Um, Guys? I’m fairly certain the smoke from that is toxic.

In the opening moments of Jürgen Vsych’s campaign video for Ralph Nader, the rules for the Kerry/Bush debates are thrown onto a charcoal grill and burnt to a crisp. It’s nice when a movie is willing to admit exactly where it’s coming from. In the thirty-minute video, Ralph Nader is flanked by two dolls representing President Bush and Senator Kerry. Bush and Kerry’s responses to questions are reduced to soundbites, while Ralph Nader is held to no discernable time limit. One could also point out that Bush and Kerry are not given a chance to rebut Nader’s statements – but that’s more a fault of Nader not being on the stage to debate Kerry and Bush than it is a fault of the filmmakers’.

Penn and Teller admire a glass bowl, one of dozens used in a traditional Chinese magic trick.

Now this is a documentary about magic. You’ve probably seen a few on the Discovery Channel; I know I have. But their style tends to get on my nerves — show after show of melodramatic voice-overs, stock footage repeated to stretch fifteen minutes of film to forty, some of the most dated animation this side of Tron, talking heads placed in front of blue-screens… you get the picture. Here’s what the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation did when they wanted to do documentaries in magic’s birth countries of China, Egypt, and India:

An old woman curses a disrespectful passerby.

Häxan, the 1922 silent documentary on witchcraft and witch persecution by Benjamin Christensen, was restored and released as a Criterion Collection DVD. It’s an interesting film on many academic levels, both from a film history perspective and from a sociological history perspective. Now, some eighty-five years after its initial release, we probably learn more about the sensibilities and attitudes of 1922 from this film than we do about witchcraft or the Spanish Inquisition.

The Lollipop Guild they’re not.

Before Team America: World Police, before Baseketball, even before South Park, there was Alferd Packer!: The Musical, Trey Parker’s college film about the first convicted cannibal in the United States, done in the style of Oklahoma! (the musical). The title was changed to Cannibal!: The Musical when Troma released it, as they figured out no one would know who the heck Alferd Packer was. Not only will you get vintage Parker tunes and quips, you’ll get a history lesson too. What more could you ask for? (Don’t answer that!)

Hayfoot … strawfoot … hayfoot … strawfoot …

Two things you should know about March of the Penguins from the very beginning: first, it’s only eighty minutes long, which should come as a relief to you if you think a movie about ice and birds might drag a bit. Secondly, the narration does not preach about (or even mention) global warming. That’s not to say it’s not a concern, but it is nice to be able to watch a movie about animals without having a guilt-trip laid on me. The movie is also neither a defense of intelligent design nor a Christian parable, but we’ll get back to that later. It’s a movie about birds, but more broadly (Morgan Freeman says) it is about love.

When Phil Veneziano asked me if I was interested in reviewing his exercise video, Pilates for Men, I have to admit to being a bit apprehensive. I mean, it is an exercise video. Those don’t tend to get along with me very well. OK, I’ll admit it: exercise in general doesn’t get along with me very well. I’m a sedentary individual; my work is in front of a computer. My hobbies are in front of a computer. And then, when I really want to unwind, I sit down and read a book. All of this sitting and hunching and leaning and slumping and debugging has taken quite a toll on me. I’m not fit, I have terrible posture, and once on the way home from work I was mugged by a three-legged chihuahua.

There’s not really much to say about Thicker than Water, Jack Johnson (Yes, the “Bubble Toes” Jack Johnson) and Chris Malloy’s understated documentary about surfing. That’s because there’s not much there. It’s just forty-five minutes long, and most of that forty-five minutes is focused on the surfing. I can’t tell you if the surfing is, I simply don’t know. But the visuals are stunning, despite (or maybe because) looking like home movies.