Documentary

WHAT WOULD you say if I told you that you could profoundly cut your risk for cardiovascular disease, diabetes and cancer? Significantly decrease your risk for Alzheimer's disease, too? And, better yet, that you could do all this without spending a single dime? Impossible, right? Wrong. All that and more may be possible simply by following the sage advice of Dr. Michael Mosley, a British medical journalist and co-author of The FastDiet: Lose Weight, Stay Healthy, and Live Longer with the Simple Secret of Intermittent Fasting . The "Fast Diet" is all the rage in Britain and could take flight here as well.

A startling and experimental documentary on the order of The Thin Blue Line, James Benning's Used Innocence enjoys its local premiere tonight at Doylestown's James-Lorah House Auditorium. Not even the convicted murderer can solve this murder mystery. Tonight, 7:30, Main & Broad Sts, Doylestown. CLOSELY WATCHED FILMS James-Lorah House Auditorium, Main & Broad Sts, Doylestown. Phone: 345-5663 or 297-8517. Tonight 7:30: Used Innocence, James Benning's structuralist documentary, in which the filmmaker becomes personally involved with the film's subject, a convicted murderer.

50 CHILDREN: THE RESCUE MISSION OF MR. AND MRS. KRAUS. 9 p.m. Monday, HBO. EVERY SO OFTEN, a documentary comes along with a story so good, it's easy to imagine it as a feature film. "50 Children: The Rescue Mission of Mr. and Mrs. Kraus," which premieres on HBO on Monday to mark Holocaust Remembrance Day, is one such documentary: It has the characters, the plot points, and most importantly, it has the goose bumps. Which makes it all the more remarkable that the story of Philadelphians Gilbert and Eleanor Kraus, who left their own two children behind to rescue 50 Jewish children from Nazi Europe, wasn't much talked about until recently.

Jason Osder was 11, a kid at the Miquon School, when the Philadelphia Police Department dropped a bomb on the MOVE house at 6221 Osage Ave. in West Philadelphia. It was May 13, 1985. By the end of the night, six adult members of the Afrocentric back-to-nature organization - long in conflict with city officials, with police, with neighbors - were dead. So were five children, trapped inside the house. And 60 other rowhouses in the surrounding area had been destroyed by a fire left unchecked.

NEW YORK had Max's Kansas City and CBGB's. Los Angeles boasted the Roxy. Liverpool, England, had its Cavern Club. Here in Philadelphia, the pre-eminent rock 'n' roll club for many moons was J.C. Dobbs, a long chute of a room and hangout on the "hippest street in town," a/k/a lower South Street. Hot and happening from 1975 to 1996, Dobbs was the place where local heroes such as Wilmington's George Thorogood and Robert Hazard were discovered, where bands like Pearl Jam, Nirvana, Oasis, Green Day and Rage Against the Machine kick-started a buzz, and solo talents like Sarah McLachlan and Beck first faced and conquered a Philly contingent.

Morgan Spurlock may be a supersized presence in the world of documentary, but he sounds like a guy who's ready to leave the genre behind. Certainly he doesn't want to do it forever. "I hope not," he said. "There are actually a couple of narrative films that I'm attached to right now. One is with Leonardo DiCaprio's company. It's kind of an Erin Brockovich-ish type movie. " Spurlock is promoting "POM Wonderful Presents the Greatest Movie Ever Sold," his documentary about product placement in Hollywood movies and new trends in advertising.

Members of the Abril family hover over their father, who is being kept alive by a respirator. "It's in our hands," says a son, "whether he will live or not. " "It's over, right?" asks another son, his question more of a plea. "It's over, right? There's nothing we can do for him?" "If we remove the respirator, it will seem like we are killing him," anguishes a daughter. "We will be burdened by guilty feelings, that we took him off. " The anguish of the Abril family comes at the beginning of a powerful and timely one-hour documentary airing at 10 tonight on Channel 12. WHOSE Death Is It, Anyway?

LOS ANGELES - One year ago, after putting in a full day of work at her local department store, Betsy DelValley got home and pulled out her video camera. It was July 24, 2010, the day YouTube launched an experimental project asking users of the social-media site worldwide to submit videos about what transpired in their lives over 24 hours. The best submissions would be culled together for a documentary film. DelValley, then 19, was intrigued by the undertaking. The problem was, nothing all that exciting had transpired on the day she was meant to film.

BACK IN THE DAY, when major league baseball resembled a half-vast plantation and teams owned players forever and a day, the Cardinals traded centerfielder Curt Flood to the Phillies. It was October 1969 and Flood got the news from the publicity guy, so far down the chain of command he rattled when he walked. Flood said, hell no, he won't go. What he actually said was, "In the history of man, there's no other profession except slavery where one man is tied to one owner for the rest of his life.

WHILE Melissa Fitzgerald was in northern Uganda filming her documentary "Staging Hope," a teenager came up to her and asked for one thing: "Don't let us die in these camps," the youth said. "Don't forget about us. " His appeal is repeated several times throughout "Staging Hope. " Through the documentary, Fitzgerald - who grew up in Chestnut Hill and graduated from Springside School and the University of Pennsylvania - hopes to inform the U.S. about the plight of northern Uganda and keep the conversation about humanitarian efforts alive.

