Michael Moore S&D

Tangent from Moore, but I think this information is public enough not to need extensive corroboration. (This depends on how it's presented, of course; obviously we didn't specifically drill and equip bin Laden, but he was a part of the general mujahadeen crew who we funded, encouraged, outfitted, shared information with, etc. I don't know -- are there people out there who dispute that?)

W/r/t Moore, my only complaint about him is that he prides himself on approaching issues rather simplistically, in a sort of aww- shucks "I'm just a working-class Michigan fellow, but..." sort of way. This is all well and good apart from being quite so simplistic as it is -- which is, I think, part of what draws him occasionally toward sort of right-winging trade protectionism (i.e., arguing for anything that improves the standards of American laborers without any regard to the fortunes of people elsewhere, or even the principle of the decision involved). I suppose my point here is that while I tend to like Moore's positions, I could very easily see him becoming a reactionary of the worst sort, because there really doesn't seem to be a whole lot of high-level intellectual processing behind his views -- just old-fashioned working-class "protect yourself against the system" rhetoric.

sucking up to your subject when the camera's off comes with the territory of making documentaries.

He's been accused of far worse. Apparently Roger Smith did give him an interview, but Moore didn't use it in Roger & Me. He's also been accused of treating his own employees shabbily, but I don't know how true that is.

He's not perfect, but he's one of the most human voices of dissent in American culture. He doesn't pretend to be objective, his biases are clear. I trust his instincts.

I basically like Michael Moore. I did see him once save some guy's life. He was being stiffed by some insurance company who were refusing to fund his treatment on some technicality. So Mike Moore went and on camera invited the head of the company to the man's funeral. It was strange viewing - it was like it had never really occured to the suit that people die as a result of his decisions.

Protectionism is wrong, though.

As for plain old fact-checking, I think he is essentially truthful but plays literal and linguistic games as part of his process of simplifying for wide understanding. I have worried about this but when the guy is so firmly, so unwaveringly on the side of what I perceive to be *good*, concern is squashed.

Mark Thomas ditto: you call him a smug prick but wtf have you done, by comparison. He's made a difference.

(* - though not broadcast until his first spot on the Mary-Ann Hobbs show, late last year).

Oh, and MM did give Louis Theroux his start.

People who are against free trade are foolish.

Um.. that's all.

Seriously, sorry - I wasn't thinking of the earlier protectionism mention at all, just answering the specific statement that included me in its definition.

Anybody else see it?

famous dwyer?

R. Budd Dwyer (died 22 January 1987)
This Pennsylvania state treasurer staged the best-known televised suicide. About to be sentenced on charges of conspiracy, mail fraud, perjury, and racketeering for taking a $300,000 kickback on a state computer contract, Dwyer convened a press conference in his office. While the film rolled, he handed out a twenty-page press statement, made a few remarks, then placed the barrel of a .357 revolver in his mouth and pulled the trigger. The tape was shown on the nightly news.

Filter actually wrote "Hey Man Nice Shot" about him, supposedly.

I'm not going to say too much here apart from reiterating what other people have already said: I really like the fact that Moore is out there putting out this point of view because I think it needs to be heard, but yeah, sometimes I question his methodology and his choice of language, which I know I'd nail in someone spouting off the opposing viewpoint. Didn't much care for the second TV series (the Awful Truth) but TV Nation was still classic.

Anyone know if there are any plans to release his earlier documentaries on DVD?

(...) On Monday it was at last screened for the press and the public. The audience at the afternoon gala screening responded with a 20-minute standing ovation that the festival's artistic director, Thierry Frémaux, said was the longest he had ever witnessed in Cannes.

Meanwhile the Mediterranean air has been thick with rumors about how, and when, the film will reach American audiences. The most persistent is that the heads of Miramax films, Harvey and Bob Weinstein, are trying to organize a consortium of American companies to ensure its wide and timely release. (Disney, which owns Miramax, refused to allow the company to release it, but later agreed to sell it back to the Weinsteins, though they are not allowed to release it as a Miramax film.)

Mr. Moore may be a frequent sight in Cannes, but one of the most striking things about "Fahrenheit 9/11" is how little he appears in it. One complaint about some of his early films - my main complaint about "Bowling for Columbine," at any rate - was that he sometimes gets in the way of his own arguments by making his films too much about himself. Perhaps because of the extreme gravity of the subject, his on-camera appearances this time are limited to a sparse handful of the good-humored man-on-the-street stunts that have been his trademark since "Roger and Me." (In one scene he approaches members of Congress and tries to persuade them to enlist their own children in the armed forces.)

