Amos Poe Movies

A doomed woman discovers her creative spirit during a final fling with life in this independent drama. Melody Wilder (Saffron Burrows) is already having a bad day when she visits her doctor about a troubling lump in her throat -- her boyfriend has left her, and she's lost her job. However, this news pales in comparison to what her doctor (Janeane Garofalo) has to say: the lump is an inoperable cancer, and Melody has only a short time to live. Throwing caution to the wind, Melody rents a huge, luxurious apartment and furnishes it in high style, putting her purchases on a handful of credit cards she won't be around to pay off. Melody also permits herself affairs with a few of the deliverymen who have become regular visitors to her loft, but she spends most her days alone, enjoying the trappings of wealth as she ponders what little future she has left. One day, Melody makes an impulse purchase, a red electric guitar that looks like one she wanted as a girl. While Melody isn't schooled on the instrument, she begins teaching herself to work out chord patterns and melody lines, and in the last chapter of her life discovers a way to give voice to the pain and confusion she's buried within her. Written by veteran underground filmmaker Amos Poe, The Guitar was the first feature film from director Amy Redford. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

When the power of punk merges with the creative freedom offered by public access television, the programming that follows is sure to turn viewers on to a whole new lifestyle. Now the show that changed the way hip New Yorkers looked at television in the late '70s is back with a vengeance as Glenn O'Brien's TV Party gets ushered into the new millennium along with a little help from old friends Iggy Pop, George Clinton, David Bowie, Mick Jones, and a whole host of the hottest cutting-edge musicians of the era. Co-hosted by O'Brien and Blondie guitarist Chris Stein, TV Party proved that music television doesn't have to cater to the hottest pop sensation of tastiest flavor of the week to make for compelling viewing. ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi

The blurry line between a rumor and the truth is stretched to the breaking point in this drama. Three arrogant and self-centered college students, Jones (Lena Headey), Derek (James Marsden), and Travis (Norman Reedus), are brought together for a class project, in which they decide to start a rumor and keep track of how it spreads. Looking for possible gossip material, they see Naomi (Kate Hudson), a girl known for her high-minded views on saving sex for marriage, drunkenly making out with Bo (Joshua Jackson) at a party. The three students begin passing around the rumor that Naomi became a victim of date rape later that evening, embroidering the truth with allegations that Bo forcibly seduced Naomi after she was too inebriated to put up a fight. Before long, the rumor makes its way back to Naomi herself, who suffered a black-out on the night in question after too much alcohol. Naomi panics, and convinced that the rumor is true, contacts the police, who assign Detective Kelly (Sharon Lawrence) to investigate the charges of rape filed against Bo. Featuring a cast of young actors best known for their work on television, Gossip was an appropriate first feature film for director Davis Guggenheim, who previously distinguished himself on such TV series as ER, NYPD Blue, and Party of Five. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

Sex and science fiction are again combined in this sophomoric fantasy set somewhere in the future in an unnamed US city. The tale begins as the media announces the unwelcome arrival of an alien spacecraft, from which a beautiful Asian woman disembarks. She has come to the gang-ravaged city for a little vacation. The head of the city's police regime, General Hayden, wants to catch her and get rid of the gangs simultaneously. To do so, he sounds an earthquake alarm and then orders a mass evacuation of the town. Only the police and the gangs remain, and it is lucky Officer Weed who gets to meet the toothsome alien Amelia first. Since her arrival, Amelia has changed herself into a seductive black woman in a silver metallic suit. Unable to resister her bountiful charms, Weed and she do the nasty, and he learns that among her many talents is her ability to change into any kind of woman she wants to be; he also learns that she needs sex like he needs food. Lucky her, she found a veritable banquet in the lusty Weed. Meanwhile, the gang wars rage on. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi

In this independently produced black-and-white film, Remy Gravelle is trying to gather enough material from the story of a wealthy couple (murdered on a golf-course years before) to put together a screenplay for his Japanese employers. His investigations have put him in touch with the wealthy duo's children, who now live aboard a yacht, the Triple Bogey, which is in constant motion around New York harbor. There, the three grown or nearly grown children show the writer home movies of themselves and their parents and discuss the events of that bygone day. ~ Clarke Fountain, Rovi

This stylishly photographed drama is set in the Lower East Side area known as "Alphabet City." There 19-year-oldJohnny has become a drug lord in charge of the neighborhood gangs and pushers. Unfortunately, he too has a boss and when he asks Johnny to burn down the tenement building that houses his mother and sister, the boy refuses and decides to go straight for the sake of his wife and child. This doesn't set well with his boss who sends gangsters out to kill him. Of course, the gangsters have to catch Johnny first. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi

Originally aired live in color on New York City's Channel J (a public access "commercial station") this episode of TV Party from June 13, 1982 found the producers of the show growing increasingly desperate as producer/host Glenn O Barr announces, "Everything here is for sale." He's missing a tooth, and he hasn't had a haircut in quite some time, and while the energy is there, it's obvious that the crew isn't functioning at full capacity. Lenny Ferrari, Karen Geniece, and Charles Rocket join the TV Party Orchestra, the latter plugging into a stack of Marshall amps and running his accordion through a variety of guitar pedals in order to achieve a "heavy metal accordion" sound. Recently fired from Saturday Night Live for uttering the "F" word during a live broadcast, Rocket later launches into a droll, post-modern version of the radio hit "Wild Thing". While at first it appears as if Gun Club's Jeffrey Lee Pierce won't be able to perform due to a broken guitar, he quickly gets a lender and offers a soulful rendition of a Robert Johnson song. The episode winds to a close with a thirty second meditation led by O'Barr, a punk rock poem read by a Russian poet, and a live performance of the original composition "Why Can't I Get Laid" by German new waver Lothar Manteuffel, featuring accordion accompaniment by Rocket. ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi

Nadja Vidal (Tina L'hotsky) has arrived in New York City to avenge the murder of her sister Sasha, something that seems well within the grasp of her cool and remote personality. As the story unfolds, Sasha's murder in a nightclub is shown in flashbacks, and there are glimpses of Nadja's inexorable path to the killers before she takes the actions shown. Combining past and present, and scenes of violence captured without recourse to the usual focus on blood and guts, Nadja's immunity to violence becomes a chilling force in itself. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, Rovi

While the punk-new wave musical revolution was brewing on the Bowery and in downtown New York in 1976 and 1977, a new breed of underground filmmakers were beginning to emerge, whose work reflected the same rough textures and emotional immediacy as punk rock. One of the leading filmmakers of New York's New Wave was Amos Poe, and his feature Unmade Beds was one of the first features from this movement to receive any significant attention outside the underground music and art scene. To the rest of the world, Rico (Eric Mitchell) appears to be a photographer living in New York City in the mid-'70s. But in his mind, Rico is a character in a French New Wave film directed by Jean-Luc Godard, living a bohemian life of danger and flinty glamour, and he's both a photographer and a hired gun, living a life straight out of one of the film noir classics he loves. Rico's fragile hold on reality and his mingled feelings about his art begin to collide when he falls in love with a beautiful woman. Unmade Beds also features Duncan Hannah and Patti Astor; musicians Deborah Harry and Robert Gordon highlight the supporting cast. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

Learn how to tell a god from a goblin and find out just what the effects of drugs and costumes can have on the impressionable rocker as Glenn O'Barr and the TV Party crew takes to the airwaves for a special Halloween broadcast that originally aired live from ETC Studios on October 31, 1979. It was 11:00pm and President Carter had already retired for the evening, leaving the mischievous merrymakers at TV Party free to run rampant and break a few rules. An interview with Fab Five Freddy dressed as a nickel bag addresses the topic of dangerous things put in trick-or-treat sacks, and Lenny Ferrari takes center stage as a cubist painting to perform a special magic trick for viewers. As the party continues on to the stroke of midnight, things start to get truly interesting when Jean-Michel Basquiat stops in to take some truly fascinating viewer phone calls. ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi

Chaos gives way to art as a live television broadcast of the legendary, late 1970s public access show TV Party experiences some serious technical difficulties before getting under way with appearances by such special guests as Debbie Harry, Klaus Nomi, Adny Shernoff, and The Patty Smith Group's Richard Sohl. The sound-man has gone missing, ensuring that the opening segments of this episode of TV Party from January 8, 1979 gets off to an alternately amusing and artistically agonizing start. Later, when the sound board gets working, Blondie singer Harry and host Glenn O'Brien back up Compton Maddox in a typically droll performance by the underground singer/songwriter, futurist soprano Nomi takes the microphone to deliver a post-modern aria, and The Dictators' Shernoff covers The Beach Boys' "Be True to Your School" as Manic Panic designers Tish and Snooky cheer along with pom-poms. Later, director Eric Mitchell announces the grand opening of the New Cinema theater and shows a few clips from the latest film Kidnapped. "White people talk about reggae" in a segment featuring British director David Silver and photographer Kate Simon, and the episode winds to a close as Blondie singer Harry, her band-mate Chris Stein, and good friend Sohl sit down to puff on a joint while taking calls from viewers. ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi

On December 18, 1978, author, critic, and New York scenester Glenn O'Brien presented the debut episode of TV Party, a weekly cable access show in which O'Brien presented music, conversation, and witty political commentary featuring a variety of guests from New York's underground music and art community, including Chris Stein and Deborah Harry of Blondie, graffiti artist Jean-Michel Basquiat, hip-hop figure Fab Five Freddy, musicians Walter Steding and Lenny Ferrari, and many more. TV Party: Premiere Episode contains the show's first broadcast in its entirety, including a "screen test" for Amos Poe's proposed remake of Alphaville starring Robert Fripp and Deborah Harry, poetry from B-52's singer Fred Schneider, a musical performance from Dictators founder Andy Shernoff, and an interview with concept artist Robert Delford Brown. The episode also includes live telephone calls, many of which suggest Manhattan's cable viewers had not yet fully embraced the new show. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi