The documentary can be considered as a masterpiece of investigative journalism as it unfolds the story piece by piece of how an innocent man was captured, then tortured and ultimately killed by our very own great nation. It follows the human as well as paper trail that led to the events and also presents horrifying footage and pictures of what went on inside the dark walls of Bagram prison and other such prisons like the Guantanamo. It begs the question to be asked as to what all can be agree to under the banner of ‘cost of war’ or is it OK to destroy other human lives or in fact humanity in the name of war which has long lost its purpose. With these questions having no justifiable answers, it seems that whatever happened behind those walls was mere a ‘puppet entertainment’ for these officials because as the facts remain, hardly any ‘sensitive information’ was acquired even after using such high and brutal levels of torture.

Torture, and immensely large amounts of it was what Dilawar, the taxi driver caught on Dec. 1, 2002 under suspicion of abetting terrorist attack, was subjected to. He was deprived of sleep, shackled in stress positions and beaten repeatedly on pressure points to such an extent that his legs had been ‘pulpified’. Had Dilawar survived, his legs would have had to be amputated. To add mockery to the grave circumstances, Dilawar’s death certificate mentioned that he had died of natural causes. Who, how and what dies of natural causes in a prison is hardly a question of debate for the enlightened masses.

What is more horrifying is that the senior officials who devised and engaged in these inhuman and illicit tortures got away with just a rap on the knuckles whereas the lower level officers were court-martialed.

Ironically, the government and high government officials like the Vice President and the President himself, in the beginning thought that such techniques were required. In the end, using scare tactics, they even managed to turn the tables such that they designed laws which went in their favor. But astonishingly, none of the techniques that were employed in Bagram and Guantanamo were officially approved. This, rather than putting the ball in someone’s court, kept it hanging, hence the real culprit could never be found. Or was it that they never wanted the real culprit to be found.

Such and much deeper questions arise about the whole affair of prisoner abuse during the war. Dilawars tale was just a pointer which led to discovery of all the malice in the system. Nonetheless, he lost his life for no reason. He died an innocent man but what happened to the perpetrators of his murder?

Virtually nothing.

Jesus Camp is about the ‘Kids on Fire School of Ministry’ – a summer camp for the evangelical children located at Devils Lake in North Dakota. The camp takes place roughly around the same time the National Public Radio was airing the program ‘Crossing the Divide’ which takes a look at individuals and organizations that aim to bridge political and or social gaps. Directors Heidi Ewing and Rachel Grady shift the focus of their camera between this program and Jesus Camp.

In the film, we are met with a fiery evangelical Pastor Becky Fischer and a group of evangelical Christians who are very committed to indoctrinating their children. The basis of their idea of doing this is that since the Muslims do it, as in words of Fischer that they teach them to fast for Ramadan from the age of five, they should do it too. It is one of the only effective ways of preparing America for the coming of Jesus Christ. Later on we find that the teachings have gone to such lengths of extremism that one of the kids says that where a lot of people have sacrificed themselves for the Christ, they are ready too. That in the true sense is horrifying.

In the beginning of the documentary, the pastor zeroes in on her ‘star kid’ Levi O Briens. It so happens that research revealed that Levi father is a pastor as well and Levi had already given sermons in his father’s church before the Camp. But during the course of the documentary, it seems that he is portrayed as an ‘upcoming star’ to encourage the other kids. Levi’s is home-schooled and his mother believes that God gave the kids to her, so why should she put the kids in someone else’s care for 8 hours a day. She also teaches her kids that Creationism is the only reality and that global warming is a farce.
Levi’s case doesn’t astound me. I have seen the same thing happening in my life. One of my maternal uncle’s is a evangelical pastor and his son grew up the same way Levi did.

Also, the way Rachel and Tory thinking has developed is evident of the way they are brainwashed at such an early age. Personally I found that whatever Rachel speaks has been clearly taught to her and doesn’t come from the heart. Either it’s that or she has confidence issues. It is really alarming as to how the children are pressured during the course of the camp and what they are taught is really worth tons of concern. The kids are told about abortion and asked to fight it. I wonder if they have been taught the ‘details’ of life at such a tender age. On the other side, the children are told to purify themselves by washing their hands during the program. The camera at one instance takes us to the kids dorms where they are seen doing the usual kids stuff and I felt that at that particular moment, I saw them for the real kids they were.

