Browse Movies : 2014 : Documentary

Red Army is a feature documentary about the Soviet Union and the most successful dynasty in sports history: the Red Army hockey team. Told from the perspective of its captain Slava Fetisov, the story portrays his transformation from national hero to political enemy. From the USSR to Russia, the film examines how sport mirrors social and cultural movements and parallels the rise and fall of the Red Army team with the Soviet Union.

The film follows a group of obsese children for more than two years as they try to lose weight.

In 1991, music manager Shep Gordon held Mike Myers over a barrel a few weeks before shooting “Wayne’s World” regarding an Alice Cooper song Myers wanted to use in the film. They have been close friends ever since. Twenty-two years later, the story of Gordon’s legendary life in the uber fast lane is now told in Myers’ directorial debut. And this time it’s Myers who has Gordon over a barrel.

Capitalist, protector, hedonist, pioneer, showman, shaman . . . Supermensch.

Shep Gordon is the consummate Hollywood insider. Though he isn’t a household name, Gordon has become a beacon in the industry, beloved by the countless stars he has encountered throughout his storied career. Shep is known for managing the careers of Alice Cooper as well as stints with Blondie, Luther Vandross and Raquel Welch, among others – a career that began with a chance encounter in 1968 with Janis Joplin and Jimi Hendrix. He even found time to invent the “Celebrity Chef.” Though the chef as star is part of the culture now, it took Shep's imagination, and his moral outrage at how the chefs were being treated, to monetize the culinary arts into the multi-billion dollar industry it is today. Personal friends with the Dalai Lama through his philanthropic endeavors with the Tibet Fund and the guardian of four children, Gordon’s unlikely story told by those who know him best, his pals, including Alice Cooper, Michael Douglas, Sylvester Stallone, Anne Murray, Willie Nelson, Emeril Lagasse and more.

When Paleontologist Peter Larson and his team from the Black Hills Institute made the world’s greatest dinosaur discovery in 1990, they knew it was the find of a lifetime: the largest, most complete Tyrannosaurus Rex ever found. But during a ten-year battle with the U.S. government, powerful museums, Native American tribes and competing paleontologists, they found themselves not only fighting to keep their dinosaur but fighting for their freedom as well.

In 1975, Chilean director Alejandro Jodorowsky, whose films El Topo and The Holy Mountain launched and ultimately defined the midnight movie phenomenon, began work on his most ambitious project yet. Starring his own 12 year old son Brontis alongside Orson Welles, Mick Jagger, David Carradine and Salvador Dali, featuring music by Pink Floyd and art by some of the most provocative talents of the era, including HR Giger and Jean 'Moebius' Giraud, Jodorowsky's adaptation of Frank Herbert's classic sci-fi novel DUNE was poised to change cinema forever.

For two years, Jodo and his team of "spiritual warriors" worked night and day on the massive task of creating the fabulous world of DUNE: over 3,000 storyboards, numerous paintings, incredible costumes, and an outrageous, moving and powerful script.

America is more important to the world than we could ever imagine. A story that imagines that the United States lost the Revolutionary War and therefore never existed.

More money flows through the family courts, and into the hands of courthouse insiders, than in all other court systems in America combined – over $50 billion a year and growing. Through extensive research and interviews with the nation’s top divorce lawyers, mediators, judges, politicians, litigants and journalists, Divorce Corp. uncovers how children are torn from their homes, unlicensed custody evaluators extort money, and abusive judges play god with people’s lives while enriching their friends. This documentary reveals the family courts as unregulated, extra-constitutional fiefdoms. Rather than assist victims of domestic crimes, these courts often precipitate them. And rather than help parents and children move on, as they are mandated to do, these courts - and their associates - drag out cases for years, sometimes decades, ultimately resulting in a rash of social ills, including home foreclosure, bankruptcy, suicide and violence. Solutions to the crisis are sought out in countries where divorce is handled in a more holistic manner.

Captured with IMAX 3D cameras, Island of Lemurs: Madagascar takes audiences on a spectacular journey to the remote and wondrous world of Madagascar. Lemurs arrived in Madagascar as castaways millions of years ago and evolved into hundreds of diverse species but are now highly endangered.

They’re gods. They’re rock stars. They’re the ultimate fantasy. They are the men of LA BARE. A reality film that goes behind the curtain, behind the stage and behind the magic of the world’s most popular male strip club – La Bare Dallas. Featuring a unique ensemble of the club’s most popular dancers, LA BARE takes a provocative look into their rock ‘n’ roll lifestyle and offers a front row seat to their lives, loves, laughs and losses.

