Amos Poe
A Walk In The Park is, in the words of its protagonist Brian Fass, “a science fiction film, a psychedelic journey back to the womb...” This documentary-like journey, progresses from non-fiction to fiction, and dizzyingly, dazzlingly back again.
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.
A new translation of Dante's Divine Comedy channeling the tools of Edward Muybridge and a meditation on the perception of motion in a motion picture.
the connections and energy flow between the various artists populating the 1980s sub-cultures of New York and Berlin. Features Jim Jarmusch, Lydia Lunch, Blixa Bargeld, Alex Hacke, Gudrun Gut, Nick Cave, and others. An important film. Bravo, Mr. Dreher.
The life of a woman is transformed after she is diagnosed with a terminal disease, fired from her job and abandoned by her boyfriend. Given two months to live, she throws caution to the wind to pursue her dreams.
From 1978 to 1982, Glenn O'Brien hosted a New York city public access cable TV show called TV Party. Co-hosted by Chris Stein, from Blondie, and directed by filmmaker Amos Poe, the hour long show took television where it had never gone before: to the edge of civility and "sub-realism" as Glenn would put it. Walter Steding and his TV Party "Orchestra" provided a musical accompaniment to the madness at hand, and many artists and musicians, from The Clash, Nile Rodgers, Jean-Michel Basquiat, David Bryne and Arto Lindsey were regular guests. It was the cocktail party that could be a political party. With 80 hours of disintegrating 3/4 inch videotape as a starting point, we tracked down the trend setting participants still living today and found out what they remember of the period and how the show influenced their lives. This, combined with clips from the orginal show, became the documentary "TV Party.
A musical documentary film about the politically minded singer/songwriter Steve Earle.
The film is a day in the life of a young artist, Jean-Michel Basquiat, who needs to raise money to reclaim the apartment from which he has been evicted. He wanders the downtown streets carrying a painting he hopes to sell, encountering friends, whose lives (and performances) we peek into.
A group of unemployed theater actors survive by working as illegal money collectors. The loan shark they are working for owns an Off-Broadway theater. As he decided to play "American Buffalo" there, a bloody battle for the favorite roles begin.
Set in the "not-too distant future", martial law has been declared in The City in leu of a looming earthquake. However, the earthquake is merely a ruse, a story fed to the public so the TWF (True World Forces) can capture an alien spotted over the city some few days earlier. A TWF agent runs into the alien (a *hottie* who can change her appearance, while always remaining - of course - a hottie), and the two go off and, um, compare their respective physiology (yeah, that's it).
Joey Breaker is a fast-talking, ambitious, workaholic agent representing actors, screenwriters, and comedians for the New York firm of Morgan Creative. He is callous and intolerant, but when he unexpectedly falls in love, he begins to see that he has been missing much of what is important in life. His demeanor mellows and he learns to be more tolerant of others. Suddenly, he is faced with a difficult choice when his girlfriend graduates from nursing school and returns to Jamaica.
The Levys, a glamorous couple, used to make their living robbing golfers, until they met their fatal handicap. Years later, scriptwriter Remy Gravelle decides to observe the Levy progeny as they sail endlessly round Manhattan in their luxury yacht.
A man's family comes for his 77th birthday and while he loves all of his children and their children, he and his children don't exactly connect. However, he connects with his grandchildren. And he tells them what he wants for his birthday and they do what they can to give it to him.
A New York City drug dealer decides to get out of the business, but has to flee from mobsters.
A psychotic saxophone player (played both by Amos Poe and John Lurie) lures victims to deserted spots with his music and then guns them down.
A woman, Nadja, searches for her sister's murderer. This search goes through differing moments of reality, or unreality, that overlap within facets of a broken-up time sense. In this emulation of film noir, the investigative structure does not create suspense; the dialectic murderer/victim does not exist. The crime is fabricated bit by bit, like the staging of a spectacle, and it is in the traditional tools of seduction (the spiked heels) that the weapons will be hidden. Ultimately, the crime Nadja achieves makes her neither a triumphant heroine nor a victim.
A French special op suffers an existential crisis as he wanders New York City in search of a mission and the requisite connections.
The cream of New York new wave/punk filmed live at CBGB's when the scene was just beginning. Includes performances by Patti Smith, Blondie, Television, the Ramones, Talking Heads, the Heartbreakers, the Shirts, Wayne County, the Marbles, the Dolls, Miamis, Harry Toledo, and the Tuff Darts (w/Robert Gordon).
This is the story of Rico, a man who lives in New York in 1976 but who lives his own life in Paris during the time of the 'New Wave'. He is a photographer who thinks he's a gangster, a loner, and an outsider. He uses his camera like a gun, loading it with bullets of film. He's constantly on the look for a reality to fulfill his fantasy, and as long as he has that energy, he lives. Of course, he's also a romantic, and this is his downfall, because he believes all photographers to be liars. When Rico falls in love, the delicate balance of the world he has made for himself is disrupted.
This is Poe and Krall's first effort, filmed before the more well known Blank Generation. It is even grittier, shakier and more primitive than Blank Generation, and shows a nascent CBGB crowd well before anyone living beyond 14th Street knew anything about it. Worth seeing if it ever turns up at an art house or festival. Among other gems is a very early Blondie on film, before the introduction of a keyboardist, and well before their mega-success in the early 1980s. Most of the band has long hair. There is also a pan shot of the bar where devotees can spot early Talking Heads, Ramones, and other suspect characters nursing warm beer. A key to the time is the lack of any 'punk' insignia - safety pins, etc. - that would later spell doom for the NYC scene. A brief, nostalgic glimpse of a rare and under-documented meeting of rock and, well, art.
