Control Room Reviews
Valuable for the authentic interviews it provides & the relatively balanced look at the subject. I liked seeing how the American military man's viewpoint widened over time.
Interesting documentary about Al Jazeera. The most interesting information was that both sides dislike them.
Captivating and compelling, Control Room feels like the kind of film that's poignant message will remain so for generations to come. I read a review of this, written in 2004, that said the film probably won't be as powerful 10 years from now. Well, it's 10 years from 2004, and I think the film is still incredibly powerful. Director Jehane Noujaim may have just wanted to make a film about Al Jazeera and the western media's assault against it, but really he made a film about war and how we see "the enemy". It's a film about how the media controls the way we receive information. Are we really getting the full story? Is there real, objective journalism? Noujaim might posit that there's not, and that the idea of true objectivity in journalism is an impossibility. I love the honesty and the raw and rough production of this film. It feels incredibly authentic. Even if it's not, during the near 90 minute run time, you believe it is. You are drawn into the lives of these people, and you care about what happens to them. You are outraged alongside of them, and you feel the weight of what is going on. Control Room proves that there are no "clean" wars. There are always civilian casualties. We need journalists to remind us of the civilians casualties and the cost of war, so that we are hesitant to engage in it. So that we can be a country that doesn't rush to war, but only engages in war when absolutely necessary.
Brilliant documentary that chroniclers the start of the Iraq on the Arab side. With interviews from Al Jazaeera, we get a glimpse into the war that we've never seen, and it's an engaging documentary that shows us something that is captivating in the sense that we get a different look at the war, and the documentary goes in depth on its topic. I'll keep my personal feelings of that war out of this review, but what is presented here can raise questions in viewers. Al Jazeera did not sugar coat the images, and showed the world disturbing images of the conflict that raised many eyebrows. As a documentary, Control Room is a powerful, engaging picture that offers something quite different than what the other news networks has given viewers. This tells the story from the Arab point of view, and it does it very well, and with this film, we get a much more complete picture from both sides of the spectrum of the Iraq War. The film is brilliantly shot with plenty of interviews and war footage to tell its story. Control Room is an important film, a documentary that is well worth your time if you are interested in the subject. Control Room's power is in the way it tackles the subject by documenting it from a different point of view. The film focuses on the new coverage of the war, and it's a captivating look at that, and Al Jazeera is the focal point of the film, but we also have other news agencies documented. However like I said, Al Jazaeera is the main focus and what is presented here is quite interesting, and we get a great portrait from the Arab side as well, which is quite interesting.
A chilling documentary about the propaganda war leading up to and in the Iraq War by the Bush administration and the Al-Jazeera journalist that gave his life so that the other sides story could be heard. A documentary that only leads to many disturbing conclusions about how the war was sold to the American people. Interesting side note, Lieutenant Josh Rushing, seen in this documentary who often portrays Al-Jazeera as showing the wrong side of the story, resigned his position with the U.S. Marine Corps and now works for Al-Jazeera.
Fascinating take on coverage of the Iraq War that shows that in the fight for objectivity, subjectivity reins.
A powerful documentary about Al-Jazeera's coverage of the Irag War. An eye-opening look of how the war was covered by Arab journalists.
One of those films every American should see. It reveals things about the war that needed to be made known long ago.
This documentary opened my eyes. I had watched news of the early days of the Iraq war on CNN (believing that CNN was more balanced than Fox,) and was susceptible to the spin perpetuated by the U.S. military. This film documentary shows the same war from the perspective of people who were there and not under U.S. control. There is a question raised as to whether one specific news event was staged by the U.S. military to get viewer's minds off criticisms, and whether the "accidental" bombing of Al-Jazeera was really an attempt to silence or influence them. One moving aspect of the film is U.S. Marine Josh Rushing, who was the press officer of Central Command, who begins to see the media bias from both sides.