For Tobe, a nerdy, horny, frizzy-haired cineaste who doesn't quite fit in with the average contemporary teen, the pinnacle of womanhood is Monica Velour (Kim Cattrall), a soft-core actress who reached the zenith of her career in the 1980s. When Tobe learns that his love idol is headlining hundreds of miles away at the Gentlemen's Petting Zoo in Indiana, he drives off with carefree glory—in his grandfather's (Brian Dennehy) used Weinermobile, no less—filled with the hope of meeting her. When Tobe defends Monica's honor against ruffians who taunt the aging erotic starlet off the stage, he lands a pity invite into Monica's trailer. As the two begin an unlikely friendship, Tobe's unripe romantic impulses entangle with her messy life as a struggling single mother embroiled in a custody battle for her only daughter.

Catch Cattrall (Sex and the City) as you've never seen her before—delivering her trademark sass and powerful sexuality, but deftly enriched with a range of emotional nuance. After two award-winning short films, Keith Bearden's directorial debut is an offbeat, tender comedy about growing up too fast and recognizing love no matter what shape or age.






The inspired collaboration between downtown cabaret and drag artist Joey Arias and master puppeteer Basil Twist serves as the spine for this dynamic exploration of unfettered creativity and expression. Arias and Twist conspired together to create the performance spectacular known as Arias with a Twist, a show that brought them some of the biggest success of their careers and continues to tour since its original production in 2008.

This euphoric documentary explores the dynamic creative relationship between Arias and Twist, but it also takes us on a tour of downtown New York's club, art, fashion, and performance scene starting in the late '70s, a time when these worlds were in constant dialogue, constantly inspiring each other. Director Bobby Sheehan has unearthed never-before-seen footage from the era of Andy Warhol, David Bowie, Keith Haring, Grace Jones, and Divine. The trip is bittersweet—considering AIDS would soon sweep through the scene, claiming stars like John Sex, Klaus Nomi and Keith Haring—but ultimately uplifting when viewed in light of Arias and Twist, whose work continues to evolve and carry the torch of artistic partnership.







In Precious Images, his 1986 Academy Award®-winning short, director Chuck Workman assembled a breathtaking eight-minute collage of singular images from classic Hollywood movies. In Visionaries, Workman brings alive, in counterpoint to the commercial film industry, the vibrant history of the American avant-garde cinema.

In engaging interviews with renowned underground filmmakers and critics including Ken Jacobs, Robert Downey, Su Friedrich, P. Adams Sitney, and Amy Taubin, Workman reveals how this artistic movement highlights subjective vision, sensory experience, and dreams over plot and storyline. The director skillfully intersperses these intimate conversations with a stylistically diverse array of extracts from experimental films of all stripes. Dating from the 1920s to the present, avant-garde films by such pioneering artists as Man Ray, Maya Deren, Stan Brakhage, Andy Warhol, and Sadie Benning vividly illustrate for the general audience a qualitatively different kind of moviegoing experience distinct from that promulgated by the commercial cinema. Workman's documentary pays special tribute to filmmaker, curator, and critic Jonas Mekas and Anthology Film Archives, the organization that he founded. It is the premier American institution dedicated to the preservation and promotion of avant-garde film culture, assuring a long-term home for this alternative cinema right alongside the Hollywood classics.







Best-selling comic book artist Joann Sfar delivers a fascinating biography of famed French singer Serge Gainsbourg with his impressive debut Gainsbourg, Je t'Aime... Moi Non Plus. Born Lucien Ginsburg to Russian-Jewish parents, Gainsbourg was lastingly impacted by his childhood in Nazi-occupied France. Sfar gives a glimpse to what is to come by introducing a massive anti-Semitic caricature puppet that chases the young Gainsbourg through the street. From there, Sfar depicts Gainsbourg's rise to fame and his proclivity to drinking and women—including his affair with Brigitte Bardot (perfectly cast Laetitia Casta) and marriage to Jane Birkin (Lucy Gordon).

