Film Reviews: My Trip to Al Qaeda, Whiz Kids

MoJo watches Lawrence Wright’s one man show, plus a documentary tracking three teens at the Intel Science Talent Search.

Photo: <em>My Trip to Al Qaeda</em>

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.

Looking for new movies to fill out your Netflix queue this fall? These two films are educational—and fun to watch.

My Trip to Al Qaeda

JIGSAW PRODUCTIONS

86 minutes

Before writing The Looming Tower, his acclaimed history of the roots of September 11, Lawrence Wright wrote the script for the late ’90s terrorism thriller The Siege. The controversial film, starring Denzel Washington, imagined how Americans might react—and overreact—to a terror attack on Manhattan. Before it even opened, a South African Planet Hollywood was bombed in protest; after 9/11, it became the nation’s most-rented movie, “making me,” Wright explains, “the first profiteer in the War on Terror.”

So opens Wright’s adaptation of his one-man show of the same name, which prolific filmmaker Alex Gibney (Casino Jack, Taxi to the Dark Side) has beefed up with extra footage and trips to London, Cairo, and Riyadh to talk with former and current jihadists. What begins as a sober look at Al Qaeda’s origins builds into an impassioned, intensely personal look at how terrorism breeds insanity and nihilism. If he were to get a face-to-face interview with Osama bin Laden, Wright wonders, would journalistic ethics permit him to stab the man who imagines a world “where ideals and aspirations disappear”?

Wright’s anger isn’t limited to Al Qaeda. He’s also upset by the Egyptian autocrats and Saudi clerics who feed Al Qaeda’s ranks, as well as the American politicians whose backsliding on torture and domestic spying seem to be “following a script that has been written by Osama bin Laden.”Dave Gilson

Whiz Kids

SANDBAR PICTURES

82 minutes

This Spellbound-style doc tracks three teens vying for top honors at the Intel Science Talent Search, the nation’s most prestigious science fair. Director Tom Shepard, who profiled Jehovah’s Witnesses in 2006’s Knocking, chronicles both the excitement and the excruciating pressure: In one memorable scene, a likable West Virginia girl, the inventor of a filter that removes carcinogens from water, sobs after a grueling session with the judges. Still, the overall message is positive: Considering how far American students still lag behind their international peers in math and science, a little competition might not be such a bad thing.Jessica Calefati

THE FACTS SPEAK FOR THEMSELVES.

At least we hope they will, because that’s our approach to raising the $350,000 in online donations we need right now—during our high-stakes December fundraising push.

It’s the most important month of the year for our fundraising, with upward of 15 percent of our annual online total coming in during the final week—and there’s a lot to say about why Mother Jones’ journalism, and thus hitting that big number, matters tremendously right now.

But you told us fundraising is annoying—with the gimmicks, overwrought tone, manipulative language, and sheer volume of urgent URGENT URGENT!!! content we’re all bombarded with. It sure can be.

So we’re going to try making this as un-annoying as possible. In “Let the Facts Speak for Themselves” we give it our best shot, answering three questions that most any fundraising should try to speak to: Why us, why now, why does it matter?

The upshot? Mother Jones does journalism you don’t find elsewhere: in-depth, time-intensive, ahead-of-the-curve reporting on underreported beats. We operate on razor-thin margins in an unfathomably hard news business, and can’t afford to come up short on these online goals. And given everything, reporting like ours is vital right now.

If you can afford to part with a few bucks, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones with a much-needed year-end donation. And please do it now, while you’re thinking about it—with fewer people paying attention to the news like you are, we need everyone with us to get there.

payment methods

THE FACTS SPEAK FOR THEMSELVES.

At least we hope they will, because that’s our approach to raising the $350,000 in online donations we need right now—during our high-stakes December fundraising push.

It’s the most important month of the year for our fundraising, with upward of 15 percent of our annual online total coming in during the final week—and there’s a lot to say about why Mother Jones’ journalism, and thus hitting that big number, matters tremendously right now.

But you told us fundraising is annoying—with the gimmicks, overwrought tone, manipulative language, and sheer volume of urgent URGENT URGENT!!! content we’re all bombarded with. It sure can be.

So we’re going to try making this as un-annoying as possible. In “Let the Facts Speak for Themselves” we give it our best shot, answering three questions that most any fundraising should try to speak to: Why us, why now, why does it matter?

The upshot? Mother Jones does journalism you don’t find elsewhere: in-depth, time-intensive, ahead-of-the-curve reporting on underreported beats. We operate on razor-thin margins in an unfathomably hard news business, and can’t afford to come up short on these online goals. And given everything, reporting like ours is vital right now.

If you can afford to part with a few bucks, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones with a much-needed year-end donation. And please do it now, while you’re thinking about it—with fewer people paying attention to the news like you are, we need everyone with us to get there.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate