Oh how I miss the afternoon talk show glory days. When ‘Trash TV’ ruled the airwaves and Sally Jessy, Geraldo and Donahue fought it out each day, attempting to outdue eachother by showcasing increasingly quirky guests and controversial topics. Now jump ahead to 2006; Sally Jesse has fallen off of the face of the earth, Geraldo has his own current events news magazine show on the Fox News network, and Donahue is recently jobless after being canned from his own MSNBC show. Sure it gave him more time to focus on his pony collection, but it sort of left a sour taste in his mouth. According to Phil, he believes he was let go because of his vocal stance against the war in…i seem to have forgotten…where it…oh, Iraq! That’s right.
We all know how taboo it is to criticize the president and his war (sarcasm), so it’s no wonder that Donahue and his views have been pulled from the airwaves. Little did MSNBC know that with it’s decision to can Phil, it has created yet another self-appointed documentary filmmaker attempting to expose the injustice and horrors of the Iraq war. That’s right, Donahue is making his own Iraq documentary. More specifically, the film will focus on 24-year-old Tomas Young, an Iraq war vet paralyzed from the chest down. Okay, the war is horrible and questions should be asked, but…really? Phil needs to make this film? We need to know what happened to this specific soldier? Don’t we know what happened? What will this reveal to us that we don’t already know? The cynic in me feels that this is just another golden opportunity. Donahue got canned for expressing his views, so now he’ll use this film as a platform to express his views, all the while sticking this kid in front of the camera to prove his point. Is this exploitation? Documentaries are a great tool to expose the news that the mainstream media are afraid to tell us, but with everyone and his brother shooting an Iraq documentary, it seems to have lost it’s power.
Related Link: Cinematical: Donahue Directs Documentary
24year old is a kid?
It’s not exploitation because the dude obviously has agreed to do the movie….
I have no idea who this Donahue fellow is, but I can safely say I will never see this movie. How about you use the budget to tell an untold story, instead of this political BS.
‘24 year old a kid?’ – yes.
‘It’s not exploitation because the dude obviously agreed to do the movie…’ – It doesn’t matter if the person agreed to do it, it’s the intentions of the film makers and the execution of the film that make it exploitation.
I thought you meant he was exploiting his subject… Not that the film itself would be an exploitation piece. In that sense, I guess you’re right.
24 is not a kid though. If you meet a 24year old acting like a kid, he’s not a kid but a retard.
Perhaps the movie should be viewed before writing a review.
I agree. This wasn’t a review of the film, it was a news item/editorial. A simple post on my blog expressing my thoughts on this project in hopes to create discussion.
Having said that, i’m pleased to inform you that I will continue to review films the old fashioned way, after having seen them. You can check those out to the right of this column under the heading ‘Latest Documentary News’.
Don’t you mean ‘Latest Documentary Reviews’?
Of course I did. You have just passed my…test? I had simply slipped in ‘News’ to…create a healthy debate on whether or not it’s Latest Documentary News or Latest Documentary Reviews. Clearly it’s reviews.
Ugh. I need to stop the early morning postings from work. Thanks for the correction.