Tag: Mad Movies

Daniel Ellsberg: The Most Dangerous Man

Most Dangerous Man On April 7, 1931, Daniel Ellsberg was born in Chicago. He would grow up to serve in the Marines and work at the Pentagon and for Rand Corporation, eventually becoming disillusioned with the Vietnam War and receiving notoriety as the man behind the release of government documents about the Vietnam War. After the New York Times began publishing the papers in June 1971, the actions prompted the wrath of President Richard M. Nixon and one of the most important Supreme Court cases on the First Amendment.

The 2009 documentary The Most Dangerous Man in America: Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers tells the story of Ellsberg’s life and the Pentagon Papers. Directed by Judith Ehrlich and Rick Goldsmith, the film is required viewing for anyone interested in the Vietnam War. The movie reveals much about the controversies on the home front as well as the lies told by U.S. leaders.

The documentary approaches the tale by letting Ellsberg and others report the story from first-hand accounts (while Nixon’s perspective only comes through in recordings made at the White House). As much as you think you might know about Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers, you likely will learn new information from the film.

For example, we see the role that Ellsberg’s wife played in his decisions. We also learn that Egil Krogh — one of the “White House Plumbers” involved in breaking into the office of Ellsberg’s psychiatrist — came to see Ellsberg as a principled man.

The Most Dangerous Man in America takes the position that Ellsberg is an American hero who was willing to go to prison if necessary to try to end an unjust war. While some may disagree with the admiring portrayal, the lessons from the Pentagon Papers still resonate in modern times as we still face issues like Edward Snowden’s release of documents. Thus, the story of Daniel Ellsberg is just as relevant today as it was in the 1970s.

Leave your two cents in the comments.

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    Movies That Make Us Mad: “Merchants of Doubt”

    Merchants of Doubt Review One of the recent movies that has made me angrier than I have been in a long time is Merchants of Doubt, a 2014 documentary directed by Robert Kenner. The film delves into how for decades people have been peddling doubt to citizens to protect corporate interests on topics ranging from tobacco to climate change.

    The movie is based on a 2010 book by Naomi Oreskes and Erik M. Conway with the full title Merchants of Doubt: How a Handful of Scientists Obscured the Truth on Issues from Tobacco Smoke to Global Warming. In some ways, many of the revelations may not be surprising. By now, we know that tobacco corporations lied to us, but the movie gives us fresh perspective on how much they lied and how many of the same people are still lying to us today about other things.

    For example, I was surprised to learn of the connection between tobacco interests and the use of dangerous chemicals added to furniture to allegedly make the furniture resistant to fire. But the chemicals did very little besides put our lives at risk.

    A theme running through the film is the way hired experts use “doubt” as a method of undermining science. When legitimate scientists make conclusions contrary to corporate interests, these “merchants of doubt” appear to convince the public that there is still some doubt about the scientific findings. While doubt and questions are generally good things, these experts are raising questions not for the purpose of finding truth but for the purpose of undermining truth and promoting corporate interests.

    Merchants of Doubt illustrates how these techniques have been used for decades, used in the past by those who wanted to attack scientific findings about tobacco and used today by those who wish to undermine the science of global warming. The movie may not change your mind about what you believe, but it will make you question the “experts” you often see on TV. And maybe, like me, it will make you mad.

    Conclusion: If you are looking for a fascinating documentary that may change the way you look at the information you receive, check out Merchants of Doubt. Rotten Tomatoes gives the film an 85% critics rating and a 75% audience rating.


    “Mad Movies” (or “Movies that Make Us Mad”) is a Chimesfreedom series about movies that expose information that we might not otherwise know about, revealing misinformation, lies, and hidden stories that make us angry.

    What movies make you mad? Leave your two cents in the comments.

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    Hot Coffee (Mad Movies)

    Hot Coffee

    Hot Coffee is a new HBO documentary about how corporations used a famous legal case to push for limits on their liability under the guise of “tort reform.” Although you think you know about the McDonald’s hot-coffee-spill case, you know less about what happened than you think.

    In 1992, the 79-year-old Stella Liebeck went to McDonald’s with her grandson. After they made their purchase, the grandson pulled over the car to divide up the food and to allow Liebeck to add cream and sugar to her coffee. While removing the lid, Liebeck spilled the scalding coffee, which caused third degree burns and sent Liebeck to the hospital for eight days. After McDonald’s refused to help pay for medical expenses, Liebeck sued the company. The media reported about Liebeck winning more than two million dollars in punitive damages against McDonald’s, but that award was reduced to less than half a million dollars, and then the parties reached a settlement.

    Hot Coffee tells a lot more about the case than you probably knew, because most of us know about the case from what we heard from corporations who used the case to get states to limit individual people from suing companies for damages. After you see the photo of the Liebeck’s third-degree burns and the know that hundreds of other people were burned by the coffee, you might be glad that she sued, leading McDonald’s to lower its coffee holding temperature. And, while you may still agree that limits on damages are a good thing, you will at least question the way corporate money influenced our perceptions of the issue and also bought politicians to support tort reform.

    Overall, Hot Coffee is very informative and will open your eyes about an important issue. While it does take one side and you may disagree with some of its conclusions, its discussion of the legal cases will make you question some of your ideas. And that is always a good thing.


    “Mad Movies” (or “Movies that Make Us Mad”) is a Chimesfreedom series about movies that expose information that we might not otherwise know about, revealing misinformation, lies, and hidden stories that make us angry.

