Cebalord Very best movie i ever watch

Taraparain Tells a fascinating and unsettling true story, and does so well, without pretending to have all the answers.

AshUnow This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

Scarlet The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

Mort & Spunky the awesome cat Straight away, I'll disclose that I'm fascinated by politics and my views are probably to the left of most Nader voters, yet I've given over 5% of my income to the Democratic Party, Democratic candidates and pressure groups traditionally allied with the Democratic Party in recent years.This documentary takes the same cynical view of American politics most people use as an excuse to not involve themselves in the democratic process: Republicans and Democrats are the same. I think that this has been refuted by past five years--and it was simplistic and naive, at best, to think so before then. We get side-tracked by tactics of the LA and Philadelphia police departments, which would be good grounds for a POV documentary on PBS, and a number of other dead-end subtopics. Then, we get to see a few things C-SPAN and the networks failed to show, like the shadow convention--one of the reasons I give this a low average rating, rather than a poor rating.What this documentary and so many others fail to disclose is that we do live in a multi-party democracy within a two party system. The different factions within the Democratic and Republican Parties essentially give us the same choices one sees in the advanced multi-party democracies of Europe and elsewhere. We get to vote in primaries, they don't. Very briefly, Hoffman allows Barney Frank (always wise, witty and worthy of one's attention) to tell it like it is: Those on the left have abandoned the Democratic Party, if not the democratic process entirely, allowing it all to drift to the right. Simply put, most of those on the far right vote Republican. Most of those on the left don't vote, or waste their votes on people like Nader. Hence, Republicans win, Democrats lose. Unfortunately, Congressman Frank's wisdom (two minutes?) is almost wasted among the garbage here. I don't mean to split hairs here, but Rep. Frank was incorrectly identified with (R-MA) rather than (D-MA). Evidence of careless fact-checking? A thoughtful discussion with William Baldwin was the only other redeeming factor here. Unfortunately it was edited out, presumably because his was a progressive voice somewhat favoring the Democratic Party. It's among the extras on the DVD. Interestingly, among the predictions asserted by those being interviewed in this film, his are most eerily true.All in all, I would praise this if it were an effort by high school students. However this was done by people who should know better. Hopefully now they do.

jdollak I am a liberal. The first viewing of this film presents some serious filmmaking problems. I had no problem with the sequential editing, but the editing in general was a problem. This is MTV style editing. Lots of fast cuts, unstable shots, and so forth. I got used to it, but it still makes it look as low-budget as it is. There is a heavy use of music. I understand that music is an important part of any movie, but this seems almost like there is too much of an emphasis on it. I watched this for a second time, and the movie worked a whole lot better, although the editing/camerawork bothered me again. I hardly view the end as being partisan. Equal amounts of gore/bush protesters are out. The only thing I see is that the Gore protesters are concerned about their votes not counting, and the Bush protesters seem to focus on the idea of Gore being a sore loser. If you view that in a partisan way, it'll be partisan. To me, it isn't.The film is about the fact that the government does not represent everyone. I will concede that this film makes Nader out to be a hero. I found that I liked his ideas, although I would attribute some of that to his glorification in this film. The only thing that Hoffman outwardly seems to reject is the idea that all good will comes from religion. Otherwise, he really gives both sides an even view, and seems bored with the lack of content in either party.

jryan-4 For most of its duration, this entertainiing documentary seemsto aim at the "both sides are identical in that they are equallyindebted to corporations" logic until the very end when the Bushbashing starts which doesn't favor the democrats as much as itillustrates the absurdity of the 2000 election. In a no win situation italways seems prescient in afterthought to impale the winner. At first this stance appears inconsistent until it becomes clearthat this film proposes the Green Party and Ralph Nader as a thesupposed solution to this both sides bad pardigm . The bloom is far off the rose for this argument because it wasNader who in fact enabled the "victory" of Bush thus underscoringthe danger of naivete and over simplification during the electoralprocess. The jingoistic attitude of America continues to this verywriting. Now, much thanks to Nader and political thinking like the leftleaning bias ultimately revealedin this film, we have ironicallyarrived at Bush and a war about which the spy novelist / coldwarrior John LeCarre has written; " Don't pretend that this is notreligiously based. Don't pretend this is not a crusade. Don'tpretend this isn't about oil. Don't pretend this isn't about making afortune and keeping the American people on their heels in fear"Aside from that Mrs Lincoln, it was a pretty good play. six

gessel The Party's Over is a carefully constructed and thought-provoking look at both the democratic and republican parties, centering around each of their conventions before the 2000 election. The film makers got access to both conventions and do a wonderful job of showing the amazing hypocrisy of the US democratic process.The film makers are clearly and unapologetically left-leaning, but that doesn't translate to sparing anyone. Only the greens come out well, but even that is undermined by the outcome of the 2000 election, which is the film's enervating denouement.Mr. Hoffman does a great job with the interviews, becoming more confident as he moves along, and there's a charming exchange between him and Michael Moore, to whom he bears physical similarity.