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Bustin' Down The Door (2008)

Category: Documentary
Description:
Bustin' Down The Door (2008) During the winter of 1975 in Hawaii, surfing was shaken to its core. A group of young surfers from Australia and South Africa sacrificed everything and put it all on the line to create a sport, a culture, and an industry that is today worth billions of dollars and has captured the imagination of the world. With a radical new approach and a brash colonial attitude, these surfers crashed headlong into a culture that was not ready for revolution. Surfing was never to be the same again.
Seeders: 1
Leeches: 3

Network (Lumet, 1976)[+Extras]-aNaRCHo

Category: Misc
Description:
THIS IS MY PERSONAL FAVOURITE FILM, AND IN MY OPINION THE BEST FILM EVER MADE! SIDNEY LUMET'S MASTERPIECE...FROM THE 2-DISC SPECIAL EDITION... Network (Lumet, 1976)[+Extras]-aNaRCHo (FILM IS IN ENGLISH, ENGLISH AND FRENCH SUBTITLES INCLUDED) Essay by Greg Ng from Senses of Cinema The 1970s in Hollywood were a fertile time. The emergence of the director, as a legitimate artist in his or her own right, shifted focus from the studios, which by the '60s had grown formulaic and unadventurous in their output, to a new generation of writers and directors, whose concerns and experience were markedly different from the conservative voice of the movie industry at that point. Due in part to falling profits and the rise of television, a vacuum arose in the industry that opened the door for fresh ideas. Hollywood was redirected and, as a result, American cinema entered a new age – an age when box-office success did not necessarily preclude sophisticated content in a movie, an age when political discourse was not relegated to non-existence or tokenism, or a niche-market. The period between 1969 and the beginning of the 1980s saw American cinema, inspired as it was by international filmmaking (such as the French New Wave), offering critical, ambiguous and highly artful movies. At its most ambitious, the New Hollywood was a movement intended to cut film free of its evil twin, commerce, by enabling it to fly high through the thin air of art. The filmmakers of the '70s hoped to overthrow the studio system, or at least render it irrelevant, by democratising filmmaking, putting it in the hands of anyone with talent and determination. However, as the decade passed, the promise of real change receded; the status quo prevailed. As Peter Biskind puts it, in his book Easy Riders and Raging Bulls: How the Sex 'N' Drugs 'N' Rock 'N' Roll Generation Saved Hollywood, although the decade of the 70s contains shining monuments to its great directors, the cultural revolution of that decade, like the political revolution of the 60s, ultimately failed. Robin Wood, in Hollywood: from Vietnam to Reagan, argues that the Vietnam War, among other things, focussed Western society's dissenting voices, simultaneously discrediting 'the system' and emboldening the dissenters. However, like Biskind, Wood acknowledges “this generalized crisis in ideological confidence never issued in revolution. No coherent social/economic program emerged.” Commercial imperatives once more came to play their part in shaping the output of the industry, as previously fêted directors suffered box office losses and investment money turned to more secure propositions. Thus, a central tenet of political economy – i.e., the inherent censorship of the mass market – prevailed. Ironically, one of the films that stands as a testament to '70s Hollywood's freedom and ambition, Sidney Lumet's Network (1976), depicts precisely this phenomenon. Network is an example of a hugely successful and critically acclaimed feature film that offers a critique of television, ideology, radical chic and the consequences of American-led post-war capitalism, whilst being funny – no mean feat, and something only barely achieved in the current day by the likes of Michael Moore, et al. Lumet's direction and Paddy Chayefsky's script lambaste the ills of the modern world (couched within the fast-paced soliloquies delivered by the stellar cast of Peter Finch, Faye Dunaway, Robert Duvall and William Holden) and are oft times prescient, predicting the rise of 'reality television', and the subsequent decline of both production and social values. One of the central themes of Network – the decay of society and of love, concurrent with a plunge in standards and morality of the audience, which represents the world (in keeping with the mindset of both the film and its characters) – proves salutary in explaining what happened to Hollywood after the '70s. Just as the collapse of the old studio system in the '60s was precipitated by a change in demography and values, so too has a drift toward social conservatism and the continuing project of marketising everything affected our age. When Howard Beale (Peter Finch), the ageing news anchor for Union Broadcasting System, is fired due to poor ratings, he announces to his friend and network executive Max Schumacher (William Holden) that he intends to “blow my brains out, right on the air, right in the middle of the 7 o'clock news”. Schumacher replies, “You'll get a hell of a rating. I'll guarantee you that. 50 share, easy.” He facetiously begins to run with the idea: “We could make a series out of it. 'Suicide of the Week.' Oh, hell, why limit ourselves: 'Execution of the week.'” Beale joins in, “Terrorist of the Week”, and Max's eyes get distant; he temporarily becomes the visionary commercial television producer: I love it. Suicides. Assassinations. Mad bombers. Mafia hit men. Automobile smash ups. The death hour. Great Sunday night show for the whole family to see. It'd knock fucking Disney right off the air. The joke, these days, has poignancy. Chayefsky's blistering script seems aimed fairly and squarely at commercial television, and its producers. Network is presented as a voracious predator that consumes everything in sight for the sake of audience share. Nothing is sacred – not least of all love, as is demonstrated amply by the soulless programming executive, Diana Christensen (Faye Dunaway). “The only reality she knows comes at her over the television.” Network portrays a dark vision of an industry that has largely come to be. The dumbing-down of the news, from informative to entertaining (“television is showbiz”, says Christensen to Schumacher) is prescient of the rise, in the late 20th century and early 21st, of infotainment. The UBS news is transformed into a near-variety show, with a soothsayer, a psychic detective and the star, the “Mad prophet of the airwaves”, Howard Beale. The disturbing thing about this, for Chayefsky, runs along the lines of neo-Marxist criticism of the day. To quote Stuart Hall: the cultural industries do have the power constantly to rework and reshape what they represent; and, by repetition and selection, impose and implant such definitions of ourselves as fit more easily the descriptions of the dominant or preferred culture. That is what the concentration of cultural power – the means of culture-making in the heads of the few – actually means. Television's ruthlessness and its lack of discernment in its search for ratings, as joked about by Schumacher and his 'death hour' idea, has fulfilled his prophecy. 'Reality television' abounds, with its low production costs and supposed interactivity – its invitation for audiences to spectate at someone's demise, and even play a part in it. Network satirises 'the revolutionary underground', and the script dextrously portrays the ease with which the likes of Christensen incorporate such movements into a commercial framework, in order to make them a marketable commodity. Says Diana, to her staff, as she pitches the idea of what we would now call a reality television show, Look, you've got a bunch of hob-goblin radicals, calling themselves the Ecumenical Liberation Army who go around taking home movies of themselves robbing banks! Maybe they'll take movies of themselves kidnapping heiresses, um, hijacking 747s, bombing bridges, assassinating ambassadors! She goes on to tell them, “I want angry shows. I don't want conventional programming on this network. I want counter-culture. I want anti-establishment.” Christensen, television incarnate, has, as such, the mind of the market. She slots, programmes and categorises everything, reducing totalities to glib, trite, preclusive stereotypes (or soundbites). At her meeting in Los Angeles, with the aforementioned hob-goblin radicals, she introduces herself: “Hi. I'm Diana Christensen – a racist lackey of the imperialist ruling circles.” “And I'm Lorraine Hobbs – a bad-ass Commie nigger”, comes the reply. Her idea is staggering and speaks of the sheer hubris of unfettered, market capitalism – as immanent in television itself. Without a moral concern in her body, Christensen pitches: “Each week, we open, with an authentic act of political terrorism.” The concept, in 1976, may have been preposterous. But in 2005 it is quite literally inconceivable. There's a war going on – let's not forget – a war on terrorism. And in wartime, as they say, the first casualty is the truth. The adage here is admittedly stretched, but the degree of self-censorship that began, and has prevailed, across the world's media since 2001 is evident. Hollywood seems nowhere near touching subjects like this, much less laughing at it. It's not just the subject matter; it's the way it is delivered. Lorraine Hobbs answers back to Diana's pitch with uncertainty: The Ecumenical Liberation Army is an ultra-left sect, creating political confusion with wildcat violence and pseudo-insurrectionary acts, which the Communist Party does not endorse. The American people are not yet ready for open revolt. We would not want to produce a television show that celebrates historically deviational terrorism. Chayefsky's script is simply much more ambitious, and verbose, than anything Hollywood offers up for contention these days. Network's assumption that audiences could respond positively to what is essentially a dense, wordy screenplay, set amongst current events and asking uncomfortable questions, was vindicated. It won three Academy Awards, including Best Screenplay. Hollywood's 'best and brightest' have rarely offered much in the way of criticism since the terrorist attacks of September 2001. One cannot help but think of Christensen's pitch here; might we assume that '911' would have gotten the Network nod, as entertainment? In fact, the years that followed saw Hollywood directors, such as Ridley Scott, supplicate themselves to the Pentagon message, with films that glorified American actions around the world and supported the US government's view of history. With the release of 1969's Easy Rider (Dennis Hopper), American cinema came of age. The late 60s had seen a crisis in the studio-dominated film industry: attendances were down and the old men who ran [the studios] were increasingly out of touch with the vast baby boom audience that was coming of age in the '60s, an audience that was rapidly becoming radicalised and disaffected from its elders. The influence of the French New Wave, among others, provided inspiration for aspiring auteurs like Martin Scorsese, Robert Altman, Sidney Lumet and Terrence Malick, to name but a few. The late 1960s saw a break from the old, studio-dominated conventions of film making, and for the first time placed the director in lights, over and above the studio, and producer. By the time of the late 70s, after the critical (and sometimes commercial) successes of films like Taxi Driver (Scorsese, 1976), et al, the 'voice' of the new directors was sounding more confidently. Network is nothing if not a collection of polemics. As New Yorker film critic Pauline Kael said, “Chayefsky isn't writing a farce: he's telling us a thing or two.” Howard Beale's “latter day prophet, denouncing the hypocrisies of our time” takes to the air with paternalistic sermons: Because less than three percent of you read books. Because less than fifteen percent of you read newspapers. Because the only truth you know is what you get from over this tube. Right now there is a whole, an entire generation that never knew anything that didn't come out of this tube. Kael savages Chayefsky's preachiness here and decries the tendency of the time towards “vindictive, moralizing condescension”, citing “Beale's denunciations of the illiterate public (Chayefsky apparently thinks that not reading is proof of soullessness).” She continues to assert that television has not rendered people soulless, just as cinema did not, or the theatre. The film treats us to the high farce of the nominally 'revolutionary' Ecumenical Liberation Army in contractual negotiations with their lawyers and UBS's – an extremely comical (if dark) satire of the fickle nature of the expedient marriage of the political and the commercial. When Beale uses his nightly tirade to denounce the fact that “the Arabs control 60 billion dollars of this country”, and rants an extensive list of Arab interests in US capital, including “com[ing] back at us with our own dollars to buy General Motors, IBM”, et al, he blows the deal for Frank Hackett, the corporate head of UBS (played perfectly by Robert Duvall), the show and his own career. Michael Moore's Palme d'Or winning 'documentary', Fahrenheit 911, essentially spoke to the same phenomenon – that is, the coincidence of US and Saudi corporate interests, and its enmeshment with foreign policy, and the challenge to the notion of national sovereignty this presents . However, Moore's treatment is characteristically shallow, and not given any sense of historical context. Without an acknowledgement of the history of the US-Saudi relationship or of the role America has played in promoting the very system that allows for the situation he bemoans, Moore himself turns into the populist evangelical that Peter Finch portrays with finesse in Network. Network's ultimate concern – the negative impact of corporate culture and the mass market on society, and the processes by which it affects this – is essentially a mirror for what happened in Hollywood after the 1970s. By the end of what was a dazzling period of innovation and artfulness – delivering films such as Easy Rider, M*A*S*H* (Altman, 1970), Badlands (Malick, 1973), The Conversation (Coppola, 1974), Mean Streets (Scorsese, 1973) and Network, Hollywood succumbed to commercial pressures – eschewing unhappy endings and highly political content and commentary in its films for 'the blockbuster' – usually dated to the release of Steven Spielberg's Jaws, in 1980. Film narratives switched back to happy endings, resolution and dominant societal paradigms reasserted themselves. One only need look at the young George Lucas' spectacular rise to fame with Star Wars (1977), an overly simplified fairy tale of 'good vs. evil'. (11) Gone was the subtlety and sophistication of Taxi Driver or Badlands, with their confused and often violent protagonists, and their near-nihilistic challenges to bourgeois morality, and back were the classical 'heroes' of the big screen, whose essential goodness was never in doubt and who always triumphed over the 'bad guys'. As Biskind suggests, the flowering of American cinema, only too brief, had ended – and Spielberg had 'won'. Because the fact of the matter is that although individual revolutionaries succeeded, the revolution failed. [...] As Coppola later recognized, the market selected and shaped these directors, snuffing out the careers of those whose films were not commercial, and boosting and molding the careers of those that were. It seems only right to close with one of Chayefsky's more incisive soliloquies, delivered by the owner of UBS, Arthur Jensen (Ned Beatty): You have meddled with the primal forces of nature, Mr. Beale, and I won't have it. Is that clear? You think you merely stopped a business deal. That is not the case. The Arabs have taken millions of dollars out of this country, and now they must put it back. It is ebb and flow, tidal gravity. It is ecological balance. You are an old man, who thinks in terms of nations, and peoples. There are no nations, there are no peoples, there are no Russians, there are no Arabs, there are no Third Worlds; there is no West. There is only one holistic system of systems. One vast and interwoven, interacting, multi-variant, multi-national dominion of dollars. Petro-dollars, electro-dollars, multi-dollars, Reichmarks, Rubles, Pounds and Sheckles. It is the international system of currency which determines the totality of life on this planet. That is the natural order of things today. That is the atomic, and sub-atomic, and galactic structure of things today. And you have meddled with the primal forces of nature. And you will atone. You get up on your little 21 inch screen, and howl about “America”, and “democracy.” There is no America, there is no democracy. There is only IBM and ITT and AT&T. And Dupont, Dow, Union Carbide, and Exxon. Those are the nations of the world today. We no longer live in a world of nations and ideologies, Mr. Beale. The world is a college of corporations, inexorably determined by the immutable by-laws of business. The world is a business, Mr. Beale. EXTRAS INCLUDE: - Director's Commentary as second audio track - The Making of Network (L. Bouzereau, 2006) 1hr 25min documentary - Vintage Paddy Chayefsky Interview On Dinah! - Private Screenings With Sidney Lumet - TCM Host Robert Osborne Interviews Director Lumet - Original Theatrical Trailer PLEASE SEED AND ENJOY!!!
Seeders: 7
Leeches: 2

TAXI TO THE DARK SIDE (2007)

Category: Documentary
Description:
Taxi to the Dark Side is a 2007 documentary film directed by American filmmaker Alex Gibney, and produced by Eva Orner and Susannah Shipman, which won the 2007 Academy Award for Documentary Feature. The film focuses on the murder in custody of an Afghan taxi driver named Dilawar. Dilawar was beaten to death by American soldiers while being held in extrajudicial detention at the Bagram Air Base. Taxi to the Dark Side also goes on to examine America's policy on torture and interrogation in general, specifically the CIA's use of torture and their research into sensory deprivation. There is description of the opposition to the use of torture from its political and military opponents, as well as the defence of such methods; the attempts by Congress to uphold the standards of the Geneva Convention forbidding torture; and the popularisation of the use of torture techniques in shows such as 24. The film is said to be the first film to contain images taken within Bagram Air Base.
Seeders: 0
Leeches: 0

IFC_Media_Project_-_Episodes_5___6.4658366.TPB

Category: News & Current Affairs
Description:
--These are my own TV captures of this show-- IFC - The IFC Media Project (2008) Program Info: This new IFC (Independent Film Channel) original series, produced by Meghan O'Hara (FAHRENHEIT 911 and SICKO) and Nick McKinney (The Daily Show and Morgan Spurlock's "30 Days"), reveals the truth behind the news. The thought-provoking series examines the current state of investigative journalism and how it affects our perceptions of the world around us. 1. Episode Five - The Anatomy of a Story: This Premiered Tuesday, December 16 Journalists, even the bad ones, are storytellers. The news is an ongoing soap opera and the best stories are the one's that go beyond what we already know. This episode looks at how journalists put these stories together. Carmen + El Diaro La Prensa (4min) Carmen, a Colombian immigrant to the US, is a reporter for El Diaro La Prensa, the nation's largest latino newspaper. While the rest of the newspaper industry is imploding, El Diaro La Prensa's circulation and ad revenue is exploding. We explore this phenomenon by joining Carmen on the road as she travels through the American heartland covering different stories of America's struggle to deal with its melting pot mentality. Media Encyclopedia: Breaking News (2min) Another entry in our Media Encyclopedia, the handbook to the tricks and tropes of the journalistic trade. The War on Drugs (10min) Pot. Weed. Reefer. It's the dangerous drug that leads to even more dangerous drugs and if you smoke it you'll amount to nothing and quite possibly end up dead. Or so goes the story. And it's a story that's enjoyed amazing staying power – even though huge numbers of Americans have smoked it and lived to tell the tale. Fed by the US government and nearly unquestioned by the mainstream media, the anatomy of this story is hilarious. News Junkie: TBD (2min) Our viral animated and news addled Junkie checks in with the latest installment of his hilarious paranoid rantings. Interview: Alex Gibney (4min) Director of the documentary, Taxi To The Dark Side 2. Episode Six - The Future of News: This Premiered Tuesday, December 23 This episode will involve a media stunt that dares to predict a Utopian newspaper of tomorrow; we take a look at issues surrounding the news and information of the future; another installment of "The Media Encyclopedia"; an animated "News Junkie"; and a feature interview with Arianna Huffington. THE YES MEN (4min) Watch what happens when hundreds of independent writers, artists, and activists - including the Anti-Advertising Agency, CODEPINK, May First/People Link, Evil Twin, Improv Everywhere and Not An Alternative - join forces with media provocateurs The Yes Men for their most elaborate stunt to date. Media Encyclopedia: Local News (2min) Another entry in our Media Encyclopedia, the handbook to the tricks and tropes of the journalistic trade. This week - "Local News". THE FUTURE OF NEWS (10min) In this feature segment we look at where the news heading in the age of ubiquitous media. How can we adapt to the changing face of news and, more importantly, how can news organizations adapt to new mediums, new expectations and new delivery systems? The future's so bright we gotta wear... goggles? News Junkie: TBD (2min) See what our resident News Junkie foresees for the media world of 2058. Interview - Arianna Huffington (4min) We sit down with the founder of the Huffington Post to discuss the present and future face of online news. Site: http://www.ifc.com/on-ifc/mediaproject/ Test your Media IQ: http://www.ifc.com/on-ifc/mediaproject/quiz Video Info: IFC.Media.Project.Episode.05.700x388.xvid.mp3-snach.avi Format : AVI Format/Info : Audio Video Interleave File size : 242 MiB Duration : 25mn 40s Overall bit rate : 1 320 Kbps Writing application : MediaCoder 0.6 Video Format : MPEG-4 Visual Format profile : Streaming Video@L1 Format settings, BVOP : No Format settings, QPel : No Format settings, GMC : 3 warppoints Format settings, Matrix : Default Codec ID : XVID Codec ID/Hint : XviD Duration : 25mn 40s Bit rate : 1 194 Kbps Width : 700 pixels Height : 388 pixels Display aspect ratio : 1.606 Frame rate : 29.970 fps Resolution : 24 bits Colorimetry : 4:2:0 Scan type : Progressive Bits/(Pixel*Frame) : 0.147 Stream size : 219 MiB (90%) Writing library : XviD 1.2.0.dev47 (UTC 2006-11-01) Audio Format : MPEG Audio Format version : Version 1 Format profile : Layer 3 Codec ID : 55 Codec ID/Hint : MP3 Duration : 25mn 40s Bit rate mode : Constant Bit rate : 112 Kbps Channel(s) : 2 channels Sampling rate : 48.0 KHz Resolution : 16 bits Stream size : 20.6 MiB (8%) Alignment : Aligned on interleaves Interleave, duration : 24 ms (0.72 video frame) Interleave, preload duration : 504 ms IFC.Media.Project.Episode.06.700x388.xvid.mp3-snach.avi Format : AVI Format/Info : Audio Video Interleave File size : 247 MiB Duration : 26mn 9s Overall bit rate : 1 319 Kbps Writing application : MediaCoder 0.6 Video Format : MPEG-4 Visual Format profile : Streaming Video@L1 Format settings, BVOP : No Format settings, QPel : No Format settings, GMC : 3 warppoints Format settings, Matrix : Default Codec ID : XVID Codec ID/Hint : XviD Duration : 26mn 9s Bit rate : 1 193 Kbps Width : 700 pixels Height : 388 pixels Display aspect ratio : 1.606 Frame rate : 29.970 fps Resolution : 24 bits Colorimetry : 4:2:0 Scan type : Progressive Bits/(Pixel*Frame) : 0.147 Stream size : 223 MiB (90%) Writing library : XviD 1.2.0.dev47 (UTC 2006-11-01) Audio Format : MPEG Audio Format version : Version 1 Format profile : Layer 3 Codec ID : 55 Codec ID/Hint : MP3 Duration : 26mn 9s Bit rate mode : Constant Bit rate : 112 Kbps Channel(s) : 2 channels Sampling rate : 48.0 KHz Resolution : 16 bits Stream size : 21.0 MiB (8%) Alignment : Aligned on interleaves Interleave, duration : 24 ms (0.72 video frame) Interleave, preload duration : 504 ms Trackers(for you to add): http://tracker.conspiracycentral.net/announce http://tracker.thepiratebay.org:80/announce http://denis.stalker.h3q.com:6969/announce http://open.tracker.thepiratebay.org/announce http://torrent-downloads.to:5869/announce http://www.h33t.com:3310/announce http://inferno.demonoid.com:3404/announce Visit & Join us at: http://tracker.ConspiracyCentral.net Enjoy & Seed!
Seeders: 8
Leeches: 5

CBC ~THE BATTLE OF THE BAG – 2008 01 31

Category: Documentary
Description:
CBC ~THE BATTLE OF THE BAG – 2008 01 31 File Name: 080131.cbc.doc.zone.battle.of.the.bag.640x464.xvid.mp3.festering.leper.avi Duration (hh:mm:ss): 44:15.913 File Size (in bytes): 721,414,144 Video Codec Name: XviD 1.2 SMP It's hard to imagine life in the 21st century without them. Plastic bags only got a handle on the mainstream about 25 years ago but in that time they have become ubiquitous, not only here in Canada but around the globe. Plastic bags are strong, waterproof, usually free and best of all, they're convenient. The plastics industry touts them as great innovations – lightweight, reusable, efficient. The bag industry provides manufacturing jobs, employing some 7,000 people in Canada alone. But despite its numerous merits, the plastic bag has become the victim of its own success. Billions are used around the world every year. Each one is made from oil or natural gas and takes hundreds of years to decompose. Environmentalists argue they're a hazard to wildlife and a blight on the landscape. Hence the icon of convenience is steadily losing its cachet in the consumer world. More stores are charging from them, more places are taxing or banning them. In January 2008, China became the largest jurisdiction to target plastic bags. The country of more than 1.3 billion took drastic measures, announcing that as of June 1, 2008 consumers will have to pay for plastic shopping bags. And ultra-thin plastic bags will be banned altogether. China's move comes after a rough year for the plastic shopping bag. 2007 saw the banning or taxing of the bag in towns and cities around the world. San Francisco led the charge with a ban on bags in large supermarkets and drugstores. Two Canadian towns – Leaf Rapids, Manitoba and Rossland, B.C. – weren't far behind. The British also got in on the bag ban with a slew of English towns declaring independence from the handy throwaways, without revolt. In the 1970s, paper bags still ruled the retail roost. A group of American engineers and technicians working for big oil were bent on changing that. Their mission: to convince supermarkets and consumers that plastic bags were the wave of the future. They had ample financial incentive. With billions used every year in North America, bags are big business. But they had to develop a practical plastic sack first. There were many unsuccessful attempts until in the early 1980s – presto - the bag with handles was designed. "With the handles it was easier to carry than the craft paper sack so that people that had some distance to walk from the store could carry several bags by the handles home," says former Mobil Oil employee Terry Donovan. But convincing supermarket chains wasn't easy. Especially since plastic bags filled with groceries didn't always stand up in a car trunk the same way their paper counterparts did. "(Stores) would mitigate that risk by offering to the customer, ‘well we'll pack your grocery sacks either way, paper or plastic,'" says Donovan. "Over time even the clientele, the customers, got more used to plastic being offered and oh yeah, I'll take plastic. And of course the rest is history." http://www.cbc.ca/doczone/battleofthebag/index.html Please check out my other documentary uploads here: http://www.demonoid.com/files/?uid=4270528&seeded=2 chinadoc and festering leper ------------ Content Type: [Documentary]
Seeders: 14
Leeches: 7

Taxi To The Dark Side (2007)[dvdrip]

Category: Documentary
Description:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0854678/ User Rating:7.9/10 (1,546 votes) Genre:Documentary Won Oscar. Another 7 wins & 2 nominations An in-depth look at the torture practices of the United States in Afghanistan, Iraq and Guantanamo Bay, focusing on an innocent taxi driver in Afghanistan who was tortured and killed in 2002.
Seeders: 51
Leeches: 20

Doc Zone - Battle of The Bag

Category: Documentary
Description:
It's hard to imagine life in the 21st century without them. Plastic bags only got a handle on the mainstream about 25 years ago but in that time they have become ubiquitous, not only here in Canada but around the globe. Plastic bags are strong, waterproof, usually free and best of all, they're convenient. The plastics industry touts them as great innovations – lightweight, reusable, efficient. The bag industry provides manufacturing jobs, employing some 7,000 people in Canada alone. Victim of its own success But despite its numerous merits, the plastic bag has become the victim of its own success. Billions are used around the world every year. Each one is made from oil or natural gas and takes hundreds of years to decompose. Environmentalists argue they're a hazard to wildlife and a blight on the landscape. Hence the icon of convenience is steadily losing its cachet in the consumer world. More stores are charging from them, more places are taxing or banning them. China takes action In January 2008, China became the largest jurisdiction to target plastic bags. The country of more than 1.3 billion took drastic measures, announcing that as of June 1, 2008 consumers will have to pay for plastic shopping bags. And ultra-thin plastic bags will be banned altogether China's move comes after a rough year for the plastic shopping bag. 2007 saw the banning or taxing of the bag in towns and cities around the world. San Francisco led the charge with a ban on bags in large supermarkets and drugstores. Two Canadian towns – Leaf Rapids, Manitoba and Rossland, B.C. – weren't far behind. The British also got in on the bag ban with a slew of English towns declaring independence from the handy throwaways, without revolt. Conquering North America In the 1970s, paper bags still ruled the retail roost. A group of American engineers and technicians working for big oil were bent on changing that. Their mission: to convince supermarkets and consumers that plastic bags were the wave of the future. They had ample financial incentive. With billions used every year in North America, bags are big business. But they had to develop a practical plastic sack first. There were many unsuccessful attempts until in the early 1980s – presto - the bag with handles was designed "With the handles it was easier to carry than the craft paper sack so that people that had some distance to walk from the store could carry several bags by the handles home," says former Mobil Oil employee Terry Donovan. But convincing supermarket chains wasn't easy. Especially since plastic bags filled with groceries didn't always stand up in a car trunk the same way their paper counterparts did. "(Stores) would mitigate that risk by offering to the customer, ‘well we'll pack your grocery sacks either way, paper or plastic,'" says Donovan. "Over time even the clientele, the customers, got more used to plastic being offered and oh yeah, I'll take plastic. And of course the rest is history." Episode Website: http://www.cbc.ca/doczone/battleofthebag/index.html ============================================================== Name.............: DocZone.BattleOfTheBag.atschdtv.xvid.avi Filesize..........: 564 MB (or 577,542 KB or 591,403,008 bytes) Runtime.........: 00:44:34 (80,141 fr) Video Codec...: XviD Video Bitrate...: 1622 kb/s FPS...............: 29.970 Audio Codec...: 0x0055(MP3) ID'd as MPEG-1 Layer 3 Audio Bitrate...: 138 kb/s (69/ch, stereo) VBR LAME3.97 Frame Size.....: 640x368 (1.74:1) [=40:23] Frame Quality..: 0.230 bits/pixel ------------ Content Type: [Documentary]
Seeders: 0
Leeches: 0

Taxi to the Dark Side (2008) DVDRip

Category: Documentary
Description:
Examines the death of an Afghan taxi driver at Bagram Air Base from injuries inflicted by U.S. soldiers. Also Known As: Taxi to the Darkside Production Status: Released Genres: Documentary, Politics/Religion and War Running Time: 1 hr. 46 min. Release Date: January 18th, 2008 (limited) MPAA Rating: R for disturbing images, and content involving torture and graphic nudity. Distributors: ThinkFilm Production Co.: Jigsaw Productions, Wider Film Projects , Tall Woods, X-Ray Productions U.S. Box Office: $265,814 Produced in: United States
Seeders: 17
Leeches: 3

Easy Riders, Raging Bulls

Category: Documentary
Description:
Based upon Peter Biskind's book of the same name, this BBC-produced documentary traces the rise of a generation of Hollywood filmmakers who briefly changed the face of movies with a more personal approach that pushed the boundaries of what was acceptable on-screen. Influential directors who appear include Arthur Penn ("Bonnie and Clyde"), Dennis Hopper ("Easy Rider"), Francis Ford Coppola ("The Godfather"), John Schlesinger ("Midnight Cowboy"), Bob Rafelson ("Five Easy Pieces") Martin Scorsese ("Taxi Driver"), Peter Bogdanovich ("The Last Picture Show"), and Jonathan Demme ("Crazy Mama"). Narrated by William H. Macy, the documentary features vintage clips of Coppola, Scorsese, Beatty, George Lucas, Sam Peckinpah, Roman Polanski, Robert Altman, and Pauline Kael. It also includes original interview material with Penn; Roger Corman; Bogdanovich; Hopper; David Picker; writer/directors John Milius and Paul Schrader; actresses Karen Black, Cybill Shepherd, Margot Kidder, and Jennifer Salt; actors Peter Fonda, Kris Kristofferson, and Richard Dreyfuss; producers Jerome Hellman, Michael Phillips, and Jonathan Taplin; editor Dede Allen; production designer Polly Platt; writers David Newman, Joan Tewksbury, Gloria Katz, and Willard Huyck; cinematographers Laszlo Kovacs and Vilmos Zsigmond; agent Mike Medavoy; and former production executive Peter Bart. Among the films discussed are "Rosemary's Baby," "The Wild Bunch," "Mean Streets," "American Graffiti," "The Rain People," "Midnight Cowboy," "M*A*S*H," "McCabe and Mrs. Miller," "The Last Picture Show," "Shampoo," and "Taxi Driver."
Seeders: 2
Leeches: 1

The Day the Dollar Falls - Blacklight - EN Subtitled

Category: Documentary
Description:
What does top model Gisele Bündchen and rapper Jay-Z in common with professional investors such as Jim Rogers and politicians in Iran, Kuwait, Iraq, Qatar and China? Doubts concerning the Dollar and a preference for the Euro! Why? A Advancing vision like the drama entitled: “The Day that the Dollar Falls”. Do we live on a bubble? Is it possible for the heavily indebted American economy to collapse and take all of us down in a free fall with it? Have the days of the dollar as a world currency been counted? Is it really unimaginable that we will see the time of the Great Depression in 1929 repeating itself? VPRO Backlight and Dutch national newspaper NRC Handelsblad present this 'what if' scenario. What if the dollar collapses? Fiction meets facts in this 24 hour scenario. At 9AM CET a Singapore trader is ordered to sell a large amount of dollars, which sends off the enormous downfall of the dollar. This film shows the results for the world economy every following hour. It ends in Amsterdam (The Netherlands), where the only currency accepted by a taxi driver is sigarettes. An scene which comes closer and closer... Latest Euro to Dollar rate: http://finance.yahoo.com/q?s=EURUSD=X
Seeders: 0
Leeches: 0