CINEMANIA:

La Strada (1954, Italy, Frederico Fellini)

Dan Jardine:

The legendary Frederico Fellini began his career in movies as a screenwriter for neo-realist pioneer filmmaker Roberto Rossellini, and his great success would establish the expectation that Fellini would follow in his mentor’s footsteps. While his earliest films, including I Vitelloni, met with neo-realist’s approval, Fellini was soon subsequently denounced as a turncoat to the cause for crafting films, the first of which would be La Strada, that operated at a heightened level of reality, where fancy and fantasy would play vital roles.

Reefer Madness (1938, USA, Louis Gasner) 

Reefer Madness opens with a siren-warning that "[m]arijuana is…a violent narcotic…the Real Public Enemy Number One!" The camera then focuses on Dr.

Tupac: Resurrected (2003, USA, Lauren Lazin) 

Dan Jardine:

Tupac: Resurrected is a fascinating, if flawed, documentary that finds an unusual hook to lure in its audience: The film tells Tupac’s story in his own words, culling the ubiquitous voice-over narration from a plethora of interviews and layering them over videos and found footage of Shakur.

Giant (1956, USA, George Stevens) AKA You Bought it Sight Unseen 

Dan Jardine:

Giant is a great big old-fashioned film that is framed as an epic, as it spans several decades in the lives of an extended family of characters at a time in Texas history when sweeping social and economic changes were besetting its people. Yet, the story has a quiet intimacy to it despite the immense grandeur of the setting and the scope of the historical backdrop.