The content of "Fahrenheit 9/11," which begins on election night in 2000 and was completed only 10 days before arriving in Cannes, is not entirely unfamiliar. Its bill of particulars against Mr. Bush can be found in a number of recently published books, and it is unapologetically polemical. It is also the best film Mr. Moore has made so far, a powerful and passionate expression of outraged patriotism, leavened with humor and freighted with sorrow. Yes, I said patriotism, though there will inevitably be those, pointing to the film's enthusiastic reception in France, who will insist that it is the opposite. They should (unlike Disney's board of directors) see it first.

I will not summarize or quarrel with the movie's points here; there will be time for that when it arrives in the United States. I will say what surprised me most about it. We all know Mr. Moore as a polemicist and a muckraker, and according to our views and tastes we revile, lionize or equivocate about him as such. (For my part I've mostly been among the equivocators).

"Fahrenheit 9/11," his most disciplined and powerful movie to date, suggests that he is also, arguably, a great filmmaker. Using interviews and archival video clips (including a tape made by the staff at the Florida elementary school Mr. Bush was visiting on the morning of Sept. 11, 2001), he has assembled a moving and invigorating documentary. Is it partisan? Of course. But there are not many important films that haven't been.

do people really do that? any ilx0rs taken part in a 20, or even 10 minute standing ovation?

xpost

OTM. mark thomas may be a smug prick to some but as a moore protege, his exposes have far better construction. politically i dig them both, but as much as i want to like moore, 'bowling' reminds me of the spider's web spun on cannabis - it's arguments are cute but all over the place. moore needs to confront, create and brainstorm but also to bring in sympathetic researchers etc to help build his righteous anger into a more cohesive whole.

yeah, 'cause godard is known for his incisive critiques of current affairs....

i've been at 10 minute standing ovations for orchestral performances, and solo vocal performances. never for a movie, though i've never been to a big fancy festival.

i fail to see what moore has to do with eisenstein (i mean, aside from the obvious fact of their both being political filmmakers--in very diff't ways), even though enrique keeps bringing it up.

from 'pierrot le fou' (shot spring 1965, ie just as LBJ was ramping things up in Nam) onwards jlg put Nam refs in all his films. in the collective effort 'loin de vietnam' (assembled by chris marker, mainly) he contributed a segment which is basically him pissing about with a camera about the problems inherent in a frenchman contributing to this struggle, ie needing to reinvent the language of cinema... that old stuff.)

'ici et ailleurs' is about palestine, or about the relation of tv viewers to war coverage on tv, so it's about the codes used to represent wars and how much they limit expression of political aims to those determined by -- etc. i haven;t seen this film, however, and it's a while since i saw 'loin'. or, actually, any of his films. bear in mind jlg was a great fan of the film 'the american friend' and not exactly 'committed' in his youth (cf 'le petit soldat' about france's other former colony, algeria and jlg's lack of decisiiveness...)

That film largely revolved around Mr. Moore’s fruitless attempts to interview Roger Smith, then the chairman of General Motors, after his company closed plants in Mr. Moore’s birthplace, Flint, Mich.: an interview that occurred, Ms. Melnyk and Mr. Caine said, although Mr. Moore left it on the cutting-room floor

Moore's worst infraction, however, was also the most intimate. There's a scene that depicts a 'Great Gatsby' party, ostensibly an arrogant display of wealth in the face of Flint's misery. It was actually an annual fundraiser for a battered women's shelter, something Moore had supported in his Flint Voice editorials. One guest, a middle-aged man, speaks about Flint's many virtues and comes across as a heartless, privileged ass. Moore does not disclose that this man, Larry Stecco, is an acquaintance of his, a lawyer who had given money to the Flint Voice and performed pro bono civil rights work in the area. Stecco is now a judge, and Larner met with him. We learn that Moore asked Stecco a misleading question to elicit the desired quote. Stecco sued Moore and won; he tells Larner that the black actors paid to pose as 'human statues' at the Gatsby event sued as well (Moore chose not to film the white actors). In a commentary for the 'Roger & Me' DVD recorded in 2003, Moore not only fails to mention any of this – he continues to badmouth Stecco as part of 'the other side'. If Moore is this dishonest toward a friend at a tiny local event, he can scarcely be trusted on matters of world-historical scope. Larner's summation hits the mark: Moore 'exhibits both a solid show-business instinct and a cold, hard core of relentless ideology, an attitude that, as with Leninists of yore, will always put the cause of increasing human well-being before the well-being of any particular human, and will put the meta-truth before the actual, immediate truth of any situation' (p. 78).