The kids are even introduced to two other major characters who try to imprint the outside view on the kids. One of them is Pastor Ted Haggard who presides over the National Association of Evangelists which represents over 30 million evangelists. The kids are taken to his church. Ironically in his sermons, he talks about homosexuality and core values.

A few days after the release of the documentary, Mike Jones (masseur) alleged that Pastor Ted had paid him to engage in homosexual behavior over the past three years. Pastor Ted resigned from all his duties immediately.

Ted Haggard’s fiasco is truly shocking as the man who presided over the association of the evangelists and who talked to the then President Bush on religious matters, is himself hiding in the closet and telling lies from the pulpit.
The directors have, throughout the documentary portrayed an unbiased image and captured raw footage. This begs to be asked if all this extremism and fundamentalist provocation is justified. How does it separate us from the people who raised the Crusades or those who attacked us on religious grounds?

I am a God fearing Christian myself, but I did not like whatever I saw in this documentary. And I am not biased when I say that, in fact as I mentioned, I have relatives who are of the Pentecostal and Believer faiths and we do have open dialogues about it. But what happens in Jesus Camp, I don’t think any of us would approve of; apart from the 30 million or so Evangelicals in the country.

Ramesh Memon’s Slow Poisoning of India talks of the excessive use of chemicals, chiefly pesticides, in Indian farming and how it has led to various issues. It takes us to one particular area in Kerala – Kasaragode where endosulfan was sprayed on the cashew crops aerially without any proper preparation of the villages and the villagers. This resulted in horrifying effects on the population of the area, namely various birth defects like mental retardation, cancer, cerebral palsy, congenital diseases, etc. The chemical affected the central nervous system of other children and villagers as well with some dying due to cancer. The repercussions of that dusting still continue to be witnessed in these villages.

The documentary also talks of farmer suicides due to the cotton crop crisis where due to excessive use of pesticides, the organisms that affected the crop became immune to it and hence destroyed crops in huge proportions. This led to farmer suicides as the farmers could not repay the loan they took for purchasing the pesticides in the first place. The irony is that a lot of farmers use the same pesticides for committing suicides.

The narrator also explains how the excessive use of pesticides is not only deteriorating the soil and water but is also finding its way into our food, which is slowly poisoning us. One of the best solutions for this according to the narrator is the use of herbicides and other organic methods.

Slow Poisoning of India awakens us to a very different and disturbing picture which even though is basic in nature can be very well fatal for many. When we shop for our food, we hardly give a thought to the amount of pesticides and other chemicals it may contain. This documentary educates us about the same in a simple and basic yet effective way.

The film takes us back to the time of the whiz kids of University of California Berkeley and introduces us to Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak on one side and Bill Gates, Paul Allen and Steve Ballmer on the other. As the title suggests, the film is about all the geek business that goes around between them. While Wozniak builds the first mass-produced computer, the Apple, the Gates base is busy trying to put an operating system in to the first computer made for general people, the Altaire.

Steve Wozniak is ridiculed when he takes his wooden cased computer to HP whereas when they release their product at a trade show, even Bill Gates is sidelined by the crowds. They want to see the new phenomenon called the ‘personal computer’. From Jobs’s garage to the trade show to people’s home, the Apple had finally made it. But that was just the start.

Apple (the company) then skyrocketed to being the largest personal computer maker company. The film then showcases the sneaky tricks that the corporations employed. Apple got its Graphics User Interface (GUI) from Xerox whereas in the Microsoft camp, DOS also came from an outside source. Microsoft then started exploring and designing its own user interface and thus was born, Windows.

Throughout the film we see the zealousness and the craziness of both Steve Jobs and Bill Gates as Steve begins food fights and bulldozes the ground of Redmond Campus. However, critics may feel that the roles played by the actors of their respective characters do not fit in the perfect mould and hence leave something more to be desired. Nonetheless, the film is a great watch, if not for information then foe entertainment.

The documentary is kind of fairy tale come true for Pinki who is shunned by the kids due to her condition. Until Pankaj arrived, they were unaware that all it took was a simple, free surgery in the hospital in Varansi to cure the condition.
Director Megan Mylan follows Pankaj as he visits village after village and distributes flyers to make the people aware that the condition, which is caused by prenatal malnutrition problems, is in fact curable. We further see the transformation in the behavior of the kids and parent toward Pinki after the surgery.

To put in simple terms, the documentary is evidence that it doesn’t take big efforts and loads of capital to change the world. Simple, little steps can also do the trick and make someone’s life happy and at least, sustainable.

