Pulse: A Stomp Odyssey (2002), ShowBusiness: The Road to Broadway (2005), Gypsy Caravan (2006), Been Rich All My Life (2006), The Royal Ballet (1960), Crazy Horse (1996), The Secret Policeman's Ball (1979), Opening Night (1977) ... Let's take a look at the ranked list of the best Performing Arts movies.
Storyline: Retired actor Serge (Fabrice Luchini) is approached by Gauthier (Lambert Wilson) to star in a play, but he plays hard to get. Serge's new lover, the play's producer, and his agent arrive on the same weekend to pressure him to make up his mind.
Plot Keywords: comedy, drama, french film, art, literature, friendship, dialogue-driven ...
Movie Details Click Here !Storyline: A town of Blaine, Missouri is preparing for celebrations of its 150th anniversary. Corky St.Clair, an off-off-off-off-off-Broadway director is putting together an amateur theater show about the town's history, starring a local dentist, a couple of travel agents, a Dairy Queen waitress, and a car repairman. He invites a Broadway theater critic Mr. Guffman to see the opening night of the show.
Plot Keywords: comedy, mockumentary, musical, small town life, over-the-top acting, satire, improvisation ...
Movie Details Click Here !Storyline: This inspirational and heartfelt documentary follows four well-known entertainers in the deaf community: a comic, a drummer, an actor and a singer as they attempt to cross over and reach mainstream audiences. These uniquely talented deaf entertainers of various disciplines overcome great challenges on their way to personal triumphs and professional success. Bob, a drummer in the world's only deaf rock band, Beethoven's Nightmare, produces the largest show in the band's 30 year history; CJ, a hugely famous and internationally renowned comic in the Deaf world, but virtually unknown to hearing audiences, fights to cross over to the mainstream by producing the first international sign language theatre festival in Los Angeles; Robert, a brilliant actor who teaches at Juilliard, struggles to survive when he becomes homeless, his health compromised by HIV; and TL, a hard of hearing singer finds herself caught between the hearing and deaf communities when she attracts her first major producer to record her first CD "Not Deaf Enough." Chronicled with rare intimacy and candor, SEE WHAT I'M SAYING: THE DEAF ENTERTAINERS DOCUMENTARY is the first open captioned commercial film in American history. At the same time, it opens the door to deaf culture as it allows the sign language in the film to be accessible to all audiences. Director Hilari Scarl captures with insight and honesty the humor and emotion, the struggles and obstacles these performers face daily, not just on stage but in life.—David Magdael
Plot Keywords: documentary, entertainment industry, performing arts, music, comedy, actors, american film ...
Movie Details Click Here !Storyline: Pakeezah is the story of a beautiful courtesan named Sahibjaan who is unable to break away from the cycle of prostitution until a young forest ranger named Salim falls in love with her enthralling beauty and innocence. Unfortunately, his wealthy parents are against their union.
Plot Keywords: romance, drama, indian cinema, classic, musical, song and dance, tragedy ...
Movie Details Click Here !Storyline: As the title suggests, this dramatised documentary about the eccentric Canadian pianist Glenn Gould is broken up into thirty-two short films (mirroring the thirty-two part structure of Bach's 'Goldberg Variations', the recording that Gould made famous), each giving us an insight into some aspect of Gould's life and career. Out of respect for the music lead actor Colm Feore is never seen playing the piano, merely reacting to Gould's own recordings, which are extensively featured—Michael Brooke <michael@everyman.demon.co.uk>
Plot Keywords: biography, musician, classical music, piano, experimental, anthology, docudrama ...
Movie Details Click Here !Storyline: Early twentieth century New York. Fanny Brice knows that she is a talented comedienne and singer. She also knows that she is not the beauty typical of the stage performers of the day, she with skinny legs and a crooked nose among other physical issues. So she knows she has to use whatever other means to get her break in show business, that break so that she can at least display her talents. With the help of Eddie Ryan who would become her friend, Fanny is able to get a part in a novelty act in a vaudeville show, the renown from which eventually comes to the attention of famed impresario Florenz Ziegfeld Jr.. Fanny does become one of the Ziegfeld Follies most popular acts, despite she almost getting fired after her first performance by defying Flo's artistic vision for her closing number. Beyond stage success, Fanny also wants a happy personal life, most specifically with the suave Nicky Arnstein, a gambler in every respect of the word. Fanny loves him and loves that he loves her ...
Plot Keywords: musical, biography, comedy, romance, drama, classic, hollywood ...
Movie Details Click Here !Storyline: Danny Rose is a manager of artists, and although he's not very successful, he nevertheless goes out of his way to help his acts. So when Lou Canova, a singer who has a chance of making a come-back, asks Danny to help him with a problem, Danny helps him. This problem is Lou's mistress Tina. Lou wants Tina to be at his concerts, otherwise he can't perform, but he's married, so Danny has to take her along as if she was his girlfriend. Danny however gets more than he has bargained for when two mobsters come looking for the guy who has hurt their brother by stealing the heart of Tina, the girl he loves.
Plot Keywords: comedy, drama, american film, black and white film, new york, show business, romance ...
Movie Details Click Here !Storyline: Director Al Pacino juxtaposes scenes from Richard III, scenes of rehearsals for Richard III, and sessions where parties involved discuss the play, the times that shaped the play, and the events that happened at the time the play is set. Interviews with mostly British actors are also included, attempting to explain why American actors have more problems performing Shakespearean plays than they do.—Ron Kerrigan <mvg@whidbey.com>
Plot Keywords: documentary, shakespeare, drama, film production, actors, american film, director ...
