We may have only started distributing video in 2008, but that doesn’t diminish the influence that the films we’ve worked on have had on us.
In honor of our 15th anniversary, our video team’s Brendan Nunn and Danielle DiGiacomo have put together a selection of 15 films that have shocked us with their beauty, truth or extremes. And oh, have we seen some extremes!
From documentaries to dramas, action sports to music… we’ve covered a wide array of genres and styles that have helped us widen our horizons and contribute to our growth.
The Idiots [1998]
Lars Von Trier – controversial? Can’t be! The man who was banned from the Cannes Film Festival for professing to sympathize with Nazis directed The Idiots, his first film made in line with his Dogme 95 manifesto, in 1998. In the film, a group of middle class adults “rebel” against a safe, bourgeois lifestyle by taking up in a house together and acting as if they are developmentally disabled, purportedly for the sake of liberation. A film that polarized critics — many of whom were offended by a salacious group sex scene — this is Von Trier at his best, or worst, depending on your taste for the Danish provocateur.
Jandek on Corwood [2008]
Jandek, a Houston-based recluse, has made 51 records on a label called Corwood Industries. With music that is best described as “free-form experimental,” Jandek has become a cult figure by trying to be the opposite, invisible. Missouri filmmaker Chad Friedrich’s film about Jandek pieces together his subject’s life and art, using an aesthetic that reflects the man and his music, that of a stark and decaying, but eerily beautiful Middle America.
Off The Grid: Life on the Mesa [2008]
Randy and Jeremy Stulberg, a New York-based brother and sister team, proved themselves as filmmaking forces with their first nonfiction feature. Off The Grid, which aired on the Sundance Channel, examines a group of individual outcasts who chose to live outside of government control, haphazardly forming a community in the Mesa, 5 miles from the Rio Grande river. Alcoholic war veterans, teenage runaways and even a pig farmer form a motley crue form bonds and friendships but, at times, erupt in violent conflict. The documentary is currently being adapted into a fiction feature starring Patricia Arquette.
Special When Lit [2009]
Hear the buzzes and bells; see the light o’flashing; play by sense and smell with this groovy look back at the silver ball amusement. Before Xbox, before Pac-Man… there was pinball.
Welcome To Nollywood [2009]
In this film from IndiePix, Director Jamie Meltzer explores the world of self-styled auteurs and producers working in funky Lagos. Home to the third-largest film industry in the world, Nigeria — dubbed “Nollywood” by its inhabitants — has developed into a hot bed of DIY, amateur, shoot-from-the-hip filmmaking. Produced straight to video and sold in markets across the region, these films offer a unique perspective of the political, social and historic life of post-colonial Africa not usually depicted in Western media.
The Nine Lives of Marion Barry [2010]
Few politicians stand in greater opposition to the oft used, and misunderstood, quote by F. Scott Fitzgerald “there are no second acts in American lives” than former Washington D.C. Mayor Marion Barry. From student activist to civil rights leader, mayor to criminal, Barry’s life and acts don’t seem to fit the traditional narrative arc of any other political figure. “He May Not Be Perfect, But He’s Perfect for D.C.”
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.
In what can only be described as a foreseeable move for Nintendo and Hulu alike, the duo has teamed up to offer Hulu Plus to Wii consoles across the United States and Japan. (Sorry international readers, Hulu hasn’t been released in any additional countries quite yet.) As an added bonus, Wii users without an existing Hulu Plus account will be given a free two-week trial account when they follow the sign-up instructions within the Hulu Plus app.
For $7.99 a month subscribers can instantly stream current episodes from shows including Modern Family, The Daily Show, The Colbert Report, and, my personal sunday-night-favorite, Wipe Out. Watching people make complete a**holes of themselves while being utterly bludgeoned to death by an obstacle course has never looked so shameless. While you’re there, why not check out some of The Orchard’s growing Hulu lineups, including films like The Mother of Invention, Special When Lit: A Pinball Documentary, In Deep, and Crude Independence.
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.
