On June 17, 1972, a group of men broke into the offices of the Democratic National Committee in Washington, D.C. What that would kick off is a little thing called Watergate, and the deep, twisting and turning plot is the topic of this week’s Film Seizure as we discuss All the President’s Men.
Film Seizure Podcast 
Yeah, it’s CLOOT. That’s how it sounds, like some foreign language profanity. Rhymes with jute. Or boot or hoot. But not mute or cute, soot or foot, nor Kool-Aid or boo-tay. And Puh-KOOL-uh, like Tallulah, not PACK-you-luh, like Dracula. You got to the right places.You guys have nailed the issue with the picture, probably the one: It was on screens only two years after America had spent almost that long hearing daily about Watergate in detail, with endless repetition of names alien to us now, like Dean, Colson, Magruder and so on. At the time, dialogue anything like:Woodward: Haldeman?Bradlee: H.R. Haldeman; he’s the President’s chief of staff, Bob.Woodward: He referred to a ‘Dean’..Bradlee: Uh, he’s the White House Counsel, Bob.Woodward: ‘Council’, ay…Bradlee: The White House Counsel is a senior staff appointee of the president of the United States whose role is to advise the president on all legal issues concerning the president and their administration. All in your notes, Bob……would have played like a scene from Police Squad. But if you didn’t live through that, the names and references can be a problem. I knew bupkis about Watergate when I saw this the first few times. It still worked well enough as drama, because I could tell they knew the names, but I was still pretty left out.One of the best documentaries I’ve ever seen, on the basis of its comprehensively covering the event so well, was coproduced by the BBC and maybe The Discovery Channel over here, from 1994, giving solid pre-Watergate context, thoroughly going over the break-in, how it was covered, how it was uncovered, the trials, the fallout – all done as if you’d never heard of it. The amazing thing is that it’s being told in detail by all of the guys who did it, including some Nixon from the Frost interviews. I went from knowing nothing to feeling sure I had a solid grasp of it, plus I knew the names. The next time I saw President’s Men it was a different film. But as valuable as that is, I recommend it most because of how well it shows and informs, fully covering a huge, and oft-referenced, gap in my knowledge.
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Whoever decided that removing line breaks and formatting should be the de rigueur default on the internet needs to be slapped and sterilized. How much data is actually saved by deleting a <p>? Seriously, WordPress…
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