This is a destabilizing documentary that challenges Americans’ narratives and asks the viewer to engage in a conversation with a slippery subject. It’s riveting in how dangerous and intimate it feels, leveraging its multiple camera-angles and hand-held shots to make the viewer feel as if they, too, are in the room with Vladimir Putin.
As a conversation that covers a vast span of Russian history, culture, and politics as refracted through the mind of Russia’s president — it’s often remarkable. During an extraordinary career, Stone has never pretended to be an unbiased journalist and he’s not about to feign pretense now.

Launched in 1982 by three friends in a Houston diner, Compaq Computer set out to build a portable PC to take on IBM, the world's most powerful tech company. Many had tried cloning the industry leader's code, only to be trounced by IBM and its high-priced lawyers. 'Silicon Cowboys' explores the remarkable David vs. Goliath story, and eventual demise, of Compaq, an unlikely upstart who altered the future of computing and helped shape the world as we know it today. Directed by Oscar (R)-nominated director Jason Cohen, the film offers a fresh look at the explosive rise of the 1980's PC industry and is a refreshing alternative to the familiar narratives of Jobs, Gates, and Zuckerberg.

This second instalment looks at how Vladimir Putin arrived in the Kremlin as a vulnerable and unknown president, whom the Russian oligarchs expect to control. The programme reveals how he asserted his hold on power and ultimately surrounded himself with his KGB peers, as well as his philosophy as regards traitors and enemies. The film also examines the stories of businessman Boris Berezovsky and defector Alexander Litvinenko, who both stood up to Putin and wound up dead on British soil.

The years 1825-1918 were bloody and traumatic, a period when four tsars tried - and failed - to deal with the growing pressure for constitutional reform and revolution. In 1861, millions of enslaved serfs were freed by the Tsar-Liberator, Alexander II. But Alexander paid the ultimate penalty for opening the Pandora's box of reform when he was later blown up by terrorists on the streets of St Petersburg. Elsewhere, there was repression, denial, war and - in the case of the last tsar, Nicholas II - a fatalistic belief in the power of God, with Nicholas's faith in the notorious holy man Rasputin being a major part in his undoing. Lucy Worsley also details the chilling murder of Nicholas and his family in 1918, and asks whether all of this horror have been avoided.

Putin returns to power under a storm after a four-year absence, but his attempts to improve his popularity are hobbled by accusations of corruption. The final part of this sinister history doesn’t quite come up to date with Vladimir Putin’s recent moves to 'reset' the Russian constitution so he can rule, theoretically, until at least 2036 – longer than Stalin. But it does walk us through some of his other moves to entrench power, including vote-rigging in parliamentary elections that was so brazen, his approval ratings fell amid mass street protests. Leading the protests was opposition leader Boris Nemtsov, who was then simply gunned down on a street near the Kremlin.
These days, we are told, the world stage interests Putin more than the Russian one, and with various 'mini-Putins' installed around the world, his legacy looks safe.

From the first transistor to deep learning networks, the rise of computing power over the last 50 years has been so phenomenal it's changed everything from the way we communicate to how our appliances interact. Fuelled by giant leaps forward in computer technology, the race is on. As the progress of machines continues to accelerate, so will the pace of change.