We continue to celebrate elephants. The truth is: We believe poachers should have their dicks cut off . . . and left to die.
We love the new film An Elephant’s Journey. It has been released on DVD and Digital by Lionsgate; it arrives On Demand October 23 .
This adventure is family fun. When Phoenix Wilder (portrayed by Sam Ashe Arnold), a 13-year-old orphan, moves in with his Aunt Sarah (Elizabeth Hurley) – his only surviving relative, living in Africa with her husband, Uncle Jack–Phoenix quickly falls in love with his surroundings. However, while on safari with his uncle, Phoenix gets separated from the rest of the group. As the search for Phoenix continues, the boy becomes fast friends with a giant bull elephant he was able to free from a trap. Phoenix names the elephant Indlovu, and, as they begin to bond, he decides to try to stop a band of poachers who prey on African elephants
Something tasty is always cooking on DVDs from PBS Distribution.
On September 11, they serve up The Great British Cooking Show: Season 5. The delectable baking competition that has grown into a beloved international phenomenon returns for a fifth season. The program features the original cast of Mary Berry, Paul Hollywood, Sue Perkins and Mel Giedroyc, in a season never before seen in the U.S.
Once again, viewers will meet twelve of Britain’s best amateur bakers who will don their aprons, enter the iconic tent and tackle culinary trials that increase in difficulty as the competition unfolds. Vying to be crowned star baker, challengers prepare three creations in each episode: a signature bake, which tests their creative flair and baking ability; the devilishly difficult technical challenge, in which contestants have to bake creations using only ingredient lists and minimal instruction; and finally, the showstopper, designed to fully showcase each baker’s skill and creativity.
Contestants face the demanding but endearing judges Mary Berry and Paul Hollywood, two icons of British baking who are now household names in America. Comedy duo Sue Perkins and Mel Giedroyc are the series hosts, providing the bakers with much-needed emotional support and comic relief. Offering viewers the perfect sweet summer escape, this program features unforgettable contestants attempting some of the series most difficult challenges, from bagels to strudel, treacle tarts to choux gateaus.
No wonder we love Frontline. Such great shows, now on DVD from PBS Distribution. Frontline: Trump’s Takeover President Frump’s first year in office has been marked by ongoing turmoil—including in his own Republican party, where presidential tweet storms, inflammatory rhetoric and high-profile dissent have fueled open conflict.
Gripping and revealing, this program tells the story of Frump’s takeover of the Republican Party—from the perspective of Republican lawmakers and insiders themselves. Trump’s Takeover examines the president’s unorthodox governing style, showing how after taking office, he displayed a lack of interest in the ins and outs of legislation and policy, and instead took to Twitter, attacking opponents. The film goes behind closed doors in the negotiations to repeal and replace Obamacare—Trump’s first major legislative test—revealing through accounts of people who were there how little Trump seemed to understand or care about the details of the bill.
Frontline: McCain The program follows the story of the Republican Party’s evolution and an exploration of Senator John McCain (R., Ariz.)’s complicated relationship with President Trump and the Republican Party, as well as his life and politics.
Drawing on both new interviews and Frontline’s deep rchive of reporting, McCaintraces the conservative standard-bearer’s motivations and his political history, from his experience as a prisoner of war in Vietnam, to speaking out against torture during the Bush administration, to his dramatic vote against the GOP’s health care bill last year.
Frontline: Blackout in Puerto Rico More than seven months after Hurricane Maria devastated the U.S. territory of Puerto Rico, more than 100,000 Americans are still without power, as part of the worst blackout in U.S. history.
This program investigates how the federal response in Puerto Rico left millions of Americans in the dark for months—and the storm before the storm: how Wall Street, Puerto Rico’s government, and Washington fueled a debt crisis that left the island’s economy in ruins and its infrastructure crippled even before Maria hit. The investigative team uncovered a trove of insider documents that show a government relief effort in chaos, struggling with key contracts, basic supplies, and its own workforce.
Produced with the Investigative Reporting Workshop at American University, the program uncovers a series of shortcomings after Maria, including how half of FEMA’s staff on the island were trainees or unqualified, how contractors FEMA turned to failed to deliver hundreds of thousands of tarps, and how the Army Corps’ temporary roof repair program was glaringly slow compared to other storms—putting up just 439 roofs in the first 30 days after the storm compared to more than 4,500 in the first month after Irma in Florida.
Gripping and riveting, this program is a must-watch look inside the ongoing recovery effort in Puerto Rico—and the economic crisis that devastated the island long before Maria.
