Date: 1993
Play Time: 108 min.
Brief Description: It's the unforgettable saga of a mischievous youngster and a runaway slave on a wild expedition to freedom. As the pair take the ride of their lives down the treacherous Mississippi River, they run into an entertaining assortment of offbeat characters and face one challenge after another!
Date: 1994
Play Time: four 28 min. segments
Brief Description:
Date: 1965
Play Time: 139 min.
Brief Description: Charleston Heston and Rex Harrison portray two of the Renaissance's most colorful figures in this historical drama based on Irving Stone's best-seller set in the early 16th century. When Pope Pius II commissions Michaelangelo to paint the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, the artist initially refuses. Virtually forced to do the job by Julius, he later destroys his own work and flees Rome. Eventually resumed, the project becomes a battle of wills fueled by artistic and temperamental differences that form the core of this movie.
Date: 1986
Play Time: 122 min.
Brief Description: A superb cast brings Arthur Miller's critically-acclaimed play of human frailty and guilt to resounding life. This masterfully crafted all-new production set during World War II stars James Whitmore and Aidan Quin as a troubled father and son who know that a second son will never return home from the war, even though mother Michael Learned believes her missing son will soon come home. But such turmoil only conceals greater anguish as suspicion falls on Whitmore for hiding a devastating secret.
Director: N/A
Date: N/A
Play Time: 2 54 min. segments
Brief Description: This two-part program provides a powerful examination of the forces that have contributed to the dismantling of the American economy. The program is based on the research of Pulitzer Prize-winnig journalists Donald L. Barlett and James B. Steele, who spent two years interviewing workers in nearly 50 cities in 16 states and Mexico, as well as government officials and corporate managers. The program features Donald Barlett and James Steele, as well as interviews with workers who have lost jobs as American industry has undergone change over the past few years. Among those interviewed are Barbara Ehrenreich, author of Fear of Falling, Susan Lee, an economist at the American Enterprise Institute, and Ed Rubenstein, an economic analyst at the National Review.
Director: Dirk Eitzen
Date: 1987
Play Time: 57 minutes
Brief Description: An offbeat, at points amusing, look at the growing commerce between the traditional horse-and-buggy Amish of Lancaster County, Pennsylvania and the millions of tourists every year who come to gawk at them and buy their wares. The film also examines the effect of suburban sprawl which has forced many Amish out of farming. With the scarcity of land and a growing population, the Amish increasingly rely on craft and construction business for their livelihood. Ironically, these same Amish businesses help to fuel the developments that are nibbling away at their land. Although trade is a boon to the Amish, the constant contact with outsiders threatens to erode the traditional values that are the foundation of the Amish way of life: community decision making, simple living, and quiet non-conformity to the rest of the world. The Amish and Us whimsically views the behavior of the tourists in the same way the tourist typically see the Amish - as curious and a bit odd.
Date: N/A
Play Time: 120 min.
Brief Description: In this superb version of Antigone--a co-production of the BBC and FILMS FOR HUMANITIES--this task has been accomplished by means of a new aggressively contemporary translation that remains true to the text; setting the plays in the past yet not the distant past, an indeterminate past; and, dispensing with masks, using the finest British classical actors.
Date: 1997
Play Time: N/A
Brief Description: The University of Pennsylvania's Professor James Schlatter, a professor in theater arts, discusses Sophocles' Antigone to IDSC 151 class.
Apeman: The Story of Human Revolution
Director: Peter Nicholson; Narrated by Walter Cronkite
Date: 1994
Play Time: 50 min. per video
Brief Description:
Volume 1: The Human Puzzle. Compared to other species, human beings have been on earth for a very short time. For millions of years, dinosaurs dominated. Then came an evolutionary upheaval - the continents shifted, the climate changed, and the ape emerged. In Africa, our primal ancestors began to make huge biological leaps forward. But what mysterious phenomenon allowed humans to branch off from the ape?
Volume 2: Giant Strides. Once humans learned to walk upright, they began to take giant developmental strides away from their animal relatives. They invented tools, which provided the edge in the search for food. The awesome power of fire came next, then the evolutionary grand prize - the human brain.
Volume 3: All in the Mind. As the human brain evolved, early man gained an incredible evolutionary advantage - the power of language. It brought humans closer together and led to a higher form of creativity. Cave paintings, sculpture, and decorative tools sprung from man's hand. Today, the human mind still drives the species - but is that enough to guarantee survival on the evolutionary tree?
Volume 4: Science and Fiction. While evolutionists and creationists debate the origin of the species, an intense controversy rages within the scientific community itself. Why is science so obsessed with the purity of our origins? Can it affect the fate of our species? In a sobering look at our place in the natural order, leading evolutionists risk a glimpse into the future of the human being.
Date: 1979
Play Time: 153 min.
Brief Description: Francis Ford Coppola's stunning vision of man's heart of darkness revealed though the madness of the Vietnam War. Lieutenant Willard (Martin Sheen) receives orders to seek out a renegade military outpost led by the mysterious Colonel Kurtz (Marlon Brando). Willard's mission: "Terminate with extreme prejudice." One of the most powerful films of all time, Apocalypse Now was nominated for eight Academy Awards and won two for Best Sound and Best Cinematography.
Date: 1988
Play Time: 102 min.
Brief Description: Now from the celebrated storyteller Isak Dinesen (Out of Africa) comes this delicious tale of Babette, a superb French chef living an anonymous life among a pious congregation on the desolate coast of Denmark. As housekeeper and cook to two elderly, religious women, she's never called upon to prepare anything more exciting than the traditional boiled codfish and ale-bread soup. Until one day she wins 10,000 francs and decides to spend it all by creating the most memorable, mouth-watering, magnificent meal ever consumed--even though her guests, the simple villagers, will have no idea what they are eating.
Date: 1996
Play Time: 50 minutes
Brief Description: In 1961 and 1962, with explosive rhetoric and chilling saber-rattling, the Cold War heated up in two incidents that drove the world to the brink of nuclear war. With extensive footage from the CBS News archives, THE 20TH CENTURY relives the Bay of Pigs and the Cuban Missile Crisis. The story revolves around personalities John F. Kennedy, Nikita Kruschev, and Fidel Castro. While the leaders of the two superpowers tested each others wills in historic meetings, Castro strengthened his hold on Cuba, creating a communist bastion just 90 miles from America's shores, a situation that many in the U.S. could not tolerate. Here, Robert McNamara, Kennedy's Secretary of Defense, offers an exclusive, insider's view of the pivotal moments in the Bay of Pigs fiasco and the Cuban Missile Crisis. Rare footage shows Castro's rise to power, Kruschev's bombast and Kennedy facing the world in televised addresses. Scholars examine the events as the unfoded and reveal how close we came to nuclear holocaust. It is a remarkable portrait of the events and personalities that shaped the hottest moments of the cold war.
Director: John Boorman
Date: 1995
Play Time: 100 min.
