I'm posting this in between some other catchups before I get ready for tonight's 9:30pm show of Choke. If I don't get this up now, it'll get lost in the shuffle, and I can't let that happen.
A couple hours ago I saw one of the more unsettling things I've seen since watching the first 20 minutes of The Poughkeepsie Tapes last December.
Secrecy was a roll of the dice pick for me on a morning when I knew it'd be completely up to me to see something I had no rep contact for or that Ashley wouldn't want to see, so I picked the one that had the most to do with politics and/or frightening "who watches the watchmen" kinds of questions. That kind of stuff unsettles her more than blood-and-gore horror any day of the week.
The doc primarily focuses on the US government's control, production, and obfuscation of information. Billions of dollars and millions of work hours go into the whole rocess. These days everyone seems to take for granted that the government hides things, rewrites history, and abuses its power on a regular basis. Only the most egregiously badly-handled coverups seem to even enter the American consciousness, let alone become front page news.
As in all bureaucracies, administrators cover up their screw ups that lead to people dying, whether one or a thousand. The directors collect an impressive and very effective set of interview subjects that run the gamut, but are all in some position to know how the beast works.
One of the more intimidating facets of those who had previously worked in the clandestine services was how readily they all seemed to agree that there are some things that the public should never know the truth about, regardless of the particular subject matter.
On the other hand, there are other things, like abuse of executive privelige, that have set so many dangerous precedents in the last eight years that are driving things that for the last century have been public knowledge behind an information blackout curtain.
The flick is really intriguing and definitely worth watching, I just don't know what means of distribution would serve it best.
For those still in town, Secrecy plays again Saturday 3/15, 2:30pm at Alamo South Lamar.