William Shatner's Gonzo Ballet

Last updated
William Shatner's Gonzo Ballet
William Shatner's Gonzo Ballet.jpg
Directed byPat Buckley
Bobby Ciraldo (co-director)
Kevin Layne (co-director)
Andrew Swant (co-director)
Produced byChris Carley
David Zappone
Michael Manasseri
Starring William Shatner
Ben Folds
Margo Sappington
Henry Rollins
Elizabeth Shatner
Michael Pink
CinematographyMark Escribano
Edited by Ray Chi
Music by Ben Folds
Distributed by EPIX
Release date
  • April 17, 2009 (2009-04-17)(Nashville Film Festival)
Running time
60 minutes
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish

William Shatner's Gonzo Ballet is a feature-length documentary film about a ballet by Margo Sappington called "Common People", which was set to the music of William Shatner and Ben Folds from their album Has Been . [1] [2] [3] "Common People" was one of the Has Been tracks, and was a cover of a Pulp song from their 1995 Different Class album. [1]

The film explores the genesis of this unique artistic collaboration by fusing the music, poetry, and dance of "Common People" with interviews by William Shatner, Ben Folds, Margo Sappington, and Henry Rollins. Shatner plays a prominent role in the film and also acted as Executive Producer. [1] [2] [3]

The film was made by Special Entertainment and Big Screen Entertainment Group in association with Shatner's Melis Productions. [1] [2] [4]

The documentary had a very well received World Premiere at the Nashville Film Festival in April 2009, where it won the President's Impact Award. William Shatner attended and, to the delight of the audience, provided additional insights into his recording of "Has Been" and the ballet. Ben Folds and Margo Sappington were also in attendance. Variety magazine called the film "surprisingly revealing" and indieWire reviewed that "Shatner comes across as a true original."

After the premiere in Nashville the film screened at the Rhode Island Film Festival, DocFest Stratford, the Milwaukee Film Festival, the Wild Rivers Film Festival, the Edmonton International Film Festival, the Indie Memphis Film Festival, and the San Diego Film Festival.

In October 2009 the film screened at the Marbella International Film Festival in Spain, where it won the Best Documentary award. William Shatner attended the festival and accepted the award. The film also won a Telly Award in 2012. [5]

In 2013, as an April Fool's Day prank, Netflix created a new genre called "Surreal Ballets Based on a William Shatner Album" and listed the film 50 times in each user's account. [6]

The world television premiere was a multi-platform release through EPIX, a joint venture between Paramount Pictures, MGM, and Lionsgate. [7] The film was available on Netflix from 2011 through 2015 and was later released on Sundance Now, Amazon Prime Video, iTunes, and others. In October 2020 it was released on Blu-ray by Shout Factory.

Related Research Articles

<i>Has Been</i> 2004 studio album by William Shatner

Has Been (2004) is William Shatner's second musical album after 1968's The Transformed Man. The album was produced and arranged by Ben Folds and most of the songs are co-written by Folds and Shatner, with Folds creating arrangements for Shatner's prose-poems. The album features guest appearances from Joe Jackson, Folds and Aimee Mann, Lemon Jelly, Henry Rollins, Adrian Belew, and Brad Paisley.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sheffield DocFest</span> Documentary festival in Sheffield, England

Sheffield DocFest, short for Sheffield International Documentary Festival (SIDF), is an international documentary festival and Industry Marketplace held annually in Sheffield, England.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kimberley Kates</span> American actress and film producer (born 1969)

Kimberley Kates is an American actress and film producer. Kates is best known for her role as Princess Elizabeth in Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure (1989). She founded and is currently the CEO of Big Screen Entertainment Group, a Los Angeles–based publicly traded film production and distribution company.

The Midwest Film Festival is the USA's only film festival solely dedicated to Midwest films. Only films from the eight-state Midwest region of Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Ohio and Wisconsin are considered for screening.

Andrew Swant is an American filmmaker best known for William Shatner's Gonzo Ballet, The Jeffrey Dahmer Files, and What What in the Butt.

Bobby Ciraldo is a filmmaker and web-based artist whose works include Hamlet A.D.D., William Shatner's Gonzo Ballet, the production of Frankie Latina's Modus Operandi, Samwell's What What , and a music video for Leslie and the Ly's called "Zombie Killer". He attended Grinnell College and later collaborated with Chris Smith, Ray Chi, and Scott Reeder to create ZeroTV.com, a precursor to MySpace and YouTube.

Special Entertainment is a Milwaukee based media production company established in 2003 by Bobby Ciraldo and Andrew Swant.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">William Shatner</span> Canadian actor (born 1931)

William Shatner is a Canadian actor. In a career spanning seven decades, he is best known for his portrayal of James T. Kirk in the Star Trek franchise, from his 1966 debut as the captain of the starship Enterprise in the second pilot of the first Star Trek television series to his final appearance as Captain Kirk in the seventh Star Trek feature film, Star Trek Generations (1994).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">MGM+</span> American pay television network

MGM+, formerly known as Epix, is an American premium cable and satellite television network owned by the MGMPlus Entertainment subsidiary of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM), which is itself a subsidiary of Amazon MGM Studios. The channel's programming consists of recent and older theatrically released motion pictures, original television series, documentaries, and music and comedy specials.

