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Reviews
The Coming War on China (2016)
Deceptive Title and Highly Manipulative
The title of this piece is deliberately deceptive.
There is nothing in this piece of work which leads one to believe there will be war on china. The title also alludes to the extremely biased design, content and manipulative nature of the narration. The War ON China, not with. China is an innocent baby in this doco and the big bad, salivating wolf is the good ol' US of A. I would say 80% of it is interviews with people that were inadvertently hurt by the US 50-80 years ago or about 'ancient' US history, blended with interviews with protesters against the US.
The narration drips with a morally condescending tone and feels self indulgent, a pat on their own back - throughout. The only good thing about this doco was that it a gave a sense of the domination mindset of strategic military planning, which was interesting and it ties into the historical content yet these intellectual aspects of it were 20% of the content.
The rest of the doco is like watching an hour of commercials for starving children with the narration smugly 'using' the viewers empathy for individuals to muster up anger towards the United States. That is the objective of this doco - it is not meant to inform about any actual war on China.
Ironically, it uses fear of war to sell itself - which is precisely what the doco attacks America for doing - throughout history with naval bases (using fear of war to achieve its aims). I feel a sense of disgust toward this doco but there is 20% that is worthwhile).
If you are cynical about the United States and want to poor the fertiliser of confirmation bias on your mind, this doco could be for you...which is why its promoted on RT I suppose.
There are better docos about military strategy and army bases if you're interested in that 20% of it.
Hunting Hitler (2015)
Fascinating and frustrating
I've watched every episode. I am hooked but there are some moments that I find irritating, like when the investigators in the field seem to have their minds blown by 'less than hard evidence'. Its all very canned. Everyone is always shocked and aghast at virtually every moment, no matter how objectively trivial. Its obviously largely scripted and planned out in advance.
Its clearly based on the book by the guy that wears the scarf every time. You get the sense that many of the people they 'run into' are paid to be there or notified prior to it. Like Borman's 'daughter' who just happened to be dressed like she was going to an interview, fire going in the background of her living room. Make up on. They didn't just turn up. It was planned.
90% of the time they take whatever someone says as a 'breaking point in the investigation' get super excited and say something like 'this could be a major turning point in the investigation'. They've said that about 40 times already.
It's dramatic and draws you in but its annoying because its very predictable. Even when they turned up to the Nazis cult camp and the guy was so surprised to see that its a tourist resort. Really? They didn't Google it before they left? Give me a break producers! So there is that stage managed stuff clearly present but at the same time is fascinating to see and learn about the history of it. Its a compelling story regardless of whether Hitler left Germany and extremely well funded judging by how many countries they visit in each episode. They have showcased some interesting discoveries, some of which probably weren't planned, per say, but rather additional to what they went to film. That's how I see it.
So at worst its a very interesting documentation of things we had heard about (Argentina etc) but hadn't seen yet on film in this close and upfront way. Like I said I'm hooked but I'd prefer it if they toned down the stagecraft.