Brief Description: When Dr. Laura Bowman (Patricia Arquette) arrives in Burma, she's emotionally more dead than alive. Devastated by the stateside murder of her husband and child, she becomes separated from her traveling companions (Frances McDormand and Spalding Gray) - and stumbles into a conflict where millions grieve. Laura is trapped inside a government crackdown on a struggling pro-democracy movement. Soldiers fire into crowds of demonstrators. Death squads man roadway checkpoints. Rivers and jungles defy the hardiest of souls making their way to safety in Thailand. It's a journey of terror and hope for those in flight. For Laura, it's also one of discovery. By aiding others, she finds her own redemption from pain.
Date: N/A
Play Time: 70 min.
Brief Description: So many women experience birth, and yet each birth is unique. This program follows eight women giving birth in a variety of circumstances--natural birth at home and in the hospital, twins delivered by Cesarean under epidural anesthesia, induced labor with vaginal, and water birth in a hospital. The mothers range in age from 27 to 45. No attempt is made to promote one method in favor of another, and all births are seen as a triumph. The program provide both explicit footage of childbirth and commentaries by mothers, fathers, midwives, and obstetricians.
Date: 1991
Play Time: 52min.
Brief Description: Black Athena
offers a devastating indictment of 19th century scholar's systematic
denial of the connections between Greece and the non-European cultures of
the Eastern Mediterranean. It deftly summarizes the recent archaeological
evidence Bernal uses to argue that Bronze Age Greece was based on Egyptian
culture and colonization.
Leading
Classicists and Egyptologists from the US and Britain challenge Bernal's
theory. They argue that like the 19th century scholars that he attacks,
Bernal has his own evidence selectivity to support his own political
agenda.
Black Athena eschews glib
solutions to complex problems. But it provides the lay reader a guided
tour through one of the most contentious and far-reaching issues in
ancient archeology and history. It shows that the study of the past is
often a window on the passions and preoccupations of the
present.
Date: 1995
Play Time: 86 min.
Brief Description: Black Is . . . Black
Ain't weaves together the testimony of those whose complexion, class,
gender, speech, or sexuality has made them feel "too black" or "not black
enough." Scholars and artists, including Bill T. Jones, Essex Hemphill,
Angela Davis and bell hooks, as well as ordinary African Americans,
movingly recall their own struggles to discover a more inclusive
definition of "blackness." Threading the film together is Riggs' own
deeply personal quest for meaning and self-affirmation as his health
deteriorates.
In the end, Riggs locates the
essence of "blackness" in African Americans' courage from slavery down to
the present to improvise a positive meaning for their lives in the face of
overwhelming discrimination and suffering.
Date: NA
Play Time: two 27 min. segments
Brief Description: Video interviews of Julian Simon and Howard Odum
Date: 1991
Play Time: 59 min.
Brief Description: The mirror--for American
Indians it symbolized power, the sun, the Earth, its four corners, and its
people. Now, an extraordinary "mirror" is being help up to the Old and New
Worlds to reflect the diverse cultures of Spanish-speaking countries and
people, together with the themes, institutions, beliefs, and symbols that
have endured or changed through time. Vibrant and illuminating, The
Buried Mirror is an epic portrait of a remarkable history.
In his lifetime Carlos Fuentes has witnessed the
rediscovery of the ancient Aztec temples beneath the central square of
modern Mexico city. "So we found out that what we thought was dead was
really alive." He retraces the Indian world through their magnificent
pyramids and sculptures, a world of precise astronomy and human sacrifice,
serenity and violence. The return of their blond, exiled god was forecast
for the very year Cortes reached their shores. The savagery of the
conquistador equaled that of the Indian, but he brought with him a new
god, a god who sacrificed himself for men.
Director: Kon Ichikawa
Date: 1956
Play Time: 116 min.
Brief Description: A poetic trek across a
pain-filled landscape, this powerful antiwar film is a classic example of
Kon Ichikawa's (An Actor's Revenge, Fires on the Plain) visual
intensity and unyielding pacifism. Set at the close of World War II,
The Burmese Harp focuses on the obsessions that drive one Japanese
soldier to remain in Burma, even as his unit tries desperately to steal
into neutral territory. On a mission to convince renegade mountain
fighters of Japan's official surrender, the company's harp-playing scout,
Private Mizushima, is wounded, then saved by a Buddhist priest.
Ichikawa stunningly evokes Mizushima's spiritual conversion as the
private, disguised in priest's robes, traverses an endless plain of
corpses and begins the insurmountable task of burying Japan's war
dead.
Date: 1972
Play Time: 124 min.
Brief Description: Winner of eight Academy
Awards, it brings 1931 Berlin to both madcap and menacing life inside and
outside the Kit Kat Klub. There a starry-eyed singer and an impish master
of ceremonies sound the clarion call to decadent fun, while in the streets
a certain political party grows from a laughing stock into a brutal force,
shattering many lives in the process.
Cabaret caught lightning for several talents, notably
Liza Minnelli as the "divinely decadent" Sally Bowles, Joel Grey in his
starmaking Broadway role as the devilish emcee and director Bob Fosse, who
shaped a triumph of style, showmanship, and substance. All three won
Oscars, as did cinematographer Geoffrey Unsworth and musical supervisor
Ralph Burns, who adapted the dynamic John Kander/Fred Ebb score, featuring
"Mein Herr," "The Money Song," and "Maybe This Time," all newly written
for the film.
Date: 1996
Play Time: four 60 min. segments
Brief Description:
Date: 1995
Play Time: 129 min.
Brief Description: A clocker is a 24-hour drug dealer, and Strike (Mekhi Phifer) is the hardest working one on the streets. But for Strike, time is running out. When the local drug kingpin (Delroy Lindo) tips Strike off about an opportunity for advancement, a rival dealer ends up dead, and Strike suddenly finds himself caught between two homicide detectives. One is Mazilli (John Turturro), who's only looking for an easy bust. The other is Rocco (Harvey Keitel), who's looking for something much harder to find--the truth--and when Strike's law-abiding brother confesses to the murder, Rocco vows not to rest until he is sure that the real shooter is behind bars.
A Clockwork Orange
Director: Stanley Kubrick
Date: 1971
Play Time: 137 min.
Brief Description: The brutal face stares at us, filling the screen. Slowly the camera pulls back. Alex sits on the couch of the Korova Milk Bar surrounded by white scultptures of naked, submissive women. He sips milk laced with drugs to "sharpen you up and make you ready for a bit of the old ultraviolence." Thus begins Stanley Kubrick's A Clockwork Orange, a harrowing journey through a near-future world decaying cities, murderous punks and nightmarish technologies of crime and punishment. Kubrick makes of Anthony Burgess' celebrated novel a savage and satiric morality play centering on Alex (Malcolm McDowell), who fights, robs, rapes and kills like any conscienceless young predator. Captured and imprisoned, he undergoes treatment to condition him, render him "safe," a "clockwork orange" healthy and whole on the outside - but crippled within by reflex mechanisms beyond his control. But when Alex's "cure" leaves him defenseless to the revenge of his victims, what can society do for - or to - Alex next? It is a question that always galvanizes viewers of this disturbing, brilliant odyssey, which received the New York Film Critics Awards for Best Picture and Director and four Academy Award nominations.
