Rating: 
Summary: For Chomsky Groupies Only
Review: Having failed to deliver the theory of human language performance he promised 40 years ago, Chomsky cut his academic ties and now devotes himself to being the pop hero of the young Luddite movement. There are tens, and perhaps thousands of young disaffected youths out there who haven't read much history, have barely experienced any, but who have a tremendous need to believe that (1) the world doesn't have to be as terrible as they perceive it and (2) it's their parent's fault. What Chomsky provides for these children is the reassurance that this is so. He also provides the academic gloss that lends validity to their beliefs without having to actually think or consider other points of view. (The typical Chomskyite's library is rather small, and rarely contains anything to the right of, say, Che Guevera.) You can see these kids on TV every time there's a major conference of world leaders anywhere on the globe. What are they protesting? Ask a dozen protestors, and get a dozen answers. The world bank. Fascism. War. Famine. Whatever. If it's bad, they're against it, and the leaders are responsible. Oddly enough, Chomsky and his acolytes are never seen protesting slavery in Africa, slaughter in Rwanda, torture in Iran, execution of petty criminals in China or the repression of homosexuals in Cuba. This may lead the cynical to wonder if Chomsky's real agenda actually has anything to do with human rights, and if the children who follow him aren't unlike the those who followed the Pied Piper of Hamlin. Watch and learn.
Rating: 
Summary: My Own Emotionally Potent Over-Simplification
Review: This movie is an excellent introduction to Noam Chomsky and the logic behind his ideas. Chomsky's writings and comments can sometimes appear to be quite dense, but Mark Achbar and Peter Wintonick do a wonderful job editing this documentary so that the viewer is not completely overwhelmed with the information being presented. In my opinion, this documentary should be required viewing for all high school seniors!
Rating:
Summary: Great Video
Review: You're never view popular media the same way ever again. Unless, you're cretin and don't get...then just keep living in you prozac laden bubble world of delight in aloofness and obedience.
word.
Rating:
Summary: It's just outstanding
Review: I watched it twice. There's alot to think about in there. Chomsky's views sound very alien at first but once you understand and think about them they seem very obvious. In a nutshell it is that as a nation we have to begin seeing ourselves as others see us. Terrorism is not only what they do to us, it's what we do to them.
Rating:
Summary: A must have for ANY intellect!
Review: This is an amazing film that introduces one of the greatest thinkers of all time! This 3 hour film just scratches the surface on what Noam Chomsky is about. This film is supposed to get you wanting to know more. To watch this film and do nothing further would be a crime in itself. After this, you should start reading his books such as "Manufacturing Consent," "Necessary Illusions," and what I think is his best book "Year 501, The Conquest Continues." This great man tells everyone to be skeptical but not hopeless. You can't be overwhelmed by the system because many people who's names go unmentioned in history have laid the ground work for our comfortable standard of living today. He also emphasizes that he doesn't have all the answers, despite what some fans say of him, but rather the people have the potential to answer the unanswerable questions if they are able to go the right direction. Other works you should read are Ralph Nader and Howard Zinn. Nader is a great complement because he is great at domestic policy while Chomsky focuses more on foreign policy.
Rating:
Summary: A great American Hero
Review: This wonderful film will expose many to Dr. Chomsky for the first time. This brilliant American scholar and activist has more wisdom and integrity than most of our congress combined. Everything Dr. Chomsky has to say can be substanciated, this should be required viewing for every high school student. Wake up and learn what is being done by this government around the world in your name. Learn how the controlled media works non stop to mis and dis inform the general public and how any debate is usually outside of the parameters that should really be addressed. You can see how much worse it has gotten when you realize this film is 10 years old.....Dont miss it, Long Live Chomsky!
Rating:
Summary: One of the best documentaries ever.
Review: I'd give it 6 stars if I could. The material is great not only because it's Chomsky speaking on interviews and lectures, but because the documentary is incredibly well made, truly excellent. Consistent, serious, funny, scary, but mainly important. This is a must-see video, it should be on every TV in the western world every morning, so people could learn about indoctrination, thought control, etc, and maybe identify with it as I did. We are very much an indoctrinated and though-controlled society, but some of us can't see that clearly for some reason. This video made me feel very ashamed - because I do music for commercials too - but hey...a musician gotta make a living....give a guy a break!
Rating: 
Summary: Eye Opener
Review: I think that the title should be Through the Eyes of Noam Chomsky. You get a good bio of Noam and insight to his early work with language. His philosophy is definitely Left-wing and he defends his position extremely well. Out of his presentation, he successfully argues that the "free" press isn't free at all. Rather the press is complicit with state and business not from threats of censorship but rather market forces. What news is sellable. This DVD should be required viewing in any Media or Journalism curriculum. Maybe then we can have free press.
