Petty Blue
★ 7 · 2010 · Documentary
A biography of NASCAR racing legend Richard Petty, with featuring interviews with Petty and his fellow race-car drivers and footage from his past races.
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Trackhouse: Get Ready
2021
This NASCAR documentary film takes a look at Trackhouse Racing Team, which made its debut in the Cup Series stable in 2021, as well as driver Daniel Suárez and team owners Pitbull and Justin Marks.
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Ôrí
1989 · ★ 8.6
A look at the Brazilian black movement between 1977 and 1988, going by the relationship between Brazil and Africa.
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The History of White People in America: Volume II
1986 · ★ 8.3
In this daring follow-up to The History of White People in America, comedian Martin Mull takes us on an in-depth look at such topics as White Religion, White Stress, White Politics, and White Crime.
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The Perfumed Garden
2000
THE PERFUMED GARDEN is an exploration of the myths and realities of sensuality and sexuality in Arab society, a world of taboos and of erotic literature. Through interviews with men and women of all ages, classes, and sexual orientation, the film lifts a corner of the veil that usually shrouds discussion of this subject in the Arab world. Made by an Algerian-French woman director, the film begins by looking at the record of a more permissive history, and ends with the experiences of contemporary lovers from mixed backgrounds. It examines the personal issues raised by the desire for pleasure, amidst societal pressures for chastity and virginity. The film discusses pre-marital sex, courtship and marriage, familial pressures, private vs. public spaces, social taboos (and the desire to break them), and issues of language.
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Edward Said On Orientalism: "The Orient" Represented in Mass Media
1998
Edward Said's book Orientalism has been profoundly influential in a diverse range of disciplines since its publication in 1978. In this engaging and lavishly illustrated interview he talks about the context within which the book was conceived, its main themes, and how its original thesis relates to the contemporary understanding of "the Orient" as represented in the mass media. "That's the power of the discourse of Orientalism. If you're thinking about people and Islam, and about that part of the world, those are the words you constantly have to use. To think past it, to go beyond it, not to use it, is virtually impossible, because there is no knowledge that isn't codified in this way about that part of the world." -Edward Said
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Perfect Image?
1989 · ★ 9
Two actresses take us through a series of 'raps' and sketches about what it means to be beautiful and black.
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Preschool to Prison
2023
Preschool to Prison is a compelling examination of how the United States public school system is built and operated like prisons. Zero-tolerance policies are used to justify suspension and arrests that set up a pathway to send children of color and children with special needs from school to prison. Children are being suspended, restrained, dragged, physically manhandled, and subsequently arrested for minor offenses such as throwing candy on a school bus. These personal accounts from people affected by the school-to-prison pipeline give riveting tales about the generational impact on society.
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Racing
2025
Following a first position on the podium, racing driver Jean-Philippe Bergeron and his team Prolon attempt to win the last race of the season.
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Masters of the Pillow
2003 · ★ 9
Traces the making of UC-Davis professor Darrell Hamamoto's first-ever Asian American porn movie ("Skin on Skin") from planning to production. Hou interviews filmmakers Justin Lin ("Better Luck Tomorrow") and Eric Byler ("Charlotte Sometimes"), professor Elaine Kim and playwright David Henry Hwang to get at whether Asian America truly needs its own "porno practices" as a way of decolonizing the community's collective sexual imaginations and confronting how sexuality and masculinity are treated in the Asian American community.
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James Baldwin: From Another Place
1973 · ★ 6.5
In Istanbul, American writer James Baldwin muses about race, the American fascination with sexuality, insights into his interrupted writing decade in the country, the generosity of the Turks, and how being in another country, in another place, forces one to re-examine well-established attitudes about modern society.
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Uppity: The Willy T. Ribbs Story
2020 · ★ 7
An in-depth profile of the life and career of Willy T. Ribbs - the controversial Black driver who shattered the color barrier of professional auto-racing and became the first Black qualifier in the storied history of the Indy 500.
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An American Story: Race Amity and The Other Tradition
2018
In contrast to the lens that focuses exclusively on the racist traditions that are rooted in America’s social history, the moral counterweight of close, loving, friendship and collaboration, which have always been present in our history, represents “the other tradition.” This “other tradition” is a source of inspiration and presents models of behavior that are instructional and include unknown and uncelebrated legacies to be absorbed and emulated across generations of present day Americans. The documentary discusses the “better in us” a needed collective perspective in the current climate of national disunity across racial, religious, and political lines. This has significant implications for addressing public issues from immigration to health care and the myriad of governmental, educational, business, and religious challenges that we must successfully meet to weave the fabric of unity which is indispensable to survival as a nation.
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