Pleasant Gehman

Movies

The Ventures: Stars on Guitars
Documentary film on the #1 instrumental rock group in the world, The Ventures. The story of their rise to fame in the 1960s right up to now, as they celebrate their 60th anniversary of playing the best guitar-rock of all time.
I'll Be Around
Talent Buyer
Against the backdrop of an alt-rock music festival, dozens of struggling thirty-somethings deal with a wide variety of social and philosophical issues in their respective lives.
The Go-Go's
Self - Punk Poet
As the first all-female band to play their instruments, write their songs and have a No. 1 album, The Go-Go’s made history. Underpinned by candid testimonies, this film chronicles the meteoric rise to fame of a band born in the LA punk scene who became a pop phenomenon.
Hell Town
The Nurse / Mother Manly
From award-winning directors Steve Balderson and Elizabeth Spear comes this special presentation of three episodes from their never before released prime-time horror-comedy series HELL TOWN. These episodes are the painstakingly remastered episodes seven, eight and nine of Season Two. Seasons One and Three were completely destroyed in a studio fire. The executives suspected arson.
Occupying Ed
Ed learns, after a series of blackouts, that he has split personality disorder - and that his alternate personality thinks she's a woman.
The Far Flung Star
A struggling actress finds herself in the middle of a real-life spy movie when her younger brother shows up after being chased by a mysterious stranger who murdered his lover.
The Casserole Club
Steve Balderson's new film, "The Casserole Club" focuses on a group of mod 1960's era suburban housewives. Close-knit and neighborly, they are all bent on one-upping each other, trying to prove that each is "the hostess with the mostess." They begin a recipe club, and hold dinner parties, testing out their new casseroles. But when the gatherings become increasingly focused on boozy flirtation, and more than recipes start getting swapped, the story moves swiftly from stylized and campy to a drama about irresponsibility, selfishness, and damaged people. "The Casserole Club" is an intricate landscape of desolation, unspoken desires, and empty lives laid bare. Raw and uncompromising, it is evocative of classics like "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?" and the more contemporary "American Beauty." Set in America during the NASA moonwalk...
Ghost on the Highway: A Portrait of Jeffrey Lee Pierce and the Gun Club
Interviewee, Ringling Sisters
A biographical study of seminal punk blues singer Jeffrey Lee Pierce and his band the Gun Club.
Firecracker
Estelle
A tale of murder in small-town Kansas. When Jimmy is lured away from his abusive family by a traveling sideshow carnival, he encounters Sandra, one of the main attractions. The happiness they find together causes them to confront the darkness in their lives
WAMEGO: Making Movies Anywhere
Self
From the majestic prairie fires of Kansas, through the neon glow of a carnival, to a year-in-the-life journey on making a dream come true, this documentary follows The Balderson Family on their pursuit to prove anyone can make motion pictures anywhere. This movie reveals independent cinema as it really is, on the set and off - a family of artists, celebrities and icons taking part of the process.
The Runnin' Kind
Linda
As next in line to take over his father's law firm, Ohio rich kid Joey's life is all planned out. But a chance encounter with a gorgeous, free-spirited female rock drummer inspires Joey to chuck his plans and move to Los Angeles, where he hooks up with an all-girl rock band and learns the ins and outs of the L.A. music underground.
The Runnin' Kind
Writer
As next in line to take over his father's law firm, Ohio rich kid Joey's life is all planned out. But a chance encounter with a gorgeous, free-spirited female rock drummer inspires Joey to chuck his plans and move to Los Angeles, where he hooks up with an all-girl rock band and learns the ins and outs of the L.A. music underground.
Vendetta
Screaming Sirens band member
A sexy stuntwoman gets herself thrown into prison to avenge the death of her sister.
Punks and Poseurs: A Journey Through the Los Angeles Underground
At its core, “Punks and Poseurs” is a narration-free concert film, but it’s cut with terrific interview footage that explores the changing nature of punk, from insider and outsider perspectives. There’s a lot of great footage with writer/performers Pleasant Gehman and Iris Berry, torpedoing the influx into the music scene of neophyte phonies who just didn’t get it, explaining title of the program. (After this first aired in 1985, a bunch of the new waver/Durannie chicks at my high school—which is to say all the girls who were trying their suburban Ohio best to look like Gehman and Berry—started calling everyone “poseurs,” which was pretty funny.) There’s also a hilarious interview with employees at a store called “Poseur,” which sold punk fashions and accessories—people had to get that shit somewhere before Hot Topic forever banished punk to the mall, no? Also keep an eye out for the kid giving a primer on how to fashion liberty spikes with Knox gelatine.