On Valentine’s Day 1993, 17-year-old Bethel High School basketball star Allen Iverson was bowling in Hampton, Va., with five high school friends. It was supposed to be an ordinary evening, but it became a night that defined Iverson’s young life. A quarrel soon erupted into a brawl pitting Iverson’s young black friends against a group of white patrons. The fallout from the fight and the handling of the subsequent trial landed the teenager considered by some the nation’s best high school athlete in jail and sharply divided the city along racial lines. Oscar nominee Steve James (“Hoop Dreams”) returns to his hometown of Hampton, where he once played basketball, to take a personal look at this still-disputed incident and examine its impact on Iverson and the shared community.
Plunging to the virtually unknown depths of the Mariana Trench, James Cameron’s DEEPSEA CHALLENGE expedition takes this National Geographic Explorer deeper and further than any filmmaker or solo explorer has ever gone before. The finish line lies below nearly 36,000 feet of seawater, weighing in at about 16,000 pounds of pressure on every square inch of sub. Now join him, moment by nail-biting moment, on this intimate glimpse inside the mind of a master traveler as he recounts his journey to the bottom of the earth.
Skulls are humanity’s foremost symbol of death, and a powerful icon in the visual vocabularies of cultures all over the globe. Thirteen crystal skulls of apparently ancient origin have been found in parts of Mexico, Central America and South America, comprising one of the most fascinating subjects of 20th Century archaeology.
This documentary takes a look at the history of all four known skulls and discover their age and origin. We discover how each was found, who it was owned by and passed to over the last hundred years.
The two most famous of these skulls, originally misidentified as Aztec, and for years shown in the British Museum and the Musée de l’Homme in Paris, have long been known to owe their provenance to nothing more exotic than a French antiquities dealer called Eugène Boban. But this has not stopped the gurus of nonsense from making preposterous claims for similar artefacts. There are, they will tell you, 13 of them and one day they will meet and reveal, talking head to talking head, the secrets of the Universe.
As narrator Morgan Freeman explains, every year these indomitable creatures leave their ocean habitat and make a long, arduous journey over the treacherous Antarctic ice to their traditional breeding ground. Guided by instinct and undeterred by the harsh climate or lack of food, the penguins trudge single-mindedly to their destination, engage in their unique mating ritual, and labor tirelessly to provide for the helpless offspring they bring into an unforgiving ecosystem.
Director Luc Jacquet – who can’t be over-praised for marshalling a crew with the patience, skill, and dedication required to capture these unforgettable images on film – presents a simple but compelling story that’s every bit as focused and dignified as the penguins themselves. He draws us into their world and celebrates their unflagging resolve, making us care to a surprising extent about these waddling critters. It’s a remarkable achievement, and one you’ll want to experience over and over again.
Have you ever wondered if you would survive in the wilderness, on your wits, alone? Heimo Korth did. Now, he’s the last man standing in an Alaskan wilderness. His neighbor is a polar bear. His other neighbor is a caribou. Say goodbye to civilization.Near the end of his Presidency, Jimmy Carter created the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge: 20 million acres that were off limits to hunters and oil seekers. Six families were allowed to stay and occupy a cabin in the wild. There is only one man still standing. Heimo Korth.
