The Oscar-Nominated Documentary Features

With "Gasland,"easily the most important of the nominees, director Josh Fox sounds a clarion call on the horrific human health consequences of the practice of hydraulic fracturing by the natural gas industry.

Either his picture or the hugely entertaining "Exit Through the Gift Shop," which has really captured the zeitgeist, would make a worthy winner.

Honorable mention goes to Lucy Walker's "Waste Land," about the Brazilian artist Vic Muniz's yearlong project involving pickers from the largest dump in Rio. A step down from there to the war movie "Restrepo," but still better than the cheap-shot tactics of "Inside Job."