Iggy Pop Movies

Filmmakers Vincent Paronnaud and Marjane Satrapi collaborated to co-write and co-direct this adaptation of Satrapi's bestselling autobiographical graphic novel detailing the trials faced by an outspoken Iranian girl who finds her unique attitude and outlook on life repeatedly challenged during the Islamic revolution. The English-language version features the voice talents of Sean Penn, Gena Rowlands, and Iggy Pop, with Catherine Deneuve and Chiara Mastroianni reprising their roles from the original French-language version. ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi

Filmmaker Drew Thomas brings California's popular Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival to the screen with a different kind of musical documentary that not only showcases performances by some of the hottest acts to take the stage, but offers interviews with such musical icons as Beck, Joshua Homme, Mos Def, and Perry Farrell as well. From English icon Morrissey's performance at the inaugural Coachella Festival back in 1999 to Canadian indie rockers the Arcade Fire's electric 2005 set, the musical acts featured here run the gamut from hip-hop to alternative and virtually everything in between. Other artists featured include the Pixies, the Flaming Lips, Kool Keith, Radiohead, Saul Williams, and Squarepusher. ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi

The New York Dolls were a rock band who titled their second studio album Too Much Too Soon, and it summed up the band's career all too well. Playing hard, swaggering rock & roll that anticipated the aural chaos of punk five years before the Sex Pistols became a cause célèbre, and boasting an androgynous fashion statement that made David Bowie look timid, the Dolls made headlines and earned a loyal cult following between 1971 and 1976, but their look and sound were too extreme for the mass audience at the time, and the fact that several members of the band had serious drug and alcohol problems hardly helped matters. After the New York Dolls finally fell apart in 1977, singer David Johansen went on to a successful solo career (scoring hit records under the alter ego Buster Poindexter), lead guitarist Johnny Thunders and drummer Jerry Nolan kept the band's sound alive in the Heartbreakers, and guitarist Syl Sylvain cut a few solo albums and occasionally worked with Johansen. But bassist Arthur Kane struggled for years to get his musical career back on track while battling alcoholism, with little success on either front. In 1989, after a stay in the hospital, a clean and sober Kane embraced the Mormon faith, and through his contacts in the church he got a job working in a Mormon genealogy library in Los Angeles. Despite his quiet new life, Kane's greatest dream was to someday play a reunion show with the New York Dolls, and in 2004 his wish unexpectedly became a reality when British pop icon Morrissey invited the surviving members of the band to appear at a prestigious music festival he was curating. Filmmaker Greg Whiteley knew Kane as a fellow Mormon, and New York Doll is a documentary about the ups and downs of Kane's life in music, how his faith came into his life, and his unexpected return to the rock & roll stage at the age of 55. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

Jim Jarmusch's black-and-white feature Coffee and Cigarettes contains three vignettes originally released as short films along with separate yet somewhat related sketches. As the title suggests, most of the vignettes involve famous people smoking cigarettes and drinking coffee. The first, "Coffee and Cigarettes," is a six-minute short from 1986 starring Stephen Wright and Roberto Benigni. The 1989 installment, "Memphis Version," stars Steve Buscemi, Joie Lee, and Cinqué Lee. The award-winning 1993 segment, "Somewhere in California," stars musicians Iggy Pop and Tom Waits. The remaining sketches include Cate Blanchett performing a duel role, a conversation with Bill Murray and members of the Wu-Tang Clan, and Alfred Molina and British television actor Steve Coogan as themselves. In its full-length version form, Coffee and Cigarettes was shown at the 2003 Venice Film Festival. ~ Andrea LeVasseur, Rovi

As suggested by its title, this Deep Space Nine episode invokes memories of the Akira Kurosawa classic The Seven Samurai (or at least its American remake, The Magnificent Seven). The plot is set in motion when Quark's mother Ishka (Cecily Adams) is captured by the Dominion. Organizing a motley band of Ferengi warriors, Quark sets out to rescue his mom, fully intending to honor his species' traditions by bargaining rather than battling his way into the enemy camp. Iggy Pop guest stars as Ishka's Vortan captor Yelgrun. First telecast on January 1, 1998, "The Magnificent Ferengi" was written by Ira Steven Behr. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

