Change Your Image
mnm619
Reviews
Year One: A Political Odyssey (2022)
Washington Pats Itself on the Back
This documentary is basically just clips of a handful of people from the Biden team telling you how great they and their administration are. The filmmakers don't provide any critical commentary. The likes of Ron Klain and Jen Psaki don't show any signs of having engaged in any self reflection or self criticism. It makes for a dull documentary that offers few lessons or explanations about anything.
Making it even duller, the production value is pretty low. There's nothing appealing or interesting about the visuals or the audio, and a lot of the interview clips are 50%+ too long for what little information they offer.
I'm not really sure who this was made for. It'd be painfully boring for anyone who's not deeply interested in our politics, but it offers nothing new for anyone who follows the White House at all closely... just the same self-comgratulatory spiels these officials deliver all the time.
*yawn*
GMO OMG (2013)
At once biased and partially balanced.
Like most criticisms of GMOs, this film makes a number of arguments that abuse science and twist economics. I have some concerns about the loss of biodiversity that modern agribusiness begets, the legal framework surrounding engineered seeds, etc., but so far the evidence indicates that GMO crops are safe to consume (which isn't to say that no GMO seed could ever be unsafe) and it's clear that genetic modifications have dramatically increased crop yields, lifting countless people out of poverty and preventing countless people in poverty from experiencing hunger or starvation. The filmmaker didn't seem to understand the benefits of GMOs or the economics of agriculture. On the other hand, he did seem to let the number of farmers that he interviewed, who had a variety of perspectives, speak for themselves. I found their comments, whether pro-GMO, anti-GMO or ambivalent, very worthwhile.
I don't think that the filmmaker really got it on the issue and I wouldn't recommend that anyone watch the film as their sole exposure to the GMO issue, but people who are interested in such things could probably, if they're balancing the film out with resources of other perspectives, find value in it.