_Outfoxed: Rupert Murdoch's War on Journalism_. This movie is kind of
interesting because it's a leftist "moral crusade" documentary that's just,
well, wrong. They spent a lot of time making a case that Faux News is ruining
American democracy, but if the American people were smart they wouldn't watch
it. After the first 15-minute stretch of thinly disguised right-wing
propaganda, they'd say, "These people are nuts," and change the channel...
or better yet, realize that "television news" is an oxymoron and not watch
any of it... or, better still, not watch TV at all. However, you can't tell
folks who run around shouting, "All power to the people!" that The People are
not real bright, so they blame Rupert Murdoch for The People's poor decisions.
"Best" case scenario: they somehow stage enough protests and pull enough
strings to put Mr. Murdoch out of business, after which point The People will
continue to behave stupidly, so they'll find somebody else to blame for the
stupid behavior. And so the human comedy goes.
At least Michael Moore's films are funny.
(Side note: they don't even include the most outrageous Faux News thing I
ever witnessed -- that thing about how there's too many immigrants coming in
from south of the border and how white people need to up their birth rate.
I saw it on YouGoogleTube. Is it still there? Anybody have the link?)
I also discovered that my local library has an old VHS tape of William
Friedkin's made-for-cable remake of _12 Angry Men_. Jack Lemmon's take on
Juror #8 is kind of interesting -- his "nice nebbish" persona is placed in
a position where he has to rise to the occasion to do what he believes is
right -- but Henry Fonda was, as I'm sure you all remember, so perfect. I
also dearly miss black and white.
That being said, this is a very well-done movie, and the all-star cast puts
it over nicely. A few tweaks were made to make the story more contemporary,
but I think this is one of those cases where the basic material is so strong
that multiple versions can be made of it quite easily without it getting old.
Sort of like how I'm sure most of us agree that the Brian Desmond-Hurst
version of _A Christmas Carol_ with Alastair Sim is *the* movie version of
that story, but a surprisingly large number of the other versions are also
well worth seeing.
Come to think of it, that tale has a made-for-the-small-screen version
starring George C. Scott that's also very good. :-)
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"Democracy can't work. Mathematicians, peasants, and animals, that's all there
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