The biography of Shari Lewis is long overdue and a story worth telling. It’s a perfect film for people that grew up watching Shari Lewis and Lambchop during various points of her illustrious career. Whether you’re a boomer, Gen X, or Millennial, the odds are you have seen Lambchop at one point in your life. For me, I used to watch her revival show on PBS in the 1990’s and tuned in regularly. I loved Lambchop despite being a tad too old for the intended target audience, but I didn’t care. The story of Shari Lewis is one filled with a lot of happiness, a lot of promise and of course some terrible sadness that befell her later in her life.
Tag Archives: Documentary
The Conqueror: Hollywood Fallout (2024) [Cinequest 2024]
“Of the 220 people that were constantly on location shooting in Utah, 91 came down with cancer…”
“The Conqueror: Hollywood Fallout” is an important documentary, and one that warrants a mass audience with as many people as possible, if only to view how Hollywood can often become the folly of the rich and powerful as well as how one man’s hubris can destroy so many lives in one fell swoop. Although William L. Nunez’s documentary is very much about the calamity that was “The Conqueror,” the Howard Hughes and John Wayne vanity project that amounted to a massive epic scale shooting that ended with an abysmal often derided biographical film, it’s also about the corruption of the American government.
Geographies of Public Sex [LA&M Film Fetish Forum]
Playing at the LA&M Film Fetish Forum Saturday, March 16th at 7pm EST; It Will Be Co-Presented by Henry Hanson of Full Spectrum Features.
“Geographies of Public Sex” is a series of eight short films curated by Henry Hanson, most of which revolve around the Gay experience and accounts of the gay lifestyle. It’s a mixed bag, admittedly, but an interesting gallery of shorts, nevertheless. 2021’s “Trade Center” from Adam Baran is the best of the bunch; it’s a fascinating documentary about cruising in the seventies and eighties, and the amount of sites in New York City where men could have sex with one another any time of the day.
Deep Inside Annie Sprinkle (1981)
I was first introduced to Annie Sprinkle during the heyday of HBO when she appeared on the documentary series “Real Sex.” She was promoting one of her sex positive film festivals, as well as taking photos with willing fans donning a bare chest and angel wings. Some how that image never left my brain over twenty years later, and that’s simply Annie’s style. Annie is a self-aware and slickly tongue in cheek porn icon who spent much of the seventies starring in a ton of porn films and never had a limit to what she was into.
The Last Repair Shop (2023)
Now Officially Available to Stream on Youtube and Screening in Theaters.
Ben Proudfoot and Kris Bowers’ Oscar nominated documentary is a wonderful look at music and the human connection it can provide. In a world where less and less human contact is being explored, music is one of the last bastions we have where we’re capable of not only connecting with one another mentally, but emotionally, and sometimes physically. “The Last Repair Shop” is about the fragility and art of music and the instruments that make them.
The ABC’s of Book Banning (2023)
Can now be Streamed on Paramount Plus.
Director Sheila Nevins’ Oscar nominated short is an Important film and one that provides a scathing indictment of the American Education system and our head on collision with fascism and anti-intellectualism across the board. With the rise of smaller special interest groups, the idea of book banning has become a niche topic for aspiring politicians seeking power, thus creating a maelstrom of controversy. Rather than comment on the entire absurdity herself, director Nevins hands the platform over to a group of prepubescent children.
The Greatest Night In Pop (2024)
Now Streaming Exclusively on Netflix.
In 1985, Quincy Jones teamed up with Michael Jackson and Lionel Ritchie to create one of the biggest music hits of the 1980’s. It also happened to be one of the biggest bits of performative activism ever staged for a worldwide audience. While America was in the throes of the Regan era, more and more celebrities stepped up not only to act as idols but as activists striving for some kind of change. With “The Greatest Night in Pop,” Bao Nguyen chronicles the making of “We Are The World.” The surefire hit and Grammy Winner became a legendary anthem for activism teaming up some of the all time greatest singers of the 1980’s who stepped on to sing.