Creating anything but a basic biopic, Sfar envelopes Gainsbourg's story with a unique and surrealistic style, incorporating such devices as puppets and cartoons to punctuate the incredible life of the man that gave the world songs such as "Bonnie and Clyde" and the scandalous "Je t'aime… moi non plus." Sfar's fantastical elements and sumptuous cinematography by Guillaume Schiffman give an added dimension to Gainsbourg's turbulent life, and Eric Elmosnino's uncanny resemblance and immersive performance may make you forget you're not watching Gainsbourg himself.






In the year 2024, all of Europe is united by a vast web of underground subway systems, populated by an army of downtrodden drones. Roger (Vincent Gallo) is one such cog, but flouts the modern rail convenience in favor of biking through the incessant rain. His work is menial, his relationship is flatlining, and the lone distraction in his gray life is a fixation on a shampoo spokeswoman from one of his world's ubiquitous advertisements. One day Roger begins hearing voices. He also chances upon his shampoo model, the alluring Nina (Juliette Lewis), who seems to promise answers to the voices' origins. As Roger follows Nina deeper into the underworld, he finds himself unearthing an Orwellian conspiracy of shocking magnitude.

Metropia is a visually arresting sci-fi noir, featuring a signature brand of surreal animation created by director Tarik Saleh specifically for this film. The desaturated palette and uncanny photorealism are an apt representation of Saleh's dystopian futurescape, one which is not shiny and new, but retrofitted and utilitarian, and where heroes are not courageous daredevils, but maybe just insecure paper-pushers looking for the meaning in it all.






Thirtysomethings Theo (Chris Messina) and Nat (Rashida Jones) are engaged to be married. They live what seems to be on all counts a comfortable life of love, music, and laughter in their cozy Brooklyn apartment. But Theo is bored with his job as a wedding photographer—the generic backgrounds, the artificial posing, the stilted newlyweds—so he develops the unconventional side business "Gumshoot," a service where clients hire him to secretly stalk them with his camera. When he is called out on a job to snap pics of an exhibitionist mystery woman (Meital Dohan), a simple gig develops into a voyeuristic obsession that forces Theo to confront uncomfortable truths about himself and his impending marriage.

Glowing with pitch-perfect performances by Messina and Jones, the first narrative feature from Oscar®-nominated director Dana Adam Shapiro (Murderball) marries a mystery-thriller with a slice-of-life relationship drama to present a marvelously observed portrait of masculinity in crisis in the face of its own fantasies and fears of commitment.







Some girls are simply not to be messed with. And so it is with the fabulous heroines Bubbles Cliquot, Tipper Sommore, Rachel Slurr, and Emma Grashun. All respect is given to them in Pinky La'Trimm's nightclub, but when they beome the victims of a psycho guy who just can't get over his conflicted desire for Bubbles, the bruised-up babes shake it up grand diva style and transform into deadly vixens. An homage to the exploitation films of the '70s and '80s, Ticked-Off is a revenge fantasy flick that brews up a concoction of camp, slasher horror, and power-chick flick to create a radical new genre: Transploitation!

Inspired by the devastating increase in brutal hate crimes against people in the transgender community, writer/director Israel Luna, along with his Dallas-based cast and crew, pour their hearts into creating the atmospheric '70s distressed aesthetic that glimmers with each woman's distinct brassy groove. Loaded with kick-ass bodacious bods Ticked-Off makes it clear that it takes more than balls to get even.






This work-in-progress documentary from the Academy Award®-winning director of Taxi to the Dark Side takes an in-depth look at the rapid rise and dramatic fall of New York Governor Eliot Spitzer. Nicknamed "the Sheriff of Wall Street" when he was New York's attorney general, Eliot Spitzer prosecuted crimes by America's largest financial institutions and some of the most powerful executives in the country. After his election as governor with the largest margin in the state's history, many believed Spitzer was on his way to becoming the nation's first Jewish president.

Then, suddenly, shockingly, Spitzer's meteoric rise turned into a precipitous fall when the New York Times revealed that Spitzer—the paragon of rectitude—had been caught seeing prostitutes. As his powerful enemies gloated, his supporters questioned the timing of it all: as the sheriff fell, so did the financial markets, in a cataclysm that threatened to unravel the global economy. With unique access to friends, acquaintances, and enemies of the ex-governor (many of whom have come forward for the first time), this film explores the hidden contours of this tale of hubris, sex, and power.






