Adam Rifkin
The rise and fall...and rise of Schlitzie, the lovable man-child performer from Tod Browning's cult film "Freaks." He lived to perform, until he was put in an institution and left to die. His persona earned him a place in Punk history when the Ramones recorded "Pinhead," dolls and jewelry were created in his image, and "American Horror Story: Freakshow" paid homage to him. According to sideshow lore, Schlitzie was one of the most beloved performers.
Herbert Blount is a crowdfunding contributor for the new Adam Rifkin feature KNOCKED OFF. Unhappy with the film, he steals the footage and kidnaps actress Missi Pyle to star in his own "director's cut!"
An aging screen icon gets lured into accepting an award at a rinky-dink film festival in Nashville, Tenn., sending him on a hilarious fish-out-of-water adventure and an unexpectedly poignant journey into his past.
Retrospective documentary on the making of the low-budget horror slasher film Psycho Cop Returns (1993).
Sociologist David W. Wahl explores the identity work involved in Kay Parker shifting from being a legend of the adult film industry to her current occupation as a metaphysical counselor.
To Hell and Back: The Kane Hodder Story is the harrowing story of a stuntman overcoming a dehumanizing childhood filled with torment and bullying in Sparks, Nevada. After surviving a near-death burn accident, he worked his way up through Hollywood, leading to his ultimate rise as Jason Voorhees in the Friday the 13th series and making countless moviegoers forever terrified of hockey masks and summer camp. Featuring interviews with cinema legends, including Bruce Campbell (Ash vs. Evil Dead), Robert Englund (Freddy Krueger), and Cassandra Peterson (Elvira: Mistress of the Dark), To Hell and Back peels off the mask of Kane Hodder, cinema's most prolific killer, in a gut-wrenching, but inspiring, documentary. After decades of watching Kane Hodder on screen, get ready to meet the man behind the mask in To Hell and Back - an uniquely human story about one of cinema's most vicious monsters.
The Warwick family are unknowingly being filmed for a new reality show. Problem is, they're boring. So the producer must add conflict and drama to their lives. Their lives begin to unravel with shocking consequences.
A somewhat-mostly-accurate educational parody film by Max Landis. This production is not monetized, and not for profit. The clips used herein are used with direct reference, as critique, and the characters and situations depicted are for the purpose of satire. Yes, I know I got some things out of order. It was condensed and simplified and told from memory. Did you honestly want this to be an hour long? You didn’t. I didn’t. Let’s be real with each other. Real respects real. I respect you.
While the rest of America slept, DIY filmmaker/musician Giuseppe Andrews has made over 30 experimental features. Set in some demented alternate universe (i.e. Ventura, California), they are populated by real-life alcoholics and drug addicts, trash-talking senior citizens and trailer park residents dressed in cow outfits and costume-shop wigs, acting out booze-fueled vignettes filtered through Giuseppe's John Waters-meets-Harmony Korine-meets-Werner Herzog sensibility. Director Adam Rifkin (Look, The Dark Backward) creates a wildly surreal, outrageously funny and strangely touching portrait of a truly Outsider Artist inhabiting a world few of us even know exists, as he follows Giuseppe and his seriously impaired troupe on the production of his latest 2-day opus, Garbanzo Gas, starring Vietnam Ron as a Cow given a weekend reprieve from the slaughterhouse at the local motel. An Official Selection of Hot Docs 2014, Los Angeles Film Festival (LAFF) and the Rooftop Films Summer Series.
It's the closing night at the last drive-in theater in America and Cecil B. Kaufman has planned the ultimate marathon of lost film prints to unleash upon his faithful cinephile patrons. Four films so rare that they have never been exhibited publicly on American soil until this very night! With titles like Wadzilla, Deathecation, The Diary of Anne Frankenstein, and Zom-B-Movie, Chillerama not only celebrates the golden age of drive-in B horror shlock but also spans over four decades of cinema with something for every bad taste.
The film centers on a fight promoter (Mark Feuerstein) deeply in debt to his crooked rival. Desperate for a new fighter that will help him win back everything he owes, the promoter catches a break when a 450-pound church handyman (Paul "Big Show" Wight) who has spent his entire life in an orphanage agrees to wrestle on behalf of his fellow orphans.
