Though I do cringe at paying extra, I admit that I’ll go to the occasional 3-D movie in theaters, just to see how different the experience is. What I didn’t realize until very recently, was that I could get a similar experience for free, just by standing on the sidewalk at the right time and place.

In the ever-evolving world of advertising, there is a trend rising in, quite literally, every direction: 3-D Mapping Projection. This technology, which is certainly too complex for me to understand, much less explain, is simplified by Wikipedia as “any method of mapping three-dimensional points to a two-dimensional plane”.

“What was it like coming back to America after fighting in Vietnam?” asks an off-screen narrator. A 22-year-old black man nods and begins to talk, his weary expression suggesting this is a question he’s prepared to answer, but one he dreads. “It’s almost the same as when I left, ” he begins. “I say this because when a man goes to fight for his country and then comes back over here and almost have to fight for his life in certain parts of the country, get ridiculed and discriminated, you know, and be less than a man. I don’t think it’s right, you know.” It’s 1967. 

This early scene sets the stage for Göran Olsson’s terrific documentary, Black Power Mixtape 1967-195, which premieres on Independent Lens on 9 February. Specfically, it lays out the film’s premise, that the Black Power Movement, building and then suppressed from 1967 to 1975, emerged out of needs to resist injury and endure trauma, and also, to make visible what was going on in America, what remained unknown to people who didn’t have to know. The film features interviews with civil rights figures like SNCC’s Stokely Carmichael and Angela Davis, as well as today’s activists (Talib Kweli, ?uestlove), tracing how the Panthers resisted oppression (see especially, the FBI’s COINTELPRO) and also built a lasting sense community. Looking back, it looks forward, observing from the outside (the Swedish reporters’ footage that makes up the bulk of the film), it reveals what goes on inside.

See PopMatters’ review.

Watch Looking Back at the Black Power Movement on PBS. See more from Independent Lens.

The votes are in! The list of nominees for the 84th annual Academy Awards was announced on January 24th by the lovely Jennifer Lawrence. While most of the contenders were predictable, given their recent nominations for Golden Globe or SAG awards, going into the process the one wild card in the bunch was this summer’s female-driven blockbuster comedy Bridesmaids. Though the Academy has not favored comedies in the past, there was speculation that the film might drum up enough enthusiasm to garner a Best Picture recognition. But alas, while this was not to be, the movie’s breakout star Melissa McCarthy did receive a supporting actress nod for her hilarious portrayal of Megan, the bride’s soon-to-be sister in law with a personality ten cruise ships bigger than her five-foot-two stance.

McCarthy has had quite the banner year-from gaining fan recognition for her role in Bridesmaids to winning an Emmy for her portrayal of Mike and Molly star Molly Flynn, to having Ricky Gervais single her out at the Golden Globes. Though this was clearly a defining year for the actress, here are five other interesting things to know about the Oscar nominee’s career in the entertainment industry:

Ah the internet. Bottomless pit of knowledge about news past and present, outlet for self-expression, facilitator of human connection, and… mecca of questionably offensive video montage parodies?

Well ok, the last one isn’t really what most people generally think of when connecting to the world wide web, but a current trend of posting these videos in the form of “Sh*t People Say” is, in fact, taking the YouTube world by storm. It seems that the spark that ignited the tinderbox of this trend was a video called “Sh*t Girls Say - Episode 1”, posted on December 12th, 2011. The video, which parodies silly female stereotypes, briefly features singer/actress Juliette Lewis, lasts only one minute, 12 seconds… and now boasts over 13,500,000 views. 

“Sh*t Girls Say” has spawned dozens and dozens of copy-cat videos, ranging widely in subject matter—everything from “Sh*t Single Girls say” to “Sh*t Graphic Designers Say” to “Sh*t Chicagoans say” (and just about every other city in the continental U.S. for that matter). Recently, there have even been parodies of these parody videos hitting the web: “Sh*t Guys Don’t Say” and “Shit Guys Say - Episode 1”, just to name a few. Many of the more popular videos feature people dressed in drag, although a subset of non gender-bender versions are now cropping up as well, and all are snappily edited into a montage of snarky sound bites intended to lampoon the group in question.

Stanley Nelson’s exceptional documentary tells the story of the Freedom Rides, from their initiation in May 1961, by James Farmer and the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), to the Interstate Commerce Commission’s (ICC) ruling that September, that passengers on interstate buses could sit wherever they wanted, “the first unambiguous victory in the long history of the civil rights movement.” Freedom Riders—airing on PBS on 7 February—offers some incredible images from the period to show how this victory was the result of months of struggle, including assaults on the freedom riders by angry citizens as well as police officers. Boarding commercial buses (Trailways and Greyhound) in Washington, DC and intending to ride through the Deep South, the riders set out deliberately to violate Southern segregation laws. Each CORE member signed a formal agreement, stating, “I understand that I shall be participating in a nonviolent protest… against racial discrimination, that arrest or personal injury to me might result.” They had little expectation of the violence that would be inflicted on them.

See PopMatters’ review.

Watch Freedom Riders Theatrical Trailer on PBS. See more from Freedom Riders.