I Am SO Popular in Cuba

I don’t know if you’ve been keeping up with the Wikileaks scandal, but there is one little aspect that came to light recently.  A diplomatic cable claimed that Michael Moore’s Sicko was banned in Cuba.  According to the cable, Cuban doctors were concerned—stop me if this sounds familiar—that the idyllic healthcare system portrayed in the film was at variance with reality (something we have demonstrated over and over again right here at Moorewatch).

Well, you just knew Mickey wouldn’t let that go unanswered:

It is a stunning look at the Orwellian nature of how bureaucrats for the State spin their lies and try to recreate reality (I assume to placate their bosses and tell them what they want to hear)

Of course, if you follow Michael’s bullshit, you would know that he thinks the Wikileaks revelations are 100% accurate when they embarrass the United States.  But have someone gainsay his movie, and that’s pure fiction.

There’s only one problem—‘Sicko’ had just been playing in Cuban theaters. Then the entire nation of Cuba was shown the film on national television on April 25, 2008! The Cubans embraced the film so much so it became one of those rare American movies that received a theatrical distribution in Cuba. I personally ensured that a 35mm print got to the Film Institute in Havana. Screenings of ‘Sicko’ were set up in towns all across the country.

I want you to step back a moment and think about this.  Michael Moore is boasting that his film was beloved by one of the most oppressive regimes in the Western hemisphere.  He is boasting that his film was used as propaganda by that regime to fool their own people into believing their broken useless (but free!) healthcare system was so much better than the dynamic, innovative (if flawed) system employed by their nemesis.  He even quotes from one of the approved Cuban news agencies.

We’ve occasionally joked around here at Moorewatch by calling Mike some variation of Mikey Riefenstahl.  It’s very rare that he himself tries to own up to that moniker.

But the bigger issue here is how our government seemed to be colluding with the health insurance industry to destroy a film that might have a hand in bringing about what the Cubans already have in their poverty-ridden third world country: free, universal health care. And because they have it and we don’t, Cuba has a better infant mortality rate than we do, their life expectancy is just 7 months shorter than ours, and, according to the WHO, they rank just two places behind the richest country on earth in terms of the quality of their health care.

First of all, if the government were colluding with the insurance industry, they would have been broadcasting Castro’s love of Mike’s films. Their popularity with the Cuban government would do more to discredit them than anything we could type here on Moorewatch.  Only when you’ve drunk as deeply from the totalitarian well as Mike has, does Castro’s endorsement seem like a good thing.

Second, he never learns, does he?  We’ve talked about how the numbers coming out of Cuba are bullshit.  I’ve personally deconstructed the infamous WHO report.  And yet he’s still flogging these long-debunked numbers.

Well, that’s propaganda for you.  They don’t change their opinions to fit the facts.  They change the fact to suit their opinions.

The World Is Ending

Michael Moore and I agree, sort of.  In response to a question from a libertarian student, he admits that corporatism is the problem, not capitalism.

Of course, his sensibility doesn’t last long.  He quickly calls for pay restrictions and “democracy” in the workplace and can’t quite wrap his mind around the idea that big government is the problem.  And, as usual, he looks at the past through rose-tinted glasses.  He also doesn’t understand the concept of opportunity cost: the reason Europeans don’t mind big government is because they see the visible benefits of it—“free” healthcare and college—and miss the invisible costs—the full employment and booming economies they would otherwise have.  What they riot over are the effects of big government.  And when government is so big, riots and political protest are the only way to change things.

Still.  Baby steps.  Baby steps.

Capitalism Did Nothing For Me

Hat tip to Hot Air:

Where does Mikey think the people who see his movies and line his pockets get their money from?  Where does he think the funding for his film comes from?  The difficult in getting movies made and books published is not unique to Moore.  Everyone in Hollywood is struggling to get something made.  Some of the most brilliant books and majestic movies we know spent years, sometimes decades, without garnering interest or funding.

As for the $50 million figure, CNS has more on Moore’s money:

According to Fortune Magazine, Moore’s films have grossed over $300 million worldwide. His highest grossing film was “Fahrenheit 9/11,” which critiques the Bush administration’s handling of the war in Iraq and earned over $200 million worldwide.

Moore reportedly was paid $21 million by Disney for producing, directing and creating the film.

Moore also earned 50 percent of the profits of his 2007 film “Sicko,” totaling $25 million plus DVD sales, according to Vanity Fair.

The Los Angeles Times reported that Moore would receive all of the profits made from DVD sales of “Sicko,” sales of which have been estimated at over $17 million.

It is evil capitalists, not noble socialists, who are falling over themselves to fund his movies.  He’s not getting money from the government or some hippy collective.  He’s getting money from Walt Fucking Disney—that’s as capitalist as it gets.

And more power to him.  I don’t begrudge Moore a single penny of the money he makes.  It’s a free country and he’s not holding a gun to the heads of the dupes who fill the theaters seats.  All we do is dispute the facts, the honesty and the logic of what he says.