Shane Black ("Lethal Weapon"), John Carpenter ("Halloween"), Frank Darabont ("The Shawshank Redemption"), William Goldman ("The Princess Bride"), Paul Schrader ("Taxi Driver"), and dozens of other Hollywood screenwriters share hilarious anecdotes and penetrating insights in "Tales from the Script," the most comprehensive documentary ever made about screenwriting. By analyzing their triumphs and recalling their failures, the participants explain how successful writers develop the skills necessary for toughing out careers in one of the world's most competitive industries. They also reveal the untold stories behind some of the greatest screenplays ever written, describing their adventures with luminaries including Harrison Ford, Stanley Kubrick, Joel Silver, Martin Scorsese, and Steven Spielberg. The film was produced in tandem with the upcoming HarperCollins book of the same name.
From the moment Shakespeare wrote his first fart joke, audiences have loved gross-out humor. In this 'Starz Inside' documentary, take a trip through the history of taboo-busting comedy that began with slapstick and led to the most notorious Internet video in history, with stops at every infamous penis, poo, puke and pie gag in-between. It’s a totally uncensored look at the scenes that make you want to look away.
When a lucky cow wins an all expense paid weekend at a local hotel, it can’t believe its good fortune. It gets to relax, unwind, and avoid a trip to the slaughterhouse - at least for a few days. Of course, it couldn’t imagine the menagerie of madmen it would run into. Down the hall is a pair of drug addled dimwits who are desperate for something to eat. The cow becomes their main focus. Meanwhile, two different spree killers are wrecking havoc. One murders at the command of some erroneous bath linen. The other listens to a voice inside his shoe, the instructions resulting in even more dead bodies. All the while, our contented animal tries to accommodate everyone’s needs, which typically revolve around a room service meal of meat and potatoes.
Ishbo is a caveman living in the prehistoric age who thinks there's more to life than hunting and gathering. He tries to better the lives of those in his tribe by inventing things like spoons and the toothbrush, which leave everyone, including his parents, unimpressed. He also has a thing for cavewoman Fardart, but she only has eyes for his brother Thudnik. Can Ishbo prove his worth when a rival clan attacks?
Interconnected stories are told entirely through images captured on security cameras in storage rooms, police cars, parking lots, shopping malls and other locations. Store manager Tony has affairs with the women who work under him, high schooler Sherri schemes to seduce teacher Berry, a pedophile stalks his next victim at a mall food court and two thieves go on a killing spree that links to other tales witnessed by the unseen electronic eyes.
Jack Shepard is an out-of-shape auto shop owner, far removed from the man who once protected the world's freedom. Reluctantly called back into action by the government, Jack is tasked with turning a ragtag group of kids with special powers into a new generation of superheroes to save the world from certain destruction.
“After a fall at a local bar, an elderly alcoholic asks his adult grandsons for one last favor. Seems several years ago he took five hookers to a remote hotel suite known as the Pony Room and spent the entire evening satisfying their every need. Now, nearing death and continuously soused to the gills, he wants Ed and Burt to take him back there for a weekend of reminiscing. The road trip will be difficult, especially with Grandpa’s lack of control (bowel or otherwise), but what waits there is even more disconcerting – a cursed can of chicken noodle soup.” (review excerpt by Bill Gibron)
Two elderly criminals spend their final night in Los Angeles, California at the Golden Eagle Hotel prior to their departure to Las Vegas, Nevada, to lead a life without crime. Unfortunately, on the hottest night of the summer, these two ex-criminals seemingly get caught in the malice of prostitutes, pimps, drunken bums, fighting monkeys, and young runaways.
Porn Star: The Legend of Ron Jeremy offers audiences a penetrating look inside the world of Ron Jeremy, America's most unlikely sex star and hero to millions. With nearly 25 years in the adult film industry and over 1,600 films to his credit, Ron Jeremy is huge. In his world, Ron reigns supreme-he's made millions of dollars and slept with thousands of beautiful women, and is indisputably the industry's biggest star. And everyone who's anyone knows Ron-a pop icon to millions, he is a beacon of hope for many American male, since he stands as living proof that pretty much anyone can get some. So how did such a classically unhandsome, big and hairy guy ever get to be suchia super stud? In one of the most fascinating and entertaining comedies of the last year, audiences finally get a chance to get inside the life and times of Ron Jeremy, and find out what's really behind the hardest working man in show business.
