“CONTROL ROOM”: This is the documentary about Al-Jazeera. The first thing to say is that you should see it. The criticisms below should be seen as footnotes to that larger point (except for the very last point, which is probably the most important thing in this post). So okay, beyond “you should see it,” here is my basic take.

1. There is not enough of any one storyline here. The main storyline of the movie seems to be the character arc of a Marine spokesman, Josh Rushing, who is portrayed as going from inept and all culture-clash-y to thoughtful and in-touch. But even that storyline doesn’t give you enough to work with, really–you don’t see what worked the change, how it affected him over the relatively long term, etc.

2. More irksomely, I don’t think that was the right storyline to choose. Rushing is compelling, yeah. But on a superficial level, you know who eats up the screen every time he’s on? Samir Khader, a senior producer of Al-Jazeera. He should have been the star. He fascinated me completely, he came across as ironic and self-reflective, and–hey, weird!–he’s actually an Arab guy who works for the station, rather than an American who doesn’t.

Tim Cavanaugh argues, here, that the real storyline should have been “the much more obvious story, of how a group of reasonable, intelligent, educated people gradually come to drink the Kool-Aid of Arab nationalism.” I’m not necessarily making that point, although it’s an interesting one–all I want to say is, Shouldn’t this have been a story about Arabs, rather than another story about an American, again, still, some more?

This is a problem in tons of newspaper movies really. The Paper does this–the innocent black kids are treated as a macguffin to motivate changes in white characters’ lives, not as individuals in their own rights. His Girl Friday does this with the death-penalty plot. I guess Control Room flips the formula by making the journalists the people who exist only to catalyze changes in important white people. …She said, snarkily.

3. Movie lacks context. I wanted much more about how Al-Jazeera covered Arab dictatorships in general, and Saddam Hussein’s regime in particular. Now, yes, if I want to know that I can go and find out, it’s my responsibility. But it would have made the movie stronger–either supporting the station’s claim to “just present the news,” or complicating that claim by suggesting that Al-Jazeera will only, or can only, show cruelty, terror, and grief when they can be blamed on Americans.

4. Check out the differences in when and how people laugh in this movie. You can learn a lot about power.

5. OK, re Rushing, it is cool that he provides a commentary track (and I think it was the right choice to make his track separate from the one with Hassan Ibrahim and Samir Khader). I’m about to start watching that track now. Apparently it is something of a counter-narrative to the main documentary. …OK, even just from a few minutes of Rushing’s commentary, I’m into it, and after you see the movie you should watch both commentary tracks too.

6. So now the most important point: Better than Control Room (which you should see!) is the New York Times Magazine piece, “The War Inside the Arab Newsroom.” Check that out, seriously.