In 1968, nine protestors walked into a Catonsville, Maryland, draft board office, poured homemade napalm over a bunch of records and burned them. They were all immediately arrested and charged for the crime. This bit of anti-Vietnam-War protest may have not seemed out of step with the turbulent period, but as the documentary Investigation of a Flame makes clear, this was a highly unusual group of people.

In fact, three of the Catonsville Nine, as they came to be known, were Catholic priests, deeply disturbed by the horrific images that were emerging from Vietnam. This documentary looks back at the courage of their convictions, and the way in which their protest helped to inspire many others of faith, who felt the U.S. government’s actions in Vietnam were unconscionable and inexcusable. This is a fascinating doc, now out on DVD, and feels terrifically germane given the current situation in Iraq.

In other DVD doc news, An Inconvenient Truth is now out. Too much of this film feels like an elect-Al-Gore feature-length ad—and he remains rather stiff—but there is undeniable value to this film. In particular, it is shocking to see the facts laid out so clearly about global warming and its ramifications; this should be required viewing for every unthinking, dimwitted politician. The filmmakers clearly owe a debt to Montreal

filmmaker Terre Nash, who won an Oscar in ’82 for her no-nukes NFB doc If You Love This Planet, a clear precursor to the eco-Gore film. —Matthew Hays