** "My stepfather William Sloane Coffin used to say, 'I love the recklessness of faith - first you jump and then you grow wings..."

Wiseguy, The Bibi Files: Alex Gibney Undercover. The investigative director of among many others, Taxi To The Dark Side, Enron: The Smartest Guys In The Room, and Going Clear: Scientology And The Prison Of Belief, currently tracks down in his docs two notorious gangsters, in Wiseguy: David Chase And The Sopranos, and the top secret The Bibi Files. The latter smuggling classified material under the radar into the Toronto Film Festival earlier this month, while dodging Netanyahu lawsuits in pursuit.

And while in the simultaneously released Wiseguy, Gibney probes the enduring cultural legacy of The Sopranos embedded in US mass consciousness - along with his own lifelong fascination with the series, and with its creator, David Chase. Gibney, in a look at what inspires his unstoppable quest for political truths in his films, and more...

** "In this election, it's a race and it's about race. Here the only thing that matters is color. What that means, what color - who the hell knows..."

Direct Impact's Rick Sanchez Gets Personal. The Cuban-American political commentator along with co-host Manila Tingnan break it all down. Referencing Thanksgiving dinner, Ben & Jerry's, Wall Street, Gaza and the big money donors - and red states, blue states, white, brown, black, red and yellow...

** We're diving deep into the depths of digital capitalism, consumer culture, and spiritual angst..."

UK Desk: Hungry Ghosts In The Machine: Digital Capitalism In The Search For Self. A conversation with Mike Watson - 'not just an author but a cultural provocateur known for tearing apart the threads of our digital lives, and knitting them back together in ways that make us see the absurdities - and perhaps a few truths hidden in plain sight...'

** "Paul Robeson got on the air and he said - "it's America, I've got a right to sing!"

Arts Express Playhouse: Chopping Wood - Thoughts And Stories Of A Legendary Singer. A solo presentation and interpretation of the cultural politics of Pete Seeger - on this 75th anniversary of the 1949 racist Peekskill Riots against Paul Robeson's performance at the time there, and what went down... 

Blood Star Review: Low Wage Police State Is The New Noir

Once again, an outside looking in to the US dystopian landscape, as British filmmaker Lawrence Jaconelli steps into the ring. Shaping the advancing socio-political Armageddon in this country as a vast, doomed landscape rotting from within.

Though nothing new lately, stepping up to the plate following the recent similar release of Rebel Ridge, both bloody, violent thrillers locking in looming and increasingly entrenched surveillance and militarized police warring internally against its own people. And adding to that murky mix, women and people of color as intended brutalized targets.

Britni Camacho stars as a young Latina driving through the New Mexico desert back to an abusive boyfriend she just can't seem to leave behind. But far worse is a depraved local sheriff (John Schwab) bent on stalking her through the isolated vast terrain, with exceedingl malicious motives in mind. And though torture and mayhem lace this thriller, there is likewise however ferocious, food for thought along the way.

Prairie Miller
Read the Rotten Tomatoes review HERE