As spring has sprung, The Orchard has proven to be a truly ripe ground for growing the digital life of a wide array of film and video content. In the past two months, our releases have ranged from an award-winning documentary about the worst industrial disaster in history, Bhopali, to the adrenaline-fuelled wakeboarding extravaganza, Lipsmack.
From jam band lovers to Scandinavian-loving cinephiles, we released something for everyone. Our Orchard Sports team pushed out films for racecar aficionados: British Rally Championship Review 2011; snowmobilers: Slednecks 14; extreme skiiers: Action Jackson; off-road moto riders: What !s; mountain bikers: Trailnotes; and of course, those always enthusastic BMX-ers: Props BMX: Owned and Props BMX: Best of 2010, among many others.
For the cinephiles favoring fiction films, our releases were international — the dark Swedish thriller The Ape; the Danish-U.S. romantic comedy Love at First Hiccup; and U.S. festival darling Strings, a thought-provoking, twist-heavy thriller with echoes of Christopher Nolan’s early films.
For those who prefer a dose of reality, our documentary content was equally rich. Aside from the aforemented Bhopali, The Orchard released For Liberty: How the Ron Paul Revolution Watered the Tree of Liberty, the subject of which is self-explanatory, and the award-winning look at Jamaica’s rising underground reggae stars, RiseUp, was prominently featured on Hulu, joining the ranks of other Orchard-released docs like Special When Lit: A Pinball Documentary and — perfect for an election year – The Nine Lives of Marion Barry.
And of course, we wouldn’t be The Orchard if we didn’t offer music films. Not one, but six Widespread Panic concert films are now on iTunes, beginning with Widespread Panic: Wood Tour at Atlanta, GA’s The Tabernacle on January 27, 2012. Now that’s a mouthful.
You’d think we’d take a break after all this releasing, but with the quality of films choosing The Orchard for their digital distribution partner, we just can’t stop the momentum. Over the summer, expect everything from documentaries from Cannes-winning Israeli auteurs to coming-of-age Canadian comedies.
Videodrome is the ultimate addiction. Videodrome will shatter your reality. Videodrome will change your body.
Videodrome is a kick-a** David Cronenburg movie starring James Woods and drop dead gorgeous Debbie Harry who both seem to enjoy copious amounts of sado-masochism. Okay, okay, they may have been under the spell of a pirate television broadcast, but does that really matter?
Via IMDB: “A sleazy cable-TV programmer begins to see his life and the future of media spin out of control in a very unusual fashion when he acquires a new kind of programming for his station.”
Godmachine print
Never buy drugs from a nuclear physicist.
As with a plethora of other films the Troma Team has released, Class of Nuke ‘Em High ranks so high up on the crap-o-meter that it manages to transcend into pure awesomeness. The tagline could have been Breakfast Club meets The Warriors a mile from Chernobyl.
Cars, Cars, Cars
Mark Hamil (of Star Wars fame), a senior in high school, sets out on a summer-long adventure to find his stolen Corvette in Las Vegas. Along the way a wanna-be hooker (Annie Potts) teaches him how to be a man. Between Corvette Summer and Fear and Loathing, I am almost convinced that Vegas used to be less of a dump.
When hobbies attack!
Speaking of Vegas, after watching this pinball documentary, I was not only prompted to visit the Pinball Hall of Fame in Las Vegas, but even joined a pinball league here in NYC. While the film does get a bit long at times, it is overflowing with interesting (understatement?) characters who have devoted their souls to pinball. Admittedly, Special When Lit is distributed through The Orchard, but it will be the only shameless plug on the list, I promise.
R.I.P.
Laugh and learn with Carl Sagan as he takes you on a “personal” journey across the stars.
Ah yes Carl, a very personal journey Cosmos is indeed. Taking you aboard his 70′s shaggin’ wagon of an intergalactic space cruiser, Carl delves into the very pulp of human existence. Climate change, space colonization, supernovae, artificial intelligence… it’s all there. Sagan narrates in an almost god-like fashion while chillin’ out in artist interpretations of both ancient and futuristic lands. Cosmos is perfect for those (myself included) who are often too lazy to read, but still pretend to know a thing or twelve about our place on this rock.
