Allen Moore

For 50 years radio dominated the airwaves and the American consciousness as the first “mass medium.” In Empire of the Air: The Men Who Made Radio, Ken Burns examines the lives of three extraordinary men who shared the primary responsibility for this invention and its early success, and whose genius, friendship, rivalry and enmity interacted in tragic ways. This is the story of Lee de Forest, a clergyman’s flamboyant son, who invented the audion tube; Edwin Howard Armstrong, a brilliant, withdrawn inventor who pioneered FM technology; and David Sarnoff, a hard-driving Russian immigrant who created the most powerful communications company on earth.

Doomed attempt to get to California in 1846. More than just a riveting tale of death, endurance and survival. The Donner Party's nightmarish journey penetrated to the very heart of the American Dream at a crucial phase of the nation's "manifest destiny." Touching some of the most powerful social, economic and political currents of the time, this extraordinary narrative remains one of the most compelling and enduring episodes to come out of the West.

Actor Dustin Hoffman narrates this decade-spanning documentary that highlights the contributions of Jewish Americans to the most American sport of them all: baseball. Highlights include a rare interview with legendary pitcher Sandy Koufax.

Largely considered to be the greatest American author, Mark Twain is celebrated in this exhaustive documentary by filmmaker Ken Burns.

The documentary uses Graham Greene's own words from his books and recordings, as well as photographs and clips from his many films, to reveal the fascinating life of one of the great writers of the twentieth century.

Serpent Mother is about devotion to the Goddess of Snakes and the importance of divine female power in West Bengal Indian life. The film's focus is the Jhapan Festival, the great celebration of snakes. Shown are festival preparations, the role of traditional arts and crafts in the worship of the Goddess, devotional singing, and an exposition of ritual action. The difficult and complex symbolism of the ritual is explained by the participants themselves. In addition to the commentary, this makes accessible what is, at first glance, exotic and inexplicable behavior.

Loving Krishna is about the worship of Krishna and the meaning of devotion. It explores the rural and urban character of the town of Vishnapur in West Bengal by examining the royal past, everyday life, work in traditional arts and crafts, bazaar exchange, and sacred rituals and festivals. Public and private devotional life is represented by detailed visual narratives of the Chariot Journey of Krishna, celebrated by the whole town, and the Birthday Festival commemorated on a much smaller scale of intimate family worship.

Tells about the Wilderness Act of 1964 and the three men responsible for its passage: forester/philosopher Aldo Leopold, author of the bestselling Sand County almanac and the first to bring the word 'ecology' into standard usage; Bob Marshall, millionaire socialist and founder of the Wilderness Society; and Howard Zahniser, a bureaucrat with a love of the wild places he seldom saw. Singly and together, these three fought from the 1920s through the 1950s to preserve the natural world. Provides an overview of the roots of the environmental movement, offering a deeper understanding of one of the most important issues facing contemporary civilization.