Moore takes a big hit from the Irish
This is, by far, the harshest critique of Moore and “Captain Mike Across America” I’ve seen. To do it justice, I’m republishing it here in it’s entirety.
Enough already of the self-involved Moore
Is this the end for Michael Moore? The controversial film maker has become arguably the loudest anti-Bush voice in America, eclipsing other well known Left-wing activists such as Sean Penn and Tim Robbins with a series of movies that are almost genetically designed to make people lose faith in the American system.
But now, following on from the failure of his last film, Sicko, it seems his latest flick, Captain Mike Across America looks set to be his biggest dud yet. Captain Mike Across America sees Michael Moore making a movie about the person he loves most—Michael Moore.
Filmed a few years ago when the Michigan native embarked a nationwide college tour to impress on students how important it was to (a) hate George Bush and (b) love Michael Moore, Captain Mike Across America premiered to a half empty theatre at the Toronto Film Festival last week, leaving many observers to conclude that the darling of the film festival circuit has made one self-involved movie too many.
It would be nice to think that this is the case, and that duplicitous old fraud has finally been found out, but what is really baffling is the huge popularity he enjoyed in the first place.
Here in Ireland, Moore is virtually idolised by the Left, and it is to the their eternal shame that they adopted Moore to be their Leni Riefenstahl.
Many people first became aware of Moore through his TV show The Awful Truth and then his first feature film, Roger And Me, an apparently damning indictment of the impact of General Motors decision to relocate from a small American town to Mexico, where labour costs were cheaper.
It was like a Woody Guthrie song put to celluloid and was intensely moving. There was only one problem: he had manipulated the truth to suit himself, as well as deceiving at least one of the people who appeared—the woman who sold rabbits for food—into signing away any future royalties.
The lies and deceptions didn’t stop there.
Incredibly, he won an Oscar for Best Documentary with Bowling For Columbine, despite the fact that there were at least 56 proved inaccuracies and distortions.
When pressed, he admitted to manufacturing false footage and using fake statistics and dodgy data, but defended himself by saying that he was entertainer—an interesting defence from the winner of an Oscar for Best Documentary.
But while you could forgive Moore for his many failings, the refusal of so many people to accept the glaring evidence right in front of their eyes was damnable.
Unquestioningly bashing Bush was the order of the day, as was unquestioningly swallowing anything Moore had to say. It was a shame to see so many otherwise sensible people completely lose their critical faculties and turn any exposure of Moore’s lies into the work of some vast, right-wing conspiracy—a conspiracy theory which, inevitably, was started by Moore himself.
Now it looks like movie goers’ love affair with Moore is over. And not a moment too soon.
Comments
Now more than ever, the honeymoon’s over.
He didn’t fail with Mother Jones, he just took their money and ran (as he did with Ralph Nader’s money). Moore’s latest movie is probably his biggest accomplishment--it’s made him even more irrelevant than before.
More proof that the U.S. need socialized healthcare.
Yep, another gov’t success in healthcare.
/sarcasm
Fahrenheit 9/11 was on Channel 4 last night, and I watched it again for the first time in ages, and I came to a conclusion.
I reckon Moore does it on purpose. I don’t think he has any real interest in forwarding debate - and I don’t even think that he wants to see America as a socialist state. I think he is interested in being contraversial, getting people talking about him, and being a personality. I think the lies and distortions in his film are on purpose. I think it wouldn’t help the cause of Moore if he made a documentary that accurately convinced people the (say) universal healthcare was a good idea for america. I think he only took it on becasue he thought it was going to be a big election issue (and actually I think his timing is probably 9 months too early to ride that wave).
I’ve never been able to work out exactly why he would fake the pantagraph, or include so many ‘facts’ that are so easily demonstrably false, or why he would use cuba of all places in his sicko documentary. I think the reason is that he wants people to argue about it.. He challenges people to fact check his peice - “Go for it, prove me wrong - buy the DVD and watch it several times, write about it and talk to everyone. Then advise those people to check out for themselves how much of a liar I am - let them know DVDs are available from Amazon!” He makes bad documentaries on purpose.
ilovecress,
it’s an interesting theory, why does Moore do it? I don’t think he yearns for a more libertarian country either, his ‘solutions’ are too simplistic to suggest this, and besides, one must create the problem to warrant the need. Propaganda functions this very way; tailor a crisis to our needs and hysteria follows. But fanatics don’t care for balanced data do they?....perhaps I’m being unfair, emotional insecurity forms part of the demographic too.
For me, this really begs the question: how bad is the state of the planet? I remember reading a newspaper article suggesting that we are far better off than we used to be. Statistically, murder, crime, disease and all that is ‘evil’, is drastically reduced compared with any other time throughout history. But you wouldn’t think so would you?
It is easy to see life through a keyhole.
My theory about Moore is the same as all the self-proclaimed, radical, liberated neo-hippies. They have a chip on their shoulder and their little protests are nothing but childish tantrums against authority because they never learnt to deal with the pain and anguish suffered at the hands of their parents. The same can be said for many people quite frankly.
Being an atavistic hippy isn’t Moore’s gig, he plays the humble ‘average Joe’ but it is simply another disguise. Moore believes it too; he wants to believe that George Bush and the corporations are the scourge of evil, not because there isn’t some inherent truth in this, there is; but Moore needs to keep avenging these people for his own gain- at any cost. Gaining disciples only reaffirms his position.
Why doesn’t Moore make fair, non-partisan documentaries? Because drama and scandal sell, and he is the poster boy for and passive aggression and paranoid doomsayers
Good find, DonnaK. It’s difficult to find columns that are critical of Moore’s work in the European press. But, to be fair to the europeans, I haven’t seen too much hype about “Sicko”.
I think the film’s pointing out a man on extended sick leave in France, living it up on the Riviera would make most hard working taxpayers bitter about the way the system can be abused. I also think there are few here in the mainstream that can actually be convinced of the “superior” quality of health care for the average person in Cuba.
This is great! Excellent find, and it gives me hope for the U.K.
Rapid R, I believe this article to have come from an Irish newspaper. Ireland is not part of the United Kingdon.
Rapid R, I believe this article to have come from an Irish newspaper. Ireland is not part of the United Kingdon.
Ireland’s been trying to say that for centuries. Give England time to set things right again.
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I wouldn’t hold my breath on Mikey becoming completely sidelined. He has an unusual ability to resurrect his career from what should be fatal failures. He failed spectacularly with Mother Jones and again with his television show. Of course, the whole Fahrenheit 9/11 thing was, by his own admission and assertion, intended to put a nail in the coffin of the President Bush administration. We all saw how well that worked.
In short, don’t count the fat man out, even if he sings, it is probably not over.