Michael Moore's latest broadside "Capitalism: A Love Story"

“While I was making ‘Sicko’ I began to think: ‘I’ve been doing this for 20 years. How many more films can I make when I’m talking about the car industry in this film or Halliburton in that film or the insurance industry in this film?’ And I was thinking, ‘What if this would be your last documentary?’ Well, I wouldn’t pull my punches.”

...After the screening in Toronto, Mr. Moore took questions from audience members eager to know exactly what they should do. He offered some broad suggestions, stressing that he worried that Democrats in the United States would begin to abandon Mr. Obama (whom he enthusiastically supports) now that the election is won.

Pushed harder on Mr. Obama, a gradualist seemingly out of step with Mr. Moore’s radical agenda of scrapping capitalism, Mr. Moore only said that he hoped for the best, but feared the influence of Goldman Sachs on the administration. Finally, he just shrugged.

“You know,” he said, “the next movie may be about him.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/20/movies/20head.html?em

THERE ARE FEWER of the trademark Moore stunts in “Capitalism,” a sprawling 126-minute film that tries to connect data points across the economy, including the bailout, financial deregulation, privatized juvenile detention centers, the collapse of the American auto business (again), “dead peasant” insurance policies, Goldman Sachs’s influence in Washington, the crash of a commuter turboprop in Buffalo, the Florida condo market and an old-fashioned sit-in at a Chicago door-and-window factory.

^ yeah...he doesn't come anywhere close to reconciling or even explaining these data points, which is hella frustrating if you've actually have been paying attention especially re: the financial system, and yeah it's about as indelicate and distracted, even incoherent as you might imagine (i usually defend mm because his schtick >>>>> the default liberal lemonsucker response to his schtick, but i seriously had to be dragged to this one) but all that somehow ends up making it feel like a gut (rabbit) punch thesis statement to a 10 part series that i would honestly love to see. cheers at the fdr speech, some super lols; even for haters it's worth seeing in a crowd, maybe not otherwise.

was waiting for this perfect coda to the sit-in but he obv. didn't have time to fit it in, hoping he has the powers of concentration to add it to the dvd release

yes, yes, plz keep this shit out of rolling documentary

BREAKING NEWS: MICHAEL MOORE MURDERED

yeh i don't think u guys would like it

if you've had a relatively easy life it might not be that interesting, but if you've gone through mortgage foreclosures and shit like that it's pretty good

That's nonsense.

Experiences are supposed to make rickety agitprop more aesthetically pleasing?

AFAICS, the only thing Moore is agitating for is a better-regulated form of capitalism, where government intervenes somewhat more effectively when businesses try to breeak down your door and eat your brains.

I tend to agree that this would be a worthwhile way for government employees to spend their time. Why he attracts so much dread and disgust for advancing these views puzzles me.

Haven't seen the film. New Yorker write-up suggests that he presents capitalism as something essentially, inherently evil unless carefully and heavily regulated/controlled. Dunno whether or not the NYer piece is fair or accurate WR2 the film's arguments and tone, but if it is, I can see as how it might rankle.

michael moore's broadside

I like the fact that Michael Moore exists. I like the fact that Adam Curtis exists far, far more. I just wish MM would digest his justifiable anger, and offer us counterarguments rather than targets.

Capitalists are not evil. It is just in their nature to find your brains tasty and nutritious. And, surely, they reason, if they do not eat your brains, some other capitalist will, so it is better for them to do the job first. This creates a bit of a frenzy.

However, if the government steps in and makes it clear that the law will be that no one is allowed to eat your brains, then they calm down a bit and realize they can bide their time.

"I probably do the same thing when I watch Lifetime!"

wait wrong thread

I feel a little, "mmm....braaaaains...." when I watch Lifetime, too.

Lifetime is the greatest crime of capitalism tho

it's not rickety agitprop. have you seen it?

Lifetime's full of rickety prop, tho maybe not of the agit variety.

