Film Things

Follows a young couple in the final hours of their relationship as they come to terms with each others flaws and of course their own.

Certain things you remember. These are two of them, remembered by my father, as we drove north on S. Las Vegas Blvd in November, 2011. (Mark Toscano)

A tribute to British comedian Mel Smith, who died in July 2013, aged 60, featuring home video footage, rare archive material and many classic sketches. Far more than a comic actor, Smith also wrote and edited a host of celebrated TV comedies in the 1980s and 90s. He was a theatre and film director, and as a TV producer he was responsible for several innovative comedy series. Friends and colleagues, including Griff Rhys Jones, John Lloyd and Richard Curtis, talk about Smith's talents, both in front of- and behind the camera. The programme also traces his time at Oxford and, before that, Latymer Upper School, where Smith's talents were first spotted.

A man with a brain condition that prevents him from ever knowing more than thirty-seven things must fight to retain his most precious memory in our information-dense world.

This Documentary film explores the idea of the Cosmos, the theory that the universe is a well-ordered whole. I have always believed in the interconnectedness of the world. This is the concept that this visual diary goes on to discover and express. This film invites the viewer to let go, and look at the world as if each peice is a kaleidoscope. It asks the viewer to look deeply and with intent and to realize that we all are a part of the system that keeps the universe working as a whole. This film tries to narrate the life of the cosmos, as seen through the elements that make up my body.

Some day we’ll be able to measure the power of words but in the meantime let’s be careful about the words we use.

"17 Things I Wish I Could Tell You Since You Died" is a film that honors the filmmaker's brother, who died of AIDS at the height of the crisis in the U.S. The film recalls things the filmmaker wishes she could relay to her late brother, including her own move to New York City and her belief that he would have really liked Hettie Macdonald's "Beautiful Thing." The film is an experimental exploration of loss and grief and unsaid things.

The first in the series of works in various media which I call VISIBLE INVENTORIES. Edited in the camera, an assemblage of subtle motions of objects in the wind (flags, ribbons, leaves) which speak delicately to the senses.

Inspired by the themes explored in the films of Hong Kong film director Wong Kar-Wai, this is a checklist of what to expect from modern love. Sex...longing...rejection... and pain.

An experimental film based on the poem of the same name by Rachel Rabbit White.

Our Favorite Things is a new DVD/CD release from reigning Kulture Kut-up Kings Negativland. Twenty-seven years of the group's "greatest hits" have become all-new moving pictures in this amazing, years-in-the-making package. Created with 18 other filmmakers from all over the USA (and one a capella group from Detroit), Our Favorite Things is a collaborative project that takes Negativland's sound explorations into the world of film and video. What emerges is a darkly cracked look at 21st century America, juxtaposing paranoia, torture, control, power, weapons, fear, suicide, cola wars, mental illness, and intellectual property issues with the lighter side of dopey advertising, cartoon characters, cleaning products and Jesus.

In "The Way Things Can Happen," extras from "The Day After," a 1983 made-for-TV movie depicting a nuclear attack on Kansas, recollect their original scenes, now 34 years later. Having been filmed in the midst of the Cold War on location in Lawrence, Kansas and with a cast of five thousand locals, "The Day After" blurred the distinction between extras’ everyday existence and the movie and in doing so achieved the urgency and magnitude of live coverage of a national crisis - all with vast political and social implications. In their retelling of their scenes from "The Day After," the extras omit references to the movie itself, further obfuscating the distinction between what happened in the film and in reality. A portrait of a city that once performed its own fictional destruction, "The Way Things Can Happen" queers time by stepping outside of linearity, creating a space for considering life where our country was destroyed by nuclear war and choosing a different path.

"There are things in this world that are yet to be named" centers around Solanum plastisexum - an Australian tomato whose sexual expression is unpredictable and unstable, challenging even the fluid norms of the plant kingdom. Footage of the team of botanists who recently used their Solanum research to explode notions of sexual normativity in any plant or animal is combined with a voiceover of letters sent between science writer Rachel Carson and her lover Dorothy Freeman. "There are things in this world that are yet to be named" is a meditation on erasure, indefinability, and the intersection of queer and environmental histories.

Satire on everyday life. A reflection on the value and personal relationships between individuals. How to act in front of current reality?

Peggy Lee was a performer without peer----a singer, songwriter, actress and artist who spanned genres and generations with music that remains vital and captivating. Sultry and swinging, Peggy's biggest hits are featured here: Fever; I'm A Woman; Alright, Okay You Win; Lover: Big Spender; It's A Good Day and the Grammy Award winning Is That All There Is. This special collection of Peggy's television appearances also offers an enticing variety of more favorites: I Can't Stop Loving You, Unforgettable, I Don't Know Enough About You, Somebody Lovers Me, Manana, Me & My Shadow, The Lonesome Road, He's Gone Away, So What's New, Louisville Lou and Things Are Swingin' ---- Plus duets with Johnny Cash, Petula Clark, Stever Lwarence & Eydie Gorme, a Featurette with Michael Feinstein and a salute from Paul McCartney.

A series of things you'd better not mix up.

Documentary by Mike Dooley, Katharine Leis