Change Your Image
carolyn-158
Reviews
The Book of Life (1998)
One of my all-time favorite movies.
This film was made at a point when perceived walls between the real and the virtual were starting more obviously to crumble; and it titrates some of Hartley's continuing substantive and stylistic concerns into old and new archetypes. I haven't seen it for a while, need to watch again; I expect it would feel prescient. PJ Harvey as Mary Magdalene is, for me, a significant bonus (but all the acting's great).
OK IMDb requires me to add 4 more lines. The visuals are great. The dialogue is great. The details are significant. Time in the abstract as well as history and what we tell ourselves about them are substantive concerns, among others. The perhaps ineluctable connection between creation and destruction. P.S.: I personally do not read this as being particularly about Christianity per se.
Let's see if that's enough.
Manufacturing Consent: Noam Chomsky and the Media (1992)
One of the Most Impt Docs Ever -- YES
And this movie was released some 16 years ago; and consolidation in corporate hands of traditional media around the world has greatly intensified since then.
If we don't know what's really going on, all our other (remaining) civil rights are meaningless. Knowledge is power, and a balance of knowledge is required for a balance of power; but as things stand, those who govern us know whatever they want to know about what we do, while we know virtually nothing about what they do.
The main source of hope has been the internet. We MUST protect net neutrality (among other things) -- not only by warding off legislation that would permit corporations to charge more for access to selected urls, but ALSO to impose MEANINGFUL PENALTIES for violations. (Cease-and-desist orders or fines that amount to a hand-slap easily endured as a cost of doing business are NOT meaningful.
It was 16 years before I came across a documentary as eye-opening for me as Manufacturing Consent was. It's a 4-part series called "Century of the Self"; you can see Part 1 and find links to the other parts at http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=8953172273825999151 .
The Big Buy: Tom DeLay's Stolen Congress (2006)
A complex story brilliantly told
I seem to have watched a different movie from the one described in the previous comment.
The Delay story is a bit complicated but it's important, and I honestly can't imagine how it could have been better told (or how anyone could fail to find it interesting).
You do have to understand at least a bit about our system, and the movie does a great job laying out the info you need -- about Texas campaign finance law, the fact that the State legislature controls Federal Congressional district boundaries, the relationship between the U.S. census and political gerrymandering, the way gerrymandering in turn affects the composition of the U.S. House, and how corporations benefited from favorable Federal legislation as their quid pro quo for contributing to State legislative campaigns.
Explicating all that is something most of the media hasn't even attempted. But "The Big Buy" made it all rivetingly clear.
And with lots of footage of personalities like Tom Delay and Ronnie Earle speaking for themselves in their own colorful terms -- personally, I found it richly entertaining.
Regarding the aesthetic surface, I think it's fair to point out, this was probably NOT a big budget operation.
The important thing is that the filmmakers nonetheless managed to get hold of tons of important information, to analyze it thoroughly, and to shoot and/or get hold of TONS of great footage, all brilliantly edited.
I hope a lot of people see this film. It could greatly help us all gain a more sophisticated understanding of how our system is -- and is not -- working