Hey why was Lifetime the only network to rerun "It's Garry Shandling Show"?

more cheap wicker, fewer showdowns in high-rise lobbies w/ security guards.

there should be more lifetimes than just one

I like the fact that Adam Curtis exists far, far more.

OTM

there should be more lifetimes than just one

― kamerad, Monday, 5 October 2009 18:21 (2 hours ago)

There's the lifetime movie network. In HD!

good call matt

there's also "lifetime real women"

I just wish MM would digest his justifiable anger, and offer us counterarguments rather than targets.

I guess you'll be reading Ralph Nader's new utopian novel, then?

can't be worse than atlas shrugged. there are some incisive cineaste critiques up top. totally agreed, who needs to see films to dismiss them? cinematech, cahiers du cinema

yesterday my pacifica station hawked a pack of adam curtis dvds as a pledge drive gift. after all these years they're finally worth listening to lol. also heard a nader interview about the book never heard someone sound so artless god bless him good luck with that morbius

(and i do think his point is well taken about the lack of utopian political drive, i just really hope he's got some of the raiders ghostwriting)

matt taibbi is otm

http://trueslant.com/matttaibbi/2009/10/06/michael-moores-problems-are-our-fault/

lib hatred of Moore is yet one more reason I have no faith in Democrat rank-and-file.

dr morbius is otm

"The reaction to Michael Moore’s new movie, Capitalism: A Love Story, reinforces a suspicion I started having a few years back: that most of us Americans are much better at being movie and TV critics than we are at being political organizers. When we come out of a film like this, we find ourselves focusing on the flaws in Moore’s moviemaking and not on the film’s content, which just happens to be the reality of our own day-to-day political existences. We’re not thinking about how to fix our lives, in other words, but how to fix the movie about our lives."

OK, that's lovely, and I'm a big Taibbi fan, but I think most of us can separate our activist sides from our critical ones, thanks.

when will people stop seeing "moviemaking" and "content" as being two separate things.

This is 2009 and we're arguing about art vs politics?!

The Yes We Can army's vitriol goes to MM, not upping the quicksand in Afghanistan.

when the makes of No End in Sight act as obnoxiously in public as Michael Moore, I'll join them on the barricades.

I'd argue that Moore's job is less difficult than Obama's, and that his successes and failures are much less important. You might think that this would make it less interesting to criticize Moore, but the downside to criticizing Obama is that it verges on a form of political suicide (for those who support him, anyway). Suspect that this is the same reason you didn't see much public criticism of Bush from Republicans.

One of my best chums, a young Cuban emigre who worked as deputy press secretary in Joe Garcia's doomed 2008 House campaign (in which he ran against one of the indomitable Diaz-Balart bros), reminds me of the miracles of Cuban health care every time he talks to a relative -- now Cubans are told that they shouldn't expect sterilized needles in hospitals. And I'm supposed to sympathize with Moore? He can fuck right off. He's a fraud.

if Glenn Greenwald, Taibbi, Jeremy Scahill, or Amy Goodman made an anti-Obama documentary, I'd endorse it wholeheartedly. They can stoke righteous anger and still get their facts right.

c: als isn't an anti-obama documentary. no way could a real live in the theater viewing of it leave anyone with that impression. if some of us could separate our anti-michael moore activist sides from our critical ones, and stick to militating against movies we've actually seen, the world might be a nicer place. as to taibbi's larger point, that our culture is so ethically bankrupt that we get more upset about the formal attributes of a film that depicts a rash of foreclosures than we are about the foreclosures themselves, he's completely fucking right

Moore's films aren't documentaries.

It's quite possible to get upset about the foreclosures and the Obama administration's collusion with Wall Street and still think the movie's a fraud. Come on!

As for Moore, look at the Rolling Stone[ "forum" in which he participated with Paul Krugman and, God help us, David Fucking Gergen and you'll see an Obama apologist in action.

how is the movie a fraud, alfred?

