22. An Inconvenient Truth (Davis Guggenheim, 2006)
Al Gore's slide show presentation on global warming is nowhere near as dull as perhaps it should be. But then, if he has given the same speech over a thousand times (as he claims in the film), then he surely knows what sinks and what swims. The timing of this film is crucial; if it were released alongside his 2000 presidential campaign, its message would doubtless be dismissed as vote-chasing propaganda, but after he jokily introduces himself as the man who ''used to be the next President of the United States'', the laugh is, sadly, on us. Thankfully, politics are politely shooed away as Gore emphasises that climate change is more of a moral issue and, as humans created this problem, so humans can solve it. Some scare tactics are necessary, however, to shake people into action, and so we have plenty of clips depicting major cities suddenly submerged by rising sea levels, with the number of resultant refugees running into the millions. Prophetic but never preachy, rarely has a film boasted such significant cultural importance. Besides, how can a film that uses a clip from Futurama to illustrate the Greenhouse Effect be anything other than a must-see?
21. You've Been Trumped (Anthony Baxter, 2011)
When Donald Trump drew the plans for two golf courses, a 450-room hotel and 1,500 luxury homes to be built on the Menie estate of Scotlands north-east coast, there was one small detail that he had overlooked. Resident Michael Forbes claims that this land is already his, and, despite Trumps techniques of persuasion/intimidation, its not for sale. The rich man in town may have bought some new friends, but hes certainly not on this Forbes list. In an uncanny coincidence, its not only the plot of Local Hero that seems to have been lifted wholesale here, but also its location, a fact that has not escaped Baxter, who inserts the films clips to highlight the incredible similarities. The underdog versus fat-cat legal battles do nothing for Trumps reputation as a bully, and neither do the press junkets in which the tycoon is incapable of passing an interview without insulting his "rival". Like Jake Gittes, Baxter sniffs a little too closely to the heart of the scandal, and is swiftly arrested by Trumps yes-men. Somewhat fortuitously, his camera captures the whole ordealand becomes another thorn (or thistle) in the billionaires side. It seems that for all his riches and rapaciousness, the moral high ground is forever out of reach.
20. The Imposter (Bart Layton, 2012)
This is a story of a disappearance that asks more questions than it answers. In 1994, thirteen year-old Texan Nicholas Barclay went missing, only to re-emerge in Spain three years later. When he is reintroduced to his family, they are immediately struck by his darker skin and eye colour as well as a considerable change of accent, not to mention that he looks a damn sight older than sixteen. Yet, despite these impossible transformations, they welcome him back with open arms. Nicholas tells them that he had been kidnapped, tortured and violated by an international vice ring (although at one point he varies his story to accuse the US Army), but of course, this isn't Nicholas. So, who is he and why has he slotted himself into a family still grieving over their missing boy? Frédéric Bourdin has made a career from impersonating missing people. When arrested, he slips from one identity to another, with Nicholas Barclay simply being his latest victim. It's clear that Bourdin is a sociopath: deceitful, remorseless and incapable of empathy. So, it's a shame that Layton allows him to present the film from his version of events; we cut to the news reports, then to Bourdin, grinning through the shadows, then back to the news. This quick-fire editing technique becomes a sly shorthand, a punchline, a dig in the ribs, and each time he raises a wry eyebrow or laughs, we're meant to get the joke. But why should we marvel at someone so manipulative? Isn't he the very definition of an unreliable narrator? It's rather like the switch from narrative to monologue in Bronson, and played for similar chilling effect. Nevertheless, Bourdin's "infiltration" of the Barclay family serves a more sinister purpose: he claims that the reason he hasn't been turned in to the police is because he knows where Nicholas really is. He believes that the missing boy was in fact killed by his own family and buried in the back garden. The Barclays then took Bourdin in as a cover-up, each benefiting from the other's lies. But what does the film have to offer about the blinding effects of grief? A family so deluded into accepting such small comforts they welcome a stranger into their lives, even though, crucially, they know it isn't really Nicholas? Or simply another opportunity for a chameleonic con-artist to crawl into hearts and headlines the world over?
19. This Film Is Not Yet Rated (Kirby Dick, 2006)
A lurid peep behind the curtains of film rating boards, or, more specifically, the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), whose censorious snipping has sent many a scene to the cutting-room floor. The filmmakers featured here, such as Kevin Smith, John Waters and Darren Aronofsky, represent only a handful of the hundreds to clash heads with the MPAAs edits, for if the board brands a film with an NC-17 or an R rating, its director can practically wave goodbye to half their box-office earnings. Theres nothing the board likes more than to wag a finger (and a pair of scissors) at all that sex and violence spewing from our screens, but despite their reputation as moral guardians, they have been accused of being inconsistent and even biased in their decisions. Independent films are subject to more scrutiny than their big-budget counterparts, and restrictions placed upon queer cinema mean that sexuality is almost always portrayed from a heterosexual, male point from view. So, we can see just why Kimberley Peirces run-in with the MPAA was particularly problematic. She recalls how the board told her to shorten a sex scene in her Boys Dont Cry, as they were uncomfortable with the duration of a female characters orgasm, yet the brutal murder of another character in the films finale barely raised a board members eyebrow. As Aronofsky points out, after fighting off an R rating for his Requiem For A Dream, it just seems backwards that to show human sexuality in pretty much any form is getting into R territory, while you can shoot as many bodies without any blood and still get PG -13. This bowdlerisation of outsider cinema becomes even more appropriate when you consider that this is a film about two Dicks. Kirby clearly has an agenda, if not a vendetta, against the MPAAs members, as he hires a private investigator to follow them home from the boards LA headquarters. This serves no purpose other than salacious snooping, and ultimately tips the bias into the hands of the director himself. Still, this is an enlightening look into the hype, hypocrisy, importance and influence of film censorship.