Toronto filmmaker Ron Mann is one of Canada's foremost documentary filmmakers. Mann established his international reputation while in his twenties with a series of award-winning theatrical documentaries.
A festival and critics favorite since his first feature Imagine the Sound (1981). Mann's exuberant films,whether on jazz,comics,rock N roll dance or marijuana are meticulously researched pophistories.
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Ron Mann's wildly inventive bio about renaissance man Ed "Big Daddy" Roth, who engineered a shift in mid-twentieth century culture with his customized cars, "monster" T-shirts and America's alternative rodent - "Rat Fink".
This animated documentary features the voice talents of John Goodman, Ann-Margret, Jay Leno, Brian Wilson, Matt Groening, Tom Wolfe, Steve Austin, Robert Williams, Paul LeMat, Billy F Gibbons and The Smothers Brothers.
Special Features:
Big Daddy Lives! - Rare Interviews with Ed "Big Daddy" Roth
Rat Fink Reunion - Painting Jam with Ed Roth and Von Dutch
Big Daddy's Garage - Virtual Art Gallery
Interview with Director Ron Mann
Deleted Scene
Theatrical Trailer
Sadies music video
Directed by renowned Canadian filmmaker, Ron Mann, it features a reunion concert with the original 5 members i.e. Jim Cuddy, Greg Keelor, Bazil Donovan, Bob Wiseman and Cleave Anderson!
The DVD also includes twelve historic performances; an appreciation written by Paul Quarrington; two brand new songs; and even burning Snowmen!
$17.25 Purchase DVD
GO FURTHER DVD - 80 minutes - 2005
“GO FURTHER”, the new film by award-winning documentary filmmaker Ron Mann, explores the idea that the single individual is the key to large-scale transformational change.
The film follows actor Woody Harrelson as he takes a small group of friends on a bio-fuelled bus-ride down the Pacific Coast Highway. Their goal? To show the people they encounter that there are viable alternatives to our habitual, environmentally-destructive behaviors.
Chapters: Introduction/ Woody's Path/ Diet/ Jedi's Journey/ Yoga/ Agriculture/ Mad Cowboy/ Paper/ High Time for Hemp/ Connecting/ Alternative Energy/ The Ballad of Joe Hickey/ Take Action and Go Further/ Activism/ Thoughts from Within/ Resources for Going Further/ Sources/ Photo Credits
The first feature documentary by Ron Mann (GRASS, COMICBOOK CONFIDENTIAL) is an eloquent tribute to a group of highly celebrated artists that helped forge the avant-garde jazz of the 1960s.
Critic and film historian Jonathan Rosenbaum has said IMAGINE THE SOUND “may be the best documentary on free jazz that we have.”
This Genie Award film examines how marijuana became the scapegoat of a government drug policy. A highly spirited and innovative look into one of America's most deeply rooted cultural myths: "the evils of marrijuana." Utilizing hilarious footage from U.S. Government propaganda films, and eye-popping animation from undergroud artist Paul Mavrides, GRASS blows the lid off the war on marijuana. Find out how a nice person like yourself became a dangerous criminal.
From 1952 until his death in 2003, Stan Brakhage created almost 400 films. Working completely outside of the mainstream, he consistently redefined cinematic art with such celebrated pieces as WINDOW WATER BABY MOVING (his first wife giving birth) and MOTHLIGHT (leaves and butterflies taped to celluloid), as well as a host of films hand-painted in shockingly brilliant color including DANTE’S QUARTET and BLACK ICE.
Juxtaposing archival footage spanning 35 years, as well as rare film excerpts and vintage and contemporary interviews with Brakhage, his friends, family, colleagues and critics.
Historical footage, state-of-the-art animation, and interviews with 22 influential comic book writers and artists.
$19.95 Purchase DVD
(Please note, this item is backordered. We are hoping to get new one by the end of October).
DREAM TOWER BONUS FEATURE: ECHOES WITHOUT SAYING
DVD - 74 Minutes - 1994
Dream Tower is a fast-paced, incisive look into Toronto's notorious Rochdale College. An eighteen storey high rise building completed in 1968, Rochdale was intended to be a free college but quickly turned into an experimental living environment peopled by artists, draft dodgers and hippies. We see through the eyes of Rochdale's first student, Paul Evitts, the dramatic shift in the focus of the College. Included is its roots as a learning institution, based on the ideas of such educators as A.S. Neill and Paul Goodman, and how it unfolds into a leading centre for North America's burgeoning drug culture. Contains BONUS FEATURE: ECHOES WITHOUT SAYING - a half-hour documentary on the Coach House Press - an innovative Toronto-based publishing and printing house, that since 1965, has produced distinctive and experimental books of poetry, fiction and visual art.
SPECIAL FEATURES * CBC Radio Interview with Paul Evitts conducted by Vicki Gabereau
An exuberant profile of four legendary figures associated withthe jazz avant-garde of the sixties - Cecil Taylor, Archie Shepp, Bill Dixon and Paul Pley.
Indutry is collapsing and millions face unemployment as the city's main industrial employer folds. Attempting to exploit the situation is a corporate tyrant who has concocted a cynical plan that would trigger a new depression.
Called the "Woodstock of Poetry" by American Film, and "Dazzling" by the Los Angeles Times, Poetry in Motion is an unprecedented anthology of twenty-four leading North American poets who sing, chant, anything but "read" their work.
As an event designed specifically for the film, two of the most renowned young chefs working in Canada come together to collaborate on a special meal for a surprise guest.
Combining rare and often hilarious archival footage with interviews, Twist chronicles the evolution of rock and roll dance. From the time when moving hips marked you as a social degenerate, to a time when shaking your "thing" became thedance-form that rocked the world.
Sphinx Productions and Alexa Frances Shaw present Brakhage, a film about the life adn work of avant-garde filmmaker Stan Brakhage. Directed by Jim Shedden.
The first feature documentary by 
