I greatly enjoy cinema and make a list of top films that I post every year. Here are some reflections on the films nominated this year.

A documentary, “Hubris: Selling the Iraq War,” aired on MSNBC to mark the tenth-anniversary of the selling of the Iraq War by President George W. Bush’s administration. For someone unaware of the extent to which President Bush and neoconservatives in his administration went to manufacture the case for going to war in Iraq, the documentary is a fairly good presentation of much of the deception and manipulation that occurred.

The film, Silenced, profiles Thomas Drake, former NSA employee who blew the whistle on NSA wiretapping.

A documentary the filmmakers describe as a “deeply personal, first-hand account of non-violent resistance” in a West Bank village threatened by Israeli settlements, which is short-listed for an Academy Award, is streaming now for free through January 6.

The two dudes behind the anti-Obama documentary 2016: Obama’s America—Gerald Molen, the Oscar-winning producer of Schindler’s List, and co-writer/director Dinesh D’Souza–are all sad and stuff because their documentary didn’t make it on the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ short list of docs from which the final nominees are drawn (This year four of those 15 have been or will be on Firedoglake Movie Night: The House I Live In, How to Survive a Plague, The Invisible War, and upcoming on Monday December 10, The Waiting Room).

On September 17, 2011, the Occupy Wall Street movement first encamped in New York City’s Zucotti Park, soon renamed Liberty Square. Within weeks, Occupy groups were spreading like wildfire throughout the United States so that, even today after the breakup of the encampments, almost every major city in the United States has an active Occupy cell. In those first months, thousands took to the streets and made groundbreaking use of social media to orchestrate major actions nationwide; the United States became the latest country to develop a major people’s movement since the wave of protest began in the Middle East earlier that year. The Occupy name, and the ideas behind it, quickly became international.

A recent edition of the PBS program “FRONTLINE” examined how Al Qaeda has taken over cities and rugged mountain areas of Yemen and taken advantage of civil unrest in the country brought about by the Yemen uprising that began the spring of last year. The edition followed journalist Ghaith Abdul-Ahad as he courageously traveled to meet with members of Ansar al-Sharia, a group that is believed to be composed of members affiliated with Al Qaeda.

Over at La Figa, Firedoglake‘s politics, entertainment and pop culture blog, Lisa Derrick will be live blogging the Oscars, including the Red Carpet special. Derrick put up a post yesterday on what she thinks we have to look forward to during the Oscars, hinted at the fact that the “French,” through The Artist, could sweep the Oscars and she highlighted the “heavyweight” battle in Best Director category.

So, why is the guy that writes about WikiLeaks, drones, the Occupy movement, torture, etc, doing a post on his Oscar picks?

An Iraq war veteran, who is the focus of one of the short documentaries nominated for an Academy Award, is receiving death threats for providing his individual account of what happened during an incident that has come to be known as the “Collateral Murder” incident.

Yesterday I spent over 6 hours at the Occupy Portland march and occupation, shooting some video. Here’s a short documentary about Day 1 – on the ground. Enjoy!