My Kidnapper

Watch: My Kidnapper on CBC.ca

If your inbox read '1 New Message', and you saw the name of the man who had kidnapped you, what would you do? Filmmaker Mark Henderson had to answer this unusual question after his 2003 kidnapping by a group of Marxist guerillas in Colombia. After 5 years, Mark finally decided that he, along with 3 of his fellow captors, would go to investigate Antonio's causes and means. The only woman to suffer through the 101 day trial, Reinhilt Weigel from Germany had come home to further trials by the government who rescued her, as well as feelings of doubt and fear that were putting a halt to her life as she'd known it.

Since the event, Antonio has been able to forge a new life with a female who also participated in the kidnapping. Many questions that our protagonists find unable to ask the rebels themselves, they learn the answers to during their travels through towns they were sequestered away within. When the penalty for disturbing the status quo is death - and you made it out alive - the kidnapped learn how hard it is to hold someone responsible for not helping you gain your own freedom sooner.

The Making of the 2010 Pirelli Calendar by Terry Richardson

The Making of the 2010 Pirelli Calendar by Terry Richardson on Vimeo.

like, of course terry richardson is doing the pirelli calendar right? I won't bother saying much more about it.

Lou Barlow - Goodnight Unknown

Lou Barlow - Goodnight Unknown on youtube.com

If you're at all interested in Lou Barlow as a musician (Dinosaur Jr, Sebadoh, Folk Implosion) then definitely take half an hour to watch this short film, a companion to his new album of the same name. If you're interested in the process of making music, then same goes. Bringing in Melvins drummer, Dale Crover and frequent sidekick, Imaad Wasif - as well as a selection of his daughter's deconstructed toys - watching Lou find just the right sounds is more compelling than one might anticipate. If nothing else, the apparently giant grasshopper hanging off of a light fixture is imagery that you likely won't be able to get out of your head any time soon - scary!

A Hidden America

Watch: A Hidden America - Children of the Mountains torrent on monova.com

Seeing the way some families live in the hills of Applachia is bound to make you question whether their government even knows they're there. With a poverty rate three times that of the national average, and a laundry list of common health problems caused by their conditions, we meet young people who are teetering on the edge of their fate - to follow that of their family, or to find a route towards better. Babies teethed on Mountain Dew and prevelant drug abuse lay on one side, and a struggle without the resources necessary to overcome it on the other. Diane Sawyer explores the hopes and challenges conflicting within these four youths.

Karl Pilkington - Satisfied Fool

Watch:
Karl Pilkington - Satisfied Fool, Part 1 on youtube
Karl Pilkington - Satisfied Fool, Part 2 on youtube
Karl Pilkington - Satisfied Fool, Part 3 on youtube

"A part of me wishes I did try a bit harder [at school] just because of mates I know now who are always saying, ah y'know, "Karl you're stupid and stuff. You don't know enough, you should know more" and all that. But I'm also thinking that, being intelligent, does is make you happier anyway? So yeah, that's sort of what I'm trying to find out really."

Karl Pilkington, who you may know as the round-headed sidekick of one Ricky Gervais, explores his intellect and why he should care in this Channel 4 documentary. Karl goes through testing from big thinkers, including David Icke to see how he stacks up - and whether he's any better off for it.

*and do yourself a favour, if you like this and haven't been to Pilkipedia, do not pass go and do not collect $200.

Super High Me

Watch: Super High Me on Megavideo

Super High Me is Benson's take on "Super Size Me with weed instead of McDonalds", with debatably predictable outcomes. Undertaking testing on his physical, mental and psychic abilities, interviews with activists, medical marijuana patients, advocates and politicians over the course of the project, Benson creates an amusing and fairly thorough picture of the implications of drug use and whether the battle against marijuana is one worth fighting.

Bus 1170

watch: Bus 1170 on CBC's the Fifth Estate

On a peaceful summer’s night in July 2008, along a stretch of the Trans Canada Highway in Manitoba, the unthinkable happened. What started as just another Prairie bus ride became a nightmare when the lives of two passengers intersected tragically and resulted in the murder of Tim McLean. In Bus 1170, Bob McKeown takes us inside what happened on Greyhound 1170 through the eyes of the surviving passengers and other witnesses. A seemingly random decision, to take the Greyhound from B.C. to Winnipeg rather than a friend’s offer of a plane ticket, would cost twenty-two-year-old Tim McLean his life, would profoundly change the lives of dozens of others who saw his murder and shock anyone who has heard about it since. On Greyhound 1170, Vincent Li, a diagnosed schizophrenic on his own randomly chosen bus journey, sat beside McLean and then, obeying voices inside his head, repeatedly stabbed and then cannibalized McLean’s body. In Bus 1170, the fifth estate recounts the story from the perspective of two of the surviving passengers. Stephen Allison vividly recounts his sense of foreboding as Li walked down the aisle and took the seat across from him, beside Tim McLean. And Kayli Shaw remembers the chilling moment when Allison ran by her yelling at the driver to pull over, that someone was being stabbed. She says she is still haunted by the sound of Tim McLean’s screams.

source: cbc.ca (http://www.cbc.ca/fifth/2009-2010/bus_1170/)