Capitalism’s Profits

I’ll give him credit.  Capitalism opened reasonably, pulling in $4.5 million.  That’s good for a documentary.

On the other hand, it’s not that great.  Fahrenheit opened at $24 million for its opening weekend; Sicko at about the same amount ($4.5 million).  At this point, it’s not certain that Capitalism will pass Earth as the most successful documentary of 2009, despite Earth having about one six-thousandth of the publicity.  And to put all these numbers in perspective, Capitalism finished well below a Bruce Willis flick that was not screened for critics and is in its second week, below The Invention of Lying and with less per screen than the re-release of Toy Story/Toy Story 2.

In the meantime, the movie ratings from viewers are poor.  Box Office Mojo has a typical viewer rating of “C”.  That’s slightly below Transformers 2, which I just saw on an airplane and turned off because I was getting tired of what seemed like a 2.5 hour trailer for a better movie.  IMDB’s current rating is 6.4.  The meaning of that is hard to gauge since IMDB’s rating formula is secret.  But most movies start out at their highest point (driven by fans) and sink lower as the general public judges it.

Don’t be fooled by in the inevitable boasting.  Financially and artistically, the public is responding to Moore’s movie with a great big “meh”.

ETA by DonnaK:

My paologies for butting in, but when I saw this review just now I thought it a perfect tagline for this article. When college students are trashing Moore’s movie like this, it’s really time to sit up and take notice. From the Indiana Student Daily:

Moore seems to think modern finance is a scam the rich use to steal money from other people. When he talks about the banking bail-out he makes it seem like the financial crisis was engineered so the financial industry could get its hands on tax-payer cash. He shows viewers a world in which capitalism is truly a zero-sum game. But that isn’t the real world.

The details Moore leaves out are pretty important. He talks about the health care and pension his father got while working for General Motors, but fails to mention that it was easy to offer those benefits before their true costs were clear. He damns Reagan as being responsible for all sorts of trends including stagnating wages and increasing consumer debt. No president has had that much influence over the economy.

Moore is most off-base when he suggests that a revolution is brewing. There is a big focus on strikers at a Chicago glass factory. The film also pulls its toughest emotional punches with plenty of foreclosure protests. But it is hard to buy that these struggles are the lead-up to a big revolt.

“Capitalism: A Love Story” has raked in a little less than $5 million so far. Compare that to the “Fahrenheit 9/11” opening, and Moore seems like a relic from the Bush era.
His glory days might be done.

Ouch.

Is there anybody…out there?

So, it turns out that no one gives a shit about Moore’s new movie. Wanna know my evidence for such a strong statement?

NO ONE HAS PIRATED IT.

Seriously. I checked all my usual haunts, and no one has bothered to steal this film. No one has taken a camera into a theater. No one stole a review copy or anything.

To illustrate how sad this is, you can usually download the newest episodes of say, Two and a Half Men within an hour of broadcast. That Wolverine movie was a travesty by all reports and that thing was stolen as an unfinished workprint! The worst crap coming out of Hollywood usually hits torrent sites weeks before release, and at the worst the day after release as soon as the videotapers are done. And yet...nothing.

Torrent activity is one of the truest measures of an entertainment property’s popularity. There is literally zero interest in Capitalism; A Love Story. The people have spoken, Mikey. Democratically. And they vote that your fifteen minutes? All gone go bye-bye.

That’s gotta hurt.

Moore hypocrisy, and no one is surprised

Not that it should come as a surprise to anyone reading this site, but let me tell you a “secret;” Michael Moore is a complete hypocrite.

The event, hosted by Esquire, doubled as the launch of the magazine’s “Ultimate Bachelor Pad,” a fully tricked-out, 11-room, nine-bathroom, 9,200-square-foot signature penthouse in SoHo, filled with flatscreens, sleek, modern furniture and luxury brands—each room meticulously designed around an advertisers’ theme. (The Hugo Boss bedroom! The Heineken lounge! The Lufthansa kitchen!)

As Esquire publisher Kevin O’Malley explains in the Esquire SoHo brochure, part of the reason that the magazine does this every year—alternating between New York and L.A.—is to meet its “advertisers’ growing need to create relevant and innovative new consumer touchpoints for their brands. Our affluent readers share a range of passions: a real desire for the best-of-class products and services that our advertisers represent.”

In other words, the pinnacle of capitalism. A fantasy in capital excess. A byproduct of the corporate greed Moore rails against in the film.

By the time Moore arrived, the party was in full swing, with revelers enjoying the 360-degree views of Lower Manhattan on the 3,000-square-foot terrace, top-shelf themed bars, sipping signature cocktails (there was a guy hired to blow dry ice on one pomegranate-and-melon-martini thing) and devouring skewers of filet mignon.

Esquire even hired models to strip down and slip into the obligatory hot tub.

