Orion: The Man Who Would Be King

Apr 17, 2015

1h 26m

★ 7.0

Overview

August 16, 1977. All of America was stunned by the news of Elvis Presley's untimely passing. Some went so far as to believe that it couldn't be true. Somehow he had faked his death. For the executives at Sun Records that fantasy became an opportunity in the form of Orion, a mysterious masked performer with the voice of The King. First appearing in 1979, Orion recorded 11 albums and performed live to packed houses and rapturous fans around the nation. But who was the man behind the mask? In this stranger-than-fiction true story, Jeanie Finlay exposes the incredible life of an unknown singer plucked from obscurity and thrust into the spotlight with the complicity of a manipulative music industry and a public fan base unwilling to let The King go. Resonant in its themes of identity, fate, and the double-edged nature of fame, Orion is a stylish mystery story that finally gives a name and a face to a gifted artist who had been unjustly deprived of both.

Genres

Music

Documentary

Production Companies

Met Film Production

BBC

Orion: The Man Who Would Be King Trailers

Cast

Self

Jimmy Orion Ellis

Self

Jim Ellis Jr

Self

Gail Brewer-Giorgio

For several decades, gifted and incredibly prolific forger Mark Landis compulsively created impeccable copies of works by a variety of major artists, donating them to institutions across the country and landing pieces on many of their walls. ART AND CRAFT brings us into the cluttered and insular life of an unforgettable character just as he finds his foil in an equally obsessive art registrar.

4.5

Casa Roshell

Nov 13, 2017

You’d never know this is your home away from home. The surveillance camera outside shows a drab reception area and an unremarkable street in Mexico City; inside, the lights flash, but the tables are empty. Yet preparations are soon underway and fixed categories cease to apply: stubble is removed, make-up applied and strands of hair are teased into place; the camera is trained not on the men themselves, but what they see in the mirror.

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0.0

Tough Love

Dec 31, 2014

Fighting to reunite with their children, 'Tough Love' chronicles the lives of two parents with cases in the United States child welfare system as they attempt to prove to the courts and the system that they deserve a second chance to be a parent and have a family.

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7.2

In Country

Apr 10, 2015

War is Hell. Why would anyone want to spend their weekends there? Deep in the Oregon woods, the heat of a reenacted Vietnam battle sheds light on America's complicated relationship with war and its veterans.

7.6

The Corporation

Sep 10, 2003

Since the late 18th century American legal decision that the business corporation organizational model is legally a person, it has become a dominant economic, political and social force around the globe. This film takes an in-depth psychological examination of the organization model through various case studies. What the study illustrates is that in the its behaviour, this type of "person" typically acts like a dangerously destructive psychopath without conscience. Furthermore, we see the profound threat this psychopath has for our world and our future, but also how the people with courage, intelligence and determination can do to stop it.

0.0

Zapatista Women

Jan 1, 1995

April 1994 in the Lacandona Jungle, Chiapas, México. The Zapatista women talk about the living conditions of Mexican indigenous populations and the life of peasant women. They explain the reasons for their struggle and their uprising.

0.0

Toots

Sep 14, 2007

The '40s and '50s were a classic period in New York City nightlife, when the saloonkeeper was king and regular folks could drink with celebrities like Frank Sinatra and Jackie Gleason. In this documentary, Kristi Jacobson profiles her grandfather, the king of kings: Toots Shor of the eponymous restaurant and saloon, which was once the place to be seen in Manhattan. Edward R. Murrow called Toots Shor the owner of America’s greatest saloon. He became the unlikely den-mother to the heroes of America's golden age. Politicians and gangsters, sports heroes and movie stars - Sinatra, Gleason, DiMaggio, Ruth, Costello, Eisenhower, Nixon, Warren - for 30 years, they all found their way to Toots' eponymous saloon on New York's West 51st Street.

6.2

Germany in Autumn

Mar 3, 1978

Germany in Autumn does not have a plot per se; it mixes documentary footage, along with standard movie scenes, to give the audience the mood of Germany during the late 1970s. The movie covers the two month time period during 1977 when a businessman was kidnapped, and later murdered, by the left-wing terrorists known as the RAF-Rote Armee Fraktion (Red Army Fraction). The businessman had been kidnapped in an effort to secure the release of the orginal leaders of the RAF, also known as the Baader-Meinhof gang. When the kidnapping effort and a plane hijacking effort failed, the three most prominent leaders of the RAF, Andreas Baader, Gudrun Ensslin, and Jan-Carl Raspe, all committed suicide in prison. It has become an article of faith within the left-wing community that these three were actually murdered by the state.

