Behind the Freedom Curtain.

Made by a manufacturer of voting machines, this film tries to convince us that voting machines are so much better and fairer than old-fashioned pencil-and-paper voting, mostly by constantly repeating that machines can’t make the mistakes people do. Ah, if it were only that simple, we wouldn’t have had that mess in the 2000 election. Actually, this is pretty well made and makes its points well, though it does tend to go on and on and on. It gives an interesting perspective on the problems of running elections, problems that still exist today. Its pontificating about “democracy” gets so overblown it’s campy in spots. But mostly this is pretty straightforward.

Ratings: Camp/Humor Value: ***. Weirdness: ***. Historical Interest: ****. Overall Rating: ***.

Better Reading

Better Reading . Teenager Harold Wilson has a problem—he can’t read for (expletive deleted). So he has to spend all his free time studying ...