Wait what? Seriously? For this movie, Moore allowed this to be his premiere after party? How fucking dumb is this guy?

Answer; not dumb at all. However, to his fans and defenders: MOORE THINK YOU ARE DUMB AS HELL. He thinks so little of you that he flaunts his own personal excesses—and has for years—all the while chiding and criticizing everyone else for living far less extravagantly. He’s the precise and exact thing he rails against—which is an interesting psychological case study in self-loathing, but I digress—and should not be taken seriously by anyone with two brain cells to rub together. Moore thinks you people will sit back and take it over and over and over again, because you are either too stupid to call him out on his bullshit, or you are as devious and dishonest as he is, and you believe that lying and being a hypocrite are okay as long as your “message is good.”

According to the Los Angeles Times, “Capitalism” is being co-financed by John Malone, “master of the tax-free deal, a champion of unfettered free markets, completely disdains government and most federal regulations and has expressed a fondness for Rush Limbaugh” who was recently “slapped with a $1.4-million fine by the Justice Department for illegal stock purchases.”

It seems that Moore is able to separate the marketing with the message.

This is not unlike Moore screaming about certain companies, only to find out he was heavily invested in them. Again, he thinks you are too stupid or too much like him to care about such mundane details as doing business with criminal financiers who are, by all reports, very, very Republican. Why would Moore get in bed with a guy like John Malone? Isn’t that sort of contradictory to the entire point of the film? Doesn’t it violate the very principles Moore is espousing?

Well of course it does. But that’s Moore all over: whatever gets him to the honeypot. Mikey would lick George W. Bush’s dirty bunghole if it would net Moore another million.  He’s a greedy bastard just like all the others.  He’s found the perfect situation here. He can dick around with a movie ever couple of years, underpay young, idealistic staff to do most of the work for him, raid the pockets of his die-hard fan base and whatever new crop of college freshmen are still impressed by idiotic rhetoric and stunts like wrapping buildings in crime scene tape, live a lavish, extravagant, jet-setting lifestyle and get bigger and bigger, both literally and financially.

If you self-identify as being anything left of center and are now or have ever been a Michael Moore fan, I urge you to look closer. Is this really the man you want out in front of your movement?

Hypocrisy abounds in the NY debut of “Capitalism”

The premise of Moore’s newest opus is that the economic system of capitalism is inherently evil and must be destroyed. The LA Times is not alone in noting how ironic it is to hold a premiere for a movie with this as its thesis in such a manor:

As the Deal Journal’s Michael Corkery notes in a surprisingly evenhanded report, having the film open at New York’s Lincoln Center was a huge blunder, since it made Moore a fat target (no pun intended) for charges of hypocrisy.

After all, as Corkery puts it, the center’s sleek new theater was largely funded “by the very institutions that Moore lambasts as greedy, sleazy and beyond repent. Before the film, the crowd sipped champagne and cocktails in the ‘Morgan Stanley Lobby’ and then headed to their seats in the ‘Citi Balcony.’ Movie tickets were available at the ‘Bank of New York Box Office’ and there’s outdoor seating at the Credit Suisse Information Grandstand.’ “ (Geez, when you have to pee, do you think you can do your business at the Alan Greenspan Memorial Urinal?)

Corkery says there is “plenty of good entertainment” in Moore’s film while acknowledging the emotional impact of some of the film’s scenes, including one where Moore exposes how Wal-Mart profited from a life insurance policy it took out on a young woman who died unexpectedly, leaving behind a young family scrambling to make ends meet. But he also points out that Moore is often guilty of “throwing stones in a glass house he often frequents.” Noting that Moore has gone from assembly line worker to well-compensated indie filmmaker, Corkery contends that “his journey alone exemplifies the social mobility made possible by the very economic system he savages in his latest film.”

But wait! There’s more from The Business Insider, who noticed something rather interesting at the NY premiere:

Held at the fabulous, sprawling, lushly-appointed Esquire Apartment in Soho, it was packed with good-looking, well-dressed people, had multiple bars across two suites and two balconies, featured a Steak Bar, and even had a hot tub, complete with young lovelies lounging steamily therein. Meanwhile, the Hackers were there — the Hackers from Peoria, Illinois, whom an hour ago I had watched get evicted from their home, bewildered and tearful, burning their worldly possessions. I wondered what they must think. (Actually, I asked Mr. Hacker, who said that everyone in New York seemed to be beautiful, that it was their first trip and that they were having fun. I said I was glad to see that they were doing okay; he said, “Well, we’re not in that movie for nothing.”)

Hmmm… I wonder what exactly the Hackers did receive for appearing in Moore’s new film? Given Moore’s past of attempting to buy opinions and silence (*cough*), one has to wonder.