Date: 1991
Play Time: 87 min.
Brief Description: In Color
Adjustment Marlon Riggs brings his landmark study of prejudice and
perception begun in Ethnic Notions into the television age. From Amos
'n Andy to The Cosby Show, Color Adjustment traces over
forty years of turbulent race relations through the lens of prime time
entertainment.
Black actors, Ester Rolle,
Diahann Carroll, Denise Nicholas and Tim Reid and Hollywood producers
Norman Lear, Steve Bochco and David Wolper reveal the behind the scenes
story of how prime time was "integrated." Revisiting such popular
favorites as Beulah, The Nat King Cole Show, Julia, I Spy, Good
Times, and Roots, viewers see how bitter racial conflict was
absorbed into the non-controversial formats of the prime time
series.
In two
parts: Part I: Color Blind TV?
Date: 1996
Play Time: 50 minutes
Brief Description: In 1961 and 1962, with explosive rhetoric and chilling saber-rattling, the Cold War heated up in two incidents that drove the world to the brink of nuclear war. With extensive footage from the CBS News' archives, THE 20th CENTURY relives the Bay of Pigs and the Cuban Missile Crisis. The story revolves around personalities John F. Kennedy, Nikita Kruschev and Fidel Castro. While the leaders of the tow superpowers tested each others wills in historic meetings, Castro strengthened his hold on Cuba, creating a communist bastion just 909 miles from America's shores, a situation that many in the US. could not tolerate. Here, Robert McNamara, Kennedy's Secretary of Defense, offers an exclusive, insider's view of the pivotal moments in the Bay of Pigs fiasco and the Cuban Missile Crisis. Rare footage shows Castro's rise to power, Kruschev's bombast and Kennedy facing the world in televised addresses. Scholars examine the events as they unfolded and reveal how close we came to nuclear holocaust. It is a remarkable portrait of the events and personalities that shaped the hottest moments of the Cold War.
Date: 1995
Play Time: 20 half hour stories
Brief Description: History is filled with
discoveries and inventions that although seemingly unrelated are connected
in the most surprising ways. With 20 half hour stories, writer and host
James Burke is back with the world premiere series Connections2 created
especially for the learning channel.
The
new series explores the origins and effects of those inventions that shape
the modern world we live in. Building on the success of the series he
originated for the BBC and PBS, we invite viewers on journeys that begin
in the present day and travel through history to bring to life the
extraordinary, associative nature of change.
Vol. 1: Revolutions, Sentimental Journeys, Getting
It Together, Whodunit?
Vol. 2: Something
for Nothing, Echoes of the Past, Photo Finish, Separate Ways
Vol. 3: High Times, Deja Vu, New Harmony, Hot
Pickle
Vol. 4: The Big Spin, Bright Ideas,
Making Waves, Routes
Vol. 5: One Word, Sign
Here, Better Than the Real Thing, Flexible Response
Date: 1985
Play Time: 92 min.
Brief Description: This is the ultimate
detective story--the creation of the universe. Award-winning journalist
Timothy Ferris takes viewers on a cosmic ride, from the Big Bang 15
billion years ago, to the frontiers of science today.
Dazzling special effects and colorful computer graphics make
the mysteries of the universe highly visual and understandable.
Accompanied by an entertaining musical score from the popular composer
Brian Eno, The Creation of the Universe never fails to stimulate
and surprise.
It takes viewers around the
world as well, to visit with today's great thinkers, including foremost
physicist Stephen Hawking and Nobel Prize winners Murray Gell-Mann and
Steven Weinberg. From quarks to quasars, the scientists explore a host of
provocative ideas like:
What happened in the first fraction of the first
second of the universe?
What do galaxies of
stars have in common with tiny atoms?
Why
do some scientists believe the universe is expanding?
Was every atom inside the human body once inside a
star?
Date: N/A
Play Time: N/A
Brief Description: N/A
Director: Alan Ereira and David Wallace
Date: 1995
Play Time: 50 min. per video
Brief Description:
Volume 1: Pilgrims in Arms: The Crusades began with
an appeal from the Emporer Constantine to repel the Turks from
Constantinople and fed on the pious determination of multitudes to take
Jerusalem from the infidels. Soon hordes of armed pilgrims were
marching across Europe for the Holy Land. This volume chronicles the
improbable origins of the Crusades, from Pope Urban II's hunger for
military power to the success of one of history's greatest mass
communication and recruitment campaigns. Terry Jones traces the
Crusaders' routes across Europe, and details the massacres and looting
that marked their progress. That these first holy warriors were
promptly slaughtered upon reaching Asia only fueled the religious
conflict. Within months a massive professional military force
dispatched under the pope's banner had crossed the Bosphorus, ready to
battle their way to Jerusalem.
Volume 2: Jerusalem: The Crusades had reached Asia's doorstep, but Jerusalem was still far off. Most of the Christian soldiers - along with significant numbers of infidels they met along the way - would never live to see the holy capital. This second volume chronicles the Crusaders' trail of carnage across the Middle East. Two-thirds of them would not even survive the beginning of their journey, and Terry Jones illustrates why as he attempts to duplicate their march across the harsh, rocky landscape of Anatolia in the heat of summer, wearing chain mail. Jones follows their path to Antioch, site of the famed siege whose strange outcome would encourage the savagery of the Crusaders' campaign. Their barbarous conquest of Jerusalem, where they sacked the city and butchered its inhabitants, was only a prelude to the bloodier campaigns that followed.
Volume 3: Jihad: With Jerusalem conquered, the Crusaders established a Christian kingdom that extended as far as Egypt, sparking outrage throughout the Muslim world and leading to a massive counter-offensive almost half a century later. The Muslim's recapture of Jerusalem and the Second Crusade this Arab victory provoked are colorfully captured in this volume. It's a chronicle of unholy alliances, political intrigue and fabled warriors. This time, however, the Christian soldiers weren't the only ones fighting for a religious cause. By the time the soldiers of the Second Crusade arrived in the Holy Land, Jerusalem's leader, Nur ed-Din, had declared a Jihad, or holy war, against the invaders. A final battle commanded by his successor, the legendary Saladin, would determine the ultimate fate of this Crusade.
Volume 4: Destruction: By the time of the last major campaigns to free the Holy Lands, Crusading had become an institution that had little connection with religion. The chronicles of these last Crusades unfold in this final volume. The Third Crusade added the names of Richard "the Lionheart" and Phillip of France to the roster of holy warriors, and Terry Jones examines the reality behind the legends of their noble deeds. The Fourth and final Crusade, launced as a commercial operation, sacked and looted Constantinople, the Christian city that originally inspired the holy movement. These final campaigns also produced a revolt in Egypt that destroyed the remnants of the Crusaders' Christian kingdom, ending two centuries of the epic and misguided adventures whose repercussions are still felt today.
Date: 1987
Play Time: 157 min.
