Posted in: Lifestyle, Society
Making Millions the Easy Way
In the mid-1990s, a team of American science students took on the might of the Las Vegas casinos, and came home with millions of dollars. Hardworking engineering students during the week, they became high-rolling gamblers by the weekend and proved that, in one game at least, the house doesn’t always win. The game was blackjack, and the students were from the world-renowned Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Their audacious winnings marked the climax of an arms race between casino and player...
Posted in: Lifestyle
Carts of Darkness
Murray Siple’s feature-length documentary follows a group of homeless men in Canada who have combined bottle picking with the extreme sport of racing shopping carts down the steep hills of North Vancouver. This subculture depicts street life as much more than the stereotypes portrayed in mainstream media. The film takes a deep look into the lives of the men who race carts, the adversity they face and the appeal of cart racing despite the...
Moment by Moment
“Moment By Moment ” is a film by Emmy winning film maker Dorothy Fadiman. It is the documentary of Molly Hale, who suffered a spinal cord injury in an automobile rollover, and after being told there was no hope for movement below her shoulders, proceeded to rehabilitate herself and continues to recover. "Moment By Moment" is Molly's story, a story about disabilities, health and healing, attitude, choice and intention, sex, intimacy, and relationships. This film is appropriate...
Help Me To Speak
This film follows the extraordinary story of stuttering children struggling to break out of their isolation and learn to speak. Stuttering, also known as stammering in the United Kingdom, is a speech disorder in which the flow of speech is disrupted by involuntary repetitions and prolongations of sounds, syllables, words or phrases; and involuntary silent pauses or blocks in which the stutterer is unable to produce sounds. The term stuttering is most commonly associated with involuntary sound repetition, but it...
Posted in: Health, Lifestyle, Society
The Age of AIDS
This documentary gives one of the most comprehensive accounts of how the world has responded in the battle against the most devastating disease since the Black Plague wiped out one third of Europe's population in the Middle Ages - the AIDS...
Do I Drink Too Much
Alcohol is by far the most widely used drug – and a dangerous one at that. So why are so many of us drinking over the recommended limits? Why does alcohol have such a powerful grip on us? How much of our relationship with this drug is written in our genes? What are the real dangers of our children drinking too young? Addiction expert John Marsden, who likes a drink, makes a professional and personal exploration of our relationship with alcohol. He undergoes physical and neurological examinations to...
Posted in: Drugs, Lifestyle, Movies
Cocaine Cowboys
More of a real-life exploitation film than a bonafide documentary, Cocaine Cowboys is tailor-made for anyone who worships Brian De Palma's Scarface. It's no surprise that this slick, energetic film found a niche audience among crime-obsessed hip-hoppers; from a journalistic perspective it's an irresponsible mess, but director Billy Corben is obviously more interested in capturing the thrills and danger of the drug trade that transformed Miami, Florida during the Miami Vice era of the late 1970s and '80s. Corben...
Posted in: Lifestyle, Society
The Saltmen of Tibet
Since time immemorial, the nomadic herdsmen of northern Tibet have lived in an extremely harsh environment on the high plateau of the Himalayas, pasturing their yaks in the highest meadows of the world. In the spring of each year, the men of one tribe of nomads sets off with their robust pack animals on the long and difficult journey to the salt lakes. These lakes in the Himalayas are among the world’s largest reserves of salt, which is increasingly exploited on an industrial basis and transported away by truck....
Tribe Meets White Man
This is an unedited, yet incredibly interesting, documentary portraying Papua New Guinean tribes members meeting a white man. The tribe, named the Toulambi, believes those who have died can sometimes come back to haunt the living world as white people. Released in 1993. TV...