As a Pararescueman in Iraq, David Broyles saved lives and helped those in need. After leaving the military, he wanted to continue that mission. He found a charity providing assistance to severely wounded and disabled veterans. To raise funds and awareness through the charity, he wanted a tough challenge in their honor. David discovered that fewer Americans had swum across the Strait of Gibraltar t
Skulls are humanity's foremost symbol of death, and a powerful icon in the visual vocabularies of cultures all over the globe. Thirteen crystal skulls of apparently ancient origin have been found in parts of Mexico, Central America and South America, comprising one of the most fascinating subjects of 20th Century archaeology.This documentary takes a look at the history of all four known skulls
One of the year's most unexpectedly moving films, this French-made documentary about the mating cycle of emperor penguins took moviegoers by surprise and became a box-office blockbuster in the process. Small wonder: March of the Penguins is cinema vérité at its purest, an unsentimental yet intimate depiction of one of nature's true marvels.As narrator Morgan Freeman explains, every year these
Before there was sunscreen, high-tech wet suits, and corporate-sponsored surfing competitions, there was Bruce Brown, the original beach bum and the director of the greatest surf movie ever made, The Endless Summer. This 1966 documentary spurred a generation of surfers to devote their lives to surfing and compelled people in places far away from California and Hawaii to take up what was, at that t
Writer-director Dana Brown - whose dad, Bruce, helmed the classic surfing flick The Endless Summer - follows in his father's footsteps and takes a 21st-century look at the sport, employing up-to-date cinematographic technology to bring the audience left into those monster waves. The film stars dedicated surfers Ken "Skindog" Collins, Laird Hamilton, Rochelle Ballard, and Gerry Lopez as they test t
Believe the hype. This much-praised documentary about one of the most famous boxing matches in history deserves every one of its accolades. Blending sports drama and biography with a touch of political analysis, When We Were Kings relates the who, when, where, and most importantly the why of the 1974 George Foreman/Muhammad Ali world championship fight in Zaire. Splicing together old news footage
More than merely a sports documentary or an inspirational profile of triumph over adversity, Murderball offers a refreshing and progressive attitude toward disability while telling unforgettable stories about uniquely admirable people. It's ostensibly a film about quadriplegic rugby (or "Murderball," as it was formerly known), in which players with at least some loss of physical function in all fo
The set piece of this hyperbolic ode to surfing is Laird Hamilton's 2000 trip to Tahiti, where a monster wave provided the opportunity for what the movie portentously calls "the most significant ride in surfing history." If you're inclined to regard the sport as important and its practitioners as heroic, you'll likely enjoy this beautifully photographed documentary, which presents Hamilton as a to
An intriguing premise for a full-length feature, the idea behind Zidane: A 21st Century Portrait is simple. Back in April of 2005, Real Madrid--replete with Zinedine Zidane, arguably the world's finest footballer at the time--played Villareal in the Spanish league. At that game, seventeen cameras were all trained on Zidane. The film? At heart, it's 90 minutes of following the great man around a fo