Starsuckers: Reviews

Daily Mirror - 5 STARS!!! read review

2010-05-20T08:48:00.001-07:00

This fun, well-made documentary exposes some of the methods the popular media use to cash in on the public's obsession with celebrity. Featuring soundbites from Samuel L Jackson, Clint Eastwood, Keira Knightley and PR guru Max Clifford, director Chris Atkins reveals how the public are fed an unattainable and glamorous lifestyle and culture.

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The Guardian Review

2010-05-20T08:43:00.000-07:00

Writer and Director Chris Atkins presents his spot on expose of the modern obsession with celebrity…Brilliant animation combines with an unsettling voice over to make you feel queasily capable from the off. In the same way the romans were when they popped into the coliseum for a quick Romans v Christians match. Tabloids, agents and PR's are filmed in the wild engaging in sickening mutual grooming. And Max Clifford is seen boasting about his work as a smoke screen operator for the stars. It’s superb. It should be shown in schools.

Times Review - 4 Stars!!!

2010-05-20T08:39:00.000-07:00

Not even Max Clifford could stop this polemical documentary coming out in cinemas back in October. It had exposed his secrets. Starsuckers shows celebrity as a spell, presenting five lessons to demonstrate how it’s used as a means of control. Atkins excels in combining Jackass-style stunts, setting up newspapers with stories about Amy Winehouse’s hair catching fire that they print without checking, with heavyweight academics explaining how we are hard-wired to copy powerful people because, in the past, it would have improved our chances of survival. His case culminates in the prediction that we’re heading towards a Lithuanian-style government, in which the second largest party comprises TV producers and singers elected just because they were famous. This is addictive and entertaining viewing.

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Sunday Telegraph - 4 STARS!!!

2009-11-02T01:34:00.000-08:00

Mike McCahill 1st November

British Documentarist Chris Atkins' Starsuckers is an urgent deconstruction of the fame game, and sets out the tools used to get us hooked on celebrity... this is celebrity as the well groomed face of consumerism, and there's something thrilling in the way the film exposes what might once have seemed attractive as ugly in it's methods and motives. Like Michael Moore, Atkins is wholly at ease with pop culture, makes shrewd use of archive footage, and has a fondness for the revealing stunt.... There's unbridled rage at the hijacking of the Make Poverty History campaign by the self promoting stars of Live8. Smuggled into cinemas by unknown distributors, rich with hidden camera footage and boldly naming names, Starsuckers looks like the work of revolutionaries: a precision skewering of a global epidemic of narcissism.

Scotsman review - 4 STARS!!!

2009-11-01T05:34:00.000-08:00

Alistair Harkness 1st November

BY TURNS amusing and disturbing, director Chris Atkins's follow-up to his Blair-baiting documentary, Taking Liberties, exposes the insidious relationship between the media, celebrity, politics and the public to show how easy it is to distract us from what's really going on in the world. Providing compelling evidence that shows how the unscrupulous British tabloids are the puppetmasters in this particular theatre of cruelty and contempt, the stunts Atkins perpetrates to prove his points about our frivolous, celeb-slanted culture should confirm your worst fears about the depths to which we've sunk (the secret footage of PR guru Max Clifford talking about some of the venal things he regularly does to protect some of his more deviant A-list clients is especially sickening).

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Observer

2009-11-01T05:29:00.000-08:00

Phillip French 1st November

Probably not since Triumph of the Will have so many dislikable, real-life figures been brought together in one film and it all goes to support my old axiom: business tends to corrupt, showbusiness corrupts absolutely.

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Sunday Times - 4 STARS!!!

2009-11-01T05:26:00.000-08:00

Cosmo Landesman 30th October

Written and directed by Chris Atkins (Taking Liberties), Starsuckers is a polemical documentary about the machinery of celebrity. Atkins’s thesis is simple: large media corporations exploit the public’s fascination with celebrity and the young’s longing for fame by a series of devious tricks that his film sets out to expose with a few tricks of its own.

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Sunday Express - 4 STARS!!!

2009-11-01T05:16:00.000-08:00

Allan Hunter 30th October

National newspapers are approached with lurid but fictitious tales of stars who may have gone under the surgeon’s knife. Enormous sums are offered for the juicy details and it made my heart proud that the Daily Express was the only newspaper to point out that this was illegal and to send them packing. A sobering and thought-provoking film.

