Deep roots to rage of the Right
Another week, another terrificlooking, new platform showing nothin’ but docos turns up in my feeds. iWonder is a newbie out of Australia, which is either allied to DocPlay, or deliberately copying from its playbook. Whichever it is, I’m liking that there is yet another platform challenging the dominance of Netflix in the streaming world.
First-up for me on the iWonder server was one nicely informative and nonsensational piece on the American far right, their leaders and a couple of the groups that push back against them.
Alt-Right: Age of Rage is a well puttogether selection of interviews and archival news footage that traces the rise of the so-called ‘‘alternative right’’, from its admitted origins in the modern Ku Klux Klan, through various iterations during the civil rights movement, until its 21st-century incarnation as an
Interviews and archival news footage trace the rise of the ‘alternative right’.
organisation attempting to sell itself as a ‘‘champion of freedom of speech’’.
From there, the film takes a deep dive into the disputed territory in which freedom of speech does or doesn’t protect hate speech, propaganda and outright lies.
It’s a nettlesome and hugely valid debate that must be had, again and again, until some sort of consensus is reached. Alt Right might show us an America that isn’t anywhere near agreement yet – the film ends in 2017, with the violence and death in Charlottesville, North Carolina – but at least there is a dialogue, even if one side does seem motivated only by cynicism and self-enrichment, at the expense of peace and truth.
A lot lighter and more fun, even if it does end in tears and recrimination, The Beatles, Hippies and Hell’s Angels isa truly jaw-dropping look inside the beginnings of The Beatles’ Apple Corp, which the band founded in 1967 in the hope that it would be a new form of
corporation that could revolutionise the way that businesses did, er, business.
The film never mocks the band’s idealism – which I appreciated – although it does point out that having at least one person in the room at all times who is not on drugs is never a bad idea when multimillion pound decisions are being weighed.
In a brisk and likeable 52 minutes, The Beatles, Hippies and Hell’s Angels lays out a story of trusting souls running into a system that sometimes seems designed specifically to punish trust and generosity. But, this is still a warm, kindhearted and enjoyable tale. It is also very, very funny. Recommended.