Frontline: Trafficked in America This program investigates how teenagers from Central America were smuggled into the U.S. by traffickers who promised them jobs and a better life—only to force them to live and work in virtual slavery to pay off their debt.
This documentary shines new light on a labor trafficking case in which Guatemalan teens were forced by a third-party contractor to work against their will at Trillium Farms in Ohio, a major egg producer. The investigative team exposes a criminal network that exploited undocumented minors, the companies who profited from their forced labor, and how U.S. government policies and practices helped to deliver some teens directly to their traffickers.
Gripping and revealing, this program presents viewers a rare look inside the hidden reality of labor trafficking in the United States.
Frontline: Myanmar’s Killing Fields With secret footage filmed by a network of citizen activists, and firsthand accounts from victims and their families, this program is U.S. television’s most comprehensive investigation of the Myanmar military’s violent crackdown on the Rohingya Muslim minority—an effort that has been described by the UN as having the “hallmarks of genocide.”
The Myanmar military insists that its campaign was simply a counter-insurgency “clearance operation” targeted against a militant Islamist Rohingya group, ARSA, that had attacked and killed security forces at police and army bases. But with shocking footage filmed by citizen activists, the documentary depicts an orchestrated campaign to target civilians, state-sanctioned violence, and mass murder—and uncovers new accounts of atrocities against the Rohingya people, from mass rape of women and children, to babies and children thrown into fires.
https://youtu.be/27g8EYNkXwE
The program also investigates the role of Aung San Suu Kyi, State Counsellor of Myanmar in the crisis. The Nobel Laureate was once seen as Myanmar’s hope and a beacon for democracy—including by President Barack Obama, who lifted all sanctions on the country in 2016. But Suu Kyi, who has continued to defend her country from international criticism, has now been accused of standing by as her country’s military led an operation that killed thousands of civilians.
But the gripping thriller Affairs of State combines love, lust and political scandal and is hot.
In his quest for power, D.C. aide Michael Lawson (played by David Corenswet) will do anything to take part in Senator Baines’s (David James Elliott) White House campaign, including blackmailing Baines’s shady advisor (Adrian Grenier) and sleeping with the candidate’s wife (Mimi Rogers)
But when he gets involved with the senator’s alluring daughter, Lawson (Grace Victoria Cox) learns his dangerous game could have a deadly payoff. Also starring Thora Birch, this pulse-pounding thriller is a perfect match for today’s turbulent political climate.
It’s back! PBS Distribution has released the third season of the multi-award winning British crime drama, The Tunnel: Vengeance Season 3 on DVD and Digital HD. The emotional final season of the critically acclaimed bilingual crime thriller reunites Stephen Dillane in his International Emmy Award-winning role as Karl Roebuck with Clémence Poésy as Elise Wassermann for their last outing as the beloved and unlikely Anglo-French duo.
In this series, the investigative pair takes on a toxic and terrifying folie à deux whose mutual defining quality is an existential death wish. When the question posed by the couple–what is a life worth?–is directed straight back at Karl, he is forced to confront an utterly impossible choice that will haunt the audience long after the closing credits.
Set amidst mid-Brexit hysteria, The Tunnel: Vengeance tackles an escalating refugee crisis and examines the increasing threat of terror occasioned by disenfranchised, exiled souls on whom society has turned its back.
Last summer, season 2, The Tunnel: Sabotage had 1.1 million streams across PBS digital platforms, making it one of the most-streamed drama limited series on PBS. The season reached more than 2.8 million unique viewers on broadcast television.
Truth or dare: Would you do this . . .
Eight college friends head to a “Haunted Rental” in a remote town for Halloween weekend. There, they play the game rumored to have caused the deaths of seven teenagers decades earlier, Truth or Dare. And what starts out as vodka-induced fun, quickly turns serious when the dares become sickeningly dangerous and the truths threaten to tear the group apart. When players attempt to refuse the increasingly challenging tasks, they’re met with deadly consequences, quickly discovering: You must do the dare, or the dare does you.
From the producers of the 2010 remake of I Spit on Your Grave and the Relentless series comes this chilling thriller directed by Nick Simon, which originally aired on Syfy. With an ensemble cast featuring Cassie Scerbo, Luke Baines and Mason Dye, along with a cameo from Nightmare on Elm Street’s Heather Langenkamp, audiences may never play Truth or Dare again.