Movie Details Click Here !Storyline: The Nazi propaganda mastermind behind Hitler speaks in first person as actor Kenneth Branagh reads pages of the diary kept by the chief of propaganda, Joseph Goebbels, revealing the man's most inner thoughts. Joseph Goebbels (1897-1945) was a symbol of Germany's Nazi regime and a twentieth-century icon of maniacal cruelty. His name has been synonymous with cynical, unscrupulous, and at times successful, propaganda. The life of Joseph Goebbels is far more complicated and disturbing than labels like "genius of spin" or "Reich Liar-General" would suggest. The chronicle shows how Goebbels continually "restaged" and reinvented himself -- from his early days as a radical "popular socialist" to his tragic end. The film lets Goebbels speak for himself through the diaries he kept without interruption from 1924 to 1945, as never before seen historical footage from German archives traces the life of the second most powerful man of the Third Reich, detailing his initial attraction to the Nazi party and his adoration of Hitler. The result is a fascinating psycho-gram of a man who careened extravagantly between self-pity, wild extermination fantasies, and political excesses.—Sujit R. Varma
Plot Keywords: comedy, french film, drama, actor's life, show business, humor, satire ...
Movie Details Click Here !Storyline: The musical career of rock and roll pioneer Buddy Holly is chronicled, from the days when "Peggy Sue" was "Cindy Lou", a song about his first girlfriend, to the meteoric run of "That'll Be the Day" up the charts, to his marriage, breakup with the Crickets, reunion with the Crickets, and untimely death.—Jason A. Cormier <wildrose@mindspring.com>
Plot Keywords: biographical, musical, drama, 1950s, singer, composer, rise to fame ...
Movie Details Click Here !Storyline: Well-known actress Behnaz Jafari is left distraught when she comes across a provincial girl's video plea for help, after her family prevents her from taking up her studies at the Tehran drama conservatory. Behnaz abandons her shoot and turns to filmmaker Jafar Panahi to help with the young girl's troubles. They travel by car to the rural northwest, where they have amusing encounters with the charming and generous folk of the girl's mountain village. But Behnaz and Jafar also discover that old traditions die hard.—Anonymous
Plot Keywords: drama, road movie, social critique, cultural conflict, rural life, moral dilemma, realism ...
Movie Details Click Here !Storyline: From the first time he performed Swimming to Cambodia - the one-man account of his experience of making the 1984 film The Killing Fields - Spalding Gray made the art of the monologue his own. Drawing unstintingly on the most intimate aspects of his own life, his shows were vibrant, hilarious and moving. His death came tragically early, in 2004; this compilation of interview and performance footage nails his idiosyncratic and irreplaceable brilliance.—Edinburgh International Film Festival
Plot Keywords: documentary, biography, monologue, actor's life, personal history, memoir, art ...
Movie Details Click Here !Storyline: With only one month left until the premiere of her long-awaited solo show, acclaimed actress Robertina lives in a state of anxiety that turns her privileged life into an absurd and tumultuous landscape.
Plot Keywords: drama, thriller, mystery, psychological, female lead, independent film, art film ...
Movie Details Click Here !Storyline: A story inspired by the life of one of the most remarkable figures in Brazilian popular culture, João Francisco dos Santos (1900-1976). In turn, bandit, transvestite, street fighter, brothel cook, convict and father to seven adopted children, dos Santos--better known as Madame Satã--was also a notorious gay performer who pushed social boundaries in a volatile time. The story begins in 1932, in Rio de Janeiro's bohemian Lapa district, when João Francisco is about to achieve his dream: becoming a stage star. In the sordid yet lively world of Lapa--populated by pimps, prostitutes and other denizens of Rio's underworld--João battles the streets and presides over a surrogate family that includes the charming prostitute Laurita, and her baby daughter whom everyone dotes on; the flamboyant hustler Taboo; João's teenage lover, Renatinho; and Amador, the owner of the Blue Danube club which is their second home. It is at the Blue Danube that street tough João begins to sing, and the mythic drag artiste Madam Satã is born.—Sujit R. Varma
Plot Keywords: biography, drama, crime, lgbtq+, based on true story, cultural conflict, art ...
Movie Details Click Here !Storyline: 1959. Twenty-seven year old Vinnie Vacarri works as a waiter at his older brother Mario's upscale Italian restaurant in Brooklyn, but much to Mario's chagrin, Vinnie lets work at the restaurant slide whenever opportunities arise to achieve his dream of being in the music business. Along with his best friend and music partner, pianist Gino Pilato, Vinnie writes songs, and believes he has everything but the most important thing to make it big, namely the look, he most self-conscious about his receding hairline. As such, he and Gino are looking for someone to perform their songs on their own terms. He thinks he's found the person in his friend Tomaso DeLorusso, a saxophonist who has been struggling himself in the club scene to find his niche. With Gino largely staying in the background, Vinnie begins a professional association with Tomaso, who he reinvents as rock singer Tommy Dee, this the beginning of Vinnie's foray into talent manager, he knowing the look and sound he wants, with his acts being the conduit to realize his own dreams of music business success. He also believes a sixteen year old shy busboy at Mario's restaurant named Guido Bevaloqua has the look to make it big, Guido who Vinnie transforms into Caesare. Along the way, Vinnie has convince others into his vision for the transformations to succeed, such people as Brenda Roberts, the editor of Teen Scene magazine. Ultimately both Vinnie and his acts get lost in their own personal issues, Tommy Dee and Caesare wanting primarily the trappings of fame forgetting how they got there, and Vinnie sacrificing his and everyone else's lives to achieve his visions that he could not achieve on his own.—Huggo
Plot Keywords: musical, biography, drama, rock music, rise to fame, 1950s, show business ...
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