Reason and Moore

What our late lamented Lee used to call the Best Magazine on the Planet has an early look at Capitalism, which Sean Higgins watched with members of the AFL-CIO.  The thing that struck Higgins—and has struck me in Moore’s recent commentary—is that he seems to be drifting into a territory we will call Red Tea Party, as opposed to the current tea-parties being held by the Right:

First, Moore is a radical ideologue before he is a partisan Democrat. His film hammers congressional Democrats pretty hard for leading the effort to pass the Wall Street bailouts last year. Moore fudges a little on this, portraying the opposition that sank the initial House vote on the bailout as comprised exclusively of progressive Democrats. In fact, it was mostly Republican opposition that killed it. (That opposition crumbled after the markets subsequently tanked.)

...

The film’s second unexpected direction is to go beyond just shaking a finger at Wall Street and Washington. Moore doesn’t simply call for new regulations. Instead, he explicitly states that “Capitalism is evil and you cannot regulate evil.” Something must replace it.

He doesn’t exactly say what should come next, but he does lay some pretty heavy hints. Towards the end of film he interviews Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), the Senate’s only (avowed) socialist. As far as Moore is concerned, Sanders’ ideas “sound like America.”

While many liberals have mocked conservatives for claiming that the left’s agenda is socialist, Moore’s response is, “Yeah, so?”

This is no surprise to those of us who have spent time following the writing and movies of Michael Moore.  He has never been in favor of changing the system or finding sensible ideas.  He has always been a radical who believes that our culture is fundamentally sick and can only be cured by a massive overhaul.  The tepid response of the AFL-CIO tells me that this message is not going to play as well as he thinks it will.  Americans—some of them, anyway—will put up with liberalism but not outright socialism.

I did find this amusing:

One final note: Just before the film started, Moore asked the audience to turn off any recording devices because the studio did not want bootleg versions of the film getting around. Apparently this socialism stuff has its limits.

Of course it does.

More heat for “Capitalism”

When even The Huffington Post starts to turn on Michael Moore’s new film, you know there’s trouble a-brewin’ for our favorite polemicist. I couldn’t believe my eye when I read their review the review of “Capitalism”. Now, for the sake of fairness, it starts out with a slew of compliments:

Like I said after a screening on Wednesday here in L.A., Michael Moore’s new movie, Capitalism: A Love Story is awesome and I want to recommend it (again) to everyone-- except for one part.

But after a short time, reviewer Howie Klein skewers Moore to the wall over Moore’s treatment of Chris Dodd in his film. Listen to this:

Well, okay, the traditional media, sure, the AP, of course, but not a liberal media source like Michael Moore, right?  Right?

Wrong.

Moore:  As I point out in the film, I have an exclusive interview with the VIP loan manager at Countrywide Loans, the largest mortgage company in the country, was giving sweetheart loans to Senator Dodd where he didn’t have to pay fees, they did away with the paper work for him, he got all-- things the average person couldn’t get. ... I think people are going to be surprised.

Hell yeah, they are going to be surprised!  Surprised that Michael-freaking-Moore ate this guy’s story up without even the most basic fact check!  Sure, it fit his narrative well, but c’mon, could you at least check to see if he, in fact got a special deal? Time to hand over that $10,000, Michael.

Also, if you are Michael Moore, and you have basically made a career out of getting powerful people, people who you have no business interviewing, on film, how is it possible that Chris Dodd is not interviewed in the film?  Roger-- check. Charlton Heston-- check.  Chris Dodd-- [crickets].  If you get the accuser on video, making wild accusations that everyone now agrees are completely false, how is the accused not here, allowed even a moment to mention that HE GOT THE SAME FUCKING RATES AS EVERYONE ELSE?

Why does this feel like, in the interest of being able to sit on Leno and say, “I went after Democrats too!,” Moore passed up the real story here?  It would have been really powerful if he made the connection between the bullshit allegations about Dodd and the banking industry desperately wanting to put the breaks on important housing and foreclosure legislation that Dodd was championing in the Senate at that very moment.  Well, mission accomplished assholes, excuse me, the Sheriff is here to foreclose on my house (is it possible its the same one from Roger and Me? Oh, the irony).

Finally, exclusive?  You keep using that word.  I do not think it means what you think it means.  Maybe what he meant was that, even though the Feinberg Interview Express has more miles on it than the Madden Cruiser, he was only getting interviewed by Moore at that particular moment, so it was exclusive as to that particular place and time.  Or something.  (Seriously, not counting Darrell Issa’s I-am-doing-the-bidding-of-the-NRSC’s sham investigations, Feinberg has done roughly seven quintillion interviews.  You can look it up.

Ummm… yeah. I won’t comment on Klein’s opinions about Dodd, but I do think it says a lot when The Huffington Post puts out a piece that slams Moore this hard.

But wait! There’s more! The National came out with an exceptional review of the film’s premise and execution thereof. You should read the whole thing, but I especially liked this section:

On Tuesday, pitching his latest film on the Jay Leno Show, Mr Moore declared capitalism as “evil” and called for Americans to “go back to the roots of our country, democracy”, to fix the system.

The implication seemed to be that democracy and capitalism are somehow incompatible, like oil and water. In fact, they are as combustible as fire and a stiff wind.

Unless Mr Moore is aware of some as-yet-to-be-written revisionist history, America was a democracy in 1837 when a massive banking collapse led to a six-year long recession.

It was democratic during the crippling depression that began in 1873 and lingered on for a quarter of a century.

It was similarly pluralist during the mild recession that began in 1920 and it remained so in the run-up to the Great Depression a decade later.

The October 1929 stock market crash occurred on the presidential watch of Herbert Hoover who, far from an amiable dunce as he is popularly portrayed, was one of the most able men of his generation, a self-made multimillionaire, philanthropist, humanitarian and pioneer of the liberal “progressive” movement with which Mr Moore seems to so closely identify.

In his interview with Mr Leno, Mr Moore said capitalism was “legalised” greed, as if there was such a thing as “outlawed” greed. It would be more accurate to say that a common feature of democracy, particularly in one as unfettered as America’s, is legalised excess.

Nicely put. So once again, it seems that even liberals who normally defend Moore tooth and nail are angry with him for at least parts of “Capitalism”. If these are the early reviews, I can’t wait to see what’s going to happen when the general public gets a look at it. 

Oprah puts a lid on Moore… for now

It seems I’m not the only one who’s been wondering why Michael Moore has been nearly silent in these crucial weeks before the US release of his new movie, “Capitalism: A Love Story”. When a reporter from the LA Times tried to get an interview with the usually boisterous Moore, he was told Moore wasn’t talking… for now:

But Moore has been strangely silent in this run-up and the LA Times’ Patrick Goldstein has learned that he plans to keep a lid on it for weeks to come no less.

When Goldstein called Overture Films, Moore’s distributor to arrange an interview, he was told that the filmmaker would sit for interviews after the premiere, but the pieces would all be embargoed Sept. 23rd, the day the film opens in New York and Los Angeles.

“Why? Because Moore is doing a sit-down interview with Oprah Winfrey, which won’t air until Sept. 22. And if Oprah wants an exclusive, she gets it, since when it comes to books, movies or music, no one offers a better promotional platform than La Winfrey.”

There is perhaps no bigger winner here than Barack Obama, who is trying to persuade America that his health care package is not a socialist takeover of their lives. He will get a precious few weeks wherein Michael Moore is not clogging up the airwaves with his caricature of Middle American GOP fears. A conspiratorial mind might even wonder of Miss Winfrey is slyly doing her old pal on Pennsylvania Ave. a solid.

The conclusion this reporter reached in the last paragraph above is certainly intriguing. With Obama’s health care plan going down in flames and the tea parties heating up left, right, and center, one must wonder if keeping Moore quiet for these precious few weeks might in fact be advantageous to Obama. Of course, having Oprah give Moore such a solid and far-reaching platform is just as good of a reason for Moore’s silence - after all, who helps artists out more than Oprah? Moore does have a couple of appearances scheduled before the big Winfrey interview on the 22nd, but as they were scheduled before snagging the Oprah spot they will air as scheduled.

Silence from Moore before his movie is released. Now there’s something I never thought I’d hear. ;)

Hugs and Kisses from Hugo

I can’t upload the pictures for some reason, but here you can find pictures of Michael Moore meeting with and high-fiving Hugo Chavez.  I mean, just in case you though Fidel Castro was the only human right abuser that Moore had a hard-on for.  In a related story, Chavez is shutting down 29 more radio stations that are critical of him.  If Moore actually lived in a country like Venezuela, he’d be in prison by now.  Unless he gave the regime the full Riefenstahl treatment (always a possibility).

Is there anything more hypocritical that an agitator like Moore embracing a critic-silencing thug like Chavez?  Ok, possibly making millions of dollars off of a film about how evil capitalism is.

Update Oliver Stone is also infatuated with the rising tide of thuggish socialists in South America.  I’m sure that the economy-crushing problems socialism is inducing in Bolivia, Argentina, Venezuela, Nicaragua and El Salvador are also our fault.

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. 

Capitalism is evil

Moore has completely stopped pretending to be anything other than a total hypocrite.  Love it.

“Capitalism is an evil, and you cannot regulate evil,” the two-hour movie concludes.

“You have to eliminate it and replace it with something that is good for all people and that something is democracy.”

*sigh*

“Capitalism is evil! BUT...before you overthrow the system, do me a favor and pay ten bucks at the movie theater to see my commercially produced film - the work for which I underpaid my staff and abused them as I generally do - and keep funding my extremely lavish lifestyle for just a little bit longer. Cool? Cool.”

What a jackass.