Guiseppe Andrews stars as Coney Island, a young man who is dealing with a lot of the issues facing today's youth: divorce, unemployment, sexual inadequacy and a gigolo father who has just been released from prison! Ever the optimist, Coney Island spends his days singing songs of hope to senior citizens and riding miniature broncos at his favorite playground. Pushed by his unfulfilled girlfriend to grow up, Coney Island turns to Daddy Bill (Bill Nowlin) for advice in the ways of love, embarking on a grotesque and wildly hilarious journey of self discovery.
In 1978, a Kiss concert was an epoch-making event. For the three teen fans in Detroit Rock City getting tickets to the sold-out show becomes the focal point of their existence. They'll do anything for tickets -- compete in a strip club's amateur-night contest, take on religious protesters, even rob a convenience store!
Susan's Plan (also released as Dying to Get Rich on video) is a 1998 black comedy film directed by John Landis and starring Nastassja Kinski, Dan Aykroyd, Billy Zane, Rob Schneider, Lara Flynn Boyle and Michael Biehn. The plot revolves around Susan's (played by Kinski) plan to kill her former husband (with the help of a group of misfits) and collect his life insurance.
When missile technology is used to enhance toy action figures, the toys soon begin to take their battle programming too seriously.
A film director (Adam Rifkin) decides to chart the course of a young actor (Tony Markes) as he tries to make it in Hollywood...
Jack Hammond is sentenced to life in prison, but manages to escape. To get away from the police he takes a girl as hostage and drives off in her car. The girl happens to be the only daughter of one of the richest men in the state. In a while the car chase is being broadcast live on every TV-channel.
A woman director is hired to finish the season of "Bikini Squad", a popular TV series about California beach lifeguards. A more than obvious lack of talent and basic intelligence among the crew make her contemplate leaving the set.
A group of office workers decide to have a party in the office building. Among other things, they want to have some drugs there. Their conversation on the subject is overheard by Joe Vickers, which is rather unfortunate for them, since Joe Vickers is a policeman. Even more unfortunate is the fact that Vickers is also an undead psychotic satanist, and instead of arresting them, he will make sure that nobody leaves the party alive...
Topper Harley is found to be working as an odd-job-man in a monastery. The CIA want him to lead a rescue mission into Iraq, to rescue the last rescue team, who went in to rescue the last rescue team who... who went in to rescue hostages left behind after Desert Storm.
Two identical twins, separated since infancy, meet after 30 years causing a series of mistaken identity and crisis for all involved.
A man pursues stand-up comedy encouraged by his fellow garbage man. Though his friend, who accompanies him on accordion, continues to tell him how great he is, he actually stinks. When the "comedian" grows a third arm out of his back, the friend uses this twist to get him signed up with a sleazy talent agent, and it begins to look like his career is on the move, even though his girlfriend has left him.
"Swimwear Illustrated" is approaching its fifteenth anniversary issue. From a group of eager and beautiful young women, five are chosen for a photo shoot on an island off the California coast. One of the five will be the cover girl, and she'll get an extra $100,000. On the island, the group stays at an isolated inn, staffed by the odd Frab. There's him, the five models, and four magazine staff: photographer, make-up man, ambitious assistant Anesa, and Jack Denton, the playboy in charge of production. One by one, models and staff disappear.
An invisible scientist escapes from an asylum and teaches high-school physics to nubile teens.
10 years ago the perverse Dr. Russell couldn't resist the beauty of a young patient in his mental clinic and raped her one night. When she plunged herself from the roof shortly after, he described it as consequence of her heavy depressions. Now the same urge overcomes him with his new patient Sandy. He doesn't know that she's the daughter of his previous victim and that she's come for revenge.
A struggling young comedian takes a menial job on a cruise ship where he hopes for his big chance to make it in the world of cruise ship comedy.
Two sisters reunite after not having seen each other for five years. While catching up on each others' lives, they relive childhood experiences, both good and bad.
Two sisters reunite after not having seen one another for five years. Their intimate dialogue paints a kaleidoscope of erotic fantasies, failed loves and lost innocence. The whole production has the rhythm and texture of a poem–and for good reason. A Tale of Two Sisters was based on a poem written by Charlie Sheen. Sheen also “stars” in A Tale of Two Sisters as the offscreen narrator.
Matt and Eddie are two young men from the mid-west travelling to California to see the sights - primarily semi-clad women on beaches. They hop into their car and head off through the desert...
Friends and family of the late actor Burt Reynolds remember his life and career.
