watch later

An exploration into how smart phones, social media, and the Internet are profoundly changing the way we interact and experience each other - for the good and for the bad.

Renowned cult film director John Waters narrates this quirky exploration of the Salton Sea, the massive Southern California lake that was created by accident a century ago, became a popular desert resort and has since developed into a refuge for a community of oddballs.

Documentary filmmaker Doug Block had every reason to believe his parents' 54-year marriage was a good one. But when his mother dies unexpectedly and his father swiftly marries his former secretary, he discovers two parents who are far more complex and troubled than he ever imagined. 51 Birch Street is a riveting personal documentary that explores a universal human question: how much about your parents do you really want to know?

Documentary on the rise of Eliot Spitzer, first as Attorney General and then Governor of New York and his subsequent downfall due to a sex scandal. Spitzer had a hard driving, take no prisoners approach to prosecuting criminals. When he focused his efforts on Wall Street, he came up against some very powerful men. The chink in his armor was an escort whom he met regularly. When the fact that he spent time with a prostitute became public the knives came out so to speak, and Spitzer found himself isolated, resigning the Governorship. At one point, Spitzer recounts the story of a friend who gave him a t-shirt with 'Hubris is Terminal' printed on the front. A fitting epitaph somehow for his political career.

A redemptive tale of an aspiring rap artist surviving failed levees and her own troubled past and seizing a chance for a new beginning.

In the age of social media, nearly every day brings a new eruption of outrage. While people have always found something to be offended by, their ability to organize a groundswell of opposition to-and public censure of-their offender has never been more powerful. Today we're all one clumsy joke away from public ruin. Can We Take A Joke? offers a thought-provoking and wry exploration of outrage culture through the lens of stand-up comedy, with notables like Gilbert Gottfried, Penn Jillette, Lisa Lampanelli, and Adam Carolla detailing its stifling impact on comedy and the exchange of ideas. What will future will be like if we can't learn how to take a joke?

It is happening all across America-rural landowners wake up one day to find a lucrative offer from an energy company wanting to lease their property. Reason? The company hopes to tap into a reservoir dubbed the "Saudi Arabia of natural gas." Halliburton developed a way to get the gas out of the ground-a hydraulic drilling process called "fracking"-and suddenly America finds itself on the precipice of becoming an energy superpower.

The life and times of Howard Zinn: the historian, activist, and author of several classics including "A Peoples History of the United States". Archival footage, and commentary by friend, colleagues and Zinn himself.

One of the most astonishing and engaging cinematic works of the past decade, CHILDREN UNDERGROUND is a profoundly intimate and heart-wrenching drama about homeless children struggling for survival on the streets and in the subways of Bucharest, Romania.

Welcome to Monster Camp, the true story about a world where people transform into creatures, heroes, and monsters to escape their daily lives. In the vein of Lord of the Rings, World of Warcraft, and Dungeons and Dragons; these enthusiasts have developed a complicated world to bring their fantasies to life. Romantic relationships are forged between characters. Friendships are destroyed over plot disputes. Characters are slain and never return. But keeping this world alive takes a lot of real world work. And unless someone is willing to take charge, the fantasy may be lost forever.

Using only word of mouth, two lifelong best friends and Internet comedians, Rhett & Link, embark on a search for the long-lost teacher of the first grade class where they met. Their journey leads them deep into the heart of an obscure tribe of Native Americans, the Lumbee of North Carolina. Serendipitously, Rhett & Link arrive on the scene at the very climax of the tribe's century-long political struggle for identity. In a day of mobile devices that allow for a multitude of superficial connections with other 'users,' the unforgettable characters in Looking for Ms. Locklear serve as a reminder that people have more to say than an email or text message can communicate.

If you could make your deaf child hear, would you? Academy Award-nominated Sound and Fury follows the intimate, heart-rending tale of the Artinians, an extended family with deaf and hearing members across three generations. Together they confront a technological device that can help the deaf to hear but may also threaten deaf culture - and their bonds with each other. For Peter Artinian and his wife, both of whom are deaf, a surgical ear implant for their five-year-old daughter Heather means a choice between two worlds - an unfamiliar hearing world and the deaf world, a robust culture in its own right united by a uniquely visual and artistic language. Heather Artinian - precocious, vivacious, and avidly curious about implant surgery - is caught between her deaf parents and her hearing grandparents, as they argue passionately about her future. The debate is sometimes silent, but by no means quiet. When all is done, Sound and Fury speaks volumes about the choices we make and the battles we fight in order to be heard..

Early Errol Morris documentary intersplices random chatter he captured on film of the genuinely eccentric residents of Vernon, Florida. A few examples? The preacher giving a sermon on the definition of the word "Therefore," and the obsessive turkey hunter who speaks reverentially of the "gobblers" he likes to track down and kill.

In 1987, Sudan's Muslim government pronounced death to all males in the Christian south: 27,000 boys fled to Ethiopia on foot. In 1991, they were forced to flee to Kenya; 12,000 survived to live in a U.N. camp in Kakuma. Archival footage documents the 1,000 mile flight; we see life in the camp. We follow three young men who repatriate to the U.S. John Bul Dau goes to Syracuse, and by the film's end, becomes a spokesperson for the Lost Boys and Lost Girls of Sudan; Daniel Abol Pach and Panther Bior go to Pittsburgh. All work several jobs, send money back to the camp, search for relatives lost in the civil war, acclimatize to the U.S., seek an education, and miss their homeland.

"Confessions of a Superhero" chronicles the lives of four mortal men and women who work as characters on the sidewalks of Hollywood Boulevard. This feature length documentary explores the fascination, obsession, and allure of fame through the eyes of these very unique people struggling to make it in Tinseltown.

RACE TO NOWHERE is a close-up look at the pressures on today's students, offering an intimate view of lives packed with activities, leaving little room for down-time or family time. Parents today are expected to raise high-achieving children, who are good at everything: academics, sports, the arts, community-service. The film tackles the tragic side of our often achievement-obsessed culture, with interviews that explore the hidden world of over-burdened schedules, student suicide, academic cheating, young people who have checked out. RACE TO NOWHERE asks the question: Are the young people of today prepared to step fully and productively into their future? We hear from students who feel they are being pushed to the brink, educators who worry students aren't learning anything substantive, and college professors and business leaders, concerned their incoming employees lack the skills needed to succeed in the business world: passion, creativity, and internal motivation.

Strangeness is afoot. Most people don't notice the hundreds of cryptic tiled messages about resurrecting the dead that have been appearing in city streets over the past three decades. But Justin Duerr does. For years, finding an answer to this long-standing urban mystery has been his obsession. He has been collecting clues that the tiler has embedded in the streets of major cities across the U.S. and South America. But as Justin starts piecing together key events of the past he finds a story that is more surreal than he imagined, and one that hits disturbingly close to home.

Near Penn Station, next to the Amtrak tracks, squatters have been living for years. Marc Singer goes underground to live with them, and films this "family." A dozen or so men and one woman talk about their lives: horrors of childhood, jail time, losing children, being coke-heads. They scavenge, they've built themselves sturdy one-room shacks; they have pets, cook, chat, argue, give each other haircuts. A bucket is their toilet. Leaky overhead pipes are a source of water for showers. They live in virtual darkness. During the filming, Amtrak gives a 30-day eviction notice.