Watch Orwell Rolls in His Grave For Free

Such a frustrating disappointment

Stylish but barely mediocre overall

Highly Overrated But Still Good

At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.

I got a hold of this because 1984 is a great book and this promised to reaffirm a truth that most of the thinking public are aware of and that is the world is rapidly assuming the basic ideas contained within the novel. Here it starts of dealing mainly with the media and as Orwell pointed out that truth can be manipulated and by extension the public too. But here we have someone like Micheal Moore standing up there and you have controlled opposition straight off the bat. It doesn't matter how they try to disguise themselves but a socialist is a socialist is a socialist is a socialist whatever they do or say or try to represent themselves as anything else. All you end up with is cognitive dissonance. You can't put lipstick on a pig. It still smells. So here, together with Kucinich and others you have the lefties railing against a problem which is a lefty problem! Marxist ideology masquerading as an opposition to something which is transparently a product of Marxist ideology. Whether this lot do this consciously or not is open to debate. Perhaps someone like Moore is just a useful idiot? Who knows. But one thing is sure: two wrongs don't make a right. Orwell wrote his book as a consequence of his disillusionment with socialism and portrayed the totalitarianism that would inevitably ensue. Half baked socialists like Moore, Kucinich, etc speaking out against their own ideology is simply ridiculous and absurd. This film is holding up 4 fingers and everyone is saying there are 5.

A shocking and very well developed argument regarding American media. Pappas accurately draws numerous parallels between Orwell's '1984' and the propaganda machine of Nazi Germany. The culmination of the film focuses on the de-regulation of corporate media, that would allow fewer and fewer gigantic companies to own as many media affiliates as they can buy up. Another ramification of de-regulation, is the unchecked slanting of the news to favor the interests of one side, namely the media owners, and their political affiliates. This is a film that is extremely important. Watch it, for your own sake, and share it with others.

This movie is a little unfocused in that it attacks the media (mainly Fox News and Rupert Murdoch), George W. Bush, and attempts to say the election was a fraud (ignoring the evidence that GWB did in fact win by all accepted criteria). As was widely reported, several unbiased news organizations did a recount of the ballots after the election and found that out of the 3 most accepted criteria for manually recounting ballots, GWB won on all counts. Even the lefty New York Times, who took part in the recount, agrees GWB won fair and square. It's amazing to see the director ignore heaps of evidence in his quest to prove an irrational point.He levels several weak charges like the fact that black voters had the most spoiled ballots. He mixes up cause and effect, and comes to the conclusion that somehow the voters are not responsible - somehow Jeb Bush is responsible. It's incredible how far partisans will screw up their logic to come up with a damning conclusion.In criticizing the media, director Pappas commits the same sin he is attempting to critique. He uses all lefty sources for his experts, much like the media has done in the last 30 years. He fails to allow anyone with an opposing viewpoint to be heard, fearing if they drag his theory into the light it might die.Charles Lewis is the only balanced interview and I admire everything he stands for in fairness in the media. Conservatives want to see localization and diversity in the media more than anyone. Conservatives have had to fight a biased media for over 30 years, and now that there is *one* media group (and a small one compared to the others) the lefties are all aghast. Of the media interest groups in Washington, Rupert Murdochs was low on the list compared to Disney and the others, yet somehow the director wants to focus on Fox News.Perhaps he should have made a film about what a struggle it has been for conservatives to get a voice in the media at all. I hope the conservatives in the United States will attack the problem at the grass roots and buy in at the bottom as well as the top.

There are some other great comments about this film, so I'll insteadtry to give out some detail. The film is done in a calm, non-ranting,informative manner primarily via interviews with journalists. Manypoints about the corporate domination of the corporate mass media arebrought out well; the citing of GE Inc.'s top management interferingwith NBC news is one case in point. The portrayal of the mediaindustry itself as a political "special interest" similar to thetobacco lobby or other traditional special interest is both insightfuland strong. The film also does an adequate job of painting the changein "ethics" of government officials over the years, and gives a fewcitations to support its point. If there is a knock, it's that the film covers a vast amount of pointsand therefore cannot go in depth unless you want to watch a ninety-hourdocumentary. This is not a big knock -- it seems that one goal of thefilm is to try to tie many disparate issues and trends together topaint the big picture, which is something our regular mass media simplydoes not do. To me, two points are worth special mention and applause. (1) the filmmentions the original 1980 "October Surprise" and while it does not goin depth, it does flush out the basics and gives a reference to thebook by Carter's Nat'l Security Adviser ("October Surprise"), which onecan use to read for more information. Still, it would have been niceto mention Jimmy Carter's quote about the October Surprise or the factthat the former Iranian president has publicly said the OctoberSurprise did indeed happen while he was president. (2) Despite it notbeing a focus of the film, the film brings out the class gap (aka thegrowing gap between the rich and poor) and issues of Americans workinglong hours. This is done in a way related to media self-censorship butI'm always surprised when this issue rears its head -- simply becausereporting about it is so very rare in the mainstream press. The filmgives a few stats but its message that the poor are poorer now than acouple of decades ago and the rich are much, much richer comes throughwell; it notes the current gov'ts solution to this problem is a tax cutfor the rich stands out starkly in its plain-face absurdity. Whilethere was a few of those conventional-wisdom-turned-upside-down momentsin the film, that one stood out. Overall, like the other reviewers, I highly recommend the film. Whileit's not done in a Michael Moore-like funny manner, the materialpresented is on the money, is not preachy and is easily followed, andthe film runs along coherently in an easy to watch pace. In some ways,it's scary, depressing stuff; in other ways, it's invigorating becauseit illustrates the depth of what's happening to our republic and paintsa picture of just how much work we've got to do to return our gov't tosome semblance of rule by/for the people.