Brief Description: The unforgettable
friendship of two unforgettable men. The tension and terror that is
present-day South Africa is powerfully portrayed in director Richard
Attenborough's sweeping story of black activist Steven Biko (Denzel
Washington) and a liberal white newspaper editor who risks his life to
bring Biko's message to the world.
After
learning of apartheid's true horrors through Biko's eyes, editor Donald
Woods (Kevin Kline) discovers that his friend has been silenced by the
police. Determined not to let Biko's message go unheard, Woods undertakes
a perilous quest to escape South Africa and bring Biko's remarkable tale
of courage to the world. The riveting, true story offers a stirring
account of man at his most evil and most heroic.
Director: N/A
Date: 1996
Play Time: 50 minutes
Brief Description: For more than 40 years, he has ruled his Caribbean island. A true survivor, he has seen invasions and assassination attempts, decades of isolation and the dissolution of the Soviet government that was his principal benefactor. Still, Castro survives. THE 20th CENTURY traces the Castro era in Cuba from his days as a rebel in the mountains to the brink of the 21st century. Numerous interviews with Castro including one with Edward R. Murrow from Person to Person provide a unique view of how he has changed over the years, while footage from Cuba shows the nation he inherited and transformed. A die-hard Marxist, Castro gave the Cuban people free medical care, schooling, and an egalitarian, one-class society. But it came at a price, as extreme economic privations and the ruthless treatment of dissenters has marked his rule. Here, and anti-Castro rebel tells of what it is like to fight against the man in his own country. From the obsessive campaign waged against him by the Kennedys to the fraying of the Marxist society he created, this is a remarkable portrait of the dictator who brough Communism to America's doorstep and kept it there for decades.
Date: 1959
Play Time: 83 min.
Brief Description: Burt Lancaster, Kirk Douglas, and Laurence Olivier have one deal of a good time in this spirited film based on George Bernard Shaw's famed play. The story is set in 1777. Britain's "Gentleman Johnny" Burgoyne has come to a New England town with his troops. To supress rebellion, he strings up a hapless citezen. A second hanging will double his message, so he orders the arrest of a local pastor. Instead his soldiers mistakenly bring to trial the patriotic rabble-rouser know as The Devil's Disciple. Kirk Douglas plays the title character, revelling in the role's rougish elan. As the pastor, Lancaster evolves winningly from mild man of the cloth to dashing buckskinned hero. And, in the role of Gen. Burgoyne, Olivier won critical praise by sinking his acting molars into Shaw's delightfully cynical lines.
Date: 1959
Play Time: 170 min.
Brief Description: Few stories have captured the world's imagination as the "emotionally stunning" (Newsweek) cinematic classic based on the real diary of Anne Frank (Millie Perkins), a 13-year old girl who chronicled the lives of two Jewish families hiding from the Nazis. Cramped in a tiny Amsterdam attic, Anne and seven others struggle to survive for two years as sirens in the street below remind them that Hitler's army is always waiting. Yet Anne's inquisitive mind and unceasing belief in the future soars way beyond their tragic confinement.
Dissolving Boundaries: Solving Global Problems
Director: N/A
Date: 1997
Play Time: 89 min.
Brief Description: Transportation and mass communication are dissolving borders between countries. Problems that used to be national ones now must increasingly be solved on a global level. In this program, Bill Moyers and international experts discuss a host of global issues, from the environment to racism and sexism. Isaac Asimov discusses the need for cooperation among nations in controlling population growth. Mexican novelist Carlos Fuentes cites U.S. racism against Mexicans and Mexico's historical bitterness over U.S. territorial acquisitions as obstacles to the resolution of current border problems. A discussion of the greenhouse effect advocates international controls on polluting technologies.
Date: 1989
Play Time: 120 min.
Brief Description: This powerful visual feast combines humor and drama with memorable characters while tracing the course of a single day on a block in the Bedford-Stuyvesant area of Brooklyn. It's the hottest day of the year, a scorching 24-hour period that will change the lives of its residents forever. Danny Aiello co-stars in this absorbing tale of inner-city life that heats up with vivid images and unforgettable performances.
Date: 1966
Play Time: 93 min.
Brief Description: Stanley Kubrick's classic black comedy about a group of war-eager military men who plan a nuclear apocalypse is both funny and frightening--and seems as relevant today as ever. Through a series of military and political accidents, two psychotic generals--US Air Force Commander Jack D. Ripper (Sterling Hayden) and Joint Chief of Staff "Buck" Turgidson (George C. Scott)--trigger an ingenious, irrevocable scheme to attack Russia's strategic targets with nuclear bombs. The brains behind the scheme belong to Dr. Strangelove (Peter Sellers), a wheelchair-bound nuclear scientist who has bizarre ideas about man's future. The President (also Sellers) is helpless to stop the bombers, as is Captain Mandrake (Sellers once again), the only man who can stop them.
Date: 1994
Play Time: 124 min.
Brief Description: Trouble is cooking for widower and Master Chef Chu who's about to discover that no matter how dazzling and delicious his culinary creations might be, they're no match for sex--especially to his three rebellious daughters! His youngest just learned the recipe for first love . . . his middle has something cooking with a very married co-worker, and his eldest is about to cut loose and blow the lid off years of unrequited passion! So what's a father to do? Try brewing up a secret romance of his own, in this fresh and funny film. Chinese language with English subtitles
Date: 1995
Play Time: 60 min.
Brief Description: In September of 1878,
Thomas Alva Edison announced his intention to harness Niagra Falls and
produce a safe electric incandescent light. Fourteen months later, a crowd
of spectators marvelled as the first electric lights cast their glow over
the grounds at Edison's factory in Menlo Park.
To many, Edison was a god-like figure who manipulated
lighting. Still, the public was suspicious, their fears reinforced when
poorly insulated power cables electrocuted both animals and people. So
Edison staged an "Electric Torch Parade" and launched a publicity campaign
worthy of P.T. Barnum. Finally in 1887, J. P. Morgan, once a skeptic, paid
almost two million dollars to buy the business the Edison General Electric
Company.
Competition in the new industry
was brutal. It was Edison and his system of direct current versus George
Westinghouse's use of alternating current. The two waged a legendary
battle that culminated in Edison's endorsement of the first electric
chair. Edison's plan was to discredit Westinghouse and show how dangerous
his system was. But the plan backfired and it was Edison's own reputation
that was damaged by the grisly spectacle. In the end, even Edison's own
board of directors came down on the side of alternating current and forced
the inventor out of the business and industry that he had created. Edison
did not set foot inside GE for the next 30 years.
Director: N/A
Date: N/A
Play Time: 29 min.
Brief Description: The technology of cloning has raised a host of moral, ethical, and religious questions, and this program examines many of them. The "dangers" of cloning, from shrinking gene pools, to the development of a "super race", to fears that cloned DNA could introduce genetic flaws into the population, are examined. A theologian discusses how cloning changes our notion of soul. Harold Shapiro, Chair of President Clinton's Commission on Cloning, comments on the recent five-year ban on the cloning of humans, and a cloning expert discusses government regulation versus the freedom of scientific inquiry. A panel discussion in which experts debate ethical issues concludes the program.
