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.