Spalding Gray

A video reconstruction of the 1977 Wooster Group production Rumstick Road, an experimental theater performance created by Spalding Gray and Elizabeth LeCompte after the suicide of Gray's mother. Archival recordings are combined with photographs, slides, and other materials to recreate the original production.

From the first time he performed Swimming to Cambodia - the one-man account of his experience of making the 1984 film The Killing Fields - Spalding Gray made the art of the monologue his own. Drawing unstintingly on the most intimate aspects of his own life, his shows were vibrant, hilarious and moving. His death came tragically early, in 2004; this compilation of interview and performance footage nails his idiosyncratic and irreplaceable brilliance.

A handsome and successful young man with a lovely fiancée, James Jackson seems to have everything going for him, but his life begins to unravel when he develops an acute sense of paranoia. At first, he notices little things at his office that he takes as signs that people are out to get him, but soon things escalate, with Jackson convinced that a perfume ad on television holds sinister messages aimed at him. Is Jackson losing his mind, or are the threats real?

When her scientist ex-boyfriend discovers a portal to travel through time -- and brings back a 19th-century nobleman named Leopold to prove it -- a skeptical Kate reluctantly takes responsibility for showing Leopold the 21st century. The more time Kate spends with Leopold, the harder she falls for him. But if he doesn't return to his own time, his absence will forever alter history.

Multi-platinum rap superstars Redman and Method Man star as Jamal and Silas, two regular guys who smoke something magical, ace their college entrance exams and wind up at Harvard. Ivy League ways are strange but Silas and Jamal take it in a stride -- until their supply of supernatural smoke runs dry. That's when they have to start living by their wits and rely on their natural resources to make the grade.

A New Jersey housewife is dissatisfied with her everyday life because she is smarter than she or anyone else knows. While taking a computer class, Julie discovers her abilities and finds the courage to make dramatic life changes. This is a story of realizing one's potential and being willing to turn one's life upside down to take a chance on finding happiness. Claire, Julie's best friend, goes along with Julie's secret quest and eventually moves in with her. Both women are on a search to realize their dreams and come to terms with their love for each other.

Showtime's "In the 20th Century" is a millennium-related strand of feature-length documentaries in which famous directors take on major subjects of their choosing. In the third of the six films, "Yesterday's Tomorrows," filmmaker Barry Levinson delves into what we, as Americans, thought the future would be as we traveled through the 20th century. Houses and cars of the future, the promise of technology, and the other hopes and dreams of the early part of the century gave way to the fears and anxieties brought about by the atomic age and the Hollywood disaster films that followed. Soon we wondered if we could control technology, or if it would control us. This film is by turns light-hearted and thoughtful, and rare historical and archival film, produced by government and industry, alternates with on-screen interviews with people as diverse as consumer advocate Ralph Nader, cartoonist Matt Groening, futurist Alvin Toffler, comedienne Phyllis Diller, and actor Martin Mull.

Privileged teenage friends Jenny, Nell and Stream spend their senior year on a quest to rid Stream of her virginity. However, Stream wants more than just her first sexual experience. She wants to have an orgasm -- but achieving this proves problematic, as the boys she meets are hardly sensitive enough to provide her the release she seeks. When it becomes clear that Nell and Jenny have never experienced an orgasm either, all three set out to get one.

A newly married happy couple visits a sex therapist to determine why the wife can't achieve an orgasm with her husband. This causes a horrific suppressed memory to emerge and she becomes more and more distant.

At the beginning of a nightly Alcoholics Anonymous meeting, Jim seems particularly troubled. His sponsor encourages him to talk that night, the first time in seven months, so he does - and leaves the meeting right after. As Jim wanders the night, searching for some solace in his old stomping grounds, bars and parks where he bought drugs, the meeting goes on, and we hear the stories of survivors and addicts - some, like Louis, who claim to have wandered in looking for choir practice, who don't call themselves alcoholic, and others, like Joseph, whose drinking almost caused the death of his child - as they talk about their lives at the meeting

The film documents, in an often dramatic and humorous fashion, Gray's investigations into alternative medicine for an eye condition (Macular pucker) he had developed.

The film documents, in an often dramatic and humorous fashion, Gray's investigations into alternative medicine for an eye condition (Macular pucker) he had developed.

