The definitive documentary on academic demigod Noam Chomsky is arguably a Canadian one, Mark Achbar and Peter Wintonick's Manufacturing Consent. That film, however, was made long before 9/11 - and Chomsky has had a great deal to say about what has occurred since that nasty September morning.

With Power and Terror: Noam Chomsky in Our Times, American filmmaker John Junkerman picks up the ball, drawing from Chomsky's recent lectures on the erosions of civil liberties that have occurred in America, ones the government has justified under the auspices of the "War on Terrorism" - auspices, Chomsky points out, that are vague and questionable at best. And Chomsky argues that "War on Terrorism" must always be placed in quotation marks, seeing as this alleged war is being "led by one of the worst terrorist states in the world."

Now 74, Chomsky's words here are chilling, the connections he makes between politics, forgotten scandals and nefarious U.S. foreign policy are deeply disturbing. Though the Right has an ongoing wish to dismiss him, here, Junkerman reminds us that, in fact, it's impossible to do so.

» Matthew Hays