Roger Ebert was a beloved national figure and arguably our best-known and most influential movie critic, and his passing in 2013 was deeply felt across the country. Based on his memoir of the same name, LIFE ITSELF recounts his fascinating and flawed journey—from politicized school newspaperman, to Chicago Sun-Times movie critic, to Pulitzer Prize winner, to television household name, to the miracle of finding love at 50, and finally his “third act” as a major voice on the Internet when he could no longer physically speak.

he story of programming prodigy and information activist Aaron Swartz. From Swartz's help in the development of the basic internet protocol RSS to his co-founding of Reddit, his fingerprints are all over the internet. But it was Swartz's groundbreaking work in social justice and political organizing combined with his aggressive approach to information access that ensnared him in a two year legal nightmare. It was a battle that ended with the taking of his own life at the age of 26.

Aaron's story touched a nerve with people far beyond the online communities in which he was a celebrity. This film is a personal story about what we lose when we are tone deaf about technology and its relationship to our civil liberties.

The Missing Picture explores filmmaker Rithy Panh's quest to create the missing images during the period when the Khmer Rouge ruled over Cambodia between 1975 and 1979. Panh uses intricately detailed clay figurines intercut with archival footage he could find to relay what is indelibly recorded in his memory, he creates the missing pictures of what does not exist in photograph or film.

Academy Award-winning director Errol Morris (The Fog of War) offers a mesmerizing portrait of Donald Rumsfeld, one of the key architects of the Iraq War, and a larger-than-life character who provoked equal levels of fury and adulation from the American public. Rather than conducting a conventional interview, Morris has Rumsfeld perform and expound on his “snowflakes,” tens of thousands of memos (many never previously published) he composed as a congressman and as an advisor to four different presidents, twice as Secretary of Defense. These memos provide a window onto history—not history as it actually happened, but history as Rumsfeld wants us to see it. Morris makes plain that Rumsfeld’s “snowflakes”—whether intended to elucidate, rationalize, obfuscate, or control history—are contradicted by the facts.

Bears showcases a year in the life of two mother bears as they impart life lessons to their impressionable young cubs. Set against a majestic Alaskan backdrop teeming with life, their journey begins as winter comes to an end and the bears emerge from hibernation to face the bitter cold. The world outside is exciting—but risky—as the cubs’ playful descent down the mountain carries with it a looming threat of avalanches. As the season changes from spring to summer, the brown bear families must work together to find food—ultimately feasting at a plentiful salmon run—while staying safe from predators, including an ever-present wolf pack. “Bears” captures the fast-moving action and suspense of life in one of the planet’s last great wildernesses—where mothers definitely know best and their cubs’ survival hinges on family togetherness.

Academy Award®-nominated directors Carl Deal and Tia Lessin (Trouble the Water; co-producers of Fahrenheit 9/11 & Bowling for Columbine) follow the money behind the rise of the Tea Party. Citizen Koch investigates the impact of unlimited, anonymous spending by corporations and billionaires on the electoral process, featuring stories of life-long Republicans whose loyalty is tested when their families become collateral damage in the GOP fight to take organized labor out at the knees.

Renowned ball-room dancer, Pierre Dulaine takes his belief that dance can overcome political and social differences and applies it to eleven-year-old Jewish and Palestinian Israelis.

Finding Vivian Maier unearths the mysteries behind Vivian Maier, who was a nanny in the wealthy North Shore suburbs of Chicago. Maier’s secret world is unraveled slowly through her photo collections and interviews with those who knew her, from the parents who hired her and the children she cared for to store owners, movie theater operators, and neighbors.

I Am Ali is told through exclusive, unprecedented access to Ali’s personal archive of ‘audio journals’ combined with touching interviews and testimonials from his inner circle of family and friends, including his daughters, son, ex-wife and brother, plus legends of the boxing community including Mike Tyson, George Foreman and Gene Kilroy.

Australian director Alan Hicks spent four years following the charming and sometimes poignant mentorship between jazz-legend Clark Terry and blind piano prodigy, Justin Kaulflin, during a pivotal moment in each of their lives. At eighty-nine years old, ‘CT’ has played alongside Duke Ellington and Count Basie; his pupils include Miles Davis and Quincy Jones, but his most unlikely friendship is with Justin, a 23-year-old with uncanny talent but debilitating nerves. As Justin prepares for a competition that could jumpstart his budding career, CT’s failing health threatens his own.

On June 12, 1970, Dock Ellis threw a no-hitter for the Pittsburgh Pirates - on LSD. In 137 years of organized professional baseball, it’s the only no-hitter of its kind. Dock was often embroiled in controversy on and off the field. While professional baseball hadn’t fully embraced racial equality, he was an outspoken leader who lived the expression ‘Black is Beautiful!’ His fearlessness enabled him to become one of the most intimidating pitchers of the 70’s and a trailblazer for a new wave of civil rights. After retiring, Dock became as outspoken about his career-spanning substance abuse issues as he had been about intolerance. He spent decades utilizing his brash approach as a counselor, helping other addicts in their recoveries. Through intimate stories and a trove of archival footage, NO NO: A DOCKUMENTARY brings Dock’s vibrant life to light, burnishing the legend and revealing the man behind it.