Thomas Jay Ryan
In a locked-down NYC, two priests open their church doors to those seeking salvation during the most isolating of times. From the commonplace to the truly metaphysical, their visitors reflect the full spectrum of personal crises of spirituality. Throughout their encounters with the city's sweetest, wildest and weirdest, the two priests learn the importance of connection, empathy and open-mindedness. Sometimes a little faith is all you need to make it through the bad times.
A young homeless man uses online hookups to find places to stay. He becomes a hustler and falls in love with one of his clients. A closeted politician looms in the background of this seedy and poetic slice of gay New York, a torch song for the digital age that explores poverty, sex as currency, users and abusers.
A former war journalist now writing for a paper in Northern California is drawn into conflict at home.
From acclaimed graphic novelist Dash Shaw (New School) comes an audacious debut that is equal parts disaster cinema, high school comedy and blockbuster satire, told through a dream-like mixed media animation style that incorporates drawings, paintings and collage. Dash (Jason Schwartzman) and his best friend Assaf (Reggie Watts) are preparing for another year at Tides High School muckraking on behalf of their widely-distributed but little-read school newspaper, edited by their friend Verti (Maya Rudolph). But just when a blossoming relationship between Assaf and Verti threatens to destroy the boys' friendship, Dash learns of the administration's cover-up that puts all the students in danger. Hailed as "the most original animated film of the year" and "John Hughes for the Adult Swim generation", the film's everyday concerns of friendships, cliques and young love remind us how the high school experience continues to shape who we become, even in the most unusual of circumstances.
THE MISSING GIRL tells the story of Mort, the lonely and disillusioned owner of a comic book shop, and Ellen, the emotionally disruptive graphic novelist he's hired. The story involves the search for a girl who isn't missing and the discovery that it's never too late for late bloomers.
21 monologues written by American playwrights form a sort of fractured portrait of the American collective psyche. Ranging from the sad to the hilarious, from the angry to the tentatively celebratory, many of the major and recurrent issues associated with our fraught but beloved union are reconsidered with elegance, wit, brutal honesty, and a little outright insanity.
After his mother suffers a stroke, Ben Hardin returns to his rural hometown to care for her and complete his most recent book. While home, his relationships with family and friends are strained and tested.
Theatre director Daniel Fish re-stages old talk show interviews and a scene from Sesame Street in an abandoned Ford dealership in Hudson, New York, over the course of a year as it is renovated into a Dollar General store.
A series of impromptu interviews with Hal Hartley, Adrienne Shelly, and some of Hartley's other most frequent collaborators on his style, career, and process.
Emma has a strong aversion towards her family’s new house, especially the attic. After moving in, she becomes miserable and reclusive. The rest of her family also seems unhappy and unsettled. The situation escalates one day when Emma is in the attic alone. All of a sudden someone who looks exactly like Emma attacks her viciously.
A man returning from a tour of duty is mistaken for his brother by debt-collecting gangsters, while the brother goes on a killing and kidnapping spree with a loose-cannon convict.
Strange Culture is a 2007 documentary film directed by Lynn Hershman Leeson. It stars Tilda Swinton and Thomas Jay Ryan. It premiered January 19, 2007 at the 2007 Sundance Film Festival. The film examines the case of artist and professor Steve Kurtz, a member of the Critical Art Ensemble (CAE). The work of Kurtz and other CAE members dealt with genetically modified food and other issues of science and public policy. After his wife, Hope, died of heart failure, paramedics arrived and became suspicious when they noticed petri dishes and other scientific equipment related to Kurtz's art in his home. They summoned the FBI, who detained Kurtz within hours on suspicion of bioterrorism.
A short documentary about the making of 'Fay Grim.'
Many years after her notorious husband, Henry Fool, fled after killing a neighbor, Fay Grim receives a visit from CIA agent Fulbright, who tells her that Henry is dead, but that some of his journals have been unearthed in France. She sets forth on a globe-trotting odyssey that soon leads to the discovery that he is alive, and his journals are more than they appear to be.
A powerful and seductive Hollywood mogul convinces an impoverished West Hollywood writer, whose lover has recently died of AIDS, to sell his autobiographical screenplay for big bucks. The writer, Robert, knows he'll have to make major changes in the script (like changing the sex of the dying lover). During the rewrite, the producer, Jeffrey, takes Robert under his wing, introducing him to his wife Elaine, herself a closet screenwriter. Jeffrey approaches Robert for sex and Elaine approaches Robert out of curiosity about his sex life in grief. The entangled triangle of relationships threatens more than the completion of a film script. Written by
Joel Barish, heartbroken that his girlfriend underwent a procedure to erase him from her memory, decides to do the same. However, as he watches his memories of her fade away, he realises that he still loves her, and may be too late to correct his mistake.
A small rubber frog named Tiger becomes a major singing star overnight and has to cope with the trappings of stardom.
A young doctor believes that the spirit of his late wife has possessed a troubled patient in his hospital.
On the brink of her world tour, at the height of her success, alternative rock violinist, Gypsy, put down her violin and walked away... A man brutally beats his girlfriend to death and tosses her remains into a local river... A retired Boston PD detective isn't buying the news report of a local girl accidentally drowning... While Gypsy's unprecedented disappearance perplexes the entire music industry, she retreats with her husband to the desolation of Cape Cod in winter... Seeking refuge in his past, the murderer contacts his estranged brother and falls in love with his brother's wife, Gypsy... And then a body turns up on Cape Cod... And the detective isn't convinced that this will be the last... Here, in the smallest quietest corner of New England unfolds a disquieting tale of what happens when music meets murder... and a lyrical portrait of the ever-present guardians who preserve life's natural harmony.
The end of the millenium has taken on a certain significance in modern day prophecies. What happens if Jesus Christ has second thoughts about the Apocalypse? It is December 31, 1999 and New Year's Eve takes on new meaning when the Devil, Jesus Christ, and Christ's assistant Magdelina discuss and debate the end of the world, the opening of the seven seals, and the essence of being human.
A struggling Degas finds inspiration for his art in Marie, a young ballerina. Degas helps Marie tap into the talent she doesn't believe she has while she convinces Degas to persevere despite criticism from the art establishment. An artist and model, they become friends and find in each other what they need to follow their dreams.
An egocentric bum transforms the lives of a shy New Jersey garbageman and his sister.
