anthony, a lonely slot machine repairman who dreams of comedy stardom, and Susan Lynch as Gina, a bartender who befriends Duane. Rich in the details of daily life, wistful and wise, "Duane Hopwood" is the story of a man who comes back from the brink, and is finally able to celebrate life in all its imperfections.