Goody Goody Gumdrops

I know it’s been quiet here for a while.  But that’s because Moore has been comparatively quiet.  No longer.  Enjoy the trailer for his new film:

Now here’s a funny thing.  When it comes to bailouts and influence peddling, Moore and I are ... oh I can’t say it.  Come on, Mike.  Man up.  We’re ... on ... sort of ... maybe .. in a small way ... to some degree ... as far as it goes ... on ... well, not the same page.  But at least we’re both reading books.  How’s that?  That OK?

Bailouts are disgusting and the conflict on interest between our former Secretary of the Treasury, the heads of Fanny/Freddie, Congress and Wall Street were repulsive.  In the financial crisis, companies with political connections (or union payrolls) became “too big to fail” while companies without such pull were left to suck eggs.  A good film-maker could produce a searing indictment.

The thing is, that system of bailouts and influence is not capitalism.  If anything, it’s a reimagined version of the mercantilism that Adam Smith fought so hard against.

Now granted, this is just a trailer.  But it seems like Moore intends to head, predictably, into the “blue vs. white collar” schtick that has defined his economic thinking for his entire career.  Capitalism bad; socialism good.  Money men bad; workers good.  Repeat.

Anyway, we’ll see what happens when the movie comes out (October 2).  In the meantime, maybe we’ll ramp things up in September with a look back at Mike’s previous movies.

Michael Moore’s next film to be released in October

Well… it looks like it’s that time again. Michael Moore has announced his upcoming film will be released in the States on October 2nd. Since virtually every news source is just quoting Moore’s own site and press release, I’ll link to the same:

Firebrand filmmaker Michael Moore, who targeted the Bush administration in “Fahrenheit 9/11” and the healthcare industry in “Sicko,” is now focusing on the global economic meltdown.

The Oscar-winning director will release his as-yet-untitled documentary across North America on October 2, co-financiers Overture Films and Paramount Vantage said on Thursday.

“The wealthy, at some point, decided they didn’t have enough wealth,” the statement quoted Moore as saying.

“They wanted more—a lot more. So they systematically set about to fleece the American people out of their hard-earned money. Now, why would they do this? That is what I seek to discover in this movie.”

Overture said Moore was still working on the film, and was keeping plot details close to his vest in typical fashion.

So… anyone remember that this film was originally going to be a “sequel” of sorts to Fahrenheit 9/11 and that Moore shot hundreds of hours of footage about the War on Terror and our foreign relation blunders? Anyone else wondering how Moore’s going to work all that footage into his new piece on the economy? He said he would use all that footage… but how? And isn’t the promise to do so already letting us know that Moore went into this project with a point already in mind, with a fully-formed premise in place that all this footage would support? How is this journalism or a documentary? How is this anything but another scare-piece polemic that Moore has pre-constructed to fit a conclusion at which Moore has already arrived?

I like how Terra King of the Indie Film Examiner put it:

I’m sure Mr. Moore believes in the causes he has chosen to make documentaries about. I’m not saying he is anything but passionate. What I would like to see is a documentary on the fear Moore has caused as a result of some of his work.

Nicely put.

Feuerwaffe Kontrolle

Ten innocents were gunned down today by a crazed madman in Alabama.

A gunman on a terrifying rampage across two southern Alabama counties killed at least nine people Tuesday, including members of his own family and apparent strangers, and burned down his mother’s home before shooting himself at a metals plant, authorities said.

Police were investigating shootings in at least four different locations in several communities, all of which were believed to be the work of a single gunman who had not yet been identified by investigators.

The afternoon of bloodshed began in Kinston, near the Alabama-Florida border, where the shooter burned down his mother’s house, according to the Coffee County coroner, Robert Preachers. Officials located the woman’s body inside the house, but they had not been able to get inside the still-burning house to determine if he shot her first.

The gunman then headed east, into Geneva County, where he shot and killed five people—four adults and a child—at a home in the nearby town of Samson. Then he killed one person each in two other homes. The identities of all the victims were unknown, but Preachers said they included other members of the shooter’s family.

“He started in his mother’s house,” Preachers said. “Then he went to Samson and he killed his granny and granddaddy and aunt and uncle.”

“We don’t know what triggered it,” Preachers added.

The gunman also shot at a state trooper’s car, striking the vehicle seven times and wounding the trooper with broken glass.

He then killed someone at a Samson supply store, and another person at a service station.

When, oh when, are we going to learn the abject stupidity of allowing so many guns in America?  When are we going to adopt a more logical, civilized, rational approach to guns?  Why don’t we just ban them like they do in Europe, so that this sort of thing can never happen?

At least 10 people have been killed in a shooting at a school in south-west Germany, police say.

A number of people are also thought to have been wounded in the attack at the Albertville school in Winnenden, north of Stuttgart.

Police say the gunman, who was reported to have been wearing black combat gear, has fled into the town.

A major search is underway, and police and rescue workers are at the secondary school.

“We have at least nine dead and numerous injured,” a police spokeswoman said.

The editor of the local paper, Frank Nipkau, told television channel N-TV that eight pupils and two adults were among the dead.

