Pretty good movie overall. First half was nothing special but it got better as it went along.

Great movie! If you want to be entertained and have a few good laughs, see this movie. The music is also very good,

It's an amazing and heartbreaking story.

It’s sentimental, ridiculously long and only occasionally funny

It's March 2003. Al Jazeera is riding a new wave of Arab satellite TV with 40 million viewers. This documentary follows the channel as they cover the second Iraq War up to the Americans arriving in Baghdad after one of their reporters is killed by an American bomb.This has many of the behind-the-scenes stuff expected from this type of movies. Not all of it is that compelling or that surprising. There is obvious bias from all sides. Again that's not surprising and gets tiring after awhile. It is slightly humorous to see the Arab journalists almost dismissing the idea of objectivity and desperately trying to explain away the media stories coming out of Centcom. In the end, it shows the cultural divide and the impossible gap between them.

The earlier reviews of this film were quite rich and detailed. There is little to add.Except it is now more than three and a half years after the historic span depicted in the film. By coincidence, I viewed this for the first time today, the day after Donald Rumsfeld had to fall on his sword. Mr. Rumsfeld's verbatim remarks in press conferences were included in several key sections of Control Room.I think it is particularly worthwhile to view this now, if one is interested in growing insights into how history really unfolds. I don't think the film will look the same now as it did to many who viewed it (and commented on it) two years ago. It struck me as quite extraordinary. See how it strikes you.

When watching the news a person will get only what the media wants to give out. The media wants the people of their country to have pride and to do this the media will only show certain events that would make a person feel great about their country. But not every media network feels that way about leaving facts out about the news.Control Room shows the Al Jazeera news and how they want to show the both sides of the U.S., Arabs war. The U.S. on the other hand only wants to show their side of the war and only their's. Al Jazeera really wants to show the world what is happening in this war no matter how upsetting it could be. Al Jazeera believe that the people have the right to know what is going in their world not just some pieces of a story that the U.S. calls news. The movie portrayed the was not as entertainment but facts that a person should know. "Control Room" shows this through Al Jazeera. But in reality "Control Room" can not seem to be equal on both sides. "Control Room" leans more on the Arab side and seem to discard the U.S. The U.S. only shows one side of the war which I know is wrong but to some extent can not help it. The U.S. is not fighting on their own soil which can be hard to get coverage of the war. The U.S. in fact has never fought on their own soil so the Americans have never been on that side and have know idea what citizens feel or how it affects their country. So the media does not think that they should show that side of the coverage. Also an American news reporter would have a harder time trying to interview and Iraqi than and Iraqi interviewing an American. The fact is just that Iraqi's feel more upset about the war which they have the right too because it is affecting them more. "Control Room" tends to leave that part out. "Control Room" tries so hard to show Al Jaeezar and how they try to portray both sides of the war. But gives no credit at all to the U.S. media. The U.S. media is mention but not in a positive way and that is not the whole facts. Maybe the U.S. media does not know better or believes that they are giving the whole truth of the war. The fact that "Control Room" did not mention that makes me feel like they are not showing both sides fairly and is leaning towards Al Jaeezar. And the "Control Room" should lean more to that side because it is the right way to give news but the fact that "Control Room" does not acknowledge the U.S. American media makes it seem wrong for "Control Room" to complain about the U.S. media when "Control Room" just did the same thing. "Control Room needs to realize that the U.S. media will always be different because the U.S. never had experience what other countries have faced in the war. So then of course the media will be different because that is all they know."Control Room did make really good points about the media. It shows how the media wants to just entertain an audience rather than give the facts of the topic. Sandra Silbertein author of "From News To Entertainment" stated that media is really entertain the public rather than informing them of the news worthy events. How the media of the 911 would only take the drama part to make people be more entertain and want people to keep watching the news. "Control Room: portrays this one hundred percent. "Control Room" wanted to inform the people of the truth of how media is different in other countries and that showing the whole truth of a story especially the war is better than just parts of the news to make their country sound great.

In "Living Room Wars," author David D. Perlmutter, a senior fellow of the Reilly Center for Media and Public affairs, claims that the "pretense that we are better informed than ever in history about wars in distant lands is the big lie in the television age." We live in the most powerful country in the world with the most powerful military. However, we have no true understanding of what war really is because we have the benefit of not having to experience it. Our relationship to war is completely mediated by the major media corporations in the United States. What makes "Control Room" worth seeing is that it allows Americans to see another point of view in the Iraq War."Control Room" helps us to see the Iraq War from the perspective of the Al Jazeera Satellite Network, a controversial, popular Arab news network. The main point of the documentary is not to convince viewers that American intervention in Iraq is right or wrong, but instead to get people thinking about the role of the media in shaping our perception and understanding of the Iraq War and whether our opinion is justified based on correct evidence or not. It is no hidden secret that the media, if manipulated correctly, can be a powerful weapon in war. The beginning of the documentary opens with a candid shot of an Al Jazeera Network executive saying that war cannot be waged without the media and that the media should be on the top of the military agenda. Perlmutter also agrees that because of the prevalence of the television, "the military could no longer completely ignore or completely censor the press, yet they would wage war under the assumption that the battle to control the content and captioning of TV pictures was decisive as campaigns in the air, sea, and land." One of the most shocking examples of the power of the media in the documentary was when the US bombed the headquarters of Al Jazeera and another Iraqi television news networks which resulted in the death of one of an Al Jazeera reporter. After the Al Jazeera headquarters was bombed the reporters who worked for them were forced to leave wherever they were because the Iraqi people thought they were "targeted" by the US military and did not want to be put in danger by aiding an American enemy. Obviously, the US military viewed Al Jazeera as a threat or it wouldn't have bombed them in the middle of the city. A US military official said the US spends massive amounts of money to buy precision bombs so they don't make mistakes on what they're bombing. The day after the bombing took place, there were native villagers who gathered to celebrate the liberation of Baghdad. However, interviews with Al Jazeera correspondents suggest that the whole celebration was staged by the US military in order to spur American nationalism. Only the foreign press was there to cover the event because Al Jazeera was forced to leave. This is a powerful example showing how the management of the media can be used fight wars. The images that we tend to see on TV in America are, as Perlmutter says, "limited, homogeneous, and leave out much of the panorama of war." "Control Room" reinforces that idea. Seeing clips from Al Jazeera television stations left me feeling more informed about the war. In the American media, the most we see of war tend to be images of liberation or of tanks rolling across empty land. On Al Jazeera, American troops are seeing busting through people's doors, cussing, and threatening them with guns. That probably happens on a regular basis. War is brutal, but the American media censors those images out and accuses the networks who don't of showing enemy propaganda. However, this is not to say that Al Jazeera is without bias. Each channel caters to their own demographics nationalism. However, as an American, I find myself at a loss trying to understand how we can pride ourselves on spreading democracy and freedoms that come along with that (including freedom of speech), yet exercise such control not only over our own media but the media of the countries we are trying to spread that democracy to as well. The most refreshing (when I say refreshing, I don't necessarily mean pleasant) about "Control Room" is its subtly. "Control Room" engages audiences instead of repulsing them with an over the top opinionated documentary. Perlmutter says one of the dangers about the visual media is that the "words can say one thing, but the pictures could be almost anything." Part of the beauty of "Control Room" is that there is no narration and there are no fancy visual effects. The simple way the documentary was filmed made me feel as if I were right there watching all of the interviews take place. The interviews felt real instead of staged and rehearsed. The director leaves a lot of room for viewer interpretation and opinion. I didn't walk away from the film feeling like I had just been told what's right and what's wrong. Whether you are pro-war or anti-war, you can find something to appreciate in the film.