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Eye for film review - 4 STARS

2009-10-29T04:48:00.000-07:00

Anton Bitel 29th October

One of the best, and most satisfyingly contradictory, weapons available to the sceptic is the argument that demolishes itself along with the view that it aims to undermine. Back in ancient times, hard-line sceptics would use the metaphor of the ladder that must be pushed away once it has been climbed, or of the purgative remedy that flushes itself away along with the diseased contents of a patient's stomach, to describe a peculiar kind of deconstructive approach that lives (and dies) in a parasitic relationship with the position to which it is opposed.

This is, more or less, the methodology adopted by Chris Atkins in Starsuckers, his follow-up to the Blair-busting documentary Taking Liberties (2007). For while Starsuckers is concerned with the powers of the media to manipulate, misrepresent and manufacture reality to their own end, to make this case it self-consciously appropriates the very strategies of the media that it is criticising, so that accepting Atkins' arguments in their proper spirit should also involve radically questioning them. In short, it is a film that makes sceptics of us all, shaking us from brainwashed passivity into a state of awareness that makes resistance possible.

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Film Four Review - 4 STARS!

2009-10-28T12:00:00.000-07:00

Jon Fortgang 28TH October

Celebrity culture hasn't just invaded the lives of 'Heat'-stricken soap stars flopping between bar and rehab with the paparazzi on their tails. According to Chris Atkins' mischievous and eloquently angry investigation into the causes and cost of our obsession with fame, it's colonised our consciousness, remoulded the media and sold us a series of impossible dreams. Atkins' thesis: this new, non news-based form of 'news' operates as a sly form of social control, and in five fascinating lessons he deconstructs the celebrity-industrial complex to reveal who's doing to what to who, and why.

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Review - Netribution

2009-10-27T07:02:00.000-07:00

SUCHANDRIKA CHAKRABARTI | 23 OCTOBER 2009

Starsuckers is the second feature-length documentary from writer/director Chris Atkins, who made the BAFTA-nominated Taking Liberties in 2007. The film takes an in-depth look into celebrity culture - and sleb journalism - and the results are both laugh-out-loud funny and worrying.

Narrated by a jovial-sounding voice that uses "we" and is supposedly the representation of the media, Starsuckers takes us through the ways in which celeb culture takes hold of the public, including hooking children on it, and creating fake news. An interesting choice for a Friday morning press screening. As Atkins put it on his Twitter, "have been advised against going to the Starsuckers Press screening friday to avoid actual bodily harm," but judging from the atmosphere in the room afterwards, he may well have found some sympathisers. It's not hard to see why, judging by the quality of the film.

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Associated Press

2009-10-27T06:52:00.000-07:00

New movie takes aim at celebrity journalism

By JILL LAWLESS 27th October

"I didn't realize quite how much of our news is public relations, or lies, or on the basis of criminal acts," said the film's 33-year-old director, Chris Atkins.

"Starsuckers," which premieres Wednesday at the London Film Festival, takes aim at Britain's fiercely competitive tabloid press, but its real target is much broader. Atkins believes that society's obsession with fame — gaining it and being near it — has distorted everything from the way news is reported to our children's aspirations.

The film opens with the statement that "everybody is naturally and powerfully attracted to fame," and tries to show how big companies in entertainment, media and PR use that desire to create a world full of insatiable consumers.

Through a series of stunts reminiscent of Michael Moore's movie polemics, Atkins aims to show how dignity, truth and even the law go out the window in the pursuit of celebrity.

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Girls Aloud Blog

2009-10-25T10:38:00.000-07:00

Now we've really done it...

read post here

Review - The Arts Desk

2009-10-25T10:32:00.000-07:00

By Matt Wolf - Friday 23rd October

That fame, and the pursuit thereof, is hurtful to the soul is the unexceptional if, I suppose, ever-invaluable message of Starsuckers, the Chris Atkins documentary given genuine ballast by the details it selects with which to argue its case. Though overlong for what it is, and often veering off on tangents worthy of separate movies in themselves, the film makes you laugh and wince in equal measure. Anonymity has rarely seemed a healthier place to be.

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Review - Inthenews

2009-10-25T10:28:00.000-07:00

Friday 23rd October By Mathew Champion

Watching the film surrounded by the subject of Atkins' film, and for an online journalist myself, was an at-times uncomfortable experience, similar to the same unease that every enterprising, young journalist who thinks that Charlie Brooker is the British Bill Hicks and that Graham Linehan is right about everything feels when they read Nick Davies' Flat Earth News.

