I think the end of the Bush era killed most of the demand for left wing documentaries. I think I heard Robert Greenwald is managing a food co-op or something.

Remember when FAHRENHEIT 9-11 came out? It was a phenomenon. I remember I tried to get tickets online and literally every show in Seattle was sold out. I had to go out of town to wait in a long line to see it. It seemed like such a huge deal then because it was like shit, finally. Finally somebody saying something.
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This is a tricky review to write because what I really want isn’t for you to give two shits what I think about how well this movie is made or how entertaining it is or whatever. What I want is for everybody just to go out and see this movie, bring as many friends as they can, then go for food and discuss it. Then go to the vernanda group on yahoo and discuss it with me. You can have your own personal oprah book club with this picture. It’s an interactive movie, it requires feedback. Because it asks a simple, very timely question – why in the hell is there so much violence in america? – and then it leaves it to you to answer it.

Now that’s not what some of the reviews will tell you. But I mean come on, you don’t trust those other assholes do you? Opinions about Michael Moore are like assholes, only assholes have them (or whatever mark twain said, I can’t remember). Alot of people expect Mr. Moore to be preaching to the converted or telling you what to think or something. They expect it so much that they sit there and watch this movie that doesn’t even come close to doing that, and then they leave and describe some non-existent movie that is not the same one ol’ Vern saw.

For example, I don’t think this movie argues for gun control. In fact there’s a scene – pretty much the climax of the movie, so stop reading if you don’t want it given away – where Michael Moore interviews Charlton Heston and asks him why he thinks there are so many gun murders in the US. But Moore points out that it can’t be the amount of guns – he says Canada has just as much access to guns, but way less gun murders. Basically, he’s letting Heston off the hook. But Heston is so programmed to defend the NRA principles that he doesn’t seem to understand the question, he seems to take it as an attack on guns.

Moore talks to many people who offer many possible explanations for our troubles, but none of them are really supposed to be THE answer. One of the most interesting themes, hit on by both the author of CULTURE OF FEAR and Marilyn Manson, and then illustrated in a hilarious montage of news footage, is the way the media and the government constantly try to terrorize us with stories of maniacs on the loose, Y2K bugs, snake attacks, and non-specific terrorist threats from evildoers. So it’s interesting that one of the top news stories today, the day BOWLING FOR COLUMBINE opened here in Seattle, was about the CIA and FBI heads both telling congress that al Qaeda will attack again sometimes somewhere somehow, and we won’t be able to stop it. (more…)

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You might find this shocking. But I like Michael Moore. Fuck it man, I love Michael Moore. Not that I ever met the dude but I love his pictures and his TV shows. I think he is a great satirist who finds goofy ways to illustrate his points and make them sink in better (like the time on The Awful Truth when he hired an actual pimp to turn out the bitches and hoes of congress, or the time he handed out fluorescent orange wallets to black New Yorkers so they wouldn’t get shot by cops like Amadou Diallo did).

I have heard this story on the internet and what not about how Michael Moore is a dangerous dude, his movies are big scary manipulative propaganda lies. And he has these legions of loyal zombie followers who don’t understand humor, irony or the art of motion picture editing. They watch his movies and they think they are a direct uplink from objective scientific reality into their brain. They don’t know how to process the information for themselves. They take it all as literally as these numbskull republicans do, and they don’t ever read or hear about the topic again. They are permanently brainwashed to unquestioningly believe Michael Moore’s crazy, bizarre, venomous hate filled extreme left wing conspiracy theories. Like the one about how everyone deserves affordable health care, or that one from Bowling For Columbine about – get the tin foil hats ready man – I mean, this is almost too crazy to even say out loud – we should try to figure out why our society is so violent.

The only problem with this theory about people being so susceptible to the danger of Michael Moore is that I am having trouble tracking down any of these fuckers. The weird thing is I live in Seattle, one of the most liberal cities in the country and proud of it. I hardly even know any republicans. And I find myself CONSTANTLY trying to defend Michael Moore. From people who agree with him completely, but don’t like his movies. They have soaked up this media created reputation and they are afraid to embrace him. Even on Air America, the one existing outlet that could legitimately be called “the liberal media,” I heard a positive review of the movie that was full of hedges about Michael Moore, how you always have reservations about a Michael Moore film, basically portraying him as some crazy extreme nutball like the right wing chapter of the liberal media does. And that’s all over the place. Everybody doing “fact checks” where they have partisan republicans examine the movie with nobody representing the movie. (And they still don’t come up with anything, but try to spin it like there was some reason to be very suspicious of the movie.) (more…)

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