Scott B

In the years before Ronald Reagan took office, Manhattan was in ruins. But true art has never come from comfort, and it was precisely those dire circumstances that inspired artists like Jim Jarmusch, Lizzy Borden, and Amos Poe to produce some of their best works. Taking their cues from punk rock and new wave music, these young maverick filmmakers confronted viewers with a stark reality that stood in powerful contrast to the escapist product being churned out by Hollywood.

The remarkable story of Burt Rutan and SpaceShipOne. Only three of the most powerful governments in the world have achieved what they set out to do from a garage in the Mojave desert: to put a man in space.

A film noirish atmosphere is created to show detective Lunch (a popular underground musician and poet) plow her way through the plans of a corporate businessman who seeks government defense contracts through real "corporate wars" and the manipulation of politicians.

A Nietzschian parable on the fate of innocence, THE TRAP DOOR follows the mishaps of Jeremy (John Ahearn) as he is fired by his boss (Jenny Holzer), gets laughed out of court by Judge Gary Indiana, loses his girlfriend to sleazy Richard Prince, is hustled by prospective employer (Bill Rice) and mauled by predatory bird-women. Finally, he seeks the help of a shrink (the legendary Jack Smith) who turns out to be the most demented of all.

Real-life kung fu master Nathan Ingram stars in this gritty, low-budget martial arts epic as a local karate school owner who clashes with a gang of drug traffickers posing as the owners of a rival dojo. Director Charlie Ahearn (who helmed the landmark hip-hop film Wild Style) used the housing projects next to his New York Lower East Side apartment as his central location in this 1979 classic, shot on a vintage Super 8 camera.

An innocent youth is abducted and dragged down into a dystopian nightmare where teenage Lydia Lunch throws him into the Black Box.

An exploration of social schizophrenia in which terrorists consult their mothers before planting bombs, and the head of the New York City bomb squad succumbs to his dominatrix.

The almost lyrical Letters to Dad, is a meditation on authority that superimposes the spectre of Jonestown over the relatively fresh faces of the parapunk art world; the film takes on a musical form - like a 20th-century ballad composed of subliminal behavior cues, advertising testimonials, and the text of the National Enquirer

A Super-8 movie based on the case of grandmother murderess Velma Barfield who was executed for murdering her husband. It was described by Tessa Hughes-Freeland in "The Underground Film Bulletin #4" as "A murderess's last testament, explicating her view of the world, of her crime, and of her punishment. Intimate, compelling and ultimately disturbing".

A punk savage satire about a kidnapping.

EDDY'S WORLD is a fascinating portrait of a 98 year old working toy inventor. Best known for the iconic "chattering teeth" and 800 classic toys, he shares his passion for creativity and his philosophies of life and aging. Eddy lives in a retirement community and we follow him through his daily routine - working on new models in his garage machine shop, writing short stories on his computer, creating translucent lithophane portraits with his new 3D printer., walking and exercising. Eddy began designing toys on the Batfish Submarine during World War II. He is an endearing story teller who believes that optimism and new ideas keep him young and healthy.

Starring Macy Gray, Rickey Mino, and Bob Ezrin. In order to break the boring mold of their everyday lives, a group of twentysomething girls enters a high-stakes karaoke competition.

A return to Super-8 after "Vortex"; concerned with training in torture.