The Apprentice

BBC - The Mekong River with Sue Perkins (2014)
PDTV | 832x468 | .MP4/AVC @ 1509 Kbps | 4x~58min | Audio: English AAC 128 kbps, 2 channels | Subs: English | 2.70 GiB
HDTV | 1280x720 | .MKV/AVC @ 4249 Kbps | 4x~58min | Audio: English AAC 128 kbps, 2 channels | Subs: English | 6.50 GiB
Genre: Documentary

The Mekong is South East Asia's greatest river, the Mother of Water that brings life to millions of people from the paddy fields of Vietnam to the mountains of the Tibetan Plateau. In this series, Sue Perkins goes on an extraordinary journey, spanning nearly 3,000 miles, to explore lives and landscapes on the point of enormous change. Across four episodes, she travels upstream through Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos and China, towards the Mekong's source high in the Himalayan glacier.

Obsession, jealousy, and deceit define the tense relationship shared between two turn-of-the-century magicians in Memento and Batman Begins director Christopher Nolan's dizzying tale of sleight of hand. Rupert Angier (Hugh Jackman) and Alfred Borden (Christian Bale) are London-based magicians of the highest order, both blessed with spectacular powers of deception and both cursed with unrelenting envy for one another's skills. When Alfred performs an awe-inspiring trick for which there seems no logical explanation, the friendly competition shared between the pair turns to deadly rivalry as the enraged Rupert determines to uncover his rival's deepest secrets. In the world of illusion, however, nothing is ever quite as it seems, and the rules of the physical world simply don't apply. Now, as bitter competition quickly begins to consume the souls of both performers, the firestorm birthed by their anger threatens to consume all who surround them. Michael Caine, Scarlett Johansson, and David Bowie co-star in a feature that finds director/screenwriter Nolan reuniting with brother and Memento story author Jonathan Nolan to adapt author Christopher Priest's original novel.

Sultry screen siren Marlene Dietrich plays a dual role in the light romantic comedy The Flame of New Orleans (1941). As Claire Ledoux, Dietrich is a European adventuress during the 1840s. Leaving behind a colorful past, she comes to the shores of America in search of a rich husband and a life of comfort. Once she secures this in the form of wealthy fiance Roland Young, her past catches up with her, and she is forced to masquerade as a fictitious "bad seed" cousin to get herself off the hook. Along the way, however, she is unexpectedly sidetracked by the affections of a rugged sea captain played by Bruce Cabot.