Save the date of September 4 for the DVD release from Cinedigm.
School starts.
And horror comes to campus in The Row, a modern take on the classic slasher film. The anxiety of rush week turns into sheer terror when sisters of a sorority are slain—and turned into dolls—by a serial killer.
New pledge Riley (played by Lala Kent) and her best friend, Becks (Mia Frampton), must endure late-night hazing rituals as the murderer watches and waits. Can Riley uncover the terrible secret shared by her cop father (Randy Couture) and deceased mother, a former Phi Lambda sister, before becoming a victim herself? The Row will be available from Lionsgate on Blu-ray and DVD on September 25.
Over the past 15 years, the United Nations has recorded more than 1,700 allegations of sexual abuse by its peacekeepers in conflict zones around the world, from the Democratic Republic of Congo to Kosovo, and from East Timor to Haiti. Frontline: UN Sex Abuse Scandal investigates how and why the problem of sexual abuse and exploitation by peacekeepers has persisted despite the UN’s efforts to stamp it out . . . and why the UN has a record of only 53 uniformed peacekeepers and one international civilian peacekeeper being sent to prison for sexual offenses.
Correspondent Ramita Navai and the film team track down survivors across the globe who were as young as 10 years old when they say they were raped or exploited by UN peacekeepers who were supposed to protect them. The team also finds and interviews Didier Bourguet, the only civilian peacekeeper to have been jailed for sexual abuse while working abroad for the UN. He was imprisoned for two rapes, but tells Frontline on-camera that he had sex with 20 or 25 children while in the Congo.
Gripping and eye-opening, the program explores the failures and constraints of the UN, which has the authority to fire people, but not prosecute them, and the role of member states in dealing with the problem.
Another artistic adventure from PBS: American Masters: Basquiat: Rage to Riches. Directed and produced by David Shulman, this program tells the story of Jean-Michel Basquiat like never before. One of the most influential American artists of the 20th century, Basquiat was a rock star of the early ’80s New York art scene. He lived fast, died young and created thousands of drawings and paintings. It took less than a decade for Basquiat, an accountant’s son from Brooklyn, to go from anonymous graffiti writer known as SAMO to an epoch-defining art star.
Today, Basquiat is in the top tier of the international art market along with Picasso, de Kooning, and Francis Bacon. 2018 marks the 30th anniversary of Basquiat’s untimely death from a heroin overdose. In death, he has emerged as one of the most important artists of his generation and now exhibits in museums all over the world.
The program features exclusive interviews with Basquiat’s two sisters, Lisane and Jeanine, who have never before spoken about their brother and his art for a television documentary. With striking candor, art world colleagues, including dealers Bruno Bischofberger, Larry Gagosian and Mary Boone, and Basquiat’s most intimate friends, lovers and fellow artists draw a portrait of a handsome, charismatic and fragile personality – one enmeshed in a world of cash, drugs and the pernicious racism that he encountered. The main weapon Basquiat used to fight prejudice was his art. A game changer, his painting embodied and reflected breakthroughs in music, poetry and a new type of expressionism in modern art.
September is a few weeks ago, so what way to “fall” back than with a hot new PBS DVD?
Directed by Glenn Holsten, American Masters: Wyethtells the story of one of America’s most popular, but least understood, artists–Andrew Wyeth. Son of the famous illustrator N.C. Wyeth, Andrew had his first exhibition at age 20, and his painting Christina’s World was acquired by the Museum of Modern Art in 1948. While Wyeth’s exhibitions routinely broke attendance records, art world critics continually assaulted his work.
Detailing the stunning drawings and powerful portraits he created in Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania, and on the coast of Cushing, Maine, Wyeth explores his inspirations, including neighbor Christina Olsen and his hidden muse, the German model Helga Testorf, who he painted secretly for 15 years.
Through unprecedented access to Wyeth’s family members, including sons Jamie and Nicholas Wyeth, and never-before-seen archival materials from the family’s personal collection and hundreds of Wyeth’s studies, drawings and paintings, this documentary presents the most complete portrait of the artist yet —bearing witness to a legacy just at the moment it is evolving.
The documentary will be released on Digital HD on September 8 and on DVD on September 11, 2018.n modern art.
Today, Basquiat is in the top tier of the international art market along with Picasso, de Kooning, and Francis Bacon. 2018 marks the 30th anniversary of Basquiat’s untimely death from a heroin overdose. In death, he has emerged as one of the most important artists of his generation and now exhibits in museums all over the world.