Margo Sappington is an American choreographer and dancer. She was nominated in 1975 for both a Tony Award as Best Choreographer and a Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Choreography for her work on the play Where's Charley?. In 1988, her ballet Virgin Forest was the subject of an award-winning documentary by PBS. In 2005 she received a Lifetime Achievement Award for choreography from the Joffrey Ballet.

Barry Michael Avrich is a Canadian film director, film producer, author, marketing executive, and arts philanthropist. Avrich's film career has included critically acclaimed films about the entertainment business including The Last Mogul about film producer Lew Wasserman (2005), Glitter Palace about the Motion Picture Country Home (2005), and Guilty Pleasure about the Vanity Fair columnist and author Dominick Dunne (2004). In addition, Avrich produced the Gemini-nominated television special Caesar and Cleopatra (2009) with Christopher Plummer. Avrich also produced Canada's Sports Hall of Fame Awards (2015) as well as the Canadian Screen Awards (2015-2017) and The Scotiabank Giller Prize (2015-Current).

Most Valuable Players is a 2010 documentary film about The Freddy Awards, an annual awards ceremony recognizing outstanding high school musical and theatre theatrical productions in the Lehigh Valley region of eastern Pennsylvania. The film focuses primarily on three Pennsylvania schools: Emmaus High School in Emmaus, Parkland High School in Allentown, and Freedom High School in Bethlehem. By coincidence, both Emmaus and Parkland were presenting the musical Les Misérables the year Most Valuable Players was filmed, and the competition that arose made for one of the film's main conflicts.

<i>Racing Dreams</i> 2009 American film directed by Marshall Curry

Racing Dreams is a 2009 American documentary film directed by Marshall Curry following two boys and a girl through a season of World Karting Association (WKA) racing as they compete and aspire to become professional NASCAR drivers.

<i>Connected: An Autoblogography About Love, Death & Technology</i> 2011 American film

Connected: An Autoblogography About Love, Death, & Technology is an autobiographical documentary film directed by Tiffany Shlain, dedicated to her father. The film unfolds during a year in which technology and science literally become a matter of life and death for the director. As Tiffany's father Dr. Leonard Shlain, MD battles brain cancer and she confronts a high-risk pregnancy, her very understanding of connection is challenged. Using a mix of animation, archival footage, and home movies, Shlain attempts to reveal the ties that link us not only to the people we love but also to the world at large. Connected explores how, after centuries of declaring our independence, it may be time for us to declare our interdependence instead.

<i>The Captains</i> (film) 2011 Canadian film

The Captains is a 2011 feature documentary that follows actor William Shatner through interviews with the other actors who have portrayed starship captains in five other incarnations of the Star Trek franchise. Shatner's subjects discuss their lives and careers before, during, and after their tenure with Star Trek. They explore the pressures, stigmas, and sacrifices that accompanied their roles and their larger careers. The film makes use of conversations, personal observations, interviews, and archival footage.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Todd Robinson (film director)</span> Film director and screenwriter

Todd Robinson is an American film director, screenwriter, and producer.

<i>Wish Me Away</i> 2011 American documentary film

Wish Me Away is a 2011 documentary film directed by Bobbie Birleffi and Beverly Kopf. Winner of 12 film festival awards, it is about the coming out of the country music singer and gay rights activist Chely Wright. In May 2010, she had become the first major country music performer to publicly come out as gay.

The video on demand Internet streaming media provider, Netflix, performs April Fools' Day practical jokes on its subscribers. These jokes have included overly detailed categories for films, comic public service announcements and two original films composed entirely of footage of food cooking.

<i>To Your Last Death</i> 2019 American film

To Your Last Death is a 2019 American 2D adult animated action horror film produced and directed by Jason Axinn, and written by Jim Cirile and Tanya C. Klein. It stars the voices of Morena Baccarin, Ray Wise, Bill Moseley and William Shatner.

<i>Procession</i> (film) 2021 American documentary film

Procession is an 2021 American documentary film, directed and edited by Robert Greene. It follows six men, who suffered abuse by priests, looking for peace.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 http://www.nashvillecitypaper.com/news.php?viewStory=65996 The City Paper, By Ron Wynn (February 11, 2009), "Shatner beaming down to Nashville Film Festival", accessed 02-19-2009
  2. 1 2 3 https://money.cnn.com/news/newsfeeds/articles/marketwire/0473655.htm CNN Money (February 12, 2009), "Big Screen Entertainment Group and William Shatner to Walk the Red Carpet at Nashville International Film Festival", accessed 02-19-2009
  3. 1 2 http://www.tennessean.com/article/20090211/ENTERTAINMENT04/902110408/1005/ENTERTAINMENT The Tennessean , By Dave Paulson (February 11, 2009)), "William Shatner will bring documentary to Nashville film fest = Star's movie tracks creation of a ballet", accessed 01-19-2009
  4. ↑ http://www.nashvillescene.com/2009-02-12/film/peter-fonda-william-shatner-ballet-among-2009-nashville-film-festival-lineup/ Nashville Scene, By Jim Ridley (February 11, 2009), "Peter Fonda, William Shatner ballet (!) among 2009 Nashville Film Festival lineup", accessed 02-19-2009
  5. ↑ "Entries Open October 2017".
  6. ↑ "And You Thought Netflix Had Crazy Categories Before". April 2013.
  7. ↑ "EPIX: William Shatner's Next Frontier". The New York Times . 2011-05-18. Retrieved 2011-06-04.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.