The email sent will contain a link to this article, the article title, and an article excerpt (if available). For security reasons, your IP address will also be included in the sent email.
By Glenn Dunks
There is a shot about 30 minutes in Matt Yoka’s Whirlybird that made me gasp. Not necessarily because of how shocking or surprising it is, but because of the decision-making process that must have occurred to choose to include it. It took what was up until that point a nice trip through Los Angeles news history and made me view the rest of this documentary through different eyes. The shot in question is live news footage taken from a helicopter over L.A. with a network chyron that reads "Rock Hudson Battles AIDS” while footage shows the actor being transported to hospital surrounded by medical staff.
It is hardly surprising that anybody would film this. What is surprising is that Yoka’s film doesn’t seem all that fussed about addressing it. In fact, at one point news camera hounding of Madonna and Sean Penn is used as a journalistic punchline in an effort to boost the image of what were essentially paparazzi with a bigger budget. Which speaks to the whole film, too, really...
Return to Article