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In many ways, Oliver Stone’s latest documentary film South of the Border is a mirror image of the 2004 film adaptation of The Motorcycle Diaries. In this latter film, based on the journals of a young Ernesto “Che” Guevara, two young idealists strike out across the South American continent on a motorcycle in search of adventure, but instead find passion, resilience, and a Latin American identity that transcended all political borders.

Perhaps it’s the August heat, but invariably whenever the summer months roll around, American political discourse always seems to get fixated on some nonsensical issue - this year is no different with talk of the proposed “Ground Zero Mosque” dominating the airwaves.  Of course the name is something of a misnomer - the “mosque” isn’t a mosque per se, but rather an Islamic cultural center that will contain a dedicated prayer facility within its 13-stories (in fact its creators stress that the prayer space officially is not a mosque) and it will not be at “Ground Zero” (the former World Trade Center site), but on

This week I'm highlighting this cool documentary series I spotted on Sundance channel called Cities on Speed. Produced by the Danish Film Festival, the series focuses on the megacities of Mumbai, Cairo, Shanghai, and Bogota, and covers how rapid urbanization for better or worse has affected these growing epicenters.

Although I haven't seen all 4 of the films yet, my viewing of the Bogota film was extremlely capitivating, and it would've been an injustice if I didn't put the rest of you Mantlers on to this as well.

For all you poor students who can't afford Sundance, while I don't support pirating, do enough digital digging and I'm sure you'll find it worthwile.

Shout to Superfuture

PRAGUE – I’m no war correspondent. (Though, rubber bullets whizzing overhead, in a night-time street battle during Albania’s 1997 civil unrest, wasn’t exactly fluffy feature-writing.

Since its inception, the Documentation Center of Cambodia (DC-Cam) has been at the forefront of documenting the myriad crimes and atrocities of the Khmer Rouge era. DC-Cam was founded after the U.S. Congress passed the Cambodian Genocide Justice Act in April 1994, which was signed into law by President Clinton. That legislation established the Office of Cambodian Genocide Investigations in the U.S.

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has crafted an ambitious agenda; two key planks of which are fighting Russia’s endemic problem with corruption and moving the national economy away from its reliance on extraction-based industries (primarily oil and natural gas production) towards more value-added pursuits-Medvedev’s current pet project is the construction of a Russian “Silicon Valley” outside of Moscow.  It all sounds like a well-reasoned plan for the future, yet it’s worth noting that his predecessor, Vladimir Putin, made many of the same pledges, but his eight years in office ended without any notable successes either in tackling corruption or in esta

It took 14 days and an ambitious crew of videographers/photographers to put this nearly 2 minute stop motion/ time lapse together.

Instead of Forest Gump making the trek however, female fans of the CGP will be happy to notice that the filmmakers chose to have a Abercrombie model who barley breaks a sweat fill in for Tom Hanks throughout the vid. This lack of attrition displayed actually gives me the confidence that I can pull off the feat and come out equally as attractive at the end, but these those are thoughts for another day.

Jokes aside though, this is as close as you'll get to taking a journey across the USA without actually suiting up your own running shoes. So try pausing
the vid a few times, its the only effort you'll really need to take in all the scenery.

Via Modern Met