★★★★☆

Merchants of Doubt is one of those documentaries I added to my rental list not expecting a whole lot. I put off watching it for a couple of weeks after it arrived because I didn’t have high expectations. Was I ever wrong!

Personally I believe every breathing creature able to understand spoken English should watch this documentary. If you have ever watched a newscast then you really need this documentary to help you decipher one. This documentary is almost as well done as Katie Couric’s Fed Up. Both documentaries really delve deep into their subject matter.

I love the fact they open with a magician explaining a card trick. He does the trick then later in the documentary they replay the trick in slow motion so you can see him put the card under his glass because we are viewing from a different angle and now we know where to look.

Watch this documentary before you write another word

Since most people won’t bother to watch a documentary without a big name star, sex or lots of stuff blowing up, I must tell every person reading this who either hopes or claims to be a writer to watch this documentary before you write another word. This documentary really explains how the game is played from both sides, pro and con. They document how “think tanks” around the world are actually run by documented lobbyists who are there to provide spin not to stop the inevitable, but to slow it down so their clients can continue to make more money. I don’t remember the line exactly, but the magician had a great explanation:

They say the hand is quicker than the eye. That is not true. The eye sees everything but the brain chooses to ignore.

As I said, not an exact quote. Might have been brain only comprehends a little, but the gist is the same.

News shows hide card under glass

They segue from this to a “news” show on CNN introducing “a leading expert in the field of blah Mr. so-and-so, a scientist from megabucks think tank in …” What was said was technically true but the impression was fraud.

They stuck the card under the glass when you weren’t looking. Yes, the person was a scientist, however, they weren’t a scientist with a degree in any field even relevant to a hard science associated with ecology or the care and husbandry of the planet, yet they were presented as an expert when talking about climate change. Their degree was something like economy or economics or some other unrelated field. One of the people they interviewed who had become amazingly successful getting countless interviews started out as a door to door salesman.

In the new ugly world where BS is piled higher and deeper this documentary is a serious education for anyone aspiring to write. At some point you will either be asked or tempted to write some of this stuff. You may get rich doing it, but you won’t be right. You will just be a Kardashian with a keyboard some “news media” program called an expert even though you had no relevant education.

For more movie rental ideas please see list one and list two.