My Pet Dinosaur

Watch: BBC Horizon - My Pet Dinosaur on youtube.com

If only those dinosaurs hadn't been so unlucky, they may have been living among us today! Imagine the uses we humans could find for a creature so...huge. Would you have one as a pet, or eat one for dinner? What would evolution have done for them, and would we even be here, along with all the animals we know in our current world? BBC explores these question with experts who share the excitement anyone would when imagining this alternate universe.

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.

Dear Zachary

Watch: Dear Zachary: A Letter to a Son About His Father on youku.com

Dear Zachary is a testament to the friendship of filmmaker Kurt Kuenne, and his friend Andrew Bagby. After Bagby's murder, Kuenne travelled across North America, visiting friends and family along the way and capturing greetings and love sent to Bagby's young son, Zachary who never met his charismatic father. When Zachary's story takes an ugly turn, it brings into question human nature, family ties and judicial logic. A heart-breaking story from beginning to end, this is a film you won't soon forget.

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/)

Shock Wave

Watch: CBC DocZone: Shock Wave on CBC.ca

Earthquakes, like the one that caused the Indian Ocean disaster of December 26, 2004, tend to repeat themselves. The waves they generate can circle the globe with devastating consequences. Recently, scientists discovered that the Cascadia Subduction Zone off the west coast of North America has ruptured at least 37 times in the past 10,000 years and it will rupture again...but when? The crack in the ocean floor from Cape Mendocino, California to central Vancouver Island is nearly identical to the subduction zone that ruptured off Sumatra, which led to the tsunami that killed approximately 230,000 people. The Pacific Northwest can expect a nearly identical earthquake. Five major cities (Vancouver, Victoria, Seattle, Portland and Sacramento) plus hundreds of small towns along a thousand kilometres of coastline will be heavily damaged. The first tsunami waves will hit the beach twenty minutes later. But Shock Wave is not just another "doomsday flick." It's the story of people on the front lines of science, engineering and emergency planning who, along with thousands of volunteers, are finding ways to help our communities survive the next rupture.

source: cbc.ca (http://www.cbc.ca/documentaries/doczone/2009/shockwave/)

The Weather Underground

Watch: The Weather Underground on Google Video

In 1969, a small group of leftist college student radicals announced their intentions to overthrow the U.S. government in opposition to the Vietnam War. This documentary explores the rise and fall of this radical movement as former members speak candidly about the passion that drove them at the time. The film also explores the group in the context of other social movements of the time, featuring interviews with former members of the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) and the Black Panther Party. The documentary also examines the U.S. government's suppression of dissent during this turbulent era. Using archival footage from the 1960s and 1970s, the film also intersperses recent interviews with high profile ex-Weathermen like Bernardine Dohrn, David Gilbert, Bill Ayers, Mark Rudd and Brian Flanagan, who talk about their involvement in the organisation, their experiences, and the trajectory that led them to be placed on the FBI's Most Wanted list.

source: wikipedia.com (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Weather_Underground)

Man On Wire

Watch: Man On Wire on Megavideo

On August 7th 1974, a young Frenchman named Philippe Petit stepped out on a wire illegally rigged between New York's twin towers, then the worlds tallest buildings. After nearly an hour dancing on the wire, he was arrested, taken for psychological evaluation, and brought to jail before he was finally released. Following six and a half years of dreaming of the towers, Petit spent eight months in New York City planning the execution of the coup. Aided by a team of friends and accomplices, Petit was faced with numerous extraordinary challenges: he had to find a way to bypass the WTCs security; smuggle the heavy steel cable and rigging equipment into the towers; pass the wire between the two rooftops; anchor the wire and tension it to withstand the winds and the swaying of the buildings. The rigging was done by night in complete secrecy. At 7:15 AM, Philippe took his first step on the high wire 1,350 feet above the sidewalks of Manhattan James Marshs documentary brings Petits extraordinary adventure to life through the testimony of Philippe himself, and some of the co-conspirators who helped him create the unique and magnificent spectacle that became known as the artistic crime of the century.

source: manonwire.com