Date: 12/4/96 and 4/16/97
Play Time: N/A
Brief Description: N/A
Date: 1987
Play Time: 57 min.
Brief Description: Ethnic Notions is
the award-winning documentary which takes viewers on a disturbing voyage
through American history. It traces for the first time the evolution of
the deeply rooted stereotypes which have fueled anti-black
prejudice.
Loyal Toms, carefree Sambos,
faithful Mammies, grinning Coons, savage brutes, and wide-eyed
Pickaninnies roll across the screen in cartoons, feature films, popular
songs, advertisements, household artifacts, even children's rhymes. These
dehumanizing caricatures permeated popular culture from the 1820's to the
Civil Rights era and implanted themselves deep in the American
psyche.
Narration by Ester Rolle and
commentary by respected scholars shed light on the origins and devastating
consequences of the 150-year-long parade of bigotry.
Date: 1993
Play Time: 90 min.
Brief Description: Experience Anna Deavere Smith's acclaimed one-woman play that represents a compelling view of urban racial and class conflict. Using interwoven monologues, Ms. Smith assumes the personalities of nearly 30 characters--young, old, male, female, black, white--caught in the racial turmoil that erupted in the Crown Heights area of Brooklyn, New York, following the death of an Amfrican-American child and the stabbing of a 29-year old Hasidic rabbinical student.
Date: 1994
Play Time: Eight 49 min. volumes
Brief Description:
Volume 1 The Ancestors: Long Before Columbus' voyage, millions of people inhabited the expanse from Central America to the Arctic. "So how is it we know so little about this past, the human history of North America?" asks executive producer Kevin Costner in his introduction to 500 Nations. "The truth is we have a story worth talking about . . . a history worth celebrating." Using archival first-hand accounts, location filming, virtual reality recreations and more, the spellbinding miniseries 500 Nations brings that history to the forefront. Volume 1: The Ancestors explores three stunning cultures of North America. The Anasazi transform the arid Southwest and construct the imposing 800-room Pueblo Bonito, depicted inside and out via computer animation. At Mesa Verde, Cliff Palace provides a glimpse into a prospering society. Near present-day St. Louis is bustling Cahokia, the largest city in the US before 1800--yet few have ever heard of this fascinating realm.
Volume 2 Mexico: Without contact with Europe or Asia, the Mexican Indian Nations used their own great skills to build magnificent cities. But in 1519, as Hernando Cortez came ashore under the Spanish flag, it was the beginning of the end. Leading armoured men with sophisticated weapons and thousands of Mexican allies, Cortez challenged the empire of the Aztecs. The Indians of Central Mexico and dramatic eyewitness accounts of the Aztec-Spanish War highlight Volume 2: Mexico. A series of conflicts solidifies the power of the Toltecs for centuries in the Valley of Mexico. By 1300 AD, a conquering nomadic people--who would become the Aztecs--arrive in the area. Their majestic city Tenochtitlan becomes the center of an empire and the objective of Cortez, who sinks his ships in the harbor so his men cannot turn back from the fight.
Volume 3 Clash of Cultures: When Columbus arrived in 1492. Spaniards estimated that 2 million Taino people lived on Hispaniola, today's Haiti and Dominican Republic. After 1496, there were less than 700,000. By the end of the 1500's the Taino people were extinct. Native peoples confront Spanish expeditions into the Caribbean and the southeastern United States in Volume 3 Clash of Culture. On Hispaniola, Indian overtures of friendship and commerce run aground against the outsider's belief that wealth belongs to those strong enough to take it. Conflict erupts, and the names of Guacanagari, Enrique, and the female leader Anacauna are emblazoned across a tapestry of heroics and tragedy. Inhabitants in Florida and the Mississppi Valley also confront an intractable force: the conquistadors of Hernando De Soto. Timicua, Coosa and more nations defy a plundering advance that subjects them to two unconquerable weapons: muskets . . . and disease.
Volume 4 Invasion of the Coast: After an unbearable winter, surviving Pilgrims are astonished by the arrival of a native who, even more improbably, greets them in English. He is Samoset, who returns with a more fluent English speaker: Squanto (Tisquantum), a former slave who had lived in England. Names and events ingrained in our national perspective in Volume 4: Invasion of the Coast. The program opens in the Arctic, where the search for a Northwest Passage directly impacts the Inuit people. At Jamestown, the story of the Powhatan princess, Pocahontas, unfolds. Did Pocahontas really save Captain John Smith? The evidence says otherwise. At Plymouth, Wampanoagas introduce Pilgrims to a harvest celebration: Thanksgiving. But harmony ultimately turns to hostility. Enraged by colonial expansion and Puritan intolerance, Massasoit's son leads the bloodiest of all colonial Indian wars in 1675.
Volume 5 Cauldron of War: In 1776, 13 colonies united in a war to gain independence from England. But the nation that resulted from the conflict was not the first democracy in America. That distinction belongs to the Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) nation, independent states whose democratic framework was an inspiration to Benjamin Franklin when he met the Iroquois leaders in 1754. Europe fights for control of American resources, turning Indian homelands into a Cauldron of War. In Volume 5, many indigenous nations side with the trade-oriented French rather than the land-claiming English in the fierce French and Indian War. When the defeated French withdraw from the Ohio Valley and leave their Indian allies vulnerable, a determined leader arise to prominence: Pontiac. A decade after Pontiac's war, the colonies assert their right to form a democracy in a revolution that, ironically splinters the democratic Iroquois nation.
Volume 6 Removal: They were called "civilized tribes" because they embraced the American ways. They were the Chickasaws and Choctaws of Mississippi, the Cherokee and Creeks of Georgia and Alabama, the seminoles of Florida. But their attempts to mirror American society did not alter the US policy of Removal that uprooted them from their homes and resulted in the sorrowful Trail of Tears. Tales of tragedy and heroism unfold in Volume 6. Shawnee leader Tecumseh challenges the tide of history, sparking a return to traditional ways and seizing upon the War of 1812 as the means to restore Indian sovereignity. In 1830 the Indian Removal Act became law. Many tribes stoically accept its decree. Others resist. In a dramatic showdown, Tsali bargains his life for the fate of the Cherokee people--and for a Smoky Mountains homeland that exists to this day.
Volume 7 Roads Across the Plains: Spanish missions establish control of the California coast. From the East comes an ever-expanding flow of settlers and gold-fevered prospectors. In between are the Cheyenne, Kiowa, Sioux and other nations who depend on buffalo herds for food and clothing. Millions of the lumbering beasts roam the grasslands; a heard crossing a railroad track would sometimes stop a train for hours. But in 1890, only 1000 buffalo remained. "Horse culture" nations increasingly faced subjugation or annihilation in Volume 7: Roads Across the Plains. Black Kettle and White Antelope, honored by President Lincoln, pursue a path of peace that meets with tragedy at Sand Creek. The treacherous massacre there by Col. Chivington's militia has repercussions across the plains, and Sitting Bull, Crazy Horse and other leaders head fierce pockets of resistance to resettlement.
