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Comments: A surprising, illuminating, entertaining, enlightening, educational program. Michael Palin is perfect for this. He's an everyman with a sense of humor in some very foreign places.

Summary: This 2004 BBC television series records comedian and travel presenter Michael Palin's six-month trip across the Himalaya mountain range, covering an amazingly diverse range of cultures and environments in various countries. It includes:

1° North by Northwest - Pakistan's tribal province, featuring Khyber Pass, Peshawar, Gilgit, Chitral and K2;

2° A Passage to India - Lahore (still in Muslim Pakistan), and in its mainly Hindu rival India: Amritsar, Shimla, Dharamsala (meeting with the Dalai Lama) and Srinagar;

3°Annapurna to Everest - Nepal (the capital Kathmandu, meeting with King Gyanendra, and Annapurna Mountain; includes a scare involving the Maoist rebels in the Gurkha recruiting area) and Tibet (administered as a Chinese province: Pokhara and the Everest base camp on the northern side).

4° The Roof of the World - Tibet's capital Lhasa and in China's Qinghai province Yushu.

5° Leaping Tiger, Naked Nagas - from China's Yunnan province to India's Nagaland state - features Kunming, Lijiang, Lugu Lake, the Naga village of Longwa on the Indian-Burmese border and a trek along Tiger Leaping Gorge;

6° Bhutan to the Bay of Bengal - India's Assam state (Kaziranga National Park), Bhutan (capital Thimphu) and Bangladesh (Sylhet, the capital Dhaka and finally Chittagong on the Bay of Bengal)

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Comments: A true story of a man who fought impossible odds to save everyone he could and created a place where hope survived.

Summary: Solidly built around a subtle yet commanding performance by Don Cheadle, Hotel Rwanda emerged as one of the most highly-praised dramas of 2004. In a role that demands his quietly riveting presence in nearly every scene, Cheadle plays real-life hero Paul Rusesabagina, a hotel manager in the Rwandan capital of Kigali who in 1994 saved 1,200 Rwandan "guests" from certain death during the genocidal clash between tribal Hutus, who slaughtered a million victims, and the horrified Tutsis, who found safe haven or died. Giving his best performance since his breakthrough role in Devil in a Blue Dress, Cheadle plays Rusesabagina as he really was during the ensuing chaos: "an expert in situational ethics" (as described by critic Roger Ebert), doing what he morally had to do, at great risk and potential sacrifice, with an understanding that wartime negotiations are largely a game of subterfuge, cooperation, and clever bribery. Aided by a United Nations official (Nick Nolte), he worked a saintly miracle, and director Terry George (Some Mother's Son) brings formidable social conscience to bear on a true story you won't soon forget. --Jeff Shannon

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