Indie film news, reviews, commentary, interviews, podcasts and more, updated throughout the week.
No More Moore! Onscreen Beefs With Michael Moore
By Matt Singer
on 10/07/2008
"An American Carol," Vivendi Entertainment, 2008
According to the trailer of David Zucker's new comedy, "An American Carol," "America's most infamous filmmaker -- totally arrogant, completely clueless -- [has] finally gone too far." Of course, Zucker, a former liberal activist who became a "9/11 Republican," is referring to Michael Moore, the inspiration for the central character in "An American Carol," one Michael Malone (Kevin Farley), a filmmaker who's visited by three Dickensian ghosts after he demands that July 4th be abolished ("I love America. That's why it needs to be destroyed!").
Zucker's spoof is perhaps the most high-profile film to take on Moore, but it's by no means the first. In fact, in the last four years, Moore's work has inadvertently given birth to an entirely new strain of conservative filmmaking whose sole mission is to discredit him by taking issue with his documentary aesthetic, his politics, his personal success, even his physical appearance. Here are some notable examples:
"Michael Moore Hates America" (2004)
Directed by Michael Wilson
Made in Response to: "Fahrenheit 9/11" (2004)
The Beef: "Michael Moore has pissed me off," intones Michael Wilson in the opening lines of the voiceover for his film. "This guy has painted a picture of my country as a place where nobody can succeed." To counteract that picture, Wilson interviews experts on the documentary form (Albert Maysles) as well as people who aren't pleased with how they were portrayed in Moore's films, such as Peter Damon, an injured Iraq war veteran who took issue with the way Moore used recycled news footage of him to assert that veterans were being forgotten by the Bush administration. Wilson also tries repeatedly to secure an interview with Moore, à la Moore's own attempts to speak with General Motors CEO Roger Smith in his film "Roger & Me."
Does the filmmaker appear on camera? Yes, intentionally or not, wearing the same sort of ratty jeans and hoodie sweatshirts that Michael Moore wore in "Roger & Me."
Does Michael Moore? Yes, via an impressive array of stock footage. Wilson unearths all kinds of embarrassing clips of Moore, including a particularly shortsighted one where Moore, circa 1992, declares that Bill Clinton has absolutely no chance of beating George Bush in an election. Wilson's only direct contact with Moore comes right at the top of the film, when he takes the microphone during a Q&A at a Moore lecture, announces his film's title and asks the filmmaker for an interview. Moore's angry response -- "Everything I do is because I love America! It's people like YOU that hate America!" -- cuts to a shot of Moore telling a British audience, "Americans are the dumbest people on the planet!" Wilson also includes several other pieces of television footage of Moore alternately bashing the making of "MMHA" or pretending he doesn't know anything about it.
Targets Besides Michael Moore: Wilson himself -- after an awkward interview with Joe Scarborough for MSNBC, he admits that he did "horrible."
Strangest Moment: When Wilson claims that the impetus for this project came when he realized that Moore's work was having a negative impact on his daughter. Wilson, a new father, believes that his daughter can become anything she wants to be. "But Michael Moore," he says, "through his films and books, had told [my daughter] that she couldn't." But Wilson's daughter, as seen in the film, is a newborn baby. Moore's expanded the audience for documentaries, but he hasn't tapped into the pre-teethers yet.
A Filmmaking Lesson: If you want to get an interview with somebody, don't put his name in the title along with the phrase "Hates America." Why is Wilson so surprised that Moore won't speak to him when he himself is so embarrassed by the film's title that he's hesitant to even tell people what it is when he's asked about it on camera?
MORE >- 1
- 2
- 3
- next>
One movie you missed was "Manufacturing Dissent" - A really good one that tries not to force it's view on you but lays out the facts of Moore's way of bending the rules to get his points across.
I guess everyone is entitled to their opinion, but a lot of those films were just crap. Politics aside, Moore is a talented filmmaker. "Bowling for Columbine" is one of the most moving films I have ever seen.
Open letter to Michael Moore
Mr. Moore,
My name is Chris Lowel and I'm pretty much a nobody in every sense of the word, but the few folks who bother reading anything at Moorewatch might know me by the endless rants I've posted there under the handle "biafra".
Moorewatch is where I'd been forever - what's the word - spewing the vilest, bitter, woefully hate-filled monologues against all and any (primarily non-American) visitor who's ever offered any (world)views deviating even mildly from the white, hetero, Xtian, right-wing, hardline American Way, that is, until even the most die-hard Bush drones in charge there had had enough and decided to ban me from their site, Rightfully and even cosmically so, I've come to realize.
Relegated to silently sulking around online, I actually read your open letters to the people posted there, along with the usual snide responses and derision they invariably drew. Lastly, I took a look into the recently released "Slacker Uprising", which documents your past efforts to swing the vote.
During this time of "inaction", as it were, I've come around to thinking that you do perhaps indeed have God's ear - good karma, whatever the magic is called. Its on record that you saved the life(style) of a major detractor of yours, and then I, too, was recently stricken with a serious illness whilst eagerly adhering to his anti-welfare stance. I'm alive, but $50,000+ in debt.
Thing is, after their taking the helm, constantly encouraging me to take it easy and rest, praise the Lord, read the Bible and "just get some credit cards already" several people I'd long considered my closest friends and allies eventually abandoned me for greener pastures - literally. Four months of second-hand hardship in the form of my fretting over mounting debt exacerbated by unnecessary "conveniences" that amounted to nothing more than late fees and daily runs to Starbucks, was too much for some to bear. They "fixed" my books for me, and then booked.
Case in point: The neurosurgeon who saved my life gets all of $50/month for his efforts while that monthly Amex finance charge swallows $56/month. Oh, and that unused LA Fitness membership? A measly $42/month. I fixed that and other boondoggles, but its not enough to stave off bankruptcy. I've heard that once I'm in the "system", it won't get any better. The operation was successful, but this patient is dead.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2007/5/18/223744/567
Either way, Moore has done it again. And there's a larger point. A society that's not constantly fretting about how to pay for medical bills is a BETTER SOCIETY, and the "magic benefactor" can easily be a single-payer system that would cost less than we pay for health care now, and provide better quality service. Moore is a genius at finding real-world ways to illustrate his point of view. This is an excellent example.
Praise the Lord, indeed: I've come up with a simple idea to clearly illustrate what universal health care - truly caring for your neighbor - is all about.
"Slacker Uprising" has successfully created pre-election buzz, and to keep the ball rolling I suggest you add another dimension of punch to, repeat: demonstrate how free health care, and by extension, caring for your neighbor, works.
Race, creed, color, political leanings, religious beliefs - whoever the person in need, true humanists will always put all and any differences aside, step up and deliver. The haves must always come to the aid of the have-nots; until their vote makes it law, the good people will do so voluntarily and without reserve.
In these, the last few weeks leading to the most important election in modern times, I say post an online donation drive for me at www.michaelmoore.com, set up a counter to show the amount of donations made, the number of donators, and perhaps even a (voluntary) tally of which side of the fence they stand on.
Let's show those voters still on the fence how a new and improved nation will deliver on its promises, and how many are willing to lead by example, not just spout empty platitudes.
I have little use for opulence, living large, and, least of all, waste of any kind, so what I don't need to cover my bills I could, in turn, eventually pass on to the next person in need - hey, starting with the folks at Moorewatch.
What say you? Yeah, or HELL, YEAH!!
biafra
Proposal Two: Sign into law congressman John Conyer’s universal health-care legislation (HR676). "The Obama health plan is no good. The McCain health plan is really, really no good," Moore said, explaining that on this issue, his support for Obama comes down to the "lesser of two evils."
Proposal Five: Remove the $102,000 income cap on the social security tax. "If you make over 102,000 a year, do you realize the people in that category do not pay one dime on wages they earn over $102,000 ... Why shouldn’t they have to pay the same six-and-half to seven percent rate that you have to pay on 100 percent or your income?" Moore cited former presidential candidate Chris Dodd, who said that if the cap was lifted, the resulting income would be able to fund social security for 75 years. He also told the audience to remind their neighbors that President Bush wanted to "put social security in the hands of Wall Street five years ago ... We’d all be Lehman Brothers."
Michael Moore has more than $102,000; he can (again) demonstrate how universal health care works - he, the government - chips in to pay my bills, and you, the taxpayers, chip in, too, without reserve, or simply reimburse Michael's costs to him.
Universal health care will discriminate against noone: rich, poor, white, black, young, old male, female, straight, gay -
