With the endless parade of legal dramas, small claims reality shows, and an entire network devoted solely to the wheels of justice, it's understandable if you've hit the point of fatigue for any sort of filmed courtroom experience. Improbably, director Joe Berlinger actually brings something new to the table in Crude, which looks at a long-running, multi-billion dollar class action suit involving 30,000 residents of the Ecuadorian Amazon on one side, and oil giant Chevron on the other. The residents claim that Chevron (actually, Texaco, whose legal liability Chevron assumed when they purchased the company) left millions of barrels of oil sitting in pits all along the villages lining the Amazon, contaminating the land and the water, and causing outbreaks of cancer, birth defects, and horrific skin conditions. The environmental impact is estimated to be many times that of the Exxon Valdez spill. more ›

DCist's highly subjective and hardly comprehensive guide to the most interesting movies playing around town in the coming week. more ›