Volume 8 Attack On Culture: Indian defiance of settlers and soldiers weakens. "I will fight no more forever," Chief Joseph of the Nez Perce says after his heroic flight for freedom. Apaches resist confinement longer than any other nation, but Geronimo himself becomes a prisoner of war. By the late 1880's, the US Army has battled nearly all indigenous nations onto reservations. The war has now become an Attck on Culture. Volume 8 explores the legislative attack on native ways including the disbanding of communal land. Reservations are divided into 160-acre parcels that are offered to individual Indians; the remaining vast expanses are sold. In 1889, the Oklahoma Land Rush grabs up remnant land that decades before was given to the "civilized tribes" as a perpetual home. Today, the renewal of native culture provides a vital reminder of the glory of America's original people and the hardships they endured.
Date: 1990
Play Time: 111 min.
Brief Description: Are you afraid to die? Kiefer Sutherland isn't. He's an ambitious medical student who persuades classmates Julia Roberts and Kevin Bacon to take part in a reckless experiment. To see if there is life after death, they will kill themselves, temporarily shut down ("flatline") their heart and brain functions to briefly experience clinical death. After Sutherland survives the first experiment, the others flatline for increasing longer intervals. But their horror begins when they realize that although they've come back alive . . they haven't come back alone. Flatliners is a chilling suspense thriller of obsession, fear, and redemption that will take you across a line to a place where terror lives forever.
Date: N/A
Play Time: 34 min.
Brief Description: In 1994, close to one
million people were killed in a planned and systematic genocide in the
African country of Rwanda. How did this carnage occur when the world
declared after WWII that it would never tolerate such violence? Who was
responsible? Why did the international community fail to respond? What
role do we play as human rights advocates?
This documentary attempts to answer these questions.
Accompanied by an educational packet, the video examines Rwanda as a case
study of the human rights challenge of 21st century. Forsaken Cries
incorporates historical footage of the colonial period, interviews with
genocide survivors, and analyses of the following issues:
Date: 1988
Play Time: 28 min.
Brief Description: Maryland's Harriet Tubman, sometimes known as "Moses", helped more than 300 slaves escape from slavery by hiding them in homes of abolitionists. The Freedom Station is a poignant drama set in 1850 in a root cellar in a safe house along Tubman's Underground Railroad. A young escaped slave girl meets a farm girl from an abolitionist family. Their shared experiences and the development of their relationship defines the hardships of slavery, the legal and moral dilemnas facing abolitionists and the complexities of freedom.
Date: 1993
Play Time: 98 min.
Brief Description: Freshman year. What could
be more demanding, disorienting, exhilirating, and depressing?
Two award-winning flimmakers spent a year living
with a diverse group of freshmen in a co-ed, multicultural residence hall
at Stanford University. They videotaped 2:00AM bull sessions, classes,
inside a co-ed bathroom, and trips home for Christmas and Spring Break.
The result is an unprecedented look inside today's freshmen world of scary
freedoms and challenging new lifestyles.
These 1990's freshmen face such age-old problems as alcohol,
drugs, dating, grade anxiety, work overload. But they must also deal with
issues like multiculturalism, "hate speech" codes and gender
confusion.
In Frosh, tomorrow's
Americans confront the question of who they are, how they'll relate to
each other and what values they'll bring to the society of the future. In
a sense, they form a microcosm of the uncertainties and opportunities all
Americans face in their searches for new identities and
communities.
Play Time: 57 min.
Brief Description: Public Television's highest rated public affairs series, Frontline has been nationally recognized with Emmy, Peabody Awards, and duPont-Columbia awards. At the height of the Rust Belt primaries, Frontline goes to Milwaukee where presidential candidates tap the deep-seated anxiety and insecurity that fuels tensions between American businesses and their employees. This program looks behind the heated political rhetoric to see how companies, workers, and civic leaders are wrestling with global competition and the end of an era of industrial affluence. In a volatile economic climate, what do coporations owe their employees and their communities?
Date: N/A
Play Time: 188 min. total
Brief Description: N/A
Director: Andrew Niccol
Date: 1997
Play Time: 106 min.
Brief Description: Ethan Hawke, Uma Thurman, Alan Arkin, and Jude Law star in this engrossing sci-fi thriller about an all-too-human man who dares to defy a system obsessed with genetic perfection. Hawke stars as Vincent, and "In-Valid," who assumes the identity of a member of the genetic elite to pursue his goal of traveling into space with the Gattaca Aerospace Corporation. However, a week before his mission, a murder marks Vincent as a suspect. With a relentless investigator in pursuit and the colleague he has fallen in love with beginning to suspect his deception, Vincent's dreams steadily unravel.
Date: 1989
Play Time: 122 min.
Brief Description: The heart-stopping story
of the first black regiment to fight for the North in the Civil War,
Glory stars Mathew Broderick, Denzel Washington, Cary Elwes, and
Morgan Freeman. Broderick and Elwes are the idealistic young Bostonians
who lead the regiment; Freeman is the inspirational sergeant who unites
the troops; and Denzel Washington in an Oscar-winning performance, is the
runaway slave who embodies the indomitable spirit of the 54th Regiment of
Massachusetts.
Despised by the South,
distrusted by the North, the 54th overcame seemingly insurmountable odds
in their fight to join the war for freedom. Underpaid and ill-equipped,
facing certain death at the hands of the Confederacy, the 54th rose to
every challenge; from racism within the ranks to the harrowing final
battle, their courage, skill, and sacrifice paved the way for the Union's
ultimate victory.
Gods and
Monsters
Director: Bill
Condon
Date: 1998
Running Time: 106 min.
Brief Description: Ian McKellen delivers a riveting, award-winning performance as Hollywood horro director James Whale. It's 1957, and Whale's heyday as the director of "Frankenstein," "Bride of Frankenstein," and "The Invisible Man" is long behind him. Retired and a semi-recluse, he lives his days accompanied only by images from his past. When his dour housekeeper, Hannah (Lynn Redgrave), hires a handsome young gardener, Clayton Boone (Brendan Fraser), the flamboyant director and the simple yardman develop an unlikely friendship. This powerful and poignant relationship will change their lives forever.
Date: N/A
Play Time: N/A
Brief Description: N/A
Date: N/A
Play Time: 28 min.
Brief Description: N/A
Director: Fred Zinneman
Date: 1952
Play Time: 85 min.
Brief Description: Gary Cooper won the Oscar for Best Actor in this classic tale of an aging lawman who stands alone to defend a town of righteous cowards in one of the greatest showdowns in the history of cinema. The movie also marks the first starring role for a beautiful, young actress who went on to become one of Hollywood's most beloved screen legends - Grace Kelly. High Noon garnered a total of four Academy Awards including Best Editing, Score and Original Song.
Date: N/A
Play Time: N/A
Brief Description: N/A
Date: N/A
Play Time: 44 min. total
Brief Description: N/A
Date: 1/31/96
Play Time: N/A
Brief Description: N/A
Date: N/A
Play Time: N/A
Brief Description: N/A
Date: N/A
Play Time: N/A
Brief Description: N/A
Date: 2/28/94
Play Time: N/A
Brief Description: N/A
Date: 1995
Play Time: 118 min.
Brief Description: All Frank Custer wanted was a better life for himself and his family. What he got was a job on The Killing Floor and a place in history. Set in the early 1900's, this powerful true story retells the often brutal and violent beginnings of the US Labor Movement through the eyes of a Southern black sharecropper who finds work in a Chicago slaughterhouse. After witnessing the inhumane conditions in the plants, he is slowly transformed into an activist for the fledging interracial union. But tension mounts between blacks and whites and a violent confrontation erupts turning the streets of Chicago into the ultimate "Killing Floor."
Director: Curtis Hanson
Date: 1997
Play Time: 156 Min.
Brief Description: L.A. Confidential is "tough, gorgeous and vastly entertaining" (Janet Maslin, The New York Times), "a genuine masterpiece that will knock your socks off" (Rex Reed) and won Academy Awards for Best Supporting Actress (Kim Basinger) and Best Adaptation Screenplay (Brian Helgeland and Curtis Hanson). Director Hanson and a terrific cast serve up a "ravishing, thrilling tale of police sorruption and Hollywood glamour in this adaptation of James Ellroy's novel. Three cops (Kevin Spacey, Russell Crowe, Guy Pearce), a call girl (Basinger), a mysterious millionaire (David Strathairn), a tabloid journalist (Danny DeVito) and the Chief of Detectives (James Cromwell) fuel a labyrinthine plot rife with mystery, ambition, romance and humor.
Date: 12/6/95
Play Time: N/A
Brief Description: N/A
Date: 1988
Play Time: 30 min.
Brief Description: This program traces early scientific work in the 1920's and places it in the context of contemporary research into the brain. Modern scientists think that the basic functional unit of memory is a cell assembly, a group of neurons that work together for one specific remembering task. Viewers are shown experiments that demonstrate this "pathmaking." The latest theories on the mechanisms of the brain unfold for students in this special series.
Life, Times and Wonders of
Athens and Ancient Greece
Director: N.A.
Date: 1995
Play Time: 70 min.
Brief Description: Ancient Greece and 25 of the most significant structures and monuments, as originally built, come alive as Greek customs and daily life are revealed through computer graphics, archival film and classis art. Tour the Acropolis in the 5th Century B.C. Gaze at the Statue of Athena and the Parthenon, the pride and joy of the Athenians. Walk the Agora, Theatre of Dionysus, Olympia (home of the Olympic Games) and The Temple of Zeus. Stand before Delphi's Temple of Apollo where the oracle spoke. Travel to Mycenae, City of Agamemnon; Santorini and Atlantis, the legendary lost continent. It's all here - places and events that have fired the imaginations of people for centuries. Greek Gods and Goddesses, thinkers and builders, athletes and heroes. Ancient Greece was a civilization like no other in history.
Date: 1992
Play Time: 105 min.
Brief Description: Based on the best-selling book--now, experience for yourself the erotic tale of forbidden love that seduced both critics and audiences nationwide! Tita and Pedro are passionately in love. But their love is forbidden by an ancient family tradition. To be near Tita, Pedro marries her sister. And Tita, as the family cook, expresses her passion for Pedro through preparing delectable dishes. Now, in Tita's kitchen, ordinary spices become a recipe for passion. Her creations bring on tears of longing, heated desire or chronic pain--while Tita and Pedro wait for the moment to fulfill their most hidden pleasures.
Date: 2/21/97
Play Time: N/A
Brief Description: N/A
Date: 1992
Play Time: 201 min.
Brief Description: Filmmaker Spike Lee and actor Denzel Washington join other top talents to bring to the screen the life and times of Malcolm X. "Here's a man who rose up from the dregs of society, spent time in jail, reeducated himself, and, through spiritual enlightenment, rose to the top," says Lee. "This is an incredible story and I know it will inspire people."
Play Time: 30 min.
Brief Description: One of a twelve volume collection of Black American biographies about the militant black leader, Malcolm X.
Date: 1966
Play Time: 120 min.
Brief Description: Catherine, Henry VIII's wife, has been unable to produce an heir to the throne. Henry (Rober Shaw), having fallen in love with Anne Boleyn, asks the Pope to grant him a divorce. The King is backed by everyone except the highly regarded Sir Thomas More (Paul Scofield). When Cardinal Wolsey (Orson Welles), Chancellor of England, names More as his successor, it becomes increasingly important for Henry to get More's support. But More cannot be swayed. Henry demands the clergy to renounce the Pope and name him the head of the Church of England. Cromwell (Leo McKern), leader of the divorce campaign, frames More, forcing him to resign as Chancellor. Eventually, More is brought to trial, found guilty of treason, and beheaded.
Date: 1975
Play Time: 129 min.
Brief Description: They rarely make them
this way anymore--but they should. Based on a Rudyard Kipling story and
packed with spectacle, humor, excitement and bold twists of fate, John
Huston's film of The Man Who Would Be King earns its crown as one
of the greatest screen adventures.
Sean
Connery and Michael Caine--chins out, shoulders squared with an
occassionaly sly wink--star as British sergeants Danny Dravot and Peachy
Carnehan. The empire was built by men like these two. Now they're out to
build an empire of their own: they're venturing into remote Kafiristan to
become rich as kings.
Date: 1953
Play Time: 105 min.
Brief Description: In this film is the work of a man, Martin Luther, and his efforts to reform, his excommunications, and the developments that led to the origin and the growth of the protestant movement. Fear for sin and God's judgement struck fear in Martin Luther's heart. Like many others in the 16th century, the young law student sought shelter in a monastery. No matter what he did, he was unable to escape the fear of evil and punishment. Luther fought against the sale of indulgences. He demanded that the church of his day be cleansed of secular abuse and that the authority for doctrine and practice be scripture rather than Popes or council. To bring up the abuse of indulgences for debate, he nailed 95 points of argument on the church door. This argument split the Roman Catholic Church and the Holy Roman Empire. Labeled as a heretic, excommunicated by the Pope and banished and condemned by the Empire, Luther's beliefs gave birth to an evangelical movement that quickly spread throughout Europe and the world.
The Mechanical Universe...and Beyond
Director: N/A
Date: 1985/1987
Play Time: N/A
Brief Description: A visually splendid
introductory physics course, The Mechanical Universe...
and Beyond combbines computer graphics and
dramatic reenactments of the history of science with introductory lectures
by Caltech's David L. Goodstein. This in-depth adventure of the mind
traces the interaction of ideas from Aristottle to Einstein to explain the
theories of Copernicus, Kepler, and Newton. The programs clearly
explain and illustrate classical mechanics and modern physics.
Part 1:
1.
Introduction to the Mechanical Universe
2.
The Law of Falling Bodies
3.
Derivatives
4. Inertia
5. Vectors
6. Newton's
Laws
7. Integration
8. The Apple and the Moon
9.
Moving in Circles
10. Fundamental
Forces
11. Gravity, Electricity,
Magnetism
12. The Millikan
Experiment
13. Conservation of
Energy
14. Potential Energy
15. Conservation of Momentum
16. Harmonic Motion
17.