It’s the latest gun control success!

Nutroots Of the World Unite!

Oooh, joy.  Michael Moore is planning to make a movie about the economic crisis.  And who is he turning to for info?  Financial reporters?  Economists?  Business analysts? How about the business geniuses of Daily Kos:

I am in the middle of shooting my next movie and I am looking for a few brave people who work on Wall Street or in the financial industry to come forward and share with me what they know. Based on those who have already contacted me, I believe there are a number of you who know “the real deal” about the abuses that have been happening. You have information that the American people need to hear. I am humbly asking you for a moment of courage, to be a hero and help me expose the biggest swindle in American history.

That would be TARP, right?  Or the CRA?  Or Freddie and Fannie?  Or the Federal Reserve.  Right? Right?! Hmm.  Somehow, I don’t think that’s where this will go.

All correspondence with me will be kept confidential. Your identity will be protected and you will decide to what extent you wish to participate in telling the greatest crime story ever told.

The important thing here is for you to step up as an American and do your duty of shedding some light on this financial collapse. A few good people have already come forward, which leads me to believe there are many more of you out there who know what’s going on. Here’s your chance to let your fellow citizens in on the truth.

If you have any info that would help, please contact me at my private email address: [email protected].

For the rest of you on my email list who don’t work in the financial industry, you’re probably wondering, “What the heck is this all about? I thought he said he was making a romantic comedy!”

Well, I just can’t say much right now. I’m sure you can understand why. One thing I can tell you is that you’re gonna like this movie when I’m done with it. Oh, yeah…

So, again, if you work for a bank, a brokerage firm or an insurance company—or if you have seen things or heard things that you believe the American people have a right to know—please contact me at [email protected].

Thank you in advance for your help!

Yours,
Michael Moore

Now, I’m probably talking out of my ass here, since I don’t work in the movie industry.  But if I were interested, as a writer, in learning the story of how the financial collapse happened and I were advertising for interview subjects, I would probably put anonymous ads in financial magazines or craiglist or something.  I would not want to selectively pick out people who post, write and comment at one of the most liberal websites in the world.  Or one of the most conservative, for that matter.  But then again, I would be interested in the truth, not in constructing a slick polemic targeted at George Bush, Republicans, rich bankers, freemasons and capitalism in general.

Your Uncle MikeS is about to save you $10 on a movie ticket. I’ll summarize the probable movie for you.  This was all the fault of Republicans and evil bankers.  They forced people to buy homes they couldn’t afford so that they could lose hundreds of billions of dollars in foreclosures.  They deliberately crashed the stock market so we would also lose our 401k’s and not be able to retire.  Even now, they are planning the next wave of financial catastrophe.

There is a good story to be told in the financial collapse.  There are certainly villains and idiots aplently.  A good film-maker—such as Alex Gibney, who made Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room could make a compelling film that would educate and enrage at the same time.  But Michael Moore is no Alex Gibney.  And now that he’s about to venture into economics, expect plenty of analysis to skewer his nonsense.

Moore’s new movie… version 2.0

I know I said in the comments to the previous post I would have this up a couple of days ago - I apologize for the delay. WotLK has me a bit under it’s spell… ;)

Remember the announcements a few months ago about Moore’s new film, the sequel to Fahrenheit 9/11? You know, the one he’s been shooting for a good couple of months? Well… he’s still shooting it… it just isn’t a sequel to Fahrenheit 9/11 anymore. Anyone else confused? Cinematical seems to be as well:

By now we all know that Michael Moore doesn’t make documentaries like our grandfathers did. He’s a master of polemics, using his films to rail against corporations, guns, governments, insurance companies, and whatever else riles up his David vs. Goliath sensibility. When his most recent project was announced in May, it was described as a sequel to Fahrenheit 9/11 that would “tackle what’s going on in the world and America’s place in it,” as pointed out by The Hollywood Reporter. Now, however, THR says the film will focus on “the global financial crisis and the U.S. economy.”

Moore is still “feverishly shooting” and it’s hoped the film will be ready for release next spring. At first blush, though, it sounds like he decided to make the mid-project adjustment in reaction to (or in anticipation of) the Democrats’ victory. Without Bush to bash, and without the Republican Party in control of Congress, how much mileage could he get out of criticizing U.S. foreign policy with a new President steering a (presumably) different course?

So.... let me see if I have this right. Moore has COMPLETELY changed the topic of his film. It was going to be a polemic that railed against US foreign policy, and now it’s going to be an study of our economic crisis. These are two completely and totally different topics… and yet Moore isn’t stopping his filming or scraping his footage. Somehow he’s going to make all the footage he’s shot about foreign policy now work for and focus on the economy.

