Cameron joins up aboard the Russian research vessel Akademik Mstislav Keldysh with a group of NASA scientists, as well as some American marine biologists, to investigate ten hydrothermal vents in both the Atlantic and Pacific. The vents have their own unique ecosystem, which support diverse organisms such as giant tube worms, swarms of blind white crabs, and vast amounts of shrimp which are capable of “seeing” water that is heated by the vents. These creatures do not require sunlight like other organisms, and instead obtain their energy from the vents. They are able to survive in the superheated and sulfurous water. Because of this, the documentary suggests that this is what life beyond Earth might look like. As some alien ecosystems are likely to be a lot harsher than a typical terrestrial ecosystem, these exotic vents provide an insight into some of the forms that alien life might take.
The documentary shows Cameron’s passion for exploring the oceans, as well as his interest in extraterrestrial life. It also showcases the technology employed to reach such depths.

The Superman Lives film was to be based on a script by Kevin Smith and directed by Tim Burton. And best of it, it would also have featured Nicolas Cage as Superman. Doesn’t this sound like an weired/awesome combo?

Now director Jon Schnepp started a crowdfunding campaign to find out what happend to the planned production. So if you want this documentary to be made, support him.

The story behind the project:

The Death of “Superman Lives”: What Happened? is a Feature Length Documentary about the unmade movie “Superman Lives”. This film, out of all the various attempts to make a Superman movie between 1987 and 2006, would have stood the test of time and become a bonafide Cult Classic nowadays. I am not alone with my intense interest in knowing everything I can about this project, and so now I’m embarking on making a Documentary that will cover everything ever made for this film, from interviewing as many people as I can who were involved, to including actually recreating scenes from the script!!!

I’ve been interested in this film since it was first announced back in the late 90’s. Nicolas Cage was announced as Superman, Kevin Smith was announced as the Writer, Tim Burton was announced as the Director, and fans have had very heavy opinions, both positive and negative, on all of this. As news slowly bubbled out, news buzzed around about Rainbow Robot Outfits, Brainiac Skull ships, Superman not “flying”, Fighting a Giant Spider, Polar Bears guarding the Fortress of Solitude. It all sounded so crazy, so weird, so different, that I honestly was hoping that they would actually make it, just so we would have something different from what had come before. It never happened. Cut to almost 15 years later, and I really wish I could slap that “Superman Lives” disc into my player, and watch this guaranteed weird, strange, and original new take on the mythology of the Superman character. By this time, whether it was a success or failure at the box office, It would have for sure been a cult classic, due mainly to its inspired casting, and its tremendous bravery in it’s attempt to merge toy sales with the weirdness.

Be sure not to miss this video. Kevin Smith talks about Superman Lives. Great…

Super Size Me is a 2004 American documentary film directed by and starring Morgan Spurlock, an American independent filmmaker. Spurlock’s film follows a 30-day period from February 1 to March 2, 2003 during which he ate only McDonald’s food. The film documents this lifestyle’s drastic effect on Spurlock’s physical and psychological well-being, and explores the fast food industry’s corporate influence, including how it encourages poor nutrition for its own profit.

Spurlock dined at McDonald’s restaurants three times per day, eating every item on the chain’s menu at least once. Spurlock consumed an average of 20.92 megajoules or 5,000 kcal (the equivalent of 9.26 Big Macs) per day during the experiment.

As a result, the then-32-year-old Spurlock gained 24½ lbs. (11.1 kg), a 13% body mass increase, a cholesterol level of 230, and experienced mood swings, sexual dysfunction, and fat accumulation in his liver. It took Spurlock fourteen months to lose the weight gained from his experiment using a vegan diet supervised by his future wife, a chef who specializes in gourmet vegan dishes.

The reason for Spurlock’s investigation was the increasing spread of obesity throughout U.S. society, which the Surgeon General has declared “epidemic,” and the corresponding lawsuit brought against McDonald’s on behalf of two overweight girls, who, it was alleged, became obese as a result of eating McDonald’s food

The documentary was nominated for an Academy Award for Documentary Feature.

Claimed by Cinetic Media

Dan Weiss writes about them:

No punk band was freer than the Replacements, which is why you never hear them talked about as spearheading some local scene. Sure, them and Husker Dü put Minneapolis on the map concurrently with Prince. But they weren’t part of a movement. They were misfits who covered KISS and Ted Nugent, turning the latter into a song about boners. Punk should only ever be associated with doing whatever the fuck you want, but it’s not; there are rules and codes and all sorts of wack stuff designed to make you strive for credibility. In an alternate universe where nobody thinks about that, the Replacements are king.

Breaking the Taboo was directed by Cosmo Feilding Mellen and Fernando Grostein Andrade, and is Narrated by Oscar-winning actor Morgan Freeman.

Featuring interviews with current and former presidents from around the world, such as Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter, the film follows The Global Commission on Drug Policy on a mission to break the political taboo over the United States led War on Drugs and expose what it calls the biggest failure of global policy in the last 40 years.

A Sundog Pictures and Spray Filmes production

Filmmaker Seán Ó Cualáin explores the story behind this photograph and focuses not so much on the technical part, instead he tries to peer into the photograph itself.

