Skyscraper
Release date: 1959-11-11
Votes: 9
Genres: Documentary
Nominated for an Academy Award, this live-action short film playfully chronicles the construction of the Tishman Building at 666 Fifth Avenue in New York City.
Reviews
CinemaSerf
Somehow I couldn't help but think, here, that the buildings that were being demolished were considerably more characterful than the glass and concrete structures that were replacing them. Anyway, this short documentary introduces us to a building crew and to the activities of those tasked with the construction and assembly involved in putting up New York's Tishman Building on 5th Avenue. From the surveyors, architects, draughtsmen through the entire excavation and occasionally quite perilous construction process we see it rise like the proverbial phoenix. It's quite watchable this, but the director has a bit of a penchant for too much crooning and what might even pass for some early rap, before we get some natural sound and images of the site-clearing and the building. Interestingly, they take the debris to New Jersey to help infill the marshland there. Technology and manual labour work closely together and luckily we cram most of this extended process into a 20 minutes that is peppered with a lively narration from those responsible for doing the work - indoor and out. I still get slightly acrophobic watching these folk walking tight-rope shaped steel girders hundreds of feet in the air. Not a job - or a watch - for the feint hearted! Who knew 20% of the costs went on the air-con installation, or that the fitting took as long as the frame?
Movie Recommendation
Que es un Fantasma?: The Making of 'The Devil's Backbone'2004-01-01The making of “The Devil’s Backbone” by Guillermo del Toro.More...
Woman with Pierced Nipples1983-04-15An unknown handsome man showers a woman with red roses. She is smitten and becomes a willing participant in his rather unusual hobby of subjecting women to chains, manacles, cages, piercings, waxing and various sexual humiliations.More...
122009-01-01After blowing his professional ballet career, John's only way to redeem himself is to concoct the demise of his former partner, Leah, who he blames for his downfall; he rehearses his salvation in his mind in the way that he rehearses a dance, but being able to break from the routine will be the key to his success.More...
Box2021-07-16The execution was scheduled and the last meal consumed. The coolness of the poisons entering the blood system slowed the heart rate and sent him on the way to Judgement. He had paid for his crime with years on Death Row waiting for this moment and now he would pay for them again as the judgment continued..More...
Pai Brothers1995-01-01Brothers Ganapathi Pai and Ananda Pai fall for a young stenographer they hire for their company. However, they are in trouble when they learn that she has ulterior motives.More...
Buzzkill: Is There Life After Coffee?2010-01-01Documentary - Meet Wes Davis, a 33-year old teacher and musician, two trades that rely heavily upon coffee consumption. On Valentine's Day in 2010, he decided to break up with coffee and see if he could make it 21 days. Set in sunny San Diego in a neighborhood called Ocean Beach, Buzzkill takes a light-hearted look at life, work, music, people, and of course, coffee. Along the way, Wes talks to hippies, yuppies, friends, dermatologists, tea gurus, coffeeshop owners, and the metal detector guy. Buzzkill is not anti-coffee, or even pro-coffee. It's not "Super Size Me" with caffeine. Shot with no crew or budget, it's an honest documentation of one man's quest to better himself and those around him in the process. - Wes DavisMore...
How Was Your Summer?No data for this movieDuring a back to school icebreaker, a student bares his heart to his classmates .More...- WaverlyNo data for this movieA patron dressed up like a person and a creature instead of itselfMore...
Happiness Is on Its Way1942-08-17The idle rich have their own particular problems. Case in point, Georg and Monika Hedberg were once poor and happy but since Georg became an established painter family bliss has decreased for every fur coat Monika has bought. Their divorce lawyer suggest that they try to save their marriage by moving to a small apartment and live life frugally but happy. When the trial period is over and they want to return home again, their lawyer has stolen their money and disappeared. The Hedbergs are evicted for unpaid rent and terminal poverty seem to be imminent.More...- The Killing of a Chinese Cookie2008-05-09For nearly a century, people have turned to a prophetic dessert for advice, inspiration, and even winning lottery combinations. While the fortune cookie has been a source of fascination and Chinese cuisine staple in North America, it remains nearly non-existent in China. This documentary examines the heated debate over the true origin of the fortune cookie, the mixing of eastern and western cultures that produced it, and the cookie's rise from a simple pastry to a pop culture phenomenon.More...
Springpojkar är vi allihopa1941-01-04Gugge and Nuffe work at the competing meat wholesalers AB Delikatesser and AB Skånedelikatesser. The two companies compete for a large order and the two will stop at hardly nothing to get the orderMore...
Ghar Pe Bataao2021-03-28After 5 years of their relationship, the girl struggles to convince the boy to apprise his parents about them. The boy seems to be dithering and stalling because he is aware the full weight of an inter faith marriage would do to his parents. But the girl has made up her mind. It's now or never and she will push through.More...
Liban, Les secrets du royaume de Byblos2024-12-28There is no descriptionMore...
Santa1918-01-02First version of Gamboa's novel about a young and innocent girl who is betrayed by the man she loves and has to become a prostitute because her family rejects her.More...
Dark Son: The Hunt for a Serial Killer2019-01-12It is the biggest unsolved serial murder case in British criminal history - the so-called 'Jack the Stripper' murders took place in Swinging Sixties London. Professor Wilson and his investigative team - which includes former detective Jackie Malton and forensic psychologist Professor Mike Berry - begin their hunt for the killer not in London, but 150 miles away in Abertillery, South Wales. In 1921, the Welsh mining town was devastated by the double murder of two schoolgirls when eight-year-old Freda Brunell and 11-year-old Florence Little were killed just weeks apart by a local boy, 15-year-old Harold Jones, who the Abertillery residents still refer to as their 'Dark Son'.More...
Similar Movies
Eero Saarinen: The Ar...
2016-12-27Best known for designing National Historic Landmarks such as St. Louis’ iconic Gateway Arch and the General Motors Technical Center, Saarinen also designed New York’s TWA Flight Center at John F. Kennedy International Airport, Yale University’s Ingalls Rink and Morse and Ezra Stiles Colleges, Virginia’s Dulles Airport, and modernist pedestal furniture like the Tulip chair.Alice Walker: Beauty ...
2013-05-13The compelling story of an extraordinary woman's journey from her birth in a paper thin shack in the cotton fields of Georgia to her recognition as a key writer of the twentieth Century.Walker made history as the first black woman to win a Pulitzer Prize for her groundbreaking novel, The Color Purple.The Gaudi Code
2015-03-14La Sagrada Familia – although still under construction in Barcelona – is a cathedral without any flaws. Almost 100 years after his death, experts are convinced that Gaudi was a mathematical genius and that each embellishing ornament of the Sagrada Familia actually serves an architectural purpose.Billy Wilder: Nobody'...
2016-12-29Biography on the famous writer-director, Billy Wilder.Gaudí, le génie visio...
2022-05-29In Barcelona, the Casa Batlló alone sums up the genius of Antoni Gaudí. During the exhibition devoted to it by the Musée d'Orsay, we take a guided tour of this eccentric, colorful residence, completed in 1906.Boris Ryzhy
2008-12-01Russian Poet Boris Ryzhy was handsome, talented and famous. So why did he end his own life at the age of 26? A quest to find the answer takes the filmmaker to the notorious neighbourhood in the cold industrial city of Yekaterinenburg where Boris grew up...Who Is Arthur Chu?
2017-01-20Documentary feature about 11-time Jeopardy! champion and Internet iconoclast, Arthur Chu.Approaching the Eleph...
2015-02-20APPROACHING THE ELEPHANT is a feature-length documentary about The Teddy McArdle Free School, where classes are optional and rules are made by democratic vote. Summerhill, founded 90 years ago by A. S. Neill, was the first free school - now there are more than 200 worldwide. Approaching the Elephant chronicles a free school in the making - spanning two years, from Teddy McArdle's first day when there were no rules or classes, through the changing of the school's director and the expulsion of a student by democratic vote, to the last day of the second year, APPROACHING THE ELEPHANT is an intimate portrait of a small group of people from a range of educational backgrounds, come together to forge a place where children are treated as equals, at liberty to spend their days however they please.Born Into Brothels: C...
2004-12-08Documentary depicting the lives of child prostitutes in the red light district of Songachi, Calcutta. Director Zana Briski went to photograph the prostitutes when she met and became friends with their children. Briski began giving photography lessons to the children and became aware that their photography might be a way for them to lead better lives.God's Ways
2006-11-06A dual portrait of young drifters on the streets of Odessa, where every day seems the same and the future keeps getting further away.Full Metal Village
2007-04-19The film describes the microcosmos of the small village Wacken and shows the clash of the cultures, before and during the biggest heavy metal festival in Europe.The Story of the Weep...
2003-06-29When a Mongolian nomadic family's newest camel colt is rejected by its mother, a musician is needed for a ritual to change her mind.Supergirl
2016-10-09Naomi seems like a typical nine-year-old girl, until her passion for powerlifting transforms her life with world record-breaking championships and national news headlines. Supergirl explores Naomi’s coming-of-age journey as she and her Orthodox Jewish family are changed forever by her inner strength and extraordinary talent.Ulysse
1986-01-29At the sea shore, a goat, a child, and a naked man. This is a photograph taken in 1954 by Agnès Varda. The goat was dead, the child was named Ulysses, and the man was naked. Starting from this frozen image, the film explores the real and the imaginary.Dig!
2004-05-14A documentary on the once promising American rock bands The Brian Jonestown Massacre and The Dandy Warhols. The friendship between respective founders, Anton Newcombe and Courtney Taylor, escalated into bitter rivalry as the Dandy Warhols garnered major international success while the Brian Jonestown Massacre imploded in a haze of drugs.In the Realms of the ...
2004-01-15In the Realms of the Unreal is a documentary about the reclusive Chicago-based artist Henry Darger. Henry Darger was so reclusive that when he died his neighbors were surprised to find a 15,145-page manuscript along with hundreds of paintings depicting The Story of the Vivian Girls, in What is Known as the Realms of the Unreal, of the Glodeco-Angelinnian War Storm, Cased by the Child Slave Rebellion.How to Cook Your Life...
2007-05-10A Zen priest in San Francisco and cookbook author use Zen Buddhism and cooking to relate to everyday life.School of Babel
2014-03-12They just arrived in France. They are Irish, Serbs, Brazilians Tunisians, Chinese and Senegalese ... For a year, Julie Bertuccelli filmed talks, conflicts and joys of this group of students aged 11 to 15 years, together in the same class to learn French.France / Tour / Detou...
1979-01-01In this astonishing twelve-part project for and about television — the title of which refers to a 19th-century French primer Le tour de la France par deux enfants — Godard and Miéville take a detour through the everyday lives of two children in contemporary France.One Thousand Days in ...
2012-10-01Documentary short following French-Vietnamese artist Marcelino Truong on his journey back to Vietnam for the research on his 'roman graphique' 'Une si jolie petite guerre' (A Lovely Little War). Truong looks back to when his family lived in Saigon from 1961 to 1963 when his father served as a translator to then president of the Republic of Vietnam Ngo Dinh Diem. The film follows Truong as he ruminates over memories, photos and films, and also conducts a host of interviews with Vietnamese relatives and officials to present a personal and long awaited Vietnamese perspective to the war.