Resonance
18. Waves
19. Angular Momentum
20.
Torques and Gyroscopes
21. Kepler's Three
Laws
22. The Kepler Problem
23. Energy and Eccentricity
24. Navigating in Space
25.
Kepler to Einstein
26. Harmony of the
Spheres
Part 2:
27.
Beyond the Mechanical Universe
28. Static
Electricity
29. The Electric Field
30. Potential and Capacitance
31. Voltage, Energy, and Force
32. The Electric Battery
33.
Electric Circuits
34. Magnetism
35. The Magnetic Field
36. Vector Fields and Hydrodynamics
37. Electromagnetic Induction
38. Alternating Current
39.
Maxwell's Equations
40. Optics
41. The Michelson-Morley Experiment
42. The Lorentz Transformation
43. Velocity and Time
44.
Mass, Momentum, Energy
45. Temperature and
Gas Laws
46. Engine of Nature
47. Entropy
48. Low
Temperatures
49. The Atom
50. Particles and Waves
51.
From Atoms to Quarks
52. The Quantum
Mechanical Universe
Date: 1986
Play Time: 125 min.
Brief Description: A river flowing through a
dense rain forest bears in its turbulence a martyred Jesuit priest bound
to a rough-hewn cross. The dreadful crucifix tumbles through rock-strewn
rapids until, in a moment thick with terror and hypnotic beauty, it
plunges 200 feet down the roaring swirl of a waterfall.
That astonishing scene opens The Mission, a powerful
epic about a man of the sword (Robert DeNiro) and a man of the cloth
(Jeremy Irons) who unit to shield a South American Indian tribe from
brutal subjugation by 18th century colonial empires. Sweeping, lyrical,
visually resplendent, The Mission triumphs on two levels:
intellectually as a clash between faith and greed, and emotionally as an
action-filled clash of wills and cultures.
The Mission brings together many of the talents of
The Killing Fields, including co-producer David Puttnam, director
Roland Joffe and cinematographer Chris Menges. Their artistry, combined
with impassioned acting, writing, and music, makes The Mission one
of history's most haunting films.
Date: 1995
Play Time: 58 min.
Brief Description: Narrated by actors Ossie Davis and Ruby Dee, Mississippi America documents an important chapter in the history of the civil rights movement in the United States. This program gives testimony to persistence and courage in the face of oppression, as citizens and the lawyers who volunteered to help them confront life-threatening violence and government repression in order to win the right to vote.
Modern
Marvels: Clocks
Director:
N/A
Date: 1996
Play Time: 50 min.
Brief Description: N/A
Modern Marvels: Household Wonders
Director: N/A
Date: 1997
Play Time: 50 min.
Brief Description: N/A
Director: N/A
Date: 1996
Play Time: 50 min.
Brief Description: N/A
Modern Philosphy Moral Philosophy
Director: N/A
Date: 1997
Play Time: 46 min.
Brief Description: In this program, R.M. Hare examines the 19th-century philosophy of Utilitarianism - morals and legislation predicated on the greates happiness for the greatest numbers - in the tradition of Bentham, James and aJ.S. Mills, and Sidgwick. Hare also analyzes how 20th-century philospohers, including Karl Marx, applied utilitarian philosophical concepts to social, political, and economic questions.
Director: N/A
Date: 1996
Play Time: 30 min.
Brief Description: This program profiles the Native American Pulitzer prize-winning author, painter, poet and teacher N. Scott Momaday whose poetic writings so clearly evoke the life and land of the Southwest. Seldom has the Native American experience been caught with such imagination, insight and authenticity as in Momaday's books. But he is not only a master at writing about his own people; his work penetrates universal sensitivities. The author brings understanding to whatever element of human dilemma is under his microscope, reflecting the feelings and experiences of his reader. Momaday reads from his own memoirs and shares revealing personal life stories with the viewers.
Date: 1996
Play Time: 58 min.
Brief Description: This program explores the questions: Have our national leaders failed the middle class? Is social mobility still a hallmark of American society? Should the government try to close the gap between the haves and the have-nots?
Date: 1995
Play Time: 83 min.
Brief Description: Beijing. May 1989. The world watched as a hundred students became a thousand, a thousand became ten thousand, as thousands became a million--and a nation starved for freedom cried out for a taste of democracy. In this compelling film, director Michael Apted (Nell, Gorillas in the Mist), captures the power and passion of the Tiananmen Square uprising through a unique combination of newsreel footage, dramatic re-enactments and extensive input from actual student leaders. Exploring their personal histories, reflections and thoughts on the future. Moving the Mountain paints a portrait of courage, conviction and commitment.
Natural Born
Killers
Director: Oliver
Stone
Date: 1994
Play Time: 118 minutes
Brief Description: They didn't win a Nobel Prize, throw a record fastball or travel another acceptable path to fame. What fugitive lovers Mickey and Mallory Knox did was kill people. Lots of people. The media took care of the rest. Three time Academy Award winner Oliver Stone delivers a powerful movie experience unlike any he's ever made and you've ever seen: Natural Born Killers, a visually dazzling, wickedly funny slam of violence and media obsession that's "the most radical film any major studio has released since A Clockwork Orange" (Stephen Schiff, The New Yorker). As Mickey and Mallory, Woody Harrelson and Juliette Lewis portray the kind of crazymixedup kids a demon has nightmares about. And Robert Downey, Jr., Tommy Lee Jones, Tom Sizemore and Rodney Dangerfield make vivid impressions in this wild ride that packs a wallop. "You ain't seen nothin' yet." Not until you see Natural Born Killers.
Nerds:
2.0.1: A Brief History of the Internet
Director: N/A
Date: 1998
Play Time: 60 min. per video
Brief Description:
Volume 1: Networking the Nerds: In this sequel
to the 1996 hit Triumph of the Nerds, Bob Cringely, a self-proclaimed nerd
and industry gossip columnist, leads viewers through the ins and outs of
one of the most exciting and volatile industries on the planet - the
Internet. In this episode, we learn how the seeds of the Internet
were planted by Uncle Sam and how we owe it all to Sputnik. In
reaction to Russia's leap ahead in technology, President Eisenhower and
the Pentagon developed a new agency called ARPA. Developed by a
small Massachusetts company BB&N, ARPAnet was created to connect
computer researchers at universities across the nation. In nine
months flat, the technology was invented, built and installed on time and
on budget - and this was a government project?
Volume 2: Serving the Suits: Enter the PC. With a proliferation of computers in the 1980's, the first logical step was to connect them all to a network. Logical, maybe, but first someone had to figure out how to do it. That guy was Bob Metcalfe, founder of 3Com who became the industry's first millionaire. As the market for networking evolved, the battle for the office began in earnest. 3Com, Sun, Novell, Cisco and a little company called Microsoft entered the market creating a civil wat and billion-dollar partnerships.
Volume 3: Wiring the World: In this final episode, we visit Excite, a success story that keeps growing. Excite began like m