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    An Industry Attempts to Prevent Gasland from Winning an Oscar (Mad Movies)

    {Note: On February 21, 2011, Chimesfreedom posted the following discussion of the documentary Gasland, but for some reason the blog post disappeared in early July 2011. The web hosting company does not know what happened, so we are re-posting the review, which is still relevant in light of recent debates in states like New York on the practice of fracking.}

    With this post and a post about The Tillman Story, Chimesfreedom starts a series on “Movies that Make Us Mad.” These movies expose information that we might not otherwise know about, revealing misinformation, lies, and hidden stories that make us angry.

    Gasland movie With the Academy Awards later this week, we are starting with a movie that has an industry so upset the industry is trying to prevent the film from winning an Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature. The movie is Gasland (2010), a documentary about the natural gas industry that is available on DVD and Blu Ray.

    The movie begins with the filmmaker, Josh Fox, getting an offer of more than $100,000 from gas companies to be allowed to drill on his land, and the offer sets him off on a cross-country journey. Fox visits the homes of a number of people who claim to have been affected by natural gas companies in their areas. The movie explains how the gas companies drill into the ground and then pump tons of water mixed with numerous chemicals into the ground to get the natural gas. The homeowners in the movie claim to be affected by the air pollutants and they show the effects on their drinking water, ranging from health problems, livestock and animals losing hair and dying, and being able to light the gas coming out of their water faucets.

    America’s Natural Gas Alliance, i.e, the natural gas industry, has responded to the documentary by saying there is no link between their drilling for oil and the problems shown in the movie. One oil and gas industry organization has even tried to get the Motion Picture Academy to revoke its best documentary Oscar nomination for the movie.

    While watching the movie, I did wonder what the other side to the story was, as things are not always black and white. There is a problem sometimes with taking anecdotal evidence, such as a few people having contaminated water, and drawing a big conclusion without using the scientific method to reach that conclusion. But there is also a problem that individuals have no power, and big industry has all the power. That’s why movies like Gasland are important. Even though the truth may be somewhere between the self-interested response of the gas companies and the stories shown in the movie, the documentary is an insightful look that raises important issues that most of us probably never would think about otherwise.

    The gas industry memo does not respond to the information in the movie about how the industry was made exempt from several national environmental laws by a bill that Pres. George W. Bush signed into law in 2005. The movie also asserts that the exemption benefited the vice-president’s former company, Halliburton, which developed the drilling technology of “fracking” or hydraulic fracturing which involves using high pressure to fracture shale to release the gas underground.

    The movie does an excellent job of telling the stories of individuals in middle America who are largely powerless against corporate interests. By contrast, the state of New York worked toward a moratorium on shale gas drilling [July 2011 Update: It now looks like New York may allow this type of drilling]. Most importantly, the movie makes you more aware of the issue and want to learn more. And it makes you mad. Fracking mad.

    Did you see the movie? What did you think? Leave a comment.

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    3 Movies That Make Us Mad

    { Ignorance – Lori McKenna (Kasey Chambers cover)}

    lorimckenna_ignorance

    The Cove In the Kasey Chambers song “Ignorance,” covered above by folk-singer Lori McKenna, she sings, “If you’re not pissed off at the world / Then you’re just not paying attention.” There have have been several excellent documentaries in recent years that reveal disturbing information about our world that should make us mad. Chimesfreedom recently wrote about Gasland. Here, we discuss three other movies that make us mad: The Corporation, Food, Inc., and The Cove. All three movies are now available on DVD and Blu Ray.

    (1) The Corporation (2003) is a documentary about the role of corporations in our society. The movie paints a disturbing picture of the power that corporations have and the damage they have caused with almost complete immunity. The movie is very disturbing, and almost overwhelming at times. In watching it, I kept wanting to take a break from the movie but could not stop watching. Just when you think the stories could not get any more disturbing, they do, such as information about how American corporations profited through supporting Nazi Germany.

    Certainly, The Corporation has an agenda, so one should maintain a little skepticism. For example, the movie unnecessarily went a little overboard with a segment about corporations meeting the definition of a psychopath. But many of the techniques, like using movie clips, are designed to make the information entertaining. And if the movie makes you seek more information, then it is a success. Many of those interviewed provide intelligent commentary. In addition to insight from some who you would expect, like Noam Chomsky, there is interesting commentary from people like Ray Anderson, the CEO of Interface, the world’s largest commercial carpet manufacturer, who had an epiphany after many years.

    (2) Food, Inc. (2008) reveals information about the sources of our food. Yes, the movie includes some information about where our meat comes from, and I know a lot of people try to avoid being reminded of that knowledge. But animal flesh is not the focus of the majority of the movie. Among the interesting information is the extent to which corporations own and patent some of our basic food sources, a topic also briefly addressed in The Corporation.

    (3) The third movie, The Cove (2009), is not as broad as the other two movies. Instead, it explores a narrower issue. The Cove delves into secrets behind the dolphin meat industry, focusing on a hidden cove in Japan. While you are learning that dolphins are more intelligent than you thought they were, you also may realize that humans are more devious than you expected. The Cove won the Academy Award for Best Feature Documentary of 2009.

    Unfortunately, these three movies are not uplifting. The good news, though, is that there are intelligent people making these movies and that people are watching these movies to learn about the world around them.

    It is easy to look away from unpleasant Truths. And there is a cost to having your eyes opened. These movies may affect how you view your food, the corporations around you, and your decision whether or not to visit Sea World. Do you want to know the information or not? It is like the movie, The Matrix (1999). Your decision whether or not to watch these movies is similar to the offer of whether to take the red pill or the blue pill. Welcome to the desert of the real.

    “And you can turn off the TV
    And go about your day.
    But just ’cause you don’t see it,
    It don’t mean its gone away.”
    — Kasey Chambers, “Ignorance”

    What is your favorite movie that makes you mad? Leave a comment.

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