One of the most interesting documentaries I've seen in the last few years, examining how elements such as politics, economy, genetics and technology influence each other, and how seemingly small actions can have huge and terrible consequences. It's fascinating, painful, depressing and frightening to see how mankind often has no idea what it's doing. The editing, footage and use of music were amazing. Recommended to everyone.

Curtis explores the ways in which our understanding and use of machines informs our conception of humanity. With a heavy dose of found footage, interviews, and atmospheric music, Curtis weaves together a profoundly pessimistic and convincing account of the contemporary human experience. The film gets a bit scattered in its final third, but Curtis' film leaves a strong impression in favor of the uniqueness of humanity.

Work of Adam Curtis always stimulates the right spot of my brain. This is fascinating information presented in easy to understand and entertaining way. It doesn't make life any easier, though. Human race is FUBAR.

Curtis is an intelligent and clever filmmaker, but he is also deliberately propagandizing various issues into one big bad science myth in order to make his point come across. In this manner he's not that different from the politicians he clearly detests. And he needs a change of soundtrack.

Some eloquent white guilt here, or maybe genetic guilt as well as more poetic links between content than has been previously explored. Always a fan of the layout of Curtis's essays, he arrives at his conclusions with thorough backing from both the melange of archive footage and his own research. The Collective affair is a bizarre ideological orgy.

It throws a lot of information at you, but I feel it does it in such a way that you can understand. It's always interesting, and I know these movies get praised for how informative they are (and it is informative) but I think the soundtrack was a nice touch, especially the NIN song (I'm not even a fan of NIN, but I like the instrumental songs).

Another set of films that highlight how the crossroads of utopian solutions, oversimplification, misunderstanding, hubris, and ideology contribute to creating an unexamined foundational set of assumptions about civilization and humanity.

fascinating and a joy to watch as always, but a tad more scattershot than Curtis' previous work

Much in the vein of Curtis' other work, how the invention and propagation of ideas has resulted in the dominance of new ideologies. I especially like this series, though, as its ideas on how the metaphor of machinery has affected our understanding of the economy, of nature, and even of man is very much in the vein of the linguist George Lakoff.

A bit looser than The Trap but expands upon the same points, orienting towards genetics. Rather than coming to a definitive conclusion, Curtis raises questions about the apathy derived from being unable to challenge the networks of power that constantly transform and corrupt, or our proclivity to look out for ourselves to the detriment of others. The story of George Price is the definition of harsh.

You'd have to be an ultra-conservative capitalist or just a plain moron not to appreciate the message here or at least the slick way Curtis presents it to us.

Thought provoking very visual documentary that runs smoothly over its all up 3 hour running time. Throws a lot of information and ideas around yet never overloads you. Constantly mixes it up whether it be with interviews, archive footage or pop music. Probably the most enthralling learning experience I've seen on film.

A bit less solid than Curtis earlier work, but still very solid and with an incredibly interesting visual style.

Adam Curtis is the great documentary storyteller, conveyor of ideas by audiovisual means, and moralist of our times. This series ranges widely but always purposefully through material including Ayn Rand, Buckminster Fuller, Norbert Wiener, John Von Neumann, William Hamilton and many others, tied together by an investigation of mechanistic conceptions of life and cognitivist conceptions of human thinking and behaviour. Immensely pleasurable viewing.

A bunch of crazy people try to control the world with math. Unintended consequences. Roy Orbison.