The picture was taken on 29 September 1932 by Charles C. Ebbets during construction work of the GE building at Rockefeller Center.

The official description of the film:
New York City, 1932. The country is in the throes of the Great Depression, the previous decade’s boom of Italian, Irish, and Jewish immigrants has led to unprecedented urban expansion, and in the midst of an unseasonably warm autumn, steelworkers risk life and limb building skyscrapers high above the streets of Manhattan. In Men at Lunch, director Seán Ó Cualáin tells the story of Lunch atop a Skyscraper, the iconic photograph taken during the construction of the GE Building that depicts eleven workmen taking their lunch break while casually perched along a steel girder, 850 feet above the ground. For decades, this image has captivated imaginations the world over. But who are these men? And where did they come from?

Ever since the photograph was published anonymously in the New York Herald Tribune on October 2, 1932, the men’s identities have been a mystery. Many of those who have been fascinated by the photo throughout the years have shared the conviction that one of the workers is a distant relative; others, meanwhile, have questioned the photo’s authenticity outright. Accessing the vast photography archives at Rockefeller Center and the Iron Mountain storage facility in Pennsylvania, Ó Cualáin follows the clues in an attempt to discover the photo’s long-held secrets. With the meticulous, painstaking precision of a detective, Ó Cualáin tracks down the original glass-plate negative, and then reconstructs the photograph as a digital projection with actors recreating the workers’ poses, allowing the minutiae of the image to be studied from every possible perspective. Interviews with archivists, photographers, and historians eventually uncover compelling evidence that a few of the photo’s subjects may have roots in the small village of Shanaglish, Ireland.

Yet no matter the secrets that Ó Cualáin uncovers in his dogged search, he is by no means seeking to dilute or demystify the magnetic power of the iconic image. Taken at a time when the utopian dreams of the previous decade had run up against desperate economic reality, the photograph speaks to the enduring fortitude of a nation of immigrants resolutely soldiering on, shrugging off their astonishing accomplishments as merely another day’s honest work. As Men at Lunch eloquently demonstrates, the satisfaction of answers is perhaps dwarfed by the evocative power of the questions.

Mark populates the town he dubs “Marwencol” with dolls representing his friends and family and creates life-like photographs detailing the town’s many relationships and dramas. Playing in the town and photographing the action helps Mark to recover his hand-eye coordination and deal with the psychic wounds of the attack. When Mark and his photographs are discovered, a prestigious New York gallery sets up an art show. Suddenly Mark’s homemade therapy is deemed “art”, forcing him to choose between the safety of his fantasy life in Marwencol and the real world that he’s avoided since the attack.

“Marwencol” was released theatrically by the Cinema Guild and aired on PBS. It has won over 25 awards, including two Independent Spirit Awards, Best Documentary of the Year from the Boston Society of Film Critics and Rotten Tomatoes, and the Grand Jury Award for Best Documentary at the South by Southwest Film Festival. The Los Angeles Times calls the film “an exhilarating, utterly unique experience” while the Village Voice says that it’s “exactly the sort of mysterious and almost holy experience you hope to get from documentaries and rarely do.”

Update: Film not available online anymore, now on DVD

From Wikipedia:
“On March 26, 2009, Shane McConkey died while skiing in the Dolomite Mountains in Italy. After performing a double back flip, McConkey intended to glide away in his wingsuit, “a stunt he’s executed a number of times”, according to a statement from Matchstick Productions, the company whose films McConkey often starred in. But McConkey struggled to release his skis. By the time he got them off, he’d been free-falling for 12 seconds and was too close to the ground for his wingsuit or parachute to do him any good. His parachute did not malfunction; it was never deployed. He died on the scene.”

But their personal lives and influence on significant events in American life — from the development of modernism, to the rise of the computer age — has been less widely understood. Narrated by James Franco, Eames: The Architect and the Painter is the first film dedicated to these creative geniuses and their work.

From founding The Webby Awards to being a passionate advocate for The National Day of Unplugging, Shlain’s love/hate relationship with technology serves as the springboard for a thrilling exploration of modern life…and our interconnected future. Equal parts documentary and memoir, the film unfolds during a year in which technology and science literally become a matter of life and death for the director. As Shlain’s father battles brain cancer and she confronts a high-risk pregnancy, her very understanding of connection is challenged. Using a brilliant mix of animation, archival footage, and home movies, Shlain reveals the surprising ties that link us not only to the people we love but also to the world at large. A personal film with universal relevance, Connected explores how, after centuries of declaring our independence, it may be time for us to declare our interdependence instead.

The past weeks have revealed a complex and personal aspect to being an estate agent in the fast moving and cut throat London property market where ‘winning the instruction’ is king.

The sacrifices they make in order to get the ‘deals’, the bitter in-fighting amongst their colleagues and other agents, and some of the shocking and revealing encounters they have when entering people’s homes. This is more than just a documentary on their job, it shows a deeply personal side to what is regarded as one of the most disliked professions in the country.

Love them or loathe them, we all need to use one at least once in our lives.

Link: underoffer2011.com/