The perfect counterpoint to Michael Moore's The Awful Truth and Fahrenheit 9/11, filmmaker/host Evan Coyne Maloney's Brain Terminal compiles a freewheeling cavalcade of Moore-style video agit-prop segments with a definite conservative bent. Filming various demonstrations and rallies where groups argue about topics including an end to the war in Iraq, Palestinian independence, and the political overthrow of President Bush, Maloney and his filmmaking team frequently run into resistance from people who exhibit some of the very same censorious behavior that the demonstrators ascribe to the U.S. government and mainstream media. Asking simple questions that apparently defied simple answers--such as whether the protestors condemn Saddam Hussein's excesses in the same manner they decry Bush's--Maloney, like Moore, receives responses that are both amusing and telling as the left-leaning interviewees grow the same feet of clay that plagued Roger Moore and Charlton Heston in the glare of Moore's camera in Roger & Me and Bowling for Columbine, respectively. Moore himself is ambushed on the street in one delightful exchange that, although initially contentious, ends up with some common ground discovered, including Moore's confirmation that his works (like the then in-development Fahrenheit 9/11) are more like video op-ed pieces than documentaries. A politically-charged change of pace package offering equal time to the right, this is recommended. Aud: H, C, P. (M. Tribby)
Brain Terminal: The Complete Video Set
(2004) 61 min. DVD: $21.99. CustomFlix. Color cover. Volume 19, Issue 5
Brain Terminal: The Complete Video Set
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