Talking Heads were an American rock band formed in 1975 in New York City and active until 1991. The band was composed of Scottish-born David Byrne, Chris Frantz (drums), Tina Weymouth (bass) and Jerry Harrison. Described as "one of the most critically acclaimed bands of the '80s", the group helped to pioneer new wave music by integrating elements of punk, art rock, funk, and world music with an anxious, clean-cut image.
The Brady Bunch is an American sitcom created by Sherwood Schwartz that aired from September 26, 1969, to March 8, 1974, on ABC. The series revolves around a large blended family with six children. The show aired for five seasons and, after its cancellation in 1974, went into syndication in September 1975. Though it was never a ratings hit or a critical success during its original run, the program has since become a popular syndicated staple, especially among children and teenage viewers.
SLC Punk! is a 1998 American comedy-drama film written and directed by James Merendino. The film centers around Steven "Stevo" Levy, a college graduate and punk living in Salt Lake City during the mid-1980s.
State of Grace is a 1990 American neo-noir crime film directed by Phil Joanou and starring Sean Penn, Ed Harris and Gary Oldman, also featuring Robin Wright, John Turturro, and John C. Reilly. Written by playwright Dennis McIntyre, the film was executive-produced by Ned Dowd, Randy Ostrow, and Ron Rotholz, with a musical score by Ennio Morricone.
Downtown 81 is a 2000 American film that was shot in 1980-1981. The film was directed by Edo Bertoglio and written and produced by Glenn O'Brien and Patrick Montgomery, with post-production in 1999-2000 by Glenn O'Brien and Maripol. It is a rare real-life snapshot of an ultra-hip subculture of post-punk era Manhattan. Starring renowned artist Jean-Michel Basquiat and featuring such East Village artists as James Chance, Amos Poe, Walter Steding, Tav Falco and Elliott Murphy, the film is a bizarre elliptical urban fairy tale. In 1999, Michael Zilkha, founder of ZE Records, became the film's executive producer.
Pamela Reed is an American actress. She is known for playing Arnold Schwarzenegger's hypoglycemic police partner in the 1990 movie Kindergarten Cop and as the matriarch Gail Green in Jericho. She appeared as Marlene Griggs-Knope on the NBC sitcom Parks and Recreation. She is also well known as the exasperated wife in Bean.
The Mudd Club was a nightclub located at 77 White Street in the TriBeCa neighborhood of Lower Manhattan in New York City. It operated from 1978 to 1983 as a venue for underground music and counterculture events. It was opened by Steve Maas, Diego Cortez and Anya Phillips.
William James Remar is an American actor. He has played numerous roles over a 40 year career, most notably Ajax in The Warriors (1979), Albert Ganz in 48 Hrs. (1982), Dutch Schultz in The Cotton Club (1984), Jack Duff in Miracle on 34th Street (1994), Richard Wright in Sex and the City (2001–2004), and Harry Morgan, the father of the title character, in Dexter (2006–2013). Since 2009 he has done voice-over work in ads for Lexus luxury cars. Remar studied acting at the Neighborhood Playhouse School of the Theatre in New York City.
South Central is a 1992 American crime-drama film, written and directed by Stephen Milburn Anderson. This film is an adaptation of the 1987 fictional novel, The Original South Central L.A. Crips by Donald Bakeer, a former high school teacher in South Central Los Angeles. The film stars Glenn Plummer, Byron Minns and Christian Coleman. South Central was produced by Oliver Stone and released by Warner Bros.
Maureen Denise McCormick is an American actress. She portrayed Marcia Brady on the ABC television sitcom The Brady Bunch, which ran from 1969 to 1974, and reprised the role in several of the numerous Brady Bunch spin-offs and films, including The Brady Kids, The Brady Bunch Hour, The Brady Brides and A Very Brady Christmas (1988). McCormick has appeared in The Amanda Show as Moody's mom in the Moody's Point segment. McCormick also appeared in The Idolmaker (1980) as well as a wide range of other supporting film roles. In the 1980s and 1990s, she ventured into stage acting, appearing in a variety of different roles and productions such as Wendy Darling in Peter Pan and Betty Rizzo in Grease.
Allison Anders is an American independent film director whose films include Gas Food Lodging, Mi Vida Loca and Grace of My Heart. Anders has collaborated with fellow UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television graduate Kurt Voss and has also worked as a television director. Anders' films have been shown at the Cannes International Film Festival and at the Sundance Film Festival. She has been awarded a MacArthur Genius Grant as well as a Peabody Award.
Anya Phillips was an American fashion designer and the co-founder of legendary New York nightclub the Mudd Club along with Steve Maas and Diego Cortez. Phillips had an influence on the fashion, sound and look of the New York-based no wave scene of the late 1970s. She was also the manager and girlfriend of New York-based musician James Chance.
Second Sight is a 1989 American science fiction black comedy film from Warner Bros. starring John Larroquette, Bronson Pinchot, Stuart Pankin, and Bess Armstrong. In the film, a paranormal detective (Larroquette), a psychic (Pinchot), and a nun (Armstrong) search the streets of Boston, Massachusetts for a missing person who has allegedly been kidnapped.
Dudes is a 1987 American independent film directed by Penelope Spheeris, written by Randall Jahnson, and starring Jon Cryer, Catherine Mary Stewart, Daniel Roebuck, and Lee Ving. A Western revenge story in a contemporary setting, its plot concerns three punk rockers from New York City who attempt to make their way to California. When one of them is murdered by a vicious gang leader, the other two, played by Cryer and Roebuck, find themselves fish out of water as they pursue the murderer from Arizona to Montana, assisted by a tow truck driver played by Stewart.
Post-punk is a broad genre of punk music that emerged in the late 1970s as musicians departed from punk's traditional elements and raw simplicity, instead adopting a variety of avant-garde sensibilities and non-rock influences. Inspired by punk's energy and DIY ethic but determined to break from rock cliches, artists experimented with styles like funk, electronic music, jazz, and dance music; the production techniques of dub and disco; and ideas from art and politics, including critical theory, modernist art, cinema and literature. These communities produced independent record labels, visual art, multimedia performances and fanzines.
Scott B and Beth B were among the best-known New York No Wave underground film makers of the late 1970s and early 1980s.
Eric Mitchell is a French born writer, director and actor who moved to downtown New York City in the early 1970s. He has acted in many No Wave films such as Permanent Vacation (1980) by Jim Jarmusch, but is best known for his own films that are usually writing and directed by him: Kidnapped, Red Italy, Underground U.S.A. and The Way It Is or Eurydice in the Avenues, starring Steve Buscemi, Vincent Gallo, Mark Boone Junior and Rockets Redglare. Mitchell worked out of New York City's sordid East Village area in conjunction with Colab and other performance artists and noise musicians. There he created a series of scruffy, deeply personal, short Super 8mm and 16mm films in which he combined darkly sinister images to explore the manner in which the individual is constrained by society.
Boris Policeband was a no wave noise music performer who used dissonant violin, police radio transmissions, and voice. Boris Pearlman was a classically trained violist from New York City.
Underground U.S.A. is a 1980 feature-length underground film directed by Eric Mitchell and starring Patti Astor, Rene Ricard, Jackie Curtis, Cookie Mueller, Tom Wright, John Lurie, and Taylor Mead. Future director Jim Jarmusch was the sound recordist on this film.
Black Goddess is a 1978 Nigerian-Brazilian film written and directed by Ola Balogun. It stars a largely Brazilian cast that include Sonya Santos, Zózimo Bulbul, Léa Garcia, and Jorge Coutinho. The film is set in both the eighteenth century and the 1970s.
