Americans generally like to hear good news. They like to believe that a new president will right old wrongs, that clean energy will replace dirty oil and that fresh thinking will set the economy straight. American pundits tend to restrain their pessimism and hope for the best. But is anyone prepared for the worst?

Meet Michael Ruppert, a different kind of American. A former Los Angeles police officer turned independent reporter, he predicted the current financial crisis in his self-published newsletter, From the Wilderness, at a time when most Wall Street and Washington analysts were still in denial. Director Chris Smith has shown an affinity for outsiders in films like American Movie and The Yes Men. In Collapse, he departs stylistically from his past documentaries by interviewing Ruppert in a format that recalls the work of Errol Morris and Spalding Gray.

Sitting in a room that looks like a bunker, Ruppert recounts his career as a radical thinker and spells out the crises he sees ahead. He draws upon the same news reports and data available to any Internet user, but he applies a unique interpretation. He is especially passionate about the issue of peak oil, the concern raised by scientists since the seventies that the world will eventually run out of fossil fuel. While other experts debate this issue in measured tones, Ruppert doesn’t hold back at sounding an alarm, portraying an apocalyptic future. Listening to his rapid flow of opinions, the viewer is likely to question some of the rhetoric as paranoid or deluded, and to sway back and forth on what to make of the extremism. Smith lets viewers form their own judgments.

Collapse also serves as a portrait of a loner. Over the years, Ruppert has stood up for what he believes in despite fierce opposition. He candidly describes the sacrifices and motivators in his life. While other observers analyze details of the economic crisis, Ruppert views it as symptomatic of nothing less than the collapse of industrial civilization itself.

Is access to clean drinking water a basic human right, or a commodity that should be bought and sold like any other article of commerce?  Stephanie Soechtig’s debut feature is an unflinching examination of the big business of bottled water.

From the producers of Who Killed the Electric Car and I.O.U.S.A., this timely documentary is a behind-the-scenes look into the unregulated and unseen world of a industry that aims to privatize and sell back the one resource that ought never to become a  commodity: our water.

From the plastic production to the ocean in which so may of these bottles end up, this inspiring documentary trails the path of the bottled water industry and the communities which were the unwitting chips on the table.  A powerful portrait of the lives affected by the bottled water industry, this revelatory film features those caught at the intersection of big business and the public’s right to water.

www.tappedthemovie.com

by The Associated Press

Workers push a cage with an unknown mammal inside into a trailer as thousands of animals are confiscated from U.S. Global Exotics in Arlington, Texas, on Tuesday, Dec. 15, 2009.

A raid on an exotic animal delivery company in Texas found starving snakes, hundreds of reptiles packed in shipping crates and rodents that had killed and eaten each other, officials said.

Dozens of people with the city of Arlington and animal welfare groups took inventory Tuesday of the animals — estimated at 20,000 — and removed them from the U.S. Global Exotics during the raid. The Arlington-based company, which advertises that it delivers exotic animals worldwide, did not respond to a telephone message seeking comment and it’s Web site was down on Wednesday.

“Sometimes animals die, but the amount of animals dead far exceeded what you would normally see at any company like this,” said Jay Sabatucci, manager of animal services with the city of Arlington. “Animals were not fed, not fed properly, overcrowded and attacking each other. Some were in an environment not proper for them, such as snakes in a 72-degree room with a lamp over them, which is not enough heat and could cause them to die.”

The company’s warehouse held mostly reptiles and rodents and also spiders, sloths and hedgehogs, but it was unclear how many were dead, said Maura Davies, a spokeswoman with the SPCA of Texas. Veterinarians treated the most severely malnourished animals, she said.

Hundreds of rodents were crammed in small containers covered with wire, and many had killed and eaten each other, Davies said. Other animals were kept in feeding troughs, and there were numerous stacked in shipping containers still holding turtles and other reptiles that had been sent to the company, Davies said. About 200 iguanas were in one small room, she said.

A hearing will be held within 10 days to determine if the animals will be returned to the company or stay in the care of the animal welfare groups, Sabatucci said. The city is considering filing criminal charges against the owner, he said.

The city was tipped off recently by federal officials who had executed a warrant for another violation and reported concerns about the animals’ conditions, Sabatucci said.

WWII in HD is the first-ever World War II documentary presented in full, immersive HD color.  Culled from thousands of hours of lost and rare color archival footage gathered from a worldwide search through basements and archives, WWII in HD will change the way the world sees this defining conflict.  Using footage never before seen by most Americans–converted to HD for unprecedented clarity–viewers will experience the war as if they were actually there, surrounded by the real sights and sounds of the battlefields. Along the way they’ll meet a diverse group of soldiers whose wartime diaries and journals show in visceral detail what the war was really like.

This visually astonishing landmark series presents the story of World War II through the eyes of 12 Americans who experienced the war firsthand.  Viewers will hear the story of Army nurse June Wandrey, who served from the beginning of the war in North Africa to the liberation of the camps in Germany.  They will meet Shelby Westbrook, a young African American from Toledo, who became a member of the famed Tuskegee Airmen; Jimmie Kanaya, the son of Japanese immigrants, who served in the U.S. Army and was imprisoned in Europe; and Jack Werner, a Jewish émigré who escaped from Austria before the war and wound up fighting not against Hitler and the hated Nazis, but in the Pacific Theater.

History Channel: WWII in HD