A Few Documentaries

I've watched a a couple of documentaries this week, The Yes Men and Loose Change. I had to watch the former in class this week, since the prof decided to be away for whatever reason. I heard about the latter from a friend while studying, so I thought I'd check it out. I'm not really going to give reviews of these in my usual manner... but maybe a few thoughts about my impressions of both.

The Yes Men
The movie's about a group of people impersonating the World Trade Organization through various speeches, a website and tv appearances. The main goal of the group is/was to expose who they felt the WTO truly represented and to make the general public and all those with a vested interest realize their impact. The movie is absolutely hilarious in their delivery and just the stunts they manage to pull off. What's even funnier though, and actually completely appalling, is the reactions, or lack thereof, of the various audiences that The Yes Men speak to. They would say absolutely atrocious things, like a theory that if slavery should have never been abolished, since it would've naturally been eliminated, and it would be very easily accepted by a group of apparent intellectuals (I forget the exact context). The main idea of the impersonations was to draw out a highly negative response from the audiences, but none were forthcoming. It was actually sickening to see everything happening. It wasn't until the group spoke to a bunch of students at a college that they got their desired reaction.

Anyway, I wouldn't necessarily say I buy into everything they're trying to represent, nor do I condone their methodology, but they're definitely an interesting bunch of guys. I highly recommend this movie to everyone.

Loose Change: 2nd Edition
This documentary has (apparently) been circulating for quite a while, but I hadn't heard about it until just yesterday. The movie's about 9/11/01, and a possible US government conspiracy. Now, everyone loves a good conspiracy theory, and it's pretty infathomable to think that the US government actually had anything to do with the attacks, but the movie does bring up some very interesting points to say the least.

They make a couple of claims. First, that although the planes may or may not have been hijacked, their impact into the buildings and the subsequent fires may not have been the cause of the collapse of both World Trade Center buildings. Their theory is that there had been explosives planted inside the buildings themselves and that they were there to demolish the buildings. I'm not going to go into any of the details, but some of the evidence is fairly compelling, but I personally would be hard pressed to fully believe their theory.

Second, the incident at the Pentagon may not have involved a plane at all. The evidence supporting this theory is that the resulting hole from the apparent crash was MUCH too small to have been caused by a 757, there were no skid marks on the grass (unless it hit directly... nearly impossible, but...) and there was no discernable wreckage (fuselage, wings, engines, cockpit, anything) at ALL at the scene. I think more than any of the others, this was the most compelling.

Lastly, they also claim that the plane that crash-landed outside of Pennsylvania may not have been the correct flight at all. They showed evidence that the actual plane may have landed elsewhere. They also claimed that like the Pentagon, there was no discernable wreckage and that the impact crater was much too small to have been made by a 757. This is probably the least compelling theory, but it still raises some interesting questions.

So what do I really think? I don't know. Some of their evidence is pretty stinking compelling, but to think that the US government actually planned any of the events of 9/11 is incomprehensible to me. Did they cover stuff up though? Of that, I'm almost certain. Anyway, this is really something everyone should check out and make their out conclusions about. You can watch it online at the link below.

http://video.google.ca/videoplay?docid=7866929448192753501