Laurie Anderson Movies

Documentary filmmaker Ric Burns explores the life and legacy of pop art's most beloved icon with this film that seeks to illuminate the public persona and creative complexity of painter, photographer, and filmmaker Andy Warhol. Host Laurie Anderson narrates as an erudite collection of curators, critics, and biographers dispel Warhol's own self-created image as a haute couture heavyweight to offer a more intellectually minded portrait of the man who forever changed the way the world views Campbell's Soup cans. From Warhol's boyhood experiences in a Czechoslovakian community in Pittsburgh to a disheartening stint at art school and initial work as a commercial illustrator in New York, Burns' film explores every aspect of Warhol's life to offer a detailed look at the artist whose short-circuited class-jumping gave him a most unique view on contemporary culture. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide

For his sophomore feature film effort, visual artist Julian Schnabel chronicles the life of one of Cuba's most charismatic literary voices, the late Reinaldo Arenas. Working with Arenas' friends and family, Schnabel recounts the author's impoverished rural upbringing and the intense love and support he receives from his mother (played by the director's wife, Olatz Lopez Garmendia). As a young man, Arenas (Javier Bardem) is singled out by his teachers and encouraged to further his skills as a writer -- no easy task, considering the Castro regime's censorship of any work considered to be subversive or anti-authoritarian. Still, the author manages to smuggle his work out of the country through friends, who arrange for one of his novels to be published in France. Not only persecuted for his creative beliefs, the openly gay Arenas is jailed on a bogus sex charge; he escapes internment only to be captured and persecuted later for his contraband dispatches. In 1980, Arenas is finally allowed to leave Cuba for the United States, where he achieves freedom of expression but not prosperity. Schnabel's first film was another portrait of an artist, 1996's Basquiat; Bardem made his name in several of director Pedro Almodovar's Spanish-language productions. Before Night Falls premiered at the 2000 Venice Film Festival, where it received the Best Actor and Grand Special Jury prizes, and made its North American premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival. Bardem would go on to receive a host of accolades, including an eventual Best Actor nomination at the 2001 Academy Awards. ~ Michael Hastings, All Movie Guide

Gray's third performance film is a document of his experiences as a procrastinating novelist; the title refers to Gray's 1900-page manuscript, which is two years past deadline. ~ Jason Ankeny, All Movie Guide

Those of us who had to suffer such "instructional" films as Dating Do's and Don'ts in high school will be especially entertained by Heavy Petting. In the visually sarcastic manner of the nuclear-age documentary The Atomic Cafe, the film assembles masses of information and misinformation about teenage dating rituals of the 1950s. Clips from contemporary movies, TV programs, commercials, and "sex hygiene" short subjects are used throughout; perhaps once upon a time these vignettes could have been taken seriously, but here they're only good for howls of laughter. Interspersed among the vintage footage are interviews with such children of the 1960s as David Byrne and William S. Burroughs. One look at the 1950s as depicted in Heavy Petting, and it's easy to see how the sensuous, psychedelic '60s came to be. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

A wildly inventive and entertaining comic nightmare from former Roger Corman prodigy Jonathan Demme (The Silence of the Lambs), this screwball odyssey is a ride to remember. Jeff Daniels plays clean-cut New York bond trader Charlie Driggs, who accepts a ride home from a strange but attractive lower-class woman named Lulu (Melanie Griffith). The sexy Louise Brooks lookalike doesn't take him home, but shanghais him for a bizarre roadtrip to Virginia that includes kinky bondage sex, destruction of property, and robbery. Things get stranger when Lulu tells Charlie that her real name is Audrey and takes him home to meet her mother, asking him to pose as her husband. The charade continues until her high-school reunion, where the roadtrip (and the entire film) takes a sharp U-turn into psycho-thriller territory. Audrey's dangerously psychotic ex-con husband, Ray Sinclair (Ray Liotta), shows up. What had been a liberating fling for Charlie turns into a bloody and vicious battle for survival. ~ Robert Firsching, All Movie Guide

Famed performance artist Laurie Anderson both directed and starred in the 90-minute concert film Home of the Brave. While the film refuses to "explain" Anderson to those unfamiliar with her work, it serves as a valuable primer, encouraging the uninitiated to do their own further research. Anderson's non sequitur combinations of music and visuals can be very funny at times, but don't make the mistake of dismissing her as a mere court jester. The film's litmus test is its middle section; you'll either revere or despise Anderson after experiencing this lengthy segment. Among the peripheral personalities in Home of the Brave is legendary self-destructive novelist William Burroughs. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In a complex plot that loses punch through weak dialogue, a computer hack, his love interest, and a friend plan a bank heist involving the transfer of funds from a Berlin bank to a bank in Zurich "over the wires." They have everything worked out when they realize that they will have to join forces with some gangsters in order to physically reach the bank's computer -- and in that process, a guard is killed. Somehow, things still work out and the trio is off to Zurich to pick up their millions -- though no one can guarantee that absolutely nothing will go wrong from this point onward. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

Discover the "art band" style in this piece which features several artists performing. ~ All Movie Guide