While Moore's background is in grassroots organising and muckraking journalism, his ticket to fame was America's flourishing medium of satire – a medium he did much to reinvent. His forebears range from Charlie Chaplin to Abbie Hoffman, as Kevin Mattson observed in a 2003 critique for Dissent. Today, Moore operates in a crowded comedic field, much of which could be called 'post-ideological'. Jon Stewart of 'The Daily Show' is unmistakably liberal, but he can be equally merciless toward George W. Bush and Hugo Chávez. Bill Maher, a spirited Bush-basher and opponent of the Iraq war, staunchly defended Israel's July 2006 bombardment of Lebanon and gave an obsequious interview to Benjamin Netanyahu. 'South Park' routinely mocks the pieties of the right and the left. But in Moore's top-grossing documentaries and polemical books, there is no mistaking where his flag is planted. And despite his old-school labour movement roots, he fully understands (to quote Mattson) that today's 'young people are reached via satellite dishes and mega-mall bookstores rather than through cafés or union halls or small magazines'.

He said point-blank that the CIA trained and funded bin Laden, which I have not seen corroborated.

I'm not defending Moore's shortcuts so much as I don't care that he makes them. It doesn't bother me, its par for the course with filmmaking. I don't accept anything he displays on-screen as "the truth" and am saddened and surprised that anyone would do so.

The characterization of Leninism as being concerned with the well-being of humanity is rather disingenuous. Or at least overly simplistic.

but milo the writer's concluding sentence about there being "no question which side his flag is planted on' is made in contrast to the other previous three examples - the implication being that the side(s) the other "post ideological" comedians/critics take are more nuanced, balanced, etc., that it ISN'T clear which side their flag is planted on.

October 2:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IhydyxRjujU&feature=player_embedded

Basically my first take-away from this is MIA has nailed the social protest OST market 4 lyfe.

http://video.nytimes.com/video/2009/09/17/movies/1247464643127/exclusive-clip-capitalism-a-love-story.html

finally saw this last one, maybe his second best after F 9/11.

Finally saw it too. The first half is his best stuff in years. The part 40 mins in about "Peasant Death" secret life insurance policies is more shocking than anything else in the film.

The last half though, where he starts doing his usual stunts, is far less effective, and the whole Obama wins people fight back tone is silly and naive. That's what you get in a movie finished right after his election.

Of course after seeing MM in "Unreasonable Man" it's hard to take anything this guy says seriously.

this guy is a #1 troll

he tweets:

Liberal pundits are saying we should "stand up to Obama!" Really? How should we do that? More begging? More "tsk tsk"? More "pretty please?"

spotted on sidewalk outside IFC Center yakking w/ patrons after Q&A session for Jeremy Scahill's docfilm Dirty Wars. You won't believe it but he was in t shirt and jeans.

Ran across a cache of old VHS tapes that were boxed up in the garage and found the TV Nation tapes I had. I lucked out and got to see the pilot almost a year before it actually aired. Instantly thought, no way this is getting on. It was classic Mad Magazine "beware of The Man" pop sociology with Michael Moore as Alfred E. Chomsky and Louis Theroux, Karen Duffy, Merrill Markoe, Janeane Garofalo & that KGB guy as the Usual Gang of Idiots. Best prank Moore ever pulled off - convincing NBC to fund a season of it.

WHERE TO INVADE NEXT explores the current state of the nation in a form that is quintessential Moore: provocative, impassioned and very funny. The film was a runaway hit with audiences and critics at this month's Toronto International Film Festival (and currently boasts a rating of 95% on Rotten Tomatoes). The film's American premiere is this Friday evening at the New York Film Festival presented by the Film Society of Lincoln Center. It sold out within hours of being announced.

Moore's epic journey will invade American cinemas this December -- and will be in hundreds of theaters across the country ahead of the first presidential primary.

http://wheretoinvadenext.com/

Really wish Michael Moore would write documentaries for other people to direct and star in.

Great title.

