Early responses to “Capitalism: A Love Story”

I know I’ve been an absent landlord for a while, and I do apologize for that. I plan on becoming much more present in the near future, and there is certainly much to discuss as Moore’s new film, “Capitalism: A Love Story”, has just debuted at The Venice Film Festival. Set to debut in US theaters on October 2nd, the film garnered Moore a nearly eight minute standing ovation from the Venice film audience. However, reviews outside the festival have been lukewarm at best. Even traditionally liberal and Moore-friendly publications are slamming “Capitalism” right and left to a rather surprising degree. So what are reviewers saying about Moore’s newest opus?

From The Telegraph Online:

I wonder, is there a more serious reason than his weight behind Michael Moore’s demise? Seven or eight years ago, his films - such as Fahrenheit 9/11 and Bowling for Columbine - were incredibly fashionable, and he was one of the most talked about directors around. But although his new film - Capitalism: a love story - has received an eight-minute standing ovation from the luvvies in Venice (”the longest in memory”, according to Moore’s twitter account) for most people, his hypocrisy is too much to bear.

Don’t be fooled by the scruffy cap and trampish demeanour. Moore is as well-to-do as the “stupid white men” which he has made millions of dollars from criticising. The Guardian interviewed him shortly after he became a best-selling author and discovered not only that he was the best paid presenter at Channel 4 (during his short-lived career as a chat show host), but that he was no stranger to the high-life....

Sadly for Michael Moore, many of the people that should be watching his films don’t get the joke either. He is supposed to be the champion of the oppressed, who spends his career holding the rich and famous to account. Now he’s one of them, and lapping up the lifestyle like a banker in boom time, it makes no sense. Still, at least he gets to rub shoulders with Hugo Chavez.

From The Examiner:

“Capitalism is evil” is the conclusion of Michael Moore’s coming film, “Capitalism:  A Love Story”.

What an embarrassment....

So what socialist country does Michael Moore like better than the United States?  And don’t write in by trying to prove the Netherlands, or France, or whatever:  Michael Moore says CAPITALISM is evil.  Not a mixed system.  I’ll debate the U.S. being better than those places, but not right now.  Which socialist, fascist, communist, anarchist, or other system is better than capitalism?

Every possible experiment in socialism has been a colossal failure with millions dead from starvation.  It is a system that is pure evil; stealing from some to give to others and leaving everyone poor.

And if Michael Moore is advocating that, then he is the evil one.

From CNNMoney:

VENICE (Fortune)—If anyone has profited from the free-enterprise system in the past 20 years, it’s Michael Moore. Since 1989, when his “Roger & Me” pioneered the docu-comedy form of nonfiction film, Moore’s movies, TV shows and best-selling books have given him an eight-figure net worth.

And in all of these, he is the improbable star: a heavyset fellow with a doofus grin, alternately laughing and badgering but always at the center of his own attention. Why, there he is, at the end of his new movie, “Capitalism: A Love Story,” wrapping the New York Stock Exchange building in yellow tape that reads: CRIME SCENE…

By now, a Michael Moore film is its own genre: a vigorous vaudeville of working-class sob stories, snippets of right-wing power players saying ugly things, longer interviews with experts on the Left, funny old film clips and, at the climax, Moore engaging in some form of populist grandstanding.

This time, he goes to the headquarters of the former AIG, a multibillion-dollar recipient of government largesse, and attempts to make a citizen’s arrest of its chief executives. He also asks Wall Streeters for advice on healing the nation. One man’s quick reply: “Don’t make any more movies.”

“Capitalism” has lots of statistics, like the Rasmussen poll that showed only a slight majority of young adults prefer capitalism to socialism. But this is a lecture from a charismatic comedian of a professor; he makes his points with gag movie references and quick visual puns.

From The Atlantic:

Instead, I’ll just say that I highly doubt that either movie will do particularly well at the box office, though Moore’s film may spark some interest due to the economic events that it considers. I think much of the public’s wary response to Washington’s efforts at healthcare reform shows that Americans are still generally pretty nervous about the government being too involved in their lives. So the thought of trading in free-market capitalism for government-run socialism probably won’t appeal to most Americans at this time.

I will also note that no one going to see these films should expect a thorough examination of the economic merits of capitalism versus socialism. Neither of these directors, to my knowledge, have much experience in economics or finance. As a result, I doubt either is a particularly rigorous film, but probably more based on opinion and anecdotal observation.

From Variety:

Unfortunately, elsewhere, Moore strives so hard to manipulate viewers’ emotions with shots of crying children and tearjerking musical choices that he’s not so much over-egging the pudding as making an omelet out of it. While it could be argued that Moore needs to milk the human-interest stories for all their worth to get auds to engage with his denunciation of capitalism, more often than not, such tactics just patronize the audience and descend into cheap sentimentality. Moore all but stops short of holding up dead puppies Hank Paulson personally murdered.....

No Michael Moore film would be complete without scenes of the writer-helmer arguing with security guards in glassy office-building foyers as he attempts to have an impromptu word with the company’s CEO. Predictably ill-fated attempts are made to storm the citadels of various banks and financial institutions that survived the crash. In perhaps the funniest moment, Moore tries to find a banker who can explain what derivatives are; he corners one and says he wants some advice, to which the reply comes, quick as a flash: “Stop making films!”

Moore shows no signs of heeding this injunction, and ends the pic on a combatative note, vowing, “I refuse to live in a country like this, and I’m not leaving.” It’s a pugnacious riposte to his right-wing critics, but in the end, Moore also fails to answer his left-wing doubters, who will have plenty of evidence here that Moore’s argument is less with capitalism as Marx and Engels understood it, or even as the North Koreans and Cubans do, than with capitalism’s most egregious excesses in the U.S. His ideal is not the end of private ownership, just more cooperatively owned businesses where everyone shares the wealth and makes collective decisions. Moore merely flirts with counterpointing socialism with capitalism, and ultimately sets up an inoffensive-to-the-point-of-meaningless notion of democracy as capitalism’s opposite.

Ummm… wow. I honestly didn’t expect such an immediate derogatory response to Moore’s work, but here it is already pouring in, and these are just the early reviews. So how off-the-mark is this film? Have people finally had their fill of Moore’s particular brand of polemic? Time will only tell, but I’ll do my best to look back through the last week or so of news to see if I can put some more meat and perspective on this negative response to Moore’s new film.

This should be an interesting car-crash of a film premiere, that’s for sure.