mass consciousness

The economy has been on everyone’s mind for several years now, and many have justifiably pondered how we got ourselves into this mess. But, as is becoming increasingly clear, the causes go beyond economics, having as much to do with human nature and what we create as it does with money. These questions are examined in meticulous detail in the Wall Street drama, “Margin Call,” now available on DVD.

We’ve all heard about videos and other internet phenomena that have “gone viral.” They spread across the web like wildfire, getting into email boxes and social network walls everywhere, with an almost infectious efficiency. Beliefs can work like that, too, for better or worse, in the reality they help to shape, an impact seen in myriad ways in the new disaster drama, “Contagion.”

Imagine going to bed one night, assuming that the physical reality you take for granted is all that there is to existence, and then waking up later to discover it’s merely a part of a much bigger picture. Such was the experience of a self-described ordinary guy who suddenly found out that the world was a much more extraordinary place than he ever thought possible, an odyssey explored in the documentary “Wake Up.”