Oliver Platt
1) Walt Disney
Series
Summary
Walt Disney was uniquely adept at art as well as commerce, a master filmmaker who harnessed the power of technology and storytelling. This new film examines Disney's complex life and enduring legacy. Features rare archival footage from the Disney vaults, scenes from some of his greatest films, interviews with biographers and animators, and the designers who helped turn his dream of Disneyland into reality.
Author
Summary
Everything's Eventual: Dinky, a pizza delivery boy, gets hired by a stranger for a unique and awesome job. Autopsy Room Four: When Howard wakes up, he is being rolled into an autopsy room. The Little Sisters of Eluria: Roland is a gunslinger in a deserted town and gets ambushed. Luckey Quarter: Darlene receives a quarter for a tip, and lets that quarter take her for a ride. The Road Virus Heads North: an author buys a creepy painting that was painted...
3) Simon Birch
Summary
In 1936, nine boys from the University of Washington took the rowing world and a nation by storm, when their eight-oar crew team captured the gold medal at the Olympics in Berlin. The boys' victory, and their obstacles, inspired a nation struggling to emerge from the depths of the Depression.
Summary
It was the year of the Beatles and the Civil Rights Act; of the Gulf of Tonkin and Barry Goldwater's campaign for the presidency; the year that Americans learned smoking was bad for their health and Cassius Clay became Mohammed Ali; the year that cities across the country erupted in violence and Americans tried to make sense of the assassination of their president. Based on The Last Innocent Year: America in 1964, the film will follow some of the...
6) The pilgrims
Series
Summary
American Experience: The Pilgrims The Pilgrims' narrative has been shrouded in myth, embedded in Thanksgiving Day feasts, football, and parades. Who were the men and women who constituted this multifarious band of English Protestants whom we call "the Pilgrims"? A two-hour documentary film by award-winning director Ric Burns, The Pilgrims chronicles the deep history, origins, and critical first decade of the first permanent English colony in New England."--Provided...
Summary
The Coen Brothers Best Picture Oscar Nominee transforms into the season's most talked about TV debut. It features a new "true crime" story and new characters, all chilled in the trademark dry wit, murderous mayhem and "Minnesota nice" of the original classic film. Lorne Malvo, is a manipulative master criminal who changes the life of insurance salesmen Lester Nygaard. Gus Grimly and Molly Solverson are the small-town police officers who join forces...
Summary
Free-spirited Maggie, who meets her match in a charming Viagra salesman named Jamie. They leap into a no-strings-attached affair and discover they share a sexual chemistry that rocks the bedroom. But no matter how hard they try to keep things 'casual' Maggie and Jamie can't help falling under the infulence of the ultimate drug ... love."--Back cover.
10) Casanova
Summary
Casanova has to begin searching for a wife. He is a womanizer with many conquests and If he cannot show he is living a more respectable life, the Church will throw him out of Venice. He is quickly engaged to Victoria, a woman with a pure reputation. As soon as that is arranged, he meets Francesca, a feminist who hates all he stands for. He pretends to be someone else to get into her good graces, and soon finds out she is engaged to Papprizzio, a man...
11) Prohibition
Summary
Explores the extraordinary story of what happens when a freedom-loving nation outlaws the sale of intoxicating liquor, and the disastrous unintended consequences that follow. Raises profound questions about the proper role of government and the limits of legislating morality.
12) The great war
Series
Summary
In conjunction with the 100th anniversary of America's entry into the war on April 6, 1917, a six-hour documentary presented over three nights, explores how World War I changed America and the world. Drawing on the latest scholarship, including unpublished diaries, memoirs and letters, it tells the rich and complex story of the conflict through the voices of nurses, journalists, aviators and the American troops who came to be known as 'doughboys.'...
14) Frost/Nixon
Summary
Richard Nixon is the disgraced president with a legacy to save. David Frost is a jet-setting television personality with a name to make. This is the legendary battle between the two men and the historic encounter that changed both their lives. For three years after resigning from office, Nixon remained silent. But in the summer of 1977, the steely, cunning former commander-in-chief agreed to sit for one all-inclusive interview to confront the questions...
15) Chef
Summary
After quitting his job at an LA restaurant, chef Carl Casper decides to start a food truck business with his ex-wife, best friend and son, and goes on a cross-country road trip that helps him reconnect with his family, friends and himself.
16) Hope springs
Summary
After he is dumped by his fiancee, Vera, British artist, Colin, flees to the village of Hope in New England to bury himself in his art. Colin ends up sulking about in a small Vermont hotel run by Joanie. When Joanie becomes aware of Colin's broken heart, she decides to match him up with a local woman named Mandy. But just as romance begins to ensue between Colin and Mandy, Vera suddenly shows back up with the intentions of rekindling her relationship...
Formats
Summary
Based on the best-selling book by Drew Gilpin Faust, this film will explore how the American Civil War created a 'republic of suffering' and will chart the far-reaching social, political, and social changes brought about by the pervasive presence and fear of death during the Civil War.
Summary
"Radicals. Agitators. Troublemakers. Liberators. Called many names, the abolitionists tore the nation apart in order to create a more perfect union. Men and women, black and white, Northerners and Southerners, poor and wealthy, these passionate anti-slavery activists fought body and soul in the most important civil rights crusade in American history"--Container.