Review of Rosewater (2014) by Tim C — 31 Jan 2015

Jon Stewart took a break from hosting "The Daily Show" to make "Rosewater", about Bahari's incarceration and torture. It's some pretty harrowing stuff. The main thing that I took away from it is that ideologues don't get satire.

Much like how Iran's government didn't realize that Bahari's interview was a joke, there are people in the US who read articles on The Onion and take them for real stories (Louisiana Rep. John Fleming went so far as to post an Onion article on his Facebook, mistakenly thinking that it was a real story).

The point is that extremists on both sides have a kneejerk reaction, and their lack of rational thought influences their policies. Jon Stewart has proved himself a very capable director, and I hope that the movie draws more attention to the countless imprisoned journalists the world over.

. It's not bad, but I have no passion for it whatsoever and I do think that Stewart needed to reel himself back in. Gael Garcia Bernal proves to be as strong of a protagonist as ever, though, and it's crazy that it looks like he hasn't aged a bit in ten years.