The wife and mistress of a cruel school master collaborate in a carefully planned and executed scheme to murder him. The plan goes well until the body, which has been strategically dumped, disappears. The psychological strain starts to weigh on the two women when a retired police investigator begins looking into the man's disappearance on a whim.

Jack, a soon-to-be graduate, finds he's having a difficult time letting go of the college life -- and decides maybe he doesn't have to. Also questioning whether there's life after college are Jack's roommates: Rob, who fears domestication; comic-strip artist Mickey, who's shy around girls; intellectual party animal Slosh; and perpetual student Dennis.

Dr. Laura Bowman is a young widow who's unwittingly drawn into political turmoil while vacationing in Burma in the late 1980s. Bowman initially left San Francisco with her sister in an attempt to escape painful memories of her husband and son's violent deaths. But her fight to escape to Thailand could prove just as harrowing.

Nelson Crowe is a CIA operative under the thumb of the Company for a disputed delivery of $50,000 in gold. They blackmail him into working for the Grimes Organization, which is set up as a private company for hire, to blackmail prominent individuals. Crowe, working with Margaret Wells (another former Covert Operations operative), blackmails and bribes a State Supreme Court judge, but the deal sours. One of Crowe's co-workers, Tod Stapp, discovers Crowe's current CIA involvement in a plot to overthrow Grimes, and blackmails him to be cut in on the deal. More blackmail occurs as Wells manipulates Crowe to kill Grimes, then the CIA uses that discovery to blackmail Wells into killing Crowe. Who can you trust???

Henry Hackett is the workaholic editor of a New York City tabloid. He loves his job, but the long hours and low pay are leading to discontent. Also, publisher Bernie White faces financial straits, and has hatchet-man Alicia Clark—Henry's nemesis—impose unpopular cutbacks.

Famous 1920s modernist writer F. Scott Fitzgerald and his eccentric Flapper socialite wife Zelda Sayre's relationship began quite passionately, but he slowly fell into alcoholism and she was eventually diagnosed with schizophrenia.

A story about the life of a twenty dollar bill as it weaves in and out of the various lives of several people.

Based on the Depression-era bildungsroman memoir of writer A. E. Hotchner, the film follows the story of a boy struggling to survive on his own in a hotel in St. Louis after his mother is committed to a sanatorium with tuberculosis. His father, a German immigrant and traveling salesman working for the Hamilton Watch Company, is off on long trips from which the boy cannot be certain he will return.

Harry Stone always dreamed of making "The Great American Movie." Instead he made The Pickle - a teenage sci-fi flick about a flying cucumber. Harry just wanted to get out of debt; now everyone he's ever known, loved and neglected is standing in line for tickets.

This is the story of Spalding Gray and his attempt to write a novel. It is a first person account about writing and living, and dealing with success while trying to be successful.

This is the story of Spalding Gray and his attempt to write a novel. It is a first person account about writing and living, and dealing with success while trying to be successful.

Honest and straightforward small-town Shirlee Kenyon chucks her boyfriend and heads for Chicago. Accidentally having to host a radio problem phone-in show, it is clear she is a natural and is hired on the spot. But the station insists she call herself Doctor, and as her popularity grows a local reporter starts digging for the truth. Problem is, the more he is around her the more he fancies her.

A doctor and his pregnant young wife move into a small New Mexico town. At first the locals are friendly and pleased to see them, but soon the wife begins to suspect that their new neighbors' motives are more than just hospitality.

When career-focused journalist's investigation indirectly causes a suicide, he questions his own methods and life in general.

Celebrities and creatives -- including musician David Byrne, performance artist Spalding Gray, comedian Sandra Bernhard, radical activist Abbie Hoffman, and poet Allen Ginsberg-- recall their earliest sexual experiences.

This classic American play, performed on an almost-bare stage, is about the mundane but rather pleasant lives of the Gibbs family, the Webb family, and their neighbors in Grover's Corners, New Hampshire, early in the 20th century.

A privileged rich debutante and a cynical struggling entertainer share a turbulent, but strong childhood friendship over the years.

David is a teenager whose parents are in a deteriorating marriage after their infant daughter dies. Clara is a chambermaid at a Jamaican resort who's hired to be a housekeeper. She and David develop a close bond, opening his eyes and heart to new experiences, and eventually leading to a disturbing secret in Clara's past.

