One-Liners: Fact

DIRTY WARS (C) - It's the Jeremy Scahill show! Starring ... Jeremy Scahill ... and a cast of bad guys and their victims.

This is a bizarre way to present an exposé of America's covert wars in the battle against terrorism. The journalism here takes a back seat to director Rick Rowley's fetishistic fascination with our intrepid hero, Scahill, known for his work for the Nation and "Democracy Now." We get endless shots of Scahill skulking around Yemen or walking lonely through the streets of his Brooklyn neighborhood (if only all those hipsters knew what the U.S. government is doing in their name and how selflessly this tortured soul is battling valiantly to expose the truth!).

We see the scary world through Scahill's penetrating blue eyes -- for instance when he's gazing longingly out a train window -- except when he's going all "CSI Miami" and wearing sunglasses on an airplane. We see him shopping at a local bodega (oh, the utter emptiness of capitalist society!) or type-type-typing on his little laptop or testify valiantly before a clueless Congress.

Scahill's target here is JSOC -- the Joint Special Operations Command that is running the drone show without regard to borders or moral lines. There's a compelling story to be told about the criminal military acts being committed by the Obama administration, but a very special episode of MTV's "Catfish" is not the way to go about it.

LA CAMIONETA (B) - This is a sweet little documentary about decommissioned school buses in the United States getting second lives in Central America. Director Mark Kendall, in his first full-length film, takes a wistful approach. He lets the men who retrieve the buses and those who refurbish them tell their stories, and Kendall spends time with the men and their families.

Kendall finds drama in the dangers the men encounter, first driving through Mexico and then navigating Guatemala, where in a recent year 130 bus drivers were killed by gangs demanding extortion money. The focus is on one bus that makes its way from Pennsylvania to Guatemala. Workers methodically rebuild the bus and give it a new shell, with fresh paint and design flourishes.

Nothing exciting happens here, but the 71 minutes pass pleasantly, and you've gained an appreciation for another culture and the zen of the cycle of life.