GamerTab That was an excellent one.

Lucybespro It is a performances centric movie

GetPapa Far from Perfect, Far from Terrible

CrawlerChunky In truth, there is barely enough story here to make a film.

wfjgcinet The earlier reviews of this film were quite rich and detailed. There is little to add.Except it is now more than three and a half years after the historic span depicted in the film. By coincidence, I viewed this for the first time today, the day after Donald Rumsfeld had to fall on his sword. Mr. Rumsfeld's verbatim remarks in press conferences were included in several key sections of Control Room.I think it is particularly worthwhile to view this now, if one is interested in growing insights into how history really unfolds. I don't think the film will look the same now as it did to many who viewed it (and commented on it) two years ago. It struck me as quite extraordinary. See how it strikes you.

Dennis Littrell (Note: Over 500 of my movie reviews are now available in my book "Cut to the Chaise Lounge or I Can't Believe I Swallowed the Remote!" Get it at Amazon.)While this is not by any means a prize-winning documentary it is still worth seeing because of the perspective gained. To see the war through Arab/Muslim eyes is what is gained. It is a bit chilling. Most of us watched the war through the eyes of CNN or Fox or PBS or one or more of the networks, and we saw a biased view. The real carnage was withheld from us because it was believed that to show the bleeding and mangled bodies was to (1) inflame opinion (2) give assistance to the enemy.It was almost impossible for an American news source to present the war as it really was. No American network executive could do that. But for Al Jazeera, no such reluctance existed. And that is the value of this documentary: it allows us to see what our own news media dared not show, although that too was only part of the story.Filmmaker Jehane Noujaim uses interviews and footage from inside Al Jazeera's "control room" and footage from the communications center of the coalition forces to show how the reporters worked. Reports from the US authorities, Rumsfeld and the generals, the media officers in the field and at the communications center, are contrasted with actual footage and reports from Iraq. It is clear that the news was managed by both Western services and by Al Jazeera to conform to the expectations and interests of their differing audiences.Frankly I was surprised that the bias wasn't greater (on both sides). I came away feeling that, given that modern wars are won or lost to some extent by how well the combatants manage the news, this war within a war was a toss up. And indeed despite Bush's declaration of victory aboard the aircraft carrier, the war on the ground as it exists today is still very much a toss up. Coalition forces roared into Iraq and found very little resistance. And then began the insurgency. What does it mean to win? How does one side lose? As in Vietnam, victory or defeat is to some extent in the eyes of those watching. In the field there was and is no victory. There is only carnage. And so the combatants try to spin the war to their advantage, because it is in the spin that one may find victory regardless of what happens in the field of battle. In this case, Saddam Hussein and the insurgents had no media. But the Muslim/Arab world needed such a media, and thereby arose Al Jazeera to spin the other side. This documentary affords us a quick look at that network.However I don't think this documentary was very effective. It lacked focus and continuity. It seemed hastily thrown together. We are shone some interviews, some on-camera reportorial and editorial activities, some footage from the field, from Baghdad, from Mosul. An Al Jazeera reporter is killed by an American missile. The people at Al Jazeera are deeply saddened and outraged. They think it was on purpose, to "punish" them for reporting what Rumsfeld doesn't want reported, and they may be right; but somehow the loss seems almost trivial compared to the rest of it: the tens of thousands of people dead, the uncounted maimed and wounded, the hundreds of billions of dollars spent like buckets of water poured upon a vast and seething desert. Somehow the "news" of the news reporters themselves seems somewhat irrelevant, almost, I thought, a vanity show. We have the power to report what happens, they are telling us. Therefore we have the power to create what happens.As was famously said, "In war, the first casualty is truth." One thing this documentary does do well is demonstrate the truth of that adage.

