Religion

Bill Maher – Religulous

February 22, 2012
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Bill Maher – Religulous

Early on in Religulous, Bill Maher throws up a bar chart illustrating the number of people in America who are non-religious. That number is 16%, more than blacks, more than Jews, more than numerous other minority groups who seem to have no problem making themselves heard and getting Congress to do their bidding. Maher wonders aloud why non-religious people are so underground, and why they aren’t having an impact on the national discussion. His film is aimed squarely at that 16% of the country, and almost no one else. His goal, and he clearly has one, is to give those people the motivation they need to come out of the closet and do something… before it’s too late. Religulous...

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Prophets of Doom

February 22, 2012
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Prophets of Doom

Today’s world has troubles unique to its time in history, from the global financial crisis to technological meltdowns to full scale, computerized global war. Observing the convergence of such events, contemporary prophets have begun to emerge from obscurity to suggest that these conditions might be signs of the demise of the modern world. These men are historians as well, using all manner of information and patterns from the past to provide context for where we are going. Their predictions interpret the current state of affairs in our world as evidence that the America we know may come to an end. The men proposing these ideas are not crackpots living on the streets of New York; they are intelligent, learned...

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Lost Treasures of Tibet

February 21, 2012
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Lost Treasures of Tibet

Before Leonardo da Vinci painted The Last Supper, Tibetan craftsmen were creating stunning artistry of their deities in the remote Himalayan kingdom of Mustang. In Lost Treasures of Tibet, NOVA goes behind the scenes with the first conservation team from the West, as it undertakes the painstaking restoration of these ancient masterpieces and the beautiful monasteries that house them. Located in present-day Nepal, Mustang contains some of the last remaining relics of an almost vanished world of ancient Buddhist culture. Across the border in Tibet, Chinese occupiers have destroyed thousands of monasteries since taking control of the country in 1950. Therefore, the survival of Mustang’s monasteries or gompas is more important than ever. But preservation is extremely difficult because of the...

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Louis Theroux: Survivalists

February 15, 2012
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Louis Theroux: Survivalists

In Idaho, Louis meets military enthusiasts and right-wing patriots who are preparing for a global catastrophe, including trips to survivalists’ store Safetrek and a mountain refuge for conspiracy theorists called Almost Heaven. Louis also visits the Aryan Nation Church and helps to build a straw-bale home. The episode focuses on the survivalism movement and communities formed around it. The fact that several self-proclaimed survivalists were also hippies and environmentalists is a recurring theme. Louis spends time with groups of (mostly) politically extreme people in the North West of America. The focus is on families and groups (or a horrific neo-nazi church in one part) which believe in and prepare for a ‘New World Order’ – a very interesting and...

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Louis Theroux: Thai Brides

February 15, 2012
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Louis Theroux: Thai Brides

Louis Theroux struck gold yet again in this brilliant documentary which featured the ‘Introduction Services’ available in Thailand to men from overseas seeking Thai women for marriage. Although presented in a fairly light-hearted format, it was very thought-provoking. Of course, to most of us the notion of these agencies is abhorrent to say the least. However, largely due to the style of presentation, it was quite revealing to listen to the viewpoints of the ‘clients’ and owners, who seemed to feel comfortable expressing their views. Louis Theroux’ style, which does not at first appear overly challenging, allows a truer insight into a person’s behaviour and makes him/her less defensive and consequently more candid.

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Louis Theroux: On Black Nationalism

February 15, 2012
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Louis Theroux: On Black Nationalism

American black nationalist groups have been branded anti-Semitic, homophobic, misogynist and racist by the mainstream press. Louis Theroux goes to Harlem in New York to meet its proponents. Theroux meets the Reverend Al Sharpton, the main point of contact in the black nationalist movement. Theroux also meets Khalid Abdul Muhammad, dubbed by the media ‘the most dangerous man in America’ and visits the Israeli School of Universal Practical Knowledge, who believe that blacks are the true Israelites and that all English monarchs until early modern times were black. Theroux also joins Al Sharpton on a march on Wall Street to protest at the shooting by New York police of Amadou Diallo, who was shot 41 times.

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Louis Theroux: The Ultra Zionists

February 15, 2012
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Louis Theroux: The Ultra Zionists

Louis Theroux spends time with a small and very committed subculture of ultra-nationalist Jewish settlers. He discovers a group of people who consider it their religious and political obligation to populate some of the most sensitive and disputed areas of the West Bank, especially those with a spiritual significance dating back to the Bible. Throughout his journey, Louis gets close to the people most involved with driving the extreme end of the Jewish settler movement – finding them warm, friendly, humorous, and deeply troubling. Louis Theroux spends time with ultra-nationalist Jewish settlers and discovers a small, but very committed subculture. On a hilltop in the Northern West Bank, not far from the large Palestinian city of Nablus, I met...

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Louis Theroux: Fundamentalist Christianity

February 15, 2012
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Louis Theroux: Fundamentalist Christianity

Louis Theroux’s Weird Weekends is a television documentary series, in which Louis Theroux gives viewers the chance to get brief glimpses into the worlds of individuals and groups that they would not normally come into contact with or experience up close. In most cases this means interviewing people with extreme beliefs of some kind, or just generally belonging to subcultures not known to exist by most or just frowned upon. It was first shown in the UK on BBC2. In first episode of Theroux’s Weird Weekends, in Dallas, Louis meets TV evangelists Marcus and Joni Lamb, and joins a group of hardline Christians called “The Family” as they visit the Deep Ellum entertainment district.

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Louis Theroux: And the Nazis

February 15, 2012
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Louis Theroux: And the Nazis

Theroux always tackles touchy subjects, sometimes with interviews that make your skin crawl. His interview with Joe Jackson, and another with the Westboro Baptist Church were gob-smacking television. Upon his return, Theroux will be looking at the White Aryan Resistance movement in America, the KKK and Nazi’s who believe in ethnic cleansing. Bound to be unsettling and uncompromising. Intrepid television host Louis Theroux travels through California trying to find a little humanity amongst some of America’s most notorious and committed Nazis. Louis first encounters April Gaede at a Nazi rally where her two beautiful eleven-year-old daughters, Lamb & Lynx, sing racist songs to a captivated audience of skinheads. April sees the world entirely through racist eyes and has made...

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Louis Theroux: America’s Most Hated Family In Crisis

February 15, 2012
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Louis Theroux: America’s Most Hated Family In Crisis

Following up on his hugely popular and acclaimed 2007 documentary The Most Hated Family In America, Louis Theroux returns to Topeka, Kansas, for a second visit to the Westboro Baptist Church. A fire-and-brimstone Christian group, made up of 80 or so members of the Phelps family, the WBC have made themselves notorious in America – and worldwide – for their pickets of the funerals of soldiers killed in action, where they wield anti-gay placards. The Phelps believe the soldiers were killed as part of God’s punishment of America for its toleration of homosexuality. But, four years on from Louis’s last visit, there are signs of disarray in the Phelps clan. A series of defections of family members has shaken up...

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