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4.7

Tango Dream

Dec 12, 1985

Sitting at her typewriter, listening to tango music, she dreams. Buenos Aires and Montevideo are far away, a different world where, long ago, the tango came into being. A dream about dance and music, as well as about unfulfilled desire and wanderlust behind the Berlin Wall.

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8.0

Nude Portraits – Gundula Schulze

Apr 20, 1984

Photographer Gundula Schulze wrote her graduate thesis on "nude photography of women in East Germany". It's a subject she continues to pursue in her photography. She considers the stereotype of superficial nude photography anachronistic, and talks vividly about being at pains to develop a relationship of trust with the women she photographs. Schulze wants to show what makes up the "whole woman", living up to her position in East Germany. Scenes of women in the professional world have been edited into the film.

6.7

Dark Matter

Feb 12, 2013

Materia oscura tells the story of a war zone in peacetime. The film location is the Salto di Quirra test range (Sardinia, Italy) where, for over fifty years, governments around the world have tested 'new weapons' and where the Italian government has carried out controlled explosions of old weapon stocks, inexorably endangering the territory.

6.8

How the Lion Cub and the Turtle Sang a Song

Jan 1, 1974

The Tortoise composed a song and the Lion cub learnt it by heart and they sang it together.

4.0

The Voyagers

Sep 25, 2010

In the summer of 1977, NASA sent Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 on an epic journey into interstellar space. Together and alone, they will travel until the end of the universe. Each spacecraft carries a golden record album, a massive compilation of images and sounds embodying the best of Planet Earth. According to Carl Sagan, “[t]he spacecraft will be encountered and the record played only if there are advanced space-faring civilizations in interstellar space. But the launching of this bottle into the cosmic ocean says something very hopeful about life on this planet.” While working on the golden record, Sagan met and fell madly in love with his future wife Annie Druyan. The record became their love letter to humankind and to each other. In the summer of 2010, I began my own hopeful voyage into the unknown. This film is a love letter to my fellow traveler. - Penny Lane

6.0

CB4

Mar 12, 1993

A "rockumentary", covering the rise to fame of MC Gusto, Stab Master Arson, and Dead Mike: members of the rap group "CB4". We soon learn that these three are not what they seem and don't appear to know as much about rap music as they claim... but a lack of musical ability in an artist never hurts sales, does it? You've just got to play the part of a rap star...

5.2

Mexico

Mar 9, 1996

Using text from Mexican novelist Carlos Fuentes and ancient Aztec and Mayan poetry, viewers are lead on a visual journey through this country's rich and varied past and present. Stunning images and a dramatic musical score by Daniel Valdez create a vivid, insightful portrait of the Mexican people and their culture

7.6

The Pixar Story

Aug 28, 2007

A look at the first years of Pixar Animation Studios - from the success of "Toy Story" and Pixar's promotion of talented people, to the building of its East Bay campus, the company's relationship with Disney, and its remarkable initial string of eight hits. The contributions of John Lasseter, Ed Catmull and Steve Jobs are profiled. The decline of two-dimensional animation is chronicled as three-dimensional animation rises. Hard work and creativity seem to share the screen in equal proportions.

5.8

It Happened at the World's Fair

Apr 3, 1963

Mike and Danny fly a cropduster, but because of Danny's gambling debts, a local sheriff takes custody of it. Trying to earn money, they hitch-hike to the World's Fair in Seattle and, while Danny tries to earn money playing poker, Mike takes care of a small girl whose father has disappeared. Being a ladies' man, he also finds the time to court a young nurse.

7.4

August Rush

Nov 21, 2007

Lyla and Louis, a singer and a musician, fall in love, but are soon compelled to separate. Lyla is forced to give up her newborn but unknown to her, he grows up to become a musical genius.

6.2

Nana

May 5, 2016

No overview available.

Orion: The Man Who Would Be King

Overview

Genres

Production Companies

Orion: The Man Who Would Be King Trailers