In late 2005, I bought a DVD player. I had till then only relied on T.V and VCDs for movies, apart from the occasional theater visit. But sometime after I started working, I realised that there was interesting stuff out there that I wanted to see that I'd never get a chance to on T.V or VCD. Because these media showed only popular stuff and not necessarily all the stuff I wanted to see. Whereas DVD seemed new and cutting edge and world cinema and independent movies. Hence, the DVD player.
Going further, I had decided to spend my money only on quality movies, researching before renting them, a habit I continue till today. No surprise then that the first DVDs I rented after buying the player were documentaries. And good ones at that. Here they are:
In this 2004 movie, a perfectly healthy man, Morgan Spurlock, takes up a McDonalds' diet for a month and records himself wasting away. He also interviews a lot of people in the fast food industry.
The movie is an attack on fast food chains and their unhealthy products, showing you why and how the food you eat there can kill you.
The extras contain an experiment where a McDonalds burger and fries, along with other kinds of food, including more natural ones, are left to decompose in glass containers. Guess which one lasts the longest because it's the most artificial?
A 2004 movie directed by Jehane Noujaim, about news coverage, especially Al-Jazeera's, of the U.S war in Iraq, and the different perceptions involved.
The movie that changed my perception of how the the media works. A movie that was so good, I had to re-watch it with two different DVD commentaries after I had seen the original. A must see to observe and learn how people and news channels on different sides of a war see events in different ways and let their prejudices influence their reporting.
I'm not sure what they teach in journalism school but I don't see how screening and discussing this movie would be a bad thing.
An interesting phenomeon to observe in this movie is the transformation of Lt. Josh Rushing, an army spokesperson, from that of Al-Jazeera criticizer to a person with a more neutral view. He now works with Al-Jazeera.
Have you seen either movie? Have any thoughts on big bad fast food corporations or news agencies? Tell me what you think.
4 comments:
Haven't watched either... so can't comment...
They sure churn out a huge amount of movies... every year.
Too many movies to see, so little time and money to see them with.
super size me was a good documentary telling all about how unhealthy the junk good is......and why it is resposible for an unfit and obese America.......
i have seen only a few documentaries....but i;m a fan of docu......usually the content is pretty good in documentaries.....
nice post....you reminded me of this docu....
Thanks Hitesh.
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