This completely one-sided affair with copious amounts of willfully blind hypocrisy, irony and ignorance is good for nothing other than seeing, in living color, the cesspool that was GAWKER Media and its amazingly smug and self-righteous founders, "editors" and "journalists" (cough cough) finally get its comeuppance. From that standpoint, you will thoroughly enjoy the film. Hence my 2 star rating instead of 1.
Particularly sad is the filmmaker's desperate attempt to juxtapose Trump with the root of this documentary, Bollea v GAWKER. They intersperse shots of Trump and his base calling out the media with shots of the court case as if they were somehow connected. Don't be fooled, the GAWKER case and Trump's tirades against the media never crossed paths in reality. One can only assume the filmmaker did this in a desperate attempt to gain notoriety for the film and sympathy for the subject matter which in GAWKER's case is a pretty tough, if not impossible sell.
Next they argue that Peter Thiel's involvement was the only reason GAWKER lost the case and was subsequently bankrupted. Yes, how dare someone with pockets deep enough to actually take them on head to head showed up, otherwise they would have won. I guess now they know how it felt to all the "little people" they defamed on a daily basis with no means to fight back. This blatantly obvious irony and hypocrisy is absolutely lost on them.
The filmmaker then goes on to highlight the "dangers" of "ultra- wealthy" individuals buying media outlets in order to control information and reporting. They use casino magnate and right-wing boogieman Sheldon Adelson purchasing the Las Vegas Review-Journal as their go-to example of this peril, yet amazingly fail to mention Jeff Bezos, Amazon founder and the world's second richest man, purchasing the far more influential Washington Post whose usage of anonymous sources in their reporting is just an accepted norm at this point. All the while, a Washington Post journalist is one of the interviewees espousing the dangers of the Adelson purchase. Once again, the irony is overwhelming.
Also, what the journalists interviewed and another reviewer on here fail to understand, but thankfully the jury did, is that Hulk Hogan and Terry Bollea ARE two different people in the sense described by the GAWKER case. Professional Wrestling is not like acting or being a sports figure or personality of any kind. An "old-school" wrestler such as Hogan/Bollea is expected to maintain his in-ring persona/character as a completely separate identity from his true self even when just strolling around outside their homes. It's called maintaining "kayfabe" (google it). So when "Hulk Hogan" is being interviewed or speaking about himself, that is absolutely completely different than interviewing "Terry Bollea". They ARE two different, distinct people. One is a character, one is the person playing the character, but one does not necessarily have the same characteristics of the other. I understand this is a difficult concept to understand, but, it's just a known fact in the wrestling industry... something of which an actual journalist should have complete knowledge.
Lastly, and I apologize for this review being so long, it's just that this documentary is so easy to pick apart, but, the moral the filmmaker is trying to get across, particularly in the GAWKER case, is, if you're a "public figure" a media company should be allowed to publish nude photos or a sex tape of you, secretly shot and distributed without your consent, otherwise it is somehow an affront to "free press". Does that make sense to you? I seem to remember sports personality Erin Andrews being secretly filmed through a peephole in her hotel room, suing and winning millions of dollars and the media applauded her, and rightfully so. But, I guess if it's the media profiting off the photos/video and not some ordinary creeper, it's a completely different story.
Are you beginning to get the same sense of the hypocrisy and irony I did? I think just maybe you are...
Particularly sad is the filmmaker's desperate attempt to juxtapose Trump with the root of this documentary, Bollea v GAWKER. They intersperse shots of Trump and his base calling out the media with shots of the court case as if they were somehow connected. Don't be fooled, the GAWKER case and Trump's tirades against the media never crossed paths in reality. One can only assume the filmmaker did this in a desperate attempt to gain notoriety for the film and sympathy for the subject matter which in GAWKER's case is a pretty tough, if not impossible sell.
Next they argue that Peter Thiel's involvement was the only reason GAWKER lost the case and was subsequently bankrupted. Yes, how dare someone with pockets deep enough to actually take them on head to head showed up, otherwise they would have won. I guess now they know how it felt to all the "little people" they defamed on a daily basis with no means to fight back. This blatantly obvious irony and hypocrisy is absolutely lost on them.
The filmmaker then goes on to highlight the "dangers" of "ultra- wealthy" individuals buying media outlets in order to control information and reporting. They use casino magnate and right-wing boogieman Sheldon Adelson purchasing the Las Vegas Review-Journal as their go-to example of this peril, yet amazingly fail to mention Jeff Bezos, Amazon founder and the world's second richest man, purchasing the far more influential Washington Post whose usage of anonymous sources in their reporting is just an accepted norm at this point. All the while, a Washington Post journalist is one of the interviewees espousing the dangers of the Adelson purchase. Once again, the irony is overwhelming.
Also, what the journalists interviewed and another reviewer on here fail to understand, but thankfully the jury did, is that Hulk Hogan and Terry Bollea ARE two different people in the sense described by the GAWKER case. Professional Wrestling is not like acting or being a sports figure or personality of any kind. An "old-school" wrestler such as Hogan/Bollea is expected to maintain his in-ring persona/character as a completely separate identity from his true self even when just strolling around outside their homes. It's called maintaining "kayfabe" (google it). So when "Hulk Hogan" is being interviewed or speaking about himself, that is absolutely completely different than interviewing "Terry Bollea". They ARE two different, distinct people. One is a character, one is the person playing the character, but one does not necessarily have the same characteristics of the other. I understand this is a difficult concept to understand, but, it's just a known fact in the wrestling industry... something of which an actual journalist should have complete knowledge.
Lastly, and I apologize for this review being so long, it's just that this documentary is so easy to pick apart, but, the moral the filmmaker is trying to get across, particularly in the GAWKER case, is, if you're a "public figure" a media company should be allowed to publish nude photos or a sex tape of you, secretly shot and distributed without your consent, otherwise it is somehow an affront to "free press". Does that make sense to you? I seem to remember sports personality Erin Andrews being secretly filmed through a peephole in her hotel room, suing and winning millions of dollars and the media applauded her, and rightfully so. But, I guess if it's the media profiting off the photos/video and not some ordinary creeper, it's a completely different story.
Are you beginning to get the same sense of the hypocrisy and irony I did? I think just maybe you are...