Videocracy

Those who deplore the state of American network television may have second thoughts after watching this documentary about its Italian counterpart, featuring snippets of programming (mostly of sex-suffused game shows and smutty soaps) that make U.S. fare look mild by comparison. But writer-director Erik Gandini's Videocracy has a bigger target in mind than just the Italian boob tube, trying to tie the entire culture of cheap vulgarity it represents to Silvio Berlusconi, the media mogul who (according to Gandini) not only molded Italian commercial TV in his own image but also used its power to place himself in an unassailable position as the country's prime minister. This grand argument is made with a focus on just a few people: the nation's biggest star-making agent (and a friend of Berlusconi's), a paparazzi king (who often sells his compromising photos to the subjects themselves), and a regular Joe who dreams of making it big as a martial-arts singer. The corpulent agent and the sleazy photographer admittedly make a creepy pair (the former's adulation of Mussolini is chilling), but simply filming them preening in their power doesn't effectively make the case, while the would-be warbler is not much odder than those who fake a child's balloon trip or crash a White House gala in order to gain media attention. And the ladling of portentous music over the images doesn't seal the deal. Not recommended. Aud: C, P. (F. Swietek)