Just as Davies, who is featured in the film, railed against the pitfalls of online churnalism, the rising influence of PR and a lack of time to check sources and make contacts, Atkins goes for the jugular in exposing the outright lies of the entire media establishment, led by our own British tabloids.

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Time Out Review

2009-10-22T02:31:00.000-07:00

Dave Calhoun 22 October

(3 Stars) This doc from ‘Taking Liberties’ director Atkins received ample coverage last week when it was revealed that Atkins and his team had placed false stories about celebrities in the tabloids. Its subject is fame: our desire for it, our desire to know about it and our media’s willingness to feed that desire, even if that means repeating lies or executing sloppy journalism in an age of dwindling media resources.

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Guardian - Ben Dowell

2009-10-21T11:36:00.000-07:00

Did Starsuckers tabloid hoaxers do us all a favour?

19th October

Filmmakers tricked tabloid newspapers into running fictitious celebrity stories for the Starsuckers documentary. But did they perform a public service?

Blogger Madame Arcati (aka former Mirror Group and Associated journalist Victor Olliver)

The Star Suckers should be honoured at the next British Press Awards – a bunch of chain-store dyed chrysanths is on its way from The House of Madame Arcati. Most tabloid showbiz desks are staffed by some 30-plus nincompoop and his selection of 20-plus gormless blondes who think Wikipedia the last thing in research tools. With a double-page spread to fill by 4pm, it's no wonder fiction blooms besides the touched-up picture bylines. Only a silly old party-pooper who doesn't get it would risk spoiling them by picking up a phone.

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Sunday Herald - Tom Shields

2009-10-20T04:37:00.000-07:00

Lies, deception ... and Alex Salmond’s morris dancing secret

17th October

The current fascination with celebrity has largely passed me by.

Show me a copy of Heat magazine and I will fail to recognise 90% of the apparently famous individuals referred to therein.

But I will make an effort to see Starsuckers when it comes to our cinemas next month. Starsuckers is a feature-length documentary which, its makers say, is “about the celebrity obsessed media” and “uncovers the real reasons behind our addiction to fame and blows the lid on the corporations and individuals who profit from it”.

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Roy Greenslade - Guardian

2009-10-19T08:14:00.000-07:00

'Journotainment' infects political reporting

19th October

A thought-provoking column in yesterday's Independent on Sunday by Sarah Sands, It can't be true – it was in the newspaper, dealt with journalism in the age of celebrity.

Prompted by the Starsuckers movie - in which pop papers are lampooned for publishing fake stories - she asked: "How can red tops possibly know what is true and not true in the great tide of celebrity stories, and how much does it matter?"

Her conclusion: "I would be worried if journalists started lying about the national debt, but in the arena of journotainment everybody appears to be in on the act – the newspaper, the celebrity, the public."

Fine. I accept that all are complicit in the conspiracy that is the daily celeb circus. But what happens when "journotainment" infects the reporting of the national debt?

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Independent - Sarah Sands Column

2009-10-18T03:23:00.000-07:00

Sunday 18th October

Which of the following stories sounds true to you? Lily Cole claims to be able to move chairs through mental will power. Kate Perry sucked Russell Brand's face off. Pixie Geldof puts sweets into her bra.

The first story appears on the Popbitch website. The second on the TMZ website. The third was invented by the film-maker Chris Atkins to test how far tabloid journalists will go in search of intrusive information. The hoaxing of the red tops has been turned into a documentary film, Starsuckers.

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Reuters Piece on film 14th October

2009-10-17T07:00:00.000-07:00

LONDON (Reuters) - Three tabloid newspapers discussed buying confidential medical information about celebrities, in a possible contravention of privacy laws, after being offered it as a hoax by a filmmaker.

Journalists from The Sunday Mirror, News of the World and People met Chris Atkins, director of new film "Starsuckers," after he offered them the stories to see how far journalists would be willing to go to obtain intrusive information.

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List of all internet sites that have copy and pasted article

Press Gazette: Tabloids silent over filmmakers' hoax story claims

2009-10-15T10:42:00.000-07:00

Gary Neale - 15th October 2009

The Sun and Mirror today declined to comment on reports today that they were duped by documentary makers into publishing fake stories.

The Star and Express were also reportedly hoaxed by the makers of Starsuckers.