Rating:
Summary: The best documentary about US media I have ever watched!
Review: This video is one of the greatest material I think ever produced to capture the soul of the (mostly) US media. I have read many of other works by Dr Chomsky and being a person who closely follows the news specially in middle east, I think his views perfectly describe what is going on in US. To say the least he is honest and fair, something you can rarely find.
Watch it and judge for yourself, you won't regret it!
Rating: 
Summary: Does what it says on the tin.
Review: Noam Chomsky is a revolutionary linguist whose ideas about how language structures are learnt by people led him into thinking about the workings of the mass media. His findings radicalised him politically, and he because the most famous counter-cultural academic in the US, a leading anti-Vietnam activist, and consistently critical of US foreign policy. To simplify his argument would be to fall into the 'soundbite' or 'concision' traps set by the media that he talks about, but basically, he suggests that the mass media, owned by a handful of major corporations whose representatives hold major decision-making positions in the American government, manipulate and deliberately limit the information the public receives. Exhaustive research has shown him that the leading newspapers and TV stations toe the government line, giving much space to the subjects it wants promoted, and little or none at all to matters it wants kept secret or to which it is hostile. This, of course, means a silencing of dissent or alternative voices, but it also means the business of power (and potential corruption) is kept private. The most powerful example he gives concerns two atrocities that took place in Asia in the 1970s. One was the invasion of East Timor by Indonesia, which led to the genocide of a third of the indigenous population, the massacring of dissidents (including foreign journalists), the systematic destruction of millenia-old ways of life, and the enforced plantation of Indonesian settlers. The second was the Khmer Rouge terror in Cambodia. Because Indoneia were allies with America, the first invasion and genocide was ignored by the US media - especially the inconvenient fact that the US had asked the Indonesians to delay the invasion, so that a Presidential visit to the region wouldn't be unduly embarrassing. Because the Khmer Rouge were linked to the Soviets, endless column inches were devoted to their tyranny, with statistics distorted, photos staged and lies made fact. Chomsky argues that from Vietnam through Central America to the Gulf War, the media are, under the terms of the Nuremberg trials, as complicit in war crimes as the forces that carried out the killings, either by evasion or propaganda [with the subsequent explosion of the Internet and the current 'war' on 'terror', we have our own opportunity to put Chomsky's theories into practice]. This nexus carries over all aspects of American life, from domestic government to civil rights to sport (the latter is inculcated at an early age to encourage submission to authority, the group and jingoism!). Chomsky shows how the manipulation of the media is also crucial in the construction of history - the major source of historical record in the States are back issues of the New York Times, making today's lies tomorrow's facts. The situation seems bleak, but Chomsky sees some hope in the activities of protest groups and alternative media who try to bring to light news suppressed by the mainstream. But, he concedes, the dedication and energy needed for such a task will find few takers in the general populace. 'Manufacturing Consent' is basically a collection of interviews and talks given by Chomsky throughout his career, elucidiating his main arguemtns, with archive footage used not only as biography, but as 'evidence' for these arguments. Chomsky is always articulate and convincing, and films about ideas, being so rare, are always fresh and fascinating. Nevertheless, I had problems with this documentary - it was clearly aimed at teachers and students - important points and phrases are helpfully highlighted as in a lecture: I was watching the film because my wife was doing an essay on the mass media, and she was dutifully taking notes. Not only does this give students an excuse to themselves adapt soundbites rather than read the 400 page book of the same title, but it limits or alienates any other type of viewer. This kind of elitism extends not only to Chomsky's dubious panegyrics to 'ordinary' people, but in the way the film never questions Chomsky, his findings or his methodology - the section on East Timor is constructed in the same way as a mainstream TV report, but we're expected to believe THIS because it's from OUR side. Chomsky manufactures our consent for his ideas. Opponents are set up to be proved wrong. There is someting humourless, sanctimonious and monotonous about the subject's energy, heroic and necessary though he clearly is. His theories offer no possibility of play, difference or personal maneouvring by audiences within the mass media, such as we find in the French critical theory of the period - there is no place here for sexuality, desire or role play (although Chomsky's resemblance to Hugh Hefner led me on the oddest trains of thought). The most shocking, though relieving, moment in the film was the sequence on the controversy over a French historian, in which Chomsky signed a petition for a Holocaust denier, demanding his civil rights and writing a paper on freedom of speech in his defence. Some cretins, of course, confused this with supporting the historian's poisonous views. Many slurs and slanders were hurled against Chomsky during the controversy. What was shocking but relieving was the revelation that Chomsky bowed to pressure and asked that his paper not be published with the infamous book. So the saint has flaws after all.
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