THERE ARE ALWAYS plenty of political junkies in the reel world and you can sate the hunger this time around by meeting The Most Dangerous Man in America, waxing nostalgic over Troupers, communing with Saint Misbehavin', hearing the Soundtrack for a Revolution, Awakening from Sorrow, getting Tapped, Trading Bows and Arrows for Laptops and knowing Stalin Thought of You.

I don't know about you, but if Stalin thought of me, even though he's dead, it would still make me nervous. And apparently it had the same effect on Russian cartoonist Boris Efimov, whose brother was executed by the Soviet tyrant. Spared imprisonment and exile because the dictator admired his talent, Efimov nonetheless had to choose between working for Pravda or risking death. How does one come to grips with devastating loss, hatred and survival? Screens Oct. 10, 1:15pm and Oct. 16, 6pm.

In the evocative, nail-biter documentary Most Dangerous Man from Judith Ehrlich and Mill Valley's Rick Goldsmith, ex-Marine and Defense Department analyst Daniel Ellsberg's extraordinarily daring leak to the New York Times in 1971 of the government's classified history of the Vietnam War is contrasted with the press's disturbingly comatose behavior following the invasion of Iraq in 2003.

Upon publication of the Pentagon Papers, Richard Nixon went ballistic and Henry Kissinger railed that whistleblower Ellsberg was "the most dangerous man in America." (Why Kissinger ever merited an ounce of respect after that is beyond me.) See a film about a real-life hero on Oct. 17 at 6:45pm and Oct. 18 at 3:15pm who, in his prime, risked everything to try to put an end to an unwinnable war. He is certain to be remembered by history.

Celebrate the history of the venerable, ever evolving, antiwar, anti-capitalist, free theater in-the-park San Francisco Mime Troupe in this, their 50th year, with a screening of the 1985 doc Troupers (Oct. 16, 7:30pm) featuring classic performance pieces from the '60s and input from Bill Graham and Peter Coyote.

Then extend the foray into that most bizarre era in American history with Saint Misbehavin' (Oct. 9, 6:45pm and Oct. 13, 7pm), a bump and glide ride as commandeered by longtime Berkeley hippie Hugh (Wavy Gravy) Romney, the dude Paul Krassner once called "the illegitimate son of Harpo Marx and Mother Teresa."

From his early days as a beat poet, to informal emcee of the Woodstock music fest, through the war we all hated (come to think of it, I can't find one I liked), to the founder in 1978 of a charity to combat blindness in Third World countries, to co-director of Camp Winnarainbow (a summer performing arts program he started for children), Mr. Gravy (as the New York Times refers to him) has "matured that '60s idealism and made it his life today."

Palo Alto writer/producer/director Bill Guttentag (a two-time Oscar winner for previous work) and co-director Dan Sturman sweep us out of our seats and back into the history of the civil rights movement in Soundtrack for a Revolution (Oct. 10, 7pm and Oct. 18, 2:45pm) with unsettling archival footage and music that was a cornerstone for the courage to stand up for equality. "You can cage the singer," Harry Belafonte once said, "but not the song."

El Cerrito filmmakers John Knoop and Karina Epperlein's Awakening chronicles a burgeoning activist movement by the now-grown children of Argentine dissidents who were disappeared, tortured, drugged and shoved out of naval airplanes over the Atlantic.

In one clever turnabout, activist radio in Buenos Aires announced on the air the name of an officer responsible for these things--along with his address and phone number. Find out what happens on Oct. 10 at 4:30pm or Oct. 17 at 4:45pm.

Before you grab that next plastic bottle of water, check out Stephanie Soechtig's Tapped (Oct. 11, 6pm and Oct. 14, 9pm), and find out what the self-regulated, multi-billion dollar, bottled water industry is passing on to us. If we labeled a bottle of pristine spring water as "sewage," would you drink it? What about a bottle of treated sewage labeled as "pure"? And what about the bottles themselves? Oy, not sure I want to know--just get me a milkshake in a glass, please.

There may not be any milkshakes in the Amazon, but Berkeley director Denise Zmekhol's Trading Bows and Arrows demonstrates how technology used intelligently can actually preserve the traditional in this short about Google Earth training the Surui tribe to monitor its land and confront illegal loggers.

On the same program (Oct. 16, 7pm and Oct. 17, noon), Sausalito filmmaker Will Parrinello treks to a forbidden Himalayan kingdom in Mustang--Journey of Transformation and San Rafael producer Emmanuel Vaughn-Lee and director Stephen Marshall descend into Ethiopia's Rift Valley in A Thousand Suns, as Western influences threaten to destroy its natural beauty.

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