Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11 opened to blockbuster box offices numbers, making it the highest grossing documentary of all time. But like previous Moore films, it has been criticized as being more of a polemic than a serious work of journalism. Moore is accused of selectively representing the truth with footage that serves his point of view, and discarding facts that are inconvenient. Bob chats with one skeptical truth-squader, Newsweek correspondent Michael Isikoff. Read Craig Unger’s response to Isikoff’s Newsweek article here .
This election season, cinematic fare has taken a decidedly political turn. Maybe it's Michael Moore, maybe it's the so-called politically divided nation, maybe it's that filmmakers can say what campaign advertisers cannot. Brooke explores the new tide of political documentaries and features, and their impact
Production costs are usually the main barrier between filmmakers and a large audience of viewers. But until recently, even well-funded docs had to settle for extremely limited distribution opportunities. Then came the independent film revolution of the 1990's, Michael Moore, and the art-house multiplex. Bob speaks with film historian Peter Biskind about the fall and rise of the documentary genre
Early next month, a new film opens called the Stepford Wives. Not that there hasn't been a "Stepford Wives" before. And finishing now for an imminent release is "The Manchurian Candidate." Sound familiar? And coming up early next year? King Kong! Raiding and retreading old movie classics is in itself, a time-honored tradition, but it has a mixed history at the box office, as WNYC's Sara Fishko reported.
Attention Wal-Mart shoppers: a DVD player now on sale rearranges movies to suit your own moral standards. Using technology developed by a company called Clearplay, the player skips scenes of nudity, violence, and drug use, and mutes bad language. If you like violence but can't stand nudity, you can program the filter accordingly. But the Director's Guild of America is suing Clearplay, saying the technology illegally alters a copyrighted work without the artist's permission. Last year, Brooke spoke to then-president of the DGA Martha Coolidge about the group's objections.
Five decades since he first stomped across the silver screen, the rampaging reptile is still going strong. To commemorate the great lizard's golden anniversary, a restored print of the original Japanese version is now stomping through selected theatres across the country. Many critics say it's far less campy than the version we've already seen, and in general, far more haunting. The same cannot be said for the sequels, now numbering nearly 30-and counting. NPR's Jim Zarroli looks back on a half-century of Godzilla.
Try as civilized society might to kill them, zombies just won't die. This week, the flesh-eating resurrected returned once again to the silver screen. The much-anticipated remake of George Romero's Dawn of the Dead includes some new and improved special effects, but the dead are still dead, and the story is no less gripping than it was more than a quarter-century ago. Last year, OTM Senior Producer Arun Rath assembled this deconstruction of the zombie genre.
Under stepped-up pressure from north of the border, the Mexican government has begun cracking down on movie piracy. But at the same time, some DVD distributors are trying a new tack. They are selling legal DVDs to street vendors for less than the price-tags on the faked copies. OTM's Marianne McCune reports from Mexico City.