willib3 The act of war has been taking place for thousands of years. Over these years the goal has always remained the same; to win. To achieve victory one use to have to be the biggest, strongest, and most powerful. The rule has been that the country with the most fire power generally is the most successful. Now while this is still usually the case, there is a relatively new weapon that has begun to level the playing field. It is a weapon that most all countries have access to and can affect millions in minutes. It is a weapon that can moralize, enlighten, destroy, and confuse a nation. It is a weapon of the people. This powerful weapon is TV news; one of the leading tools in warfare today.Control Room is a film that captures the role of the media and TV news in the art of modern war. The film focuses on the Al Jazeera news network, the most popular and controversial news network in the Middle East. The documentary showcases the influence and usage of propaganda, both U.S. and Arab, in the Iraqi War. The film does this by interviewing Al Jazeera reporters and staff. Interviews with U.S. soldiers also make their way into the movie. Two sides to the story are always presented, often with argument. Some of the most interesting parts of the film are when an Al Jazeera reporter and a U. S. soldier discuss propaganda aspects of the war. Both have solid arguments and valid points. Their discussions reveal the fact that propaganda is not secret and it isn't something that the media and military is in denial about. In fact the film acknowledges that much of the war is fought through the TV using propaganda.Some of the most compelling images in the film are of the Iraqi people. Images of women and children crying, bleeding, and cursing the U.S. leave a lasting impact. Are these images real? Or were they created or misused to stir up certain emotions in the Arab world? These are the kinds of questions that Control Room has you asking. The film also examines American propaganda, such as in the event of Saddam's statue being torn down. Everyone has seen the footage of one of Saddam's giant statues being torn down by the Iraqi people and an American flag being raised. Were all those young guys just sitting around in the square at that certain moment carrying a U.S flag? Or did the U.S. army plant them there and give them an American flag to fly? Either way, what the world saw were images of the Iraqi people tearing down the statue of their leader. They were images that created a sense of victory for the United States.It is the images of war that are so powerful, emotional, and disturbing. But it is also the images of war that we need to be leery of. People tend to think pictures and videos equal proof and it's these beliefs that the TV news stations are counting on. Control Room brings this to our attention. Straight from the mouths of the reporters and soldiers come the details and levels of the propaganda. The reasons behind certain images and footage becomes clear. Millions of Arabs throughout the Middle East watch Al Jazeera, believe in it, and trust it. The power it holds is incredible."They are trying to manage the news in an unmanageable situation", is one of the most captivating quotes of the movie and is spoken by a fed up Al Jazeera news reporter. This quote sums up the message of Control Room. The TV news is no longer just reporting the news, they are managing it. News no longer just happens, it is created. This is a growing concern, and one that David Perlmutter writes about in his essay entitled "Living-Room Wars". Perlmutter comments on how wars are now fought on large part by the media and on TV. The misconception that we are getting the straight and true facts when we watch the news is huge problem. Viewers hold a false perception of how informed they are. When viewers see footage of something they tend to believe that the footage they are seeing is the same as what they are being told it is. Perlmutter discusses how this isn't always the case and certain footage is often chosen to entice certain emotions. Control Room gives us a sense of how strong these emotions can be and the levels of propaganda that can accompany them. It is a movie that makes you think about modern war and how much of what you know about it is actually true.

wierdo4jc Recently in my English class, we read "Living-Room Wars," by David D. Perlmutter that discussed how most people gain information on rather large topics like contemporary wars from sitting on their couches in their living rooms, watching the television set. In his essay, Perlmutter describes the term "living-room war" not as "physical proximity - battle that can be smelled and felt a few inches away – but the para-proximity enabled by modern communications technology, especially the satellite" (Perlmutter 525). They see bloody drastic images of men fighting other men with brief captions like "live" and 'up close and personal" so they think they are experiencing war for themselves. He also acknowledges the great influence newscasters have because they act like subjective filters that restrict the public's view of war and narrow or even sometimes make the interpretations the public have. What the public sees on the news channels is what they are told is important and think is important because that is what is being shown. He describes this as a "circular, self-limiting system and a conflation of communal enlightenment and ignorance" (Perlmutter 529). A recent documentary, "Control Room," thoroughly studies the differences between the Arab news network Al Jazeera and the American news networks stationed in Iraq at the same time. The movie shares the different viewpoints of United States and Iraq. Iraq think United States is there to gain control while United States is there to hopefully maintain control. Although, I can not blame Al Jezeera for feeling invaded by the American news networks. The movie shows that all the major American news shows have rooms stationed there in hopes of filming the most recent and important news stories. Perlmutter discusses a problem of how reporters will inundate a foreign land where American troops have been sent to fight or intervene. "The sheer number of journalists committed to one story means that any other news is largely impossible to cover – no cameras are available for disaster elsewhere in the world once the global press corps has been committed to one site" (Perlmutter 539). The movie goes on to explain how biased both the news networks really are. For example, Al Jazeera has commercials showing United States invading their land followed by pictures of a stranded baby and then dead bodies. The news network from United States may show images of Iraqi men under the control of Saddam Hussein killing and invading the homes of their own people. The movie stresses the influence of images and pictures both media show. Similarly, in "Living-Room Wars," Perlmutter devotes part of his essay to explain the power of images. He provides three different powers of images of war or any other subject. The first is that images can have aesthetic power and the second is that pictures can serve as an icon. The third power of picture which is also described in the movie is their political power because images are the driving force of policy and publics. The pictures of dead bodies shown on the news for either side evoke emotion, sometimes sadness, but more often than desired, anger and the need for revenge. One person says in the movie that "pictures are so desperate." The movie mentions that Al Jezeera shows more bloody images than the American news. Al Jezeera is even shown to use media and images to lie to the country. After the Americans bombed a certain place in Iraq, Al Jezeera instructed women and children to go to that area so that they could be filmed there in the ruins. Since so many people would be watching this particular news network, Bush labeled Al Jezeera the mouthpiece of Saddam Hussein. One good point the movie brings up about Al Jezeera is that they invite Americans to speak on their news show and voice their point of views. At least they are trying to get the other side, whether or not they believe it or not. The newscasters try to interview people who have both sides of the story. Even though, Al Jezeera still does not show everything to its public. The American soldiers stationed there can tell what they are showing and what they are excluding from the news. The exact same can go for the American news. One person during the movie mentions that what the Iraqi public do not know is what Al Jezeera is not reporting or showing. Perlmutter brings up this point when he says that "what is not visualized is not news." The media is so influential that it can ignore an issue or an event and "thus withhold it from the collective consciousness and attention of the world" (Perlmutter 538). "Control Room" does a thorough job of discussing both the good and bad points of Al Jezeera as well as the American news. It films both sides and both point of views. It shows the substantial significance of television news in informing the public of what is happening to their country and others, even if the news will be biased. It brings up a question of whether or not there are any journalists who are objective to the war and telling news. It clearly proves that sadly, there are none.