IT'S NO SECRET that a lot of legendary players have hooped it up at New York City playgrounds. On Wednesday, the documentary "Doin' it in the Park" opens in the Big Apple - a homage to the city's courts and players. As far as we know, no one has done a similar film about Philly, even though the city has a rich history of guys and girls who honed their skills in pickup games on asphalt courts. Players like (in no particular order), Wilt Chamberlain, Hank Gathers, Bo Kimble, Gene Banks, Bryant "Sad Eyes" Watson, Guy Rodgers, Earl Monroe, Walt Hazzard, Lewis "Black Magic" Lloyd, Aaron "AO" Owens, Randy Woods, Wali Jones, Lionel Simmons, Marilyn Stephens, Linda Page, Yolanda Laney and Debbie Lytle.

For all the talk about immigration, rarely does the conversation veer into why so many Latinos have come to the United States. Harvest of Empire attempts to fill in the gaps, and the reasons don't include some naive notion about streets being paved with gold. The documentary, based on the book by journalist Juan Gonzalez, makes a persuasive argument that immigration from Nicaragua, Mexico, Cuba, and other nations is the direct result of American maneuvering in Latin America. The film follows a pattern, looking at each country individually and hearing personal tales from immigrants before taking a deep dive into the history of that nation.

Movies The Great Gatsby See Steven Rea's preview on H2. Harvest of Empire This documentary attempts to draw a connection between past U.S. expansionist policy in Latin-America and the current immigration problems. Hava Negila: The Movie A documentary on the meaning and history of the popular Jewish song. Kiss of the Damned See Steven Rea's preview on H2. Midnight's Children See Steven Rea's preview on H2. Tyler Perry Presents We the Peeples Nothing goes as planned when a young man (Craig Robinson)

The Philadelphia region supports film festivals targeted to virtually every fan base and demographic, from gays and lesbians to Asian Americans and African Americans to horror geeks. Except, that is, for the region's growing Latino community. It's an oversight that local cineastes David Acosta and Beatriz Vieira are trying to remedy. "It has been such a void in the city and the region," said Vieira, vice president for philanthropic services at the Philadelphia Foundation. "And there is such a breadth of film and video work coming from Latin America and the Latin community in the United States.

Jason Osder was 11, a kid at the Miquon School, when the Philadelphia Police Department dropped a bomb on the MOVE house at 6221 Osage Ave. in West Philadelphia. It was May 13, 1985. By the end of the night, six adult members of the Afrocentric back-to-nature organization - long in conflict with city officials, with police, with neighbors - were dead. So were five children, trapped inside the house. And 60 other rowhouses in the surrounding area had been destroyed by a fire left unchecked.

BEFORE MICHAEL or Le-Bron, there was Julius, the high-flying, gravity-defying NBA superstar better known as Doctor J. Those too young to have seen Julius Erving in his prime can see footage of him operating when NBA TV airs "The Doctor," a 90-minute documentary set for June 10 at 9 p.m. "If you ever hear Michael Jordan talk, he always says he looked up to and aspired to be like Doctor J," Miami Heat star Le-Bron James said in a statement....

50 CHILDREN: THE RESCUE MISSION OF MR. AND MRS. KRAUS. 9 p.m. Monday, HBO. EVERY SO OFTEN, a documentary comes along with a story so good, it's easy to imagine it as a feature film. "50 Children: The Rescue Mission of Mr. and Mrs. Kraus," which premieres on HBO on Monday to mark Holocaust Remembrance Day, is one such documentary: It has the characters, the plot points, and most importantly, it has the goose bumps. Which makes it all the more remarkable that the story of Philadelphians Gilbert and Eleanor Kraus, who left their own two children behind to rescue 50 Jewish children from Nazi Europe, wasn't much talked about until recently.

* FALL TO GRACE. 8 p.m. Thursday, HBO.   JIM McGREEVEY and Alexandra Pelosi were bound to cross paths sooner or later. McGreevey is the subject of "Fall to Grace," Pelosi's latest documentary, which premieres Thursday on HBO. The former governor of New Jersey, McGreevey resigned in 2004 after what he said was an affair (a former aide was claiming sexual harassment), famously declaring himself, as his wife looked on, to be "a gay American. " He now works with poor women, many of them in prison, trying to help them turn their lives around.

For former New Jersey Gov. Jim McGreevey, an Irish prince, the story was supposed to end with him in the Oval Office. Instead, he is in and out of jail in Hudson County. Not as a prisoner, but working as a spiritual counselor to a group of incarcerated women - and, at the same time, on what he calls his own journey of redemption. In 2004, McGreevey fell from grace with a thud, resigning office as he famously declared, "I am a gay American. " The married governor quit because an ex-lover - a man McGreevey hired as a top security aide in the wake of 9/11 - was blackmailing him with a threatened sexual harassment suit.

Looking for something to do Friday night? If you like Pirates, then this is for you. A documentary, Treasure: The Story of Marcus Hook , will be holding a free special preview screening at 7 p.m. in the Marcus Hook Community Center. The film chronicles the efforts of the Delaware County Borough of Marcus Hook to change it image - and future - by highlighting it's history. Pirate history to be exact. Arrr Matey, What say ye? The struggling Delaware River community of 2,400 residents, is sandwiched between two dying refineries.