Robert McChesney Movies
- 2004
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While the Fox News cable network has promoted itself as a "fair and balanced" news outlet -- so much so that they've even trademarked the phrase -- not everyone believes that they're living up to their slogan, and this activist documentary by filmmaker Robert Greenwald takes a close look at the political perspective of Fox's coverage. Outfoxed: Rupert Murdoch's War on Journalism examines the right-wing slant of Fox News' reporting, as represented in stories the network chooses to cover and their shoehorning of editorial opinion into stories, revealed in interviews with former Fox employees and several noted journalists (including Walter Cronkite) who discuss the pro-conservative, anti-Democratic views of the channel's management and how they're manifested in their programming. The film also puts talk show host Bill O'Reilly under the microscope and offers potent examples of his frequently abrasive interviewing style. Production of Outfoxed was supported in part by the leftist political action network Moveon.org. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Douglas Cheek
- 2004
- NR
Directed by Robert Kane Pappas, Orwell Rolls in His Grave questions whether the bleak, feverishly regulated world of author George Orwell's 1984 is no longer a dire fictional account of government power gone wrong but a creeping reality of recent American media trends. The film focuses on the media's least covered topic -- itself -- in an effort to trace the process by which newsworthy stories are either dismissed entirely or distorted into something more politically suitable for the heads of various media conglomerates. It also studies how influential politicos became responsible for an industry that was largely created in order to keep political abuse in check. Among the interviewees include legal scholar and former L.A. prosecutor Vincent Bugliosi, film director and author Michael Moore, and Danny Schechter, a former producer for ABC and CNN. Pappas also covers the expansion of the news media and examines whether the onset of competitive 24-hour news stations has actually led to a nationally less informed public. ~ Tracie Cooper, All Movie Guide
- 2000
Behind the Screens: Hollywood Goes Hypercommercial is a documentary about the money-driven entertainment industry. In the video, four film scholars and an award-winning screenwriter discuss the hypercommercialization of Hollywood filmmaking, charting the major increase in product placements and fast-food chain product tie-ins. The interviewees suggest that Hollywood has become a factory in which all big-budget movies are fastened with commercial messages, messages which clutter story concepts and destroy artistic integrity. Hollywood, the program suggests, has never been more commercial, or less interesting. ~ Betsy Boyd, All Movie Guide
