Marquee Film Movements, Comedy Icons, Sports, and… Monsters!

FILM COLLECTION

Sports

Underdog triumphs, training montages, iconic close finishes… we’ve got you covered with our August curation of 20 sports films from around the world and across eras. From stirring dramas to slapstick comedies, iconic documentaries and everything in between, this selection of films honors the grit, glory and gorgeous visuals of great sports filmmaking.

Check out baseball films The Pride of the Yankees (1942), Bull Durham (1988), Eight Men Out (1988) and Sugar (2008), and 90s basketball classics Hoop Dreams (1994) and Blue Chips (1994). For lovers of the beautiful game, we have Shaolin Soccer (2001) and Offside (2006), and for boxing fans, Fat City (1972) and Rocky IV (1985). Rugby and American football are represented by This Sporting Life (1963) and North Dallas Forty (1979), while golf and Formula 1 are portrayed in Happy Gilmore (1996) and Senna (2010). You can find hockey on the grass or ice with Chak De! India (2007), Slap Shot  (1977) and Miracle (2004), and for a taste of Olympic glory, check out Over The Limit (2018), Personal Best (1982), and Tokyo Olympiad (1965).

FILM COLLECTION

Dogme 95

Get your rule book out! In August, we curated six films from the Dogme 95 movement – the avant-garde shift in Danish filmmaking which grew to become one of the most powerful artistic movements of its era, challenging production and storytelling norms and creating a puritanical approach to filmmaking that redefined cinéma vérité.

Dogme 95 started as a rebellion against the studio-ization of filmmaking. Eschewing special effects and expensive equipment, Danish filmmakers Lars von Trier, Kristian Levring, Søren Kragh-Jacobsen, and Thomas Vinterberg created a strict manifesto to make films called “the Vow of Chastity”. The rules of Dogme called for location photography, hand-held cameras, present-tense storytelling, and no music, genres, effects or weapons – all in an Academy film ratio, with no credit given to the director. Though Dogme 95 was a short-lived movement, it remains one of the most quoted and influential of the 20th Century.

Check out our selection of Dogme 95 films – the romantic comedies Mifune (1999) and Italian for Beginners (2000), dramas Reunion (2001) and Julien Donkey-Boy, comedy-drama The Idiots (1998), and survival drama The King is Alive (2000). Add those shots to your decks now!

ARTIST SPOTLIGHT

Judd Apatow

This month, we curated a collection of the greatest hits in film and television from comedy icon Judd Apatow. Born in New York to a real-estate developer and a music executive, Apatow got involved in comedy from a young age, washing dishes at the Long Island East Side Comedy Club as a high schooler, while also hosting a radio program where he interviewed comedians he had cold-called.

Over the course of his career, Apatow has helped redefine contemporary comedy with his signature combination of raunchy humor, characters suffering from arrested development, and grounded, heartfelt relationships. His work as a producer, writer and director has been responsible for launching a generation of comic stars and giving audiences some of this century’s signature comedy moments on film.

Check out this month’s curation, which includes the iconic high school television series Freaks and Geeks (1999), newsroom romp Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy (2004), his directorial debut The 40 Year Old Virgin (2005), break-up classic Forgetting Sarah Marshall (2008) and heartfelt dramedy, Funny People (2009). Add shots from these titles and more to your decks today!

FILM COLLECTION

Australian New Wave

This month, we programmed eight classic entries in the Australian New Wave, a movement from the 1970s-80s that breathed new life into Australian cinema, and launched a generation of filmmakers who would go on to make their name on the world stage. 

Prompted by a resurgence of funding by the Gorton and Whitlam governments of the late 60s and early 70s, which also encouraged the establishment of the Australian Film, Television and Radio School in 1973, the Australian New Wave became characterized by the brave, unconventional new voices who crossed genres and styles to bring new meaning to Australian filmmaking and film culture. Many of these directors, such as Peter Weir, George Miller, Gillian Armstrong, and Bruce Beresford, would go on to make films around the world, reshaping cinema on the international stage by the late 20th century.

Check out this month’s selection of films, from war dramas Breaker Morant (1980) and Gallipoli (1981), to horror classics from Wake in Fright (1971) and Thirst (1979). We have thrillers Dead End Drive-In (1986) and The Last Wave (1977), as well as folk tale The Man From Snowy River (1982). And if you want to know the origins of “shrimp on the barbie”, check out cult comedy classic, Crocodile Dundee (1986) on ShotDeck today!

FILM COLLECTION

Godzilla

In August, we programmed 15 entries in the world’s longest continuously running film series, Godzilla. The King of the Monsters was originally conceived as a metaphor for Japan’s post-WWII trauma, a colossal prehistoric dinosaur-like monster awakened from the ocean because of exposure to nuclear radiation. The series has generated 38 films – 33 in Japan, and 5 in America – and has become one of the most well-recognized film series in the history of cinema, at the forefront of technical innovations in special and visual effects. The first Godzilla was an actor in a 100kg costume performing in a miniature city, with wires and bamboo holding the structure of the costume in place, and fabric and cushions covered in latex on the outside. Costumed performers have since given way to animatronics, stop-motion, CGI, motion-capture, and everything in between.

Check out this month’s selection of Godzilla films, from the eponymous opening entry in 1954, to 1963’s King Kong vs. Godzilla, cult classic Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla (1974), and 2004’s Godzilla: Final Wars. Check those out and more today!