American Meth is a cross-country journey that focuses on several facets of the methamphetamine epidemic. From the oil fields of Wyoming and New Mexico to the homeless in Portland and the teens of Montana, filmmaker Justin Hunt spins a blue-collar tale of tragedy and triumph. Actor Val Kilmer lends his voicing talents as your narrator while exploring both the damage being done and community efforts to take back America.

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 begins with Bill Maher, standing alone in Israel at a place called Meggido; a worthless pile of rubble where many of the planet’s religions believe the end of the world will begin. From there, Maher pushes us into an intense, honest, and brutally funny discussion of blind belief, presenting the possibility that maybe we should all consider doubt instead. We follow him around the world, as he travels from place to place talking to religious people of different faiths on different continents. The surprising thing here is that even though Maher definitely has an agenda, his movie never skews into the realm of propaganda.

It’s not propaganda, because Maher isn’t running out and finding weirdos to use in smear tactics against the devout. Typically anyone trying to make a case against God goes right to the pedophile priests and the suicide bombers, but Maher makes it a point to focus on normal, reasonably sane religious people. He’s not stacking the deck in his favor, because he doesn’t need to. He talks to truckers in a roadside chapel, he chats with random, middle-class tourists at a Christian-themed amusement park.
He talks to religious shop owners, small town preachers, televangelists, Jews for Jesus, fundamentalist U.S. Senators, Vatican priests, religious scientists, secular Muslims, gay Muslims, people in America, Utah (come on, we all know it’s not really America), Europe, and even in Jerusalem. Though those fumbling for an excuse to discredit him may claim otherwise, these aren’t extremists or lunatics. These are for the most part sane, rational, even intelligent people who believe something which Maher believes is insane.

What is the psychology of war? Do soldiers become murderers when they enjoy killing? Is war beautiful? Are all humans capable of monstrous acts? FIRST KILL examines these and other questions, as it explores what war does to the human mind and soul.

Interviews with several Vietnam veterans evoke the contradictory feelings that killing produces – fear, hate, seduction and pleasure. FIRST KILL also includes a discussion with Michael Herr, the former war correspondent who wrote the screenplays to Apocalypse Now and Full Metal Jacket, and wrote Dispatches, the best and most important book about the experiences of the combat soldier in the Vietnam War.

For the last ten years Herr has refused to give any interviews, but in FIRST KILL he descends into his own dark experiences one more time. “If war was hell and only hell and there were no other colors in the palate… I don’t think people would continue to make war,” he says.

For other people war is just work. Immediately after taking his well-known photograph of a Vietnamese general shooting a Vietcong soldier in the head, Eddie Adams went out to lunch. Other Vietnam veterans talk about similar numbing experiences, many of them continuing to suffer nightmares and are still struggling with their traumas. On the other hand, former “tunnelrat” Billy Heflin openly admits that, despite his aversion to war, he is addicted to killing, and longingly recalls his wartime experiences.

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 men who come armed with the evidence to back up their claims.

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 centuries of neglect, weather, and earthquakes that have brought many buildings to the brink of collapse. Inside, their exquisite murals are in a near-ruined state.

In the course of their restoration work, conservators from the West come face-to-face with a thorny problem of culture clash: local people want missing sections of the murals completed. Westerners are aghast at the idea, but their hosts are equally shocked at the thought of worshiping unfinished deities.

The program follows the struggle of an international team headed by British conservationist John Sanday to restore the greatest gompa of all—Thubchen, the royal monastery in Mustang’s capital of Lo Monthang. The first order of business is fixing Thubchen’s roof—no small feat since 200 tons of dirt have been piled on its flat surface over the centuries to seal out leaks. To bear that much weight, the hidden ceiling beams must be more than two feet thick, an apparent impossibility considering that Mustang is virtually treeless. Sanday solves this riddle when his team excavates down to the beams and discovers an elaborate jigsaw puzzle of construction that uses interlocking small timbers to create a lightweight, load-bearing structure.

Louis meets the ventriloquist who no longer enjoys the TV light entertainment limelight (and can’t hide his bitterness about that) but is still earning a good living. He has a flash car, an ex-model missus, a large home and a role in Crewe’s pantomime.

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 funny documentary.

Louis Theroux journeys to the centre of the controversial South African hunting industry. It’s big business, attracting thousands of holiday hunters annually. Keeping wild animals fenced in on farms has made it cheaper and easier to hunt than ever before, but Louis discovers that this industry, instead of endangering species, has actually increased animal numbers. Staying at a safari hunting lodge, Louis hears that each kill has a price. The potential shopping list is endless, ranging from $250 for a porcupine to $100,000 for a rhino. It’s a hunter’s paradise.

This is a very popular tourist attraction – particularly among Americans. Louis meets such visitors and tries to understand their motivation to kill for pleasure, joining them as they go hunting. He meets novice hunter Ann-Marie, who originally only came to accompany her husband but gets caught up in the excitement and decides she wants to try to hunt an animal herself. She tells Louis that, apparently, your first kill is a total rush – although she would worry about killing a zebra as it’s too much like a horse.

Two of the local landowners, Piet Venter and Piet Warren, breed animals for hunting and have a perhaps surprising sensitivity towards the animals they’ve raised. They take particular care to try to ensure any animal is killed swiftly so they suffer minimal trauma. Former vet Lolly Fourie, who allows hunting on his land, explains how he no longer hunts as he gets no pleasure from it nowadays. Hearing their arguments in favour of the industry, Louis arranges to go on a hunt of his own. Unsure if he really can pull the trigger, as he looks at a wart-hog down the arrow of a crossbow he faces his beliefs head on and must make the decision…

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.

Louis Theroux following the lives of high and low rollers in Las Vegas