I think Alfred's talking about Sicko re Cuban health care, which did make me queasy.

lib hatred of Moore is yet one more reason I have no faith in Democrat rank-and-file.

I did not know this was a thing!

I mean I hear nitpicking about him & his movies but never, "Why doesn't that fucker stfu?"

STFU, Michael Moore

I wish that was the real headline ;_;

suggest cuban

The worst trend in modern documentary is the personality-driven film. Thanks, Michael Moore. Also, thanks for not supporting indie theaters. Oh, and for introducing ideas like 'doc night in America' and then never following through.

u mad

you'll see an Obama apologist in action.

oh yes. the film notes, pokes fun at, and ultimately elides obama's failure of judgment re: summers/geithner et al. there's many unavoidable omissions here by its/his nature but that kind of hedging just comes off as dishonest given the moralist tone of the rest of the film, even if i can understand it strategically (surprised morbius can also? tbh).

All those things are like raping a child, for God's sake

xp

suggest cuban

You trolling my gay.com profile?

why do you keep dropping links to that drunken loser, hitchens

bahaha best thing ever was when my friend/roomie called to cancel his gay.com account. There he is washing the dishes, stoned, in a pair of my high-heeled boots (which he stretched out w/his big feet btw ;_;), reciting basic bits of info. Name, address, and then mad blush as he loudly whispers "latincumguzzler."

It's just not a word people say enough when doing the dishes.

"who got cum all over the dishes?"

(sorry!)

it's more of a mutter in traffic thing where i'm from

"who got cum all over the dishes?"

stop quoting Hitchens you

The Yes We Can army's vitriol goes to MM, not upping the quicksand in Afghanistan.

Between the racism of F911 and the dishonesty of BfC, I have no interest in seeing another Moore film. I'm not entirely sure WTF this has to do with Afghanistan.

do you have interest in voting again for the imperial gangster in the Whi...

nah.

lol I'm such a lockstep Democrat

Oh, and for introducing ideas like 'doc night in America' and then never following through.

― got that candy zing (Tape Store), Tuesday, October 6, 2009 9:30 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

sobering

I wish Michael Moore were my dad.

well mike sure sonned sean hannity last night

really?

I just watched the first half. Hannity is less shrill than usual; he's even gracious. He recognizes a fellow liar.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y-JGbMYecug

he has to be gracious to mike or mike won't go back on his show. mm=hannity ratings bonanza

I just watched the first half. Hannity is less shrill than usual; he's even gracious. He recognizes a fellow liar.

― Roman Polanski now sleeps in prison. (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, October 7, 2009 9:44 AM (55 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

did he say "you know, we're not so different, you and i... two sides of the same coin"?

"You're an improbable person, Sean. And so am I."

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/__mokxbTmuJM/STT3JiMN-RI/AAAAAAAADPk/NiikpokwiI4/s400/allabouteve3.jpg

that interview is very difficult to watch

http://www.indianajones5trailer.com/indiana_jones_and_the_raiders_of_the_lost_ark/belloq.jpg

One of my best chums, a young Cuban emigre who worked as deputy press secretary in Joe Garcia's doomed 2008 House campaign (in which he ran against one of the indomitable Diaz-Balart bros), reminds me of the miracles of Cuban health care every time he talks to a relative -- now Cubans are told that they shouldn't expect sterilized needles in hospitals.

who caused this shortage of sterilized needles if not the Cuban-Exile lobby?

greedy capitalist bastards!

cleanliness/godliness innit why risk it

I have not heard of this needle shortage

"it is gauche to document mortgage foreclosures with anything but upper class dispassion. somewhere errol morris is eating werner herzog's shoe"

"it should be more like american movie or something so we can leave the theater amused by the fools who have lost their homes"

what the fuck is this guy's problem?

http://videogum.com/400021/the-michael-moore-problem/top-stories/