Todd Haynes
1) Poison
Description
This groundbreaking American Indie was the most fervently debated film of the 1990s and a trailblazing landmark of queer cinema. A work of immense visual invention, Haynes’ spectacular follow-up to his legendary "Superstar: The Karen Carpenter Story" is audacious, disturbing and thrillingly cinematic. A runaway theatrical hit and **Sundance Film Festival** Grand Jury Prize winner, which made national headlines and the network news when it was attacked...
2) Safe
Description
Carol White is an L.A. housewife in the late 1980s who comes down with a debilitating illness. After the doctors she sees can give her no clear diagnosis, she comes to believe that she has frighteningly extreme environmental allergies. A prescient commentary on self-help culture, as a metaphor for the AIDS crisis, as a drama about class and social estrangement, and as a horror film about what cannot be seen.
Description
An intimate portrait of a uniquely independent woman who finds herself newly divorced during the Depression years and struggles to carve out a new life for herself and her family. The story explores Mildred's unreasonable devotion to her insatiable daughter Veda, as well as the complex relationship she shares with the indolent men in her life, including her polo-playing lover Monty Beragon and ex-husband Bert Pierce.
Description
Cathy is the perfect 50s housewife, living the perfect 50s life: healthy kids, successful husband, social prominence. Then one night she surprises her husband Frank having sex with another man, and her tidy world starts spinning out of control. In her confusion and grief, she finds consolation in the friendship of their African-American gardener, Raymond--a socially taboo relationship that leads to the further disintegration of life as she knew it....
5) Wonderstruck
Description
Tells the tale of two deaf children separated by fifty years. In 1927 New York City, Rose searches for the actress who's life she chronicles in her scrapbook; in 1977 in the Midwest, Ben runs away from home to find his father. The movie is based on the novel of the same title by Brian Selznick, which is the predecessor to his screen-adapted novel The Invention of Hugo Cabret.
Description
Six characters recreate different stages in Bob Dylan's career. Begins with the wanderings of an 11-year-old black runaway named Woody Guthrie. His raucous duet with Richie Havens on "Tombstone Blues." Ends with a silver-haired Billy the Kid watching the Old West die before his eyes. In the interim, there's the folk singer-turned-preacher, the actor, and a rock star.
Description
Another dazzling suburban phantasm from writer-director Todd Haynes, DOTTIE GETS SPANKED is a stylized, bittersweet nod to his childhood fascination with *I Love Lucy*. Deep in the heart of pre-hippie 1960s America, young artistically-inclined Steven Gale is obsessed with Dottie Frank, wacky star of the eponymous hit sitcom The Dottie Show. While his mother gently encourages the boy's fixation, his father grows increasingly frustrated by his son's...
Description
Ten of the greatest filmmakers in the world passionately discuss their craft in Angela Ismailos' hugely entertaining documentary Great directors. Bernardo Bertolucci, David Lynch, Stephen Frears, Agnes Varda, Ken Loach, Liliana Cavani, Todd Haynes, Catherine Breillat, Richard Linklater and John Sayles open up about their extraordinary careers with unexpected candor and humor. Ismailos gets them to talk about their artistic evolution from their debut...
9) Dark waters
Description
Inspired by a shocking true story, a tenacious attorney uncovers a dark secret that connects a growing number of unexplained deaths due to one of the world's largest corporations. In the process, he risks everything, his future, his family, and his own life to expose the truth.
10) Carol
Description
Two women from very different backgrounds find themselves in an unexpected love affair in 1950s New York. As conventional norms of the time challenge their undeniable attraction, an honest story emerges to reveal the resilience of the heart in the face of change. A young woman in her twenties, Therese is a clerk working in a Manhattan department store and dreaming of a more fulfilling life when she meets Carol, an alluring woman trapped in a loveless,...
Description
Emerging from the primordial soup of glamour, gutter sleaze, and feverish creativity that was New Yorks 1960s underground culture, the Velvet Underground redefined music with its at once raw and exalted blend of experimentation and art-damaged rock and roll. In his kaleidoscopic documentary The Velvet Underground, Todd Haynes vividly evokes the band's incandescent world: the creative origins of the twin visionaries Lou Reed and John Cale, Andy Warhol's...