Both the professors engage in a lively debate on the topic of Evolution vs. Creationism which answers most of the questions that surround both, the believers and the non-believers and almost, almost satisfies both the sides, but shy’s from some core questions. Dawkins arguments spring from and are based on his book ‘The God Delusion’ where he says that the people who believe in God are in a big delusion. On the other side Lennox answers him confirming the truthfulness of the Bible as well as that of Creation/ism.

Dawkins says that he believes in the Darwinism and thinks that it explains life in complete terms. He further goes on to say that religious idea of the creation of man are outdated and do not satisfy today’s questions. To this Lennox answers that God has always revealed himself through the medium of the universe and through Jesus Christ and he cites C. S. Lewis’s quote that Jesus Christ has to be either mad, liar or God.

The debate then further heats up and goes on to become more of science versus religion. What I have noticed is that both the authors failed to cite that evolution stems from the Big Bang which at the end is a theory which again poses a question that where did Big Bang come from in the first place. So the question is left in the limbo and remains unanswered for me. So for the time being, I will side with the side I am already on.

From mostly a fixed view of the camera, we see the women come into the courtroom appealing for the divorce by trying to convince the judge of the atrocities against them. However the judicial system of the country is so oppressive of the women that they can opt for a divorce only under certain limited conditions.

We see as even the judge conspires to the oppression as he almost always sides with the husband and sticks to the orthodox belief that women want to stay with their husband no matter what. The women cry their heart out in front of him but he still won’t let his belief be challenged. Majority of the film documents that presenting a truth and evidence of how orthodox the laws of Iran are.

Director Kim Longinotto and Ziba Mir-Hosseini present a picture completely of the divorce court which is in itself evident of the country’s divorce situation. They do not go running after those women to capture their despondent lives. Had they done that, it would have diluted the topic and wouldn’t have presented an unbiased version of divorce done the Iranian style.

The film that uses the 14th Amendment as its springboard densely compiles information on and about the concept of a corporation right from its inception in the industrial age to the present day, and also portrays its repercussions.

Using the 14th Amendment the Supreme Court defined a corporation as a person and thus bestowed it with rights that a citizen has. The documentary uses this pretext as a clever joke and sets out to map the personality of a corporation. The mapping goes on to mark the negative features of a corporation like lying and deceit, causing harm to other, etc. which in the end equates to the profile of a psychopath.

Mark Achbar and Jennifer Abbott then show us how corporations can go to any lengths to achieve their goals, right to the point of plotting against the President of the United States (Roosevelt).

It is a grave picture that they present further in the documentary which almost invokes a feeling of hatred for the corporations. However when the camera captures notable people like Michael Moore and Noam Chompsky, they themselves agree that the corporations have become such a part of the society that even they have to depend on them to get their message to the people. This begs to ask the question, ‘is there no escape from the corporation?’

Most of us think that what we buy from our neighborhood supermarket or the fast food chain is good food. Whenever we shop for food, we are presented with the picture of an agrarian America which makes picking up those vegetables and fruits not only a delight but also a satisfactory experience. But is that the reality? Food Inc. takes us on a journey that changes all that we thought about the food that we eat; or in serious terms, the notion of the food that we eat.

Robert Kenner’s Oscar Nominated documentary opens by mentioning a very obvious but mostly  unknown fact that our eating habits have changed more in the past 50 years than they have changed over the past ten thousand years. Stop and think about it for a moment. How, in such a short span have we changed the way we eat? Surely there must be a mistake. But the next time you walk into a fast food chain, before you bite into that burger or that chicken, don’t ask yourself if you ever gave a thought as to where it came from, ask yourself, have you ever asked that question to begin with? When taking a bite into that food, we didn’t give a moment’s thought that the particular vegetable in it has a season, example tomato, and we are eating its fresh version even while its season has long passed.

The documentary takes us on a revelation trip which shows us how farming has been industrialized due to the introduction of fast food. Many of us would be startled to see where that nice chicken breast we had for lunch came from or how they produced that ground beef we used for patties or in our burger. However, it’s nothing new for the people who have their eyes open and especially the people who work in these industries. If you have a weak stomach, don’t watch this documentary. The food industry especially doesn’t want you to know all this because if you know it you probably won’t eat it.

However, the documentary does say that the companies declined to be interviewed. We know that there are some evil corporations out there; I personally don’t like Monsanto for its deeds; but it would be unwise and unfair to reach conclusions before reaching any consensus before listening to their side of the story.

