Control Room (2004)

The Age of Commercialism

Sadly Over-hyped

I really wanted to like this movie. I feel terribly cynical trashing it, and that's why I'm giving it a middling 5. Actually, I'm giving it a 5 because there were some superb performances.

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

A few things I found interesting with Al Jazerra that this film brought out. One was a scene where one of the Al Jazerra reporters see's an old colleague from the BBC and then the BBC employee asked the Al Jazerra reported who he was working for, he indicated Al Jazerra - the BBC reported responded "Of Course you are". We find out most of Al Jazeera are former BBC employees. Why is that interesting, well if one has ever seen BBC reporting and it's tainted way in delivering facts, one can see where Al Jazeera learned it's style. Unfortunately, the reporters for Al Jazeera and it's editorial/management was like listening to sophomore journalist majors in college. Now, I can't give a proper assessment of the intellect of the average Arab, but the people in this film representing Al Jazeera were not impressive with there arguments. They were clearly against US policy with Iraq War, however they never addressed the real problems in the Middle East Region. Al Jazerra unknowingly became a mouthpiece and support of corrupt Muslim leaders.The second scene was near the end of the file where the female producer was in shock of the reaction of the Iraqi's in Baghdad after the fall of Saddam. She (then later the senior editor and another person who I was not able to identify but was a employee of Al Jazeera) were quick with conspiracy theories. That the people bringing down Saddam statue were actors and that the people celebrating were Kurds - as if Arabs couldn't be happy with the removal of Saddam. Ironically, which news agency was the first to report from a Saddam Hussein rally - Al Jazeera. Talk about a staged event - I believe any protest or rally in the Arab world is staged but Al Jazeera has no problem reporting them with seriousness of any news event.I came away with the idea Al Jezeera is not a bad thing but was run by people that simply not qualified or "bright enough" to do a good fair job. However, it is worth watching to get another view and help understand how others think. I think most people who watch this file will see that Al Jezeera does preach a double standard but will never own up to it. I don't think they come close to reaching the journalistic standards of most western world.

Dear IMDb:I found no other way to do this, so I'm using the "review" feature to do it: I couldn't remember the name of this film for many minutes (almost an hour) and I used your "keywords" and so on... but I couldn't draw up "Contol Room" that way.. Even when I typed in "iraq," or "Iraq War," I didn't get Control Room as one of the films on your data base. Now, I know that "key word" is not the same as, say, "Subject Heading" in a Library... but, it still bothers me, that key word means (evidently) nothing more than "one of the words of the title.." So, for example, if I was interested in Austrailia's history in the first World War, I could type in all those words into the key words option, but my search wouldn't come up with "Gallipoli," because that isn't a key word?In short: is there no way to have a "subject search" as part of your searching options? (And if not, why not?)Yours,Jerry Dyer

Control Room is the latest film from the Egyptian-born Harvard-educated director of startup.com, Jehane Noujaim.It follows the only independent news service in the Middle East, Al Jazeera, for six weeks, starting one week before the US invasion of Iraq in 2004.The war's press coverage was delivered from US military Central Command in Qatar, right near Al Jazeera's HQ. One of the things Control Room demonstrates is just how manufactured the news stories of the war were.We hear from several Al Jazeera employees (including women), some Western journalists and also from US Lieutenant Josh Rushing, the idealistic Central Command Press Officer.There are several reasons why Control Room is compelling viewing. Firstly because Al Jazeera is an independent satellite service in a culture which does not have a history of freedom of the press.Also, because both the US Government and many Middle Eastern governments condemn Al Jazeera for broadcasting propaganda, it reminds me of the conundrum often facing Australia's ABC. Yes, Al Jazeera gets it wrong sometimes, like any other broadcaster, but they are attempting and I'd suggest, often succeeding, at delivering relatively balanced journalism.One of the things most criticized about Al Jazeera was for broadcasting messages from Osama Bin Laden. But I think just about any network that had that exclusive would do the same thing, as demonstrated by so many networks quoting the Bin Laden tapes. Unfortunately this is not covered in the film, but another Al Jazeera technique criticized in Control Room is their decision to broadcast footage of US military hostages, including the dead. As an NBC correspondent said, they just don't do that kind of thing in America. But it's very common for Western viewers to see and be shocked by horrific images on television. By broadcasting footage of these US soldiers, at least some of the Al Jazeera demographic would empathize with the suffering Westerners. Before that, much of their footage was of how Iraq's civilian population was suffering. In hindsight, now that it's been revealed that the US tortured prisoners, Al Jazeera's stance seems vindicated.

1- NOT at all what it purports to be. 2- Unbalanced. 3- Uses mostly slanted Al Jazeera so-called reporters. 4- Sneaky one-sided political propaganda - the systematic propagation of a doctrine or cause or of information reflecting the views and interests of those advocating such a doctrine or cause.5- I read many of the other reviews on here from those who express their love of this terrible piece and wonder if they have a clue about unbiased journalism...6- It just goes to show that if you want to suck in millions of movie-goers or movie-buyers, just make a one-sided piece, distort the facts as much as possible, and you'll get sales from people who are hungry for any support for their point-of-view. No matter how sloppy and biased the piece may be, you'll get rich using the same method as Michael Moore.