A British art expert leaves New York to buy a long-lost Renoir from a Georgia eccentric.

Monologue by Spalding Gray about his misadventures in purchasing a home.

Monologue by Spalding Gray about his misadventures in purchasing a home.

Spalding Gray sits behind a desk throughout the entire film and recounts his exploits and chance encounters while playing a minor role in the film 'The Killing Fields'. At the same time, he gives a background to the events occurring in Cambodia at the time the film was set.

Spalding Gray sits behind a desk throughout the entire film and recounts his exploits and chance encounters while playing a minor role in the film 'The Killing Fields'. At the same time, he gives a background to the events occurring in Cambodia at the time the film was set.

A small but growing Texas town, filled with strange and musical characters, celebrates its sesquicentennial and converge on a local parade and talent show.

WHAT YOU MEAN WE is a surreal short film by experimental artist Laurie Anderson.

Natalie allows her classmate Jeff, who ran away from home after a fight with his stepfather, to stay at her place while her father is away on a business trip. Natalie soon starts dating Jeff's friend James Casey, who isn't as faithful as she thinks, while her best friend Polly falls in love with baseball player Zoo Knudsen.

Alex and Erica Boyer are a young couple in crisis. Alex, despite his loving wife, beautiful home and high-paying job, feels trapped. When Erica has an accident that leaves her temporarily confined to a wheelchair and requiring the services of a private nurse, the beautiful Lisa enters the Boyers' lives. A complicated situation develops as Alex sees Lisa as the cure for his own problems as well as his wife's.

A repressed young woman becomes obsessed with pornography and the mysterious rich patron of the Times Square porn theater where she works selling tickets.

A teenaged boy goes for a ride with his brother and the brother's friends, who proceed to rob a store and murder the clerk. They are caught and, despite the young boy's protestations, he is convicted of murder and sent to prison. A female social worker assigned to the boy's case not only believes him, but begins to fall in love with him, and determines to either help him prove his innocence or escape.

Performance clips and biographical anecdotes from the life of Spalding Gray.

The real-life story of a friendship between two journalists, an American and a Cambodian, during the bloody Khmer Rouge takeover of Cambodia in 1975, which led to the death of 2-3 million Cambodians during the next four years, until Pol Pot's regime was toppled by the intervening Vietnamese in 1979.

Spalding Gray comes to LA to perform a set of monologues.

Based on Robert Heinlein’s 1941 story “Universe,” Double Lunar Dogs presents a vision of post-apocalyptic survival aboard a “spacecraft,” travelling aimlessly through the universe, whose passengers have forgotten the purpose of their mission. As a metaphor for the nature and purpose of memory, the two main characters (portrayed by Jonas and Spalding Gray) play games with images of their past; but their efforts to restore their collective memories are futile, and they are reprimanded by the “Authority” for their attempts to recapture their past on a now-destroyed planet Earth.

Spalding Gray comes to LA to perform a set of monologues.

Monologue created and performed by Spalding Gray, who takes us through his childhood recollections of growing up in a Christian Science household in Barrington, Rhode Island, in the 1950s.

Monologue created and performed by Spalding Gray, who takes us through his childhood recollections of growing up in a Christian Science household in Barrington, Rhode Island, in the 1950s.

The goings-on around a porn theater in New York’s East Village, interspersed with actors recounting experiences with extreme sexualities and a description of a scene from the pre-code Dorothy Arzner film of the same name.

Woman visits New York and discovers her sister is running a brothel.

After the farmer's daughters attack the farm hand Fred, three escaped convicts arrive and have their way with members of the family. Fred surprises the convicts, only to replace them in the family's victimization.

A man must decide whether to flee the U.S. draft and go to Canada or stay or go fight for his country in Vietnam.

Inverting the form, style and time frame of commercial television advertising, Logue has produced a unique series of dynamic video portraits of avant-garde artists, writers, musicians and performers. In 30 Second Spots: New York, which Logue terms "commercials for artists," each of the succinct vignettes conveys the artistic essence of her subject with clarity, wit, and an elegant economy of means. John Cage, Steve Reich, Philip Glass, Meredith Monk, Spalding Gray and Steve Reich are among the artists who are captured here with concise drama. Each subject performs in close-up before a stationary camera.