Don't Believe the Hype

Admirable film.

A Masterpiece!

The best films of this genre always show a path and provide a takeaway for being a better person.

this is a very brilliantly made documentary. there are more than one narratives going at once, streaming to you in a cleverly cut together fashion, which normally juxtaposes what is being said to what the opposite is.for those who say this film is like a music video rather than a documentary, all i can say is that you don't get it. the fashion and rhythmic style of the editing is not to make it amusing but to hammer and retort on the style of consuming that exists today. that is, to repeatedly go back and back and back and back to the same product and consumer goods to feed feed feed feed our structured likes/wants/needs from advertising from a completely absorbing imperialistic consumer society.with that said, if that made sense to you, you too would enjoy this documentary; it changed the way i looked at life to an extent.go watch this film. now.

There is virtually no 'substance' to this so-called documentary. I say so-called, because it doesn't actually document anything. What a wast of time: every scene is repeated at least 3 times. 15 minutes of the movie isn't in English and doesn't have subtitles. Only about 10 minutes of the film actually addresses its anti-capitalist theme. And none of that 10 minutes offers any facts or evidence, just the rantings of a single fringe radical author; 'we should tear up the highways' and 'starbucks is wiping out freedom.' It sorta felt like a cross between two very good documentaries (Koyaanisqatsi and The Corporation) that was somehow managed to be perfectly terrible.

Yet another in a new tradition of categorizing propaganda films as "documentaries" even though they blatantly turn a blind eye to any document or details that disprove their intended message. This film avoids any and all intelligent comments on the subject of consumerism and relies solely on leveraging emotional hot buttons. It is neither factual nor accurate, but what is far worse is that it pretends to be.With a running time of just under an hour, this could easily have been a fifteen minute film if all the repetition were removed. Repetition is one of the foundational tools of brainwashing, which makes this film all the more damaging. Hand selected and trimmed pieces of second hand footage are looped over and over to try and force the viewer into a trance so that direct access to the mind without having to bother working through the intellect can be achieved.Film makers such as this need to realize that if their point cannot be made in a straightforward and concise manner, without stealth and duplicity, then perhaps their point of view is not valid in the first place. It is hard to accept a message of "let's destroy society and return to the days of the cave man" when it is recorded and delivered on through one of the most technologically advanced mediums ever known on earth. It is important to note that I am not putting words into anybody's mouth here, the film makers repeatedly advocate the destruction of all technology so that mankind may return to the simplicity and hedonism of the cave man eras. Somehow a the destruction of property is not a form of violence and at the same time a return to savagery is also a non-violent plan of action.Avoid this film like the plague.

A very unusual documentary about consumerism. I preferstatistics-filled, dry, just-throw-the-facts-at-me types ofdocumentaries. I find most of Michael Moore's humor distracting to hismain points, for example. This film uses a variety of techniques toappeal to emotions. For instance, it uses a sometimes annoying, sometimes surprisinglyeffective tactic of repeating sound bites. The footage ranges fromprotests to interviews. Footage includes a Cuban teen's reactions tovisiting McDonalds, to European homeless people, to Microsoft's SteveBallmer dancing around screaming to motivate Windows programmers at aconference. It's truly unusual, but despite my preference for "drier"more fact-oriented documentaries, I found this unusual emotion-appealfilm quite enjoyable and effective. That surprised me; perhaps it willyou too?