The film, which opens on 30 October, describes itself as "a feature documentary about the celebrity obsessed media, that uncovers the real reasons behind our addiction to fame and blows the lid on the corporations and individuals who profit from it".

The filmmakers are now encouraging others to call into newspapers with fake stories saying: "For decades the tabloid press have made a fortune inventing tales of celebrity gossip. Now it’s your turn."

The makers of Starsuckers say they placed their fake stories by simply calling the tip-off numbers printed in tabloid newspapers.

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Front page of Guardian website – again!

2009-10-15T10:25:00.000-07:00

Tabloids lured by celebrity plastic surgery hoax

Paul Lewis

Thursday 15 October 2009

Exclusive: Reporters met with Starsuckers documentary maker to discuss buying private details

Three tabloid newspapers have been secretly filmed at meetings they thought were concerned with the possible purchase of private medical information about public figures who had undergone cosmetic surgery. The Sunday Mirror, News of the World and People were caught in the sting after they were approached by an undercover documentary-maker. He claimed to have a contact working as an administrative nurse in what was in fact a fictitious cosmetic surgery clinic.

Read full story here

George Clooney and Kevin Spacey comment on Starsuckers

2009-10-15T10:14:00.001-07:00

Associated Press 15.10.09

LONDON — George Clooney thinks something has gone wrong when the media prints celebrity rumor and innuendo as fact.

Clooney says a news story used to require two reliable sources but "that doesn't seem to exist as much anymore."

Clooney spoke Thursday at the London Film Festival, where one documentary in the lineup reveals how easily some newspapers can be duped into running fake stories about the famous.

The makers of "Starsuckers" fed false tips to British tabloids and then watched as some ran them as news. The hoaxes included a story about Amy Winehouse's beehive hairdo catching fire.

Clooney said he had sympathy for journalists, but the problem is "there's so little reporting any more."

Link to story

Guardian Front Page!

2009-10-14T08:02:00.000-07:00

14th October 2009
By Paul Lewis

Starsuckers celebrity hoax dupes tabloids
From 'flamey' Amy Winehouse to Russell Brand the banker, documentary team's fake celebrity stories fooled editors

The plan to subvert the pages of some of Fleet Street's bestselling newspapers was hatched in a windowless office in east London. For months, a team of documentary makers had sat in the Brick Lane film studio they called "the cell", trawling through tabloid clippings in search of stories they could prove were untrue.

They decided to concoct an experiment to test their theory that tabloid editors sometimes publish celebrity stories with scant regard for the truth.

See video on Guardian Website
Read full article on Guardian Website

Times/BFI London Film Festival Write Up

2009-10-12T15:17:00.000-07:00

12th September 2009

Chris Atkins' revelatory documentary exposes the shams and deceit involved in creating a pernicious celebrity culture.

The latest film from Chris Atkins, the BAFTA-nominated director of the Blair-baiting documentary Taking Liberties, takes on the celebrity- obsessed media, pulling down its wizard's curtain to reveal the machinations and deceit involved in selling the notion that fame comes with credibility, money and power as its natural accessories. While providing a clever psychosocial analysis of why stardom is seen as attractive and even necessary, Starsuckers probes various aspects of celebrity culture with a scathing wit and sense of mischief, from the pushy parents who seek recognition for their children to the established public figures who use their position to gain political influence. Illustrating how truth has become devalued by the modern news media, Atkins gets to reveals some immoral, corrupt and illegal practices employed by some of the biggest names in the industry, who collect, create or bury stories for a price. In using a combination of exclusive footage, real-life stories, animation and undercover reportage, Atkins delivers an intelligent, revelatory polemic for our time.

Michael Hayden

Link to LFF page

Guardian Media Monkey Diary

2009-10-12T14:56:00.000-07:00

20th July

Tabloid editors have had a jittery couple of weeks amid exposés about the murky world of phone hacking and private investigators. Now Monkey hears that, unbeknown to Fleet Street's muckiest, a team of documentary-makers have secretly spent the past two years attempting to shed light on the techniques used by the celebrity press. The independent film made by Chris Atkins, the director of the Bafta-nominated Taking Liberties, was turned down by a host of executives from the media establishment after it emerged it would "expose specific high profile figures within the world of the media and PR industry guilty of hypocrisy, immorality and corruption". The documentary is in the post-production phase and, we're told, proving a headache for lawyers.

Link to Guardian Page