In a heart moving part of the documentary see how high corn diet affect the cattle and inadvertently results into the presence of E.Coli 0157 h7 bacteria which if enters the food chain can be really fatal to the consumer. Food Inc. shows us one such mother who fights for justice for her son who died due to consuming a hamburger at a fast food chain that contained the said bacteria. It also shows us how it is easy to get trapped in the circle of poverty simply by putting one’s self in a fast food diet when we meet a migrant family who is plagued by big medical bills.

But all is not bleak; there is still hope as the documentary mentions how Wal-Mart is selling organic food (even though purely for commercial reasons) and how some farmers are fighting the lawyers of corporations and still producing crops and meat the traditional way.

The film ends with a farmer promising that should the people demand, they will provide. It also advices to by at farmer markets and to buy products that are grown locally.

Yes, this seems to be the right thing to do, especially if we don’t want food ridden with E.Coli or antibiotics and food that is fresh and not just an idea of food. Food is our basic right, and we are paying so much for it, we really should demand it. Ask for food that keeps you, your family and the planet healthy.

Marie-Monique Robin, an award winning and celebrated filmmaker, spent three years digging out the truth over four continents to expose why Monsanto has become such a malignant influence in various government and technologies, especially those of the USA. Using in-depth research, she takes us through the carcass that has become (or more appropriately what is left of) farming in most of the countries that has let the monster called Monsanto slip through the door.

She portrays the excruciatingly demonic web of corruption, defamation, deceit, misleading reports, collusion and pressure tactics. The results of standing against this giant corporation are simple, harassment, defamation and termination from service.
Marie-Monique Robin first takes us to Anniston, Alabama where Monsanto covertly poisoned the neighborhood of its PCB producing plant for over a decade. The people of the neighborhood had been dying due to complications like cancer arising from long term exposure and hence high levels of PCBs. When the neighborhood found out the reality and sued, confidential documents revealed that the company knew of the matter but still kept mum as it didn’t want to ‘lose one dollar of business’.

Next it is revealed in the documentary that it was Monsanto that produced the chemical – Agent Orange that was sprayed over Vietnam which contaminated over three million Vietnamese and US troops on the ground. Agent Orange is known to be a carcinogen and has resulted in many birth defects in the area as well.

Next, the director reveals how the world is also unaware of what is in their milk. Cows that are injected with Monsanto’s bovine growth hormone called rBGH or rBST (Posilac) are not only susceptible to various health conditions but can pass on carcinogens through milk. Chairman of the Cancer Prevention Coalition, Samuel Epstein revealed that studies have shown that this can lead to breast, colon and prostrate cancers. Roundup, Monsanto’s famous herbicide used the world over, which the company says is harmless to humans and animals in Professor Robert Bellé’s research has been found to provoke the first stages that lead to cancer. The company was also found guilty on charges of false advertising of Roundup. It was said to be biodegradable, but its own studies showed that even after 28 days only 2% of the product had broken down.

Such is the influence of the company that over the year, whatever transgressions or grievances are reported to the authorities, especially the FDA and the government, seem to magically disappear and in most cases seem to come back to bite the informer. We can’t say confidently, but maybe that has got something to do with all the internal links between the FDA, high government officials and Monsanto. Watching ‘Food Inc.’ can give a hint into the ‘revolving door’ links where, not to great astonishment, it can be found that most officials who were in Monsanto went on to be with the FDA, some government officials went to Monsanto and some government officials sponsored by Monsanto went to FDA.  It’s a scenario like the ‘wyrm biting its own tale’. Is that how Monsanto pushed its products through and passed the ‘GM labeling’ case where, in US it’s not necessary to label GM foods. Interestingly the FDA also doesn’t have different set of rules and norms for genetically modified foods.

Unethical corporations always play the cards to their own advantage no matter which way the game swings. On one side Monsanto keeps mum on the contamination of the Mexican corn by its transgenic variants and on the other side, it prosecutes people in America whose crops are in turn contaminated by its GM ones. Troy Roush is one such farmer accused of patent infringement where the case almost drew him to bankruptcy. For monitoring patent infringement, the company also has a team of private investigators who roam the country prosecuting ‘seed savers’. How these transgenic variants found their way to contaminate the Mexican original corn can only be left to imagination.

The documentary poses a great question and a pressing concern that with no stopping is Monsanto going to take over the world’s food supply by filing and winning patents on the seeds of various crops. If that happens, we will be back in the feudal ages where we will be mere workers on our own farms, working at the whips and will of this giant corporation.