Hey, I remember this TV Nation bit

out tomorrow

https://theintercept.com/2016/02/10/where-to-invade-next-is-the-most-subversive-movie-michael-moore-has-ever-made/

looks bad

friend (not the op) shared this:

https://www.facebook.com/sylvain.lariviere.777/videos/vb.829750410/10156828556290411/?type=2&theater

Sylvain Lariviere

Follow · May 25 · Edited ·

..

ain't America
Here is a different reality about Italia from an Italian girl who's living a different daily reality than this video
(From Valentina Corvi)

ciao! just to tell u that that moor's video is completelly false. the majority of us strugles to arrive to the end of the month, and we are almost bankrupted as a country. the two companies where he went, have nothing to do with all the rest of the Italian companies. wages are around 1000/1200 euros per month, the 100% goes away for monthly expenses (house rent, bills, food, kids needs, medicines..). yes, sure, holidays here are payed, but normal people use that money to survive not to go on holiday. that couple?? easy when u are in two people working and no kids. in italy is much more common that only one of the two has a job (there are no jobs here) and 3 kids at home.
we are devastated by the taxes of our corrupted politicians (the only really rich in my country). for i stance, i have a house in the center of rome, was my granny house. i have to give every year 6500 euros to the gov only cause i own that house, only cause is mine, every year i have to pay 6500 euros, over a hoise where already my granmother payd lot of taxes when she bought it. than i have to pay the tari, other 600 euros, to the district of rome, so evry year just cause i posses my family house, i've to give 7000 euros to the gov.
and i'm lucky, cause i can afford, i belong to the minority of the itslians. if i was a normal itslian, i would have been forced to sell my family house. half of the pay an employe gets here, goes to the government in first place, with what remains, u have to survive.
another exaple, gino strada, he is a surgeon who created a medical charity organization called emergency. emergency used to work only in the third world or in war places as siria, afganistan ecc. they provide free medical assitence. well, now they had to open emergency centers also in italy, cause the 20% of the italians cannot afford paying for healthcare, though here is not like in the us and medical healsh should be free. but the is a tax on it called "ticket", u dont pay the medical care but y pay the tax on it. and people are so poor now that they cannot afford paying the ticket. so gino strada was forced to help suffering people also in his country.
michael moor wanted to uplight what's wrong in the us. but he should have gone in northen europe, not in italy. people want to come in the usa, cause at least there u can find a job. maybe maternity and holidays are not payd, but still u can find a job. here people do not have a job, nevertheless they have to pay a lot of taxes over whatever. we have also a tax over taxes, it sounds funny, but is the dramatic italian reality.
never so a more unfair video as the moor's one.
the only thing here is better than usa, the reason why our life span is wider, is that is true that we don't eat shit. our diet, the mediterrain diet, is very healthy since we eat a lot of fruit and vegetables, very little sugar, very little fats, and we don't like processed food. but obama is pishing for the ttip, he want europe to be invaded with the american shit, meat full of antibiotics and hormons, ogm, veg filled up with chemicals. as soon as the american edible crap will invade us, will die obese, with diabetis and as soon as u do there!

ciao!

Where To Invade Next had some stuff I liked--a bit contrasting the ways in which Germany acknowledges and pays tribute to its victims of the Holocaust with America's inability to do any such equivalent re: slavery admittedly choked me up a bit. But he's gotten awful lazy as a filmmaker, and the film is ultimately a bit shallow and repetitive. Grossest moment: putting the father of a victim of a mass shooting on camera to discuss his lack of hostility towards the shooter as proof at how non-grudge-holding Europeans are; my husband actually yelled "Fuck Off!" at the TV.

Michael Moore's October Surprise: 'TrumpLand' Documentary

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/19/movies/19michael-moore-trumpland.html

Ugh, like this election needs his half-assery We have enough full-assery as it is.

Total fucking dud

yeah, right? One of about 6 people in the country who told us Trump would win.

interview

What you’re going to see is, on day one, he’s going to rescind a dozen or more of Obama’s executive-branch regulations. On day two, Republicans will start printing laws the way you print fliers for a homecoming dance. Before the liberals and the Democrats can get their heads screwed on straight, they’ll have 20 laws passed. Building a wall. Creating a Muslim ban. He’s shown how he’s going to do it. He’s going to get away with it by making it a ban on Muslims who come from the following countries. He needs just enough cover for his crowd to say, “Oh, he’s being reasonable there. He’s not banning all Muslims.”...

I met (Trump) in 1998. Roseanne Barr — after her sitcom was over, they gave her a talk show. I was on, and Trump was there in the green room. He sees me, goes to the producer, and says, “I can’t be on the same show. I saw that General Motors movie, and he’s going to attack me.”

The producer said [to me], “Is there any way you can help me?” I said, “Oh brother, I’ll go talk to him.” I walked over, shook his hand — it was very clammy. I don’t honestly remember the size, but it was moist. He said, “We don’t have to mix it up out there.” I said, “Why do you assume that about me? I’m from Michigan. We don’t really know you. The only thing that sticks in my head is you were one of the few guys that was on the cover of Playboy.” He laughed. I said, “It’s Roseanne. She’s a comedian. You have nothing to worry about here.”

