I was reading an article a few weeks back that mentioned a video called Feed that sounded like the most genius thing ever made. While that may have been a bit of an extreme expectation, after watching it, it definitely ranks. Anyone with interest in media, politics, and celebrity should check it out.

Says the New Yorker: Kevin Rafferty and James Ridgeway thank Michael Moore in the credits of their 1992 documentary, but their assemblage of TV footage from the 1992 New Hampshire primary—mostly culled from embarrassing moments that were originally contained in the video that was part of the TV stations' in-house "feed"—does more than subject preening Republicans to ridicule. It shows how media campaigning is demeaning to left and right alike, and how numbing it can be for the electorate.

In one of the documentary's crowning ironies, no one articulates the system's superficiality better than Jerry Brown, but no one demonstrates its absurdity more self-destructively. If George H. W. Bush proves himself out of touch when admiring the price scanner at a checkout line, Brown comes off as a relic from a lost counterculture when he asks a college class if anyone has heard of Marshall McLuhan.

The movie has one tactic, one thought, one note. But at seventy-six minutes its length is just right. Read the full review here.

Capturing these feeds, of course, is illegal, so there's no direct mention that's how the footage for the film was obtained. For me, the genius of Feed is two-fold: first, it's a series of intimate looks at powerful and influential politicians as we've never seen them before, as they wait to be interviewed by a TV station or give a speech to the country or world. While these can be called "real" moments, in reality, they may be real, but they're not real in a way that anyone but a president, a presidential candidate, or celebrity could relate to. I'd call them surreal moments. Secondly, from a voyeuristic stand point, we're being given access to very private, mundane moments that would have been lost into the ether or edit out by TV stations otherwise. For that reason alone, my eyes were glued to the TV screen.

I'm not sure about availability at video stores, but you can rent it on Netflix or buy it here.