The man who played Gollum and King Kong is now transforming into an equally volatile creature: punk rocker and new wave artist Ian Dury. BAFTA nominee Andy Serkis plays The Blockheads frontman like the circus ringmaster at a carnival of dysfunction (known to the rest of us as the '70s and '80s). This unconventional biopic follows Dury from the days before Catshit Mansions through his rise to quantifiable success. Somewhere along the way, we're introduced to a different Dury: a man whose tenacity allowed him to overcome the debilitating effects of a botched childhood and polio, and who challenged those closest to him to have the same strength of character. He may have been a sonuvabitch, but he gave as much love as he gave grief.

Director Mat Whitecross expertly structures the film as if it were one of Dury's songs, with vivid vignettes and a new wave tempo, while pop artist Peter Blake lends his trademark aesthetic. The story of an artist by an artist, sex & drugs & rock & roll will do more than give you reasons to be cheerful.






A glowing, prismatic portrait of the rise and fall of America's first celebrity designer—Halston—the man who was synonymous with fashion in the 1970s, and became the emperor of NYC nightlife. Interviews with friends and witnesses (including Liza Minnelli, Diane Von Furstenberg, André Leon Talley, Anjelica Huston, Bob Colacello, and Billy Joel, among others) round out this glittering evocation of the man who defined the most beautiful and decadent era of recent memory.

After the Movie: Director Whitney Sudler-Smith, Vogue's André Leon Talley, designer Ralph Rucci, model Pat Cleveland, and other special guests featured in the film will be on hand for a conversation about the legend of Halston, celebrity fashion design, and the city that fostered them both—New York. Moderated by Matt Tyrnauer, director of Valentino: The Last Emperor.






What started as a New York Times article in 2003 became one of the best-selling books of the last decade and is now one of the most compelling films of the year. Freakonomics, by economist Steven D. Levitt and author Stephen J. Dubner, examines human behavior through the lens of statistics and incentives, rather than morals and ethics, illuminating surprising and controversial conclusions. Now a team of powerhouse directors comes together to tackle this provocative material in a singular cinematic experience.

Alex Gibney (Taxi to the Dark Side) delivers a visually arresting look at the crumbling façade of Sumo wrestling and exposes searing and violent truths about this ancient and revered sport. Morgan Spurlock (Super Size Me) offers up a buoyant and revealing angle on the repercussions of baby names. Rachel Grady and Heidi Ewing (Jesus Camp) balance levity and candor with their eye-opening profile of underachieving kids incentivized to learn with cold hard cash. Finally, Eugene Jarecki, who brought us the unforgettably powerful Why We Fight, investigates an unsettling theory to explain why crime rates dramatically dropped in the early '90s. Seth Gordon (The King of Kong) weaves the pieces together with brisk interludes, providing context and commentary from the authors.

Freakonomics the movie exposes the hidden side of everything, debunking conventional wisdom, and revealing what answers may come if one just asks the right questions.






Sure, she can be a little overbearing sometimes, but Johnny Rizzo loves his fiancée Claire, and he made her a promise: By the time he's 25, he'll trade his current dream job as a sports talk radio host (even if it is the 2 a.m. slot) for something that'll pay bigger bucks. And Johnny's nothing if not a man of his word. Now he's flying to New York to interview for some snoozeville job that Claire's well-to-do dad set up. Enter Uncle Terry, a rascally womanizer bent on turning a day in the Hamptons into a final fling for his nephew. Nice guy Johnny's not interested, of course, but then he meets the lovely Brooke….

A master of the modern relationship dramedy, Edward Burns is once again in top form as a writer, director, and wise-crackin' actor. His swaggering bartender Terry is the perfect foil to baby-faced Matt Bush's (Adventureland) Johnny, and together they're great at trading Burns' characteristically sharp dialogue. More contrasts are mined with Anna Wood's image-conscious Claire and Kerry Bische's (Scrubs) Brooke, a blonde-haired and bright-eyed free spirit. Burns wraps a summery tone around Johnny's real crisis: follow through with your promises, or follow your heart?