He stayed, and we did the show. And it wasn’t until last year that it hit me: People think he’s stupid — he’s not stupid at all. He played me; he got me to not be myself, to not talk any anti-corporate talk. I thought I was going over to relax him. What he was doing was undoing me so I wouldn’t be Michael Moore. This guy is good....

Tom Hanks should be the template of who the Democrats should run. He is beloved by tens of millions of people, and he’s smart, and he operates from both his brain and his heart. As far as I’m concerned, he has good politics.

http://variety.com/2017/film/news/michael-moore-donald-trump-democrats-election-1201960466/

well he was doin' ok til that last bit

so Ocasio-Cortez has some screen time in this one; freshly edited!

Here's the exclusive trailer for Michael Moore's (@MMFlint) newest documentary "Fahrenheit 11/9." It's in theaters Sept. 21. pic.twitter.com/eHLPy1J9o4

— HuffPost (@HuffPost) August 9, 2018

Oh great he’s reusing that asinine title

well F9/11 did gross $221 million globally, so not a hindrance

The official poster for my new movie! See you all at the theaters across the U.S. on Opening Day, September 21st! #Fahrenheit119 pic.twitter.com/khZrBMqqSQ

— Michael Moore (@MMFlint) August 15, 2018

Brief reminder that “Michael & Us” is a great podcast by two leftists from Toronto that reviews every MM-wannabe agitprop flick released.

https://m.soundcloud.com/michael-and-us

11/9 takes on the Clintons, Obama, and liberal apathy along with the Grifter... and...

It was, according to Moore, Trump’s discovery that (Gwen) Stefani made more money on The Voice than he did on The Apprentice that made Trump announce his candidacy, to goad NBC into seeing how popular he was. It backfired, but the wheels started turning.

https://www.vox.com/culture/2018/9/7/17831208/fahrenheit-11-9-review-michael-moore-trump-liberals-tiff

Was thinking last night that I'm going to be a lot more forgiving of Spike Lee's recent indulgences when this movie comes out.

Spike did not predict the election correctly, tho

Okay so Blake Shelton and Gwen Stefani, I've got my eye on you.

Saw the new one purely for something to do--there's not a film of Michael Moore's I've found anything more than mildly diverting. The best part is where he goes after Obama for his handling of Flint; I don't remember Obama ever looking so bad. (Assuming Moore's presentation of events isn't taken out of context--never a sure thing with him.) The rest goes on. Without even addressing specifics, it's hard to get past that oppressively facetious tone of his.

Even by Moore's own gimmicky standards, this hits rock-bottom twice: commissioning a water truck to visit the Michigan governor's house (so Moore can take the hose out and start spraying water over the fence), and playing audio of Trump over footage of Hitler.

sounds ok to me

Honestly, it's not. It's embarrassing, even if--maybe even especially if--you agree with the sentiment. The Hitler thing is as crude and as obvious as a dumb Facebook Photoshop or something. A high school student could do better.

ok so this documentary was bleak as hell. is there any truth to it? are "renewable" energy sources not really renewable at all?

here's a counterpoint someone else prepared earlier:

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/may/07/michael-moore-far-right-climate-crisis-deniers-film-environment-falsehoods

the film isn't skeptical about climate change. it's really doomy. the filmmaker -- not moore -- implies that humans need to drastically rein in their consumption and also their numbers through population control. basically he thinks industrial society cannot continue, not in any form that would look familiar to us.

maybe the far right finds these arguments convenient because it sticks it to reformers but that's just a secondary effect. i am mostly just freaked out by the idea that i shouldn't have faith in wind and solar. is that true?

did you read the link?

There are real issues and real conflicts to be explored... ...But they are handled so clumsily and incoherently by this film that watching it is like seeing someone start a drunken brawl over a spilled pint, then lamping his friends when they try to restrain him

Bill McKibben went after it in Rolling Stone too.

yeah, they did mckibben dirty in the film. even i knew he wasn't in the pocket of fossil fuel companies, what a fucked up charge to make.

Story on the night Moore won an Oscar and used his speech to denounce Bush's invasion of Iraq, just as it was starting up.

As reported, there was a mix of applause and boos. Per one of the producers onstage, the orchestra section at the Oscars is occupied by the movie industry while people "with connections" fill the balcony seats - the boos generally came from the balcony. When Moore was taken offstage, one of the stagehands yelled "asshole" into his ear. Later on, after he flew home, he opened his bag, saw a TSA slip with his Oscar, and noticed that the entire Oscar statuette had been marred the way someone would key a car. (The Academy re-plated the Oscar for him.)