Orwell Rolls in His Grave (2003)

Director:

Robert Kane Pappas

Writers:

Tom Blackburn, Robert Kane Pappas

Stars:

Charles Lewis, Robert McChesney, Mark Crispin Miller

Cast

Credited cast:
Charles Lewis	...	Founder of the Center for Public Integrity
Robert McChesney	...	Professor, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Mark Crispin Miller	...	Author, Professor, New York University
Bernie Sanders	...	Congressman from Vermont
Danny Schechter	...	Author
Rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Vincent Bugliosi	...	Attorney, Author
Jeff Cohen	...	Himself - Founder of FAIR
Dennis Kucinich	...	Himself (as Rep. Dennis Kucinich)
Mark Lloyd	...	Visiting Professor M.I.T.
Michael Moore	...	Himself
John Nichols	...	Himself
Greg Palast	...	Reporter
Tim Robbins	...	Himself (archive footage)
Helen Thomas	...	Herself

Storyline

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Plot Keywords:

media manipulation | politics | george orwell | deregulation | spin | 

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Genres:

Documentary

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Certificate:

Unrated

Details

Official Sites:

Official site

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Release Date:

19 November 2004 (UK)

Box Office

Opening Weekend:

$6,059 (USA) (23 July 2004)

Gross:

$19,257 (USA) (6 August 2004)

Company Credits

Production Co:

Sag Harbor-Basement Pictures

Technical Specs

Runtime:

84 min 103 min (Buenos Aires Festival Internacional de Cine Independiente)

Color:

Color

Did You Know?

Quotes

Narrator: Starting with Ronald Reagan, the Holy Grail of "de-regulation" has been sold to the public; and the news media has largely ignored its disastrous results.
Mark Lloyd: Once the Reagan administration was done, there were more rules. But they called it "de-regulation." It's, err, almost an Orwellian use of language: You create new rules, but the rules change, they benefit industry now, and you call it "de-regulation," because people *like* de-regulation, like fewer rules.

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Crazy Credits

War Is Not Peace Freedom Is Not Slavery Ignorance Is Not Strength

User Reviews

Great documentary, more important than Fahrenheit 9/11

This is an excellent documentary and, in my view, is more important than Michael Moore's film, Fahrenheit 9/11, in that it points to a fundamental, systemic problem in American society; the free flow of information. The movie paints a frightening picture of influence over the media, exerted by large corporations, and demonstrates that there is indeed a "vast right-wing conspiracy", aiming to control the media diet of American citizens.

Fed on managed, nutritionally devoid meals of sound-bites, sensationalism, and outright falsehoods, the average American citizen is made to exist in an unreality that is eerily similar to George Orwell's novel '1984'. Because of deregulation started in the Reagan era (if you see the documentary you will find that the word 'deregulation' is a misnomer), large multi-national corporations are now allowed to swallow up monopoly interests in various media outlets, thereby controlling the flow of information. This movie helped to confirm for me that American mainstream news is, at best, useless, and at worst, foisting upon us, an agenda that services the interests of the rich and powerful interests in this country.

So, go out and see this movie, or buy it online. The guy that made this film deserves a medal. Also, check out the "Center for Public Integrity" which is a news organization cited in the documentary. It is a non-partisan organization that is interested in uncovering corruption, wherever it is found.