April 23, 2008

Money Masters?

I've been watching this documentary online for at least a week and a half now. These are the reasons it is taking me so long:

•It's about 3 and a half hours
•Its circa-1997 production values are...curious. There is only one host/narrator, who apparently traveled most of the Western world to stand in front of buildings and monuments to talk about them, all while holding and gesturing with what may or may not be the same pen/pencil/twig.
•The only other person in the video is the guy who does the voiceovers for the quotes, and he does them all in the same voice. Franklin, Jefferson, Lincoln, evil Bankers; they all have exactly the same booming, over-dramatic, "I'm doing this in one take, awkward pauses be damned" voice. I'm really hoping that in the hour or so I have left, there'll be a woman quoted, and I really hope he uses the same voice.
•Speaking of awkward pauses, there are so many in this movie that I wonder whether it's some sort of brainwashing technique. Or maybe it is specifically designed to give the viewer enough time, with no noise or significant movement of video, to fall asleep...because that's exactly what happens to me.
•All this is in addition to the video being so pixelated and blurry that I feel like I'm squinting through a dirty window to watch it on a TV with bad reception.

That said, there's some nearly life-changing information in it, and sometimes the somewhat nerdy host gets really indignant about what he's talking about, which is amusing and strangely infectious.

I was going to link to it, but it's called Money Masters, so you can just type that on in to Google, that's what I did. Also, hulu.com has free full epsiodes of some good TV shows, old and new. I only wish I was paid the .008 cents I'm due for advertising it.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Well I made it 10 minutes into the video. At the second minute Reeba suggested I use headphones. Need I say more?