On this Anglo-French cartoon series, five aliens crash-landed on earth and immediately attempted to make themselves inconspicuous despite their strange appearance. To that end, the quintet of space travellers took up residence in a rented house and did their best to act human. In other words, it was a more colorful (and infinitely more bizarre) variation of the live-action American sitcom Third Rock From the Sun. Decked out with a theme song by no less than Iggy Pop, the weekly, 15-minute Home to Rent made its British TV bow in 1997. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

A dark, bitter commentary on modern American life cloaked in the form of a surrealist western, Jim Jarmusch's Dead Man stars Johnny Depp as William Blake, a newly-orphaned accountant who leaves his home in Cleveland to accept a job in the frontier town of Machine. Upon his arrival, Blake is told by the factory owner Dickinson (Robert Mitchum) that the job has already been filled. Dejectedly, he enters a nearby tavern, ultimately spending the night with a former prostitute. A violent altercation with the woman's lover (Gabriel Byrne), also Dickinson's son, leaves Blake a murderer as well as mortally wounded, a bullet lodged dangerously close to his heart. He flees into the wilderness, where a Native American named Nobody (Gary Farmer) mistakes Blake for the English poet William Blake and determines that he will be Blake's guide in his protracted passage into the spirit world. ~ Jason Ankeny, Rovi

Based on a popular British cult comic book, this film is the story of a futuristic feminist superhero and her fight to preserve the environment against an evil government bureaucracy. The action is set in the year 2033, after an ecological disaster of drought and pollution has ravaged the countryside, and water is scarce. Tank Girl (Lori Petty) is a sassy punker who has her own vintage tank in tow, along with other high-tech weapons. Her mutant friends join her in bizarre battles against the corporate-statist Department of Water and Power and its villainous chief, Kesslee (Malcolm McDowell). At stake is the world's water supply, which the Department is hoarding and which the rebels frequently raid. Rock star Iggy Pop has a cameo as Rat Face, one of the half-human, half-kangaroo Rippers. Courtney Love coordinated the post-punk soundtrack. ~ Michael Betzold, Rovi

A smorgasbord of wild and raucous NFL football action set to the music of heavy "alternative" bands such as Cracker, Fishbone, and Pantera. Quick video cuts of action from training room workouts to spectacular on-the-field plays are interspersed with footage from the bands' performances. NFL Rocks on the Edge presents a backing soundtrack of loud, heavy music to intensify the exhilarating visual experience. Featured is "Cowboys From Hell," Pantera's concert tribute to the Super Bowl Champion Dallas Cowboys, and a no-holds-barred interview with the band that offers the members' unique views on the game of football.

~ Sarah Block, Rovi

Music video director Richard Stanley made his feature debut with this apocalyptic, post-industrial nightmare set in the distant future. Dylan McDermott stars as Moses "Hard Mo"' Baxter, a washed-up ex-soldier who spends most of his time in "The Zone" -- a scorched, ochre-colored desert littered with the radioactive debris of an unspecified war (or wars). Mo's recent Zone foray with war-buddy Shades (Jon Lynch) turns up an interesting find -- a pile of droid parts he purchases from a spooky "Zone Tripper" (Carl McCoy, frontman for goth-rock's Fields of the Nephilim), which he carts home to his reclusive artist girlfriend Jill (Stacy Travis) to serve as raw material for her latest work. Unbeknownst to them, the dismantled robot is the prototype of a controversial new battle-droid dubbed the Mark 13, which is designed to reassemble itself from available materials if damaged in combat. In short order, the Mark 13 proceeds to do just that, tapping into the power grid in Jill's fortress-like apartment and targeting her for death. ~ Cavett Binion, Rovi