.... ummmm...... anyone else confused about how he could possibly pull that one off without coming to both projects with very similar theses, preconceptions and foregone conclusions? Me either. I think Cinematical states the problem quite well:

Unlike many documentary filmmakers, Moore appears to start with a conclusion on his projects and then search for footage to back it up. Documentarians often say they don’t really ‘find’ their film, or discover the story, until they’re knee-deep in editing, but it doesn’t sound like Moore works that way. Which doesn’t mean his films lack meaning or substance or entertainment value, just that they’re more like personal essays than traditional docs.

According to THR, Moore is now saying that the project is less a sequel to Fahrenheit 9/11 and more of a bookend to Roger & Me. What more could he say, though, about corporations and big business than he already has? When he endorsed Barack Obama in April, he wrote: “Corporate America is not going to give up their hold on our government just because we say so.” Maybe he wants to hold their feet to the fire until they burst into flame.

If all Moore does is bitch about the economy and complain about corporations, I don’t think it’ll be a very welcome message.

Well said.

I open to the floor to you fine ladies and gentlemen. Thoughts? Comments? Opinions? What do you think about this sudden and drastic turn in Moore’s agenda?

Hawaii Bye Bye

It’s hard times for the kiddies in Hawaii.

Hawaii is dropping the only state universal child health care program in the country just seven months after it launched.

Gov. Linda Lingle’s administration cited budget shortfalls and other available health care options for eliminating funding for the program. A state official said families were dropping private coverage so their children would be eligible for the subsidized plan.

“People who were already able to afford health care began to stop paying for it so they could get it for free,” said Dr. Kenny Fink, the administrator for Med-QUEST at the Department of Human Services. “I don’t believe that was the intent of the program.”

What?  How can this be?  You mean that when the government provides something for free it provides an incentive for people to take advantage of the system?  My God, who could have ever dreamed of such a thing!

State health officials argued that most of the children enrolled in the universal child care program previously had private health insurance, indicating that it was helping those who didn’t need it.

This is why universal health insurance is such a bad idea.  It encourages people to do things that they normally wouldn’t (and shouldn’t) do.

Update Here’s a quote, generally attributed to Alexander Fraser Tytler which so perfectly predicts and illustrates this dynamic.

“A democracy is always temporary in nature; it simply cannot exist as a permanent form of government. A democracy will continue to exist up until the time that voters discover that they can vote themselves generous gifts from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates who promise the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that every democracy will finally collapse due to loose fiscal policy, which is always followed by a dictatorship.”

The average age of the world’s greatest civilizations from the beginning of history has been about 200 years. During those 200 years, these nations always progressed through the following sequence:

• From bondage to spiritual faith;
• From spiritual faith to great courage;
• From courage to liberty;
• From liberty to abundance;
• From abundance to complacency;
• From complacency to apathy;
• From apathy to dependence;
• From dependence back into bondage.

This is why I’m a Libertarian, and why the less government we have in our lives the better.  Nobody will listen, though.  They’ll keep on looking at the ample teat of government as a place to suckle for free, always expecting other people to pay for things they should be doing themselves.  When you remove the incentive for responsible behavior you end up with citizens behaving irresponsibly.

Which, I’m sure, would NEVER happen in Michael Moore’s fantasy healthcare utopia, would it?

Moore’s new movie getting some downloaders in hot water

Everyone hang on to your seats… I’m about to defend Michael Moore. ;)

Cinema Blend has a hot button article up on their site accusing Moore of a few things. The most important allegation of theirs is that Moore was trying to get the people outside the US and Canada who downloaded “Slacker Uprising” through his site in legal trouble. To be completely fair to Cinema Blend and to ensure that I don’t quote anything out of context, I’m going to republish their article in its entirety.

First of all, the idea that Moore would want to get people who wanted to see one of his movies in trouble with the law deliberately seems more than a bit far-fetched to me. Moore’s all about getting people to see him, hear him, watch him, believe in him. Why would he intentionally alienate a single one of his fans, even if they aren’t US citizens? It just doesn’t make sense.

Secondly, Moore doesn’t own the international distribution copyrights for “Slacker Uprising”. Brave New Films does. They get to decide who outside the US and Canada get to download Moore’s movie, not Moore himself. And if they don’t want the movie floating around internationally, they legally must make a showing that they intend to protect their copyright or they could be accused of abandoning it. By suing people and companies who are downloading or distributing “Slacker Uprising” in other countries they are simply protecting what is legally theirs and making a proper legally showing. Michael Moore isn’t part of this equation since the copyright isn’t his. He simply cannot be blamed for this one.

Thirdly, and perhaps more importantly, Moore told everyone in his letter of September 22nd, 2008 that this movie was only available for download in the US and Canada. He said it plainly, albeit perhaps not overly clearly, that this download was only available to US and Canadian citizens: “That’s why I’m giving you my blanket permission to not only download it, but also to email it, burn it, and share it with anyone and everyone (in the U.S. and Canada only).”. HE TOLD EVERYONE. He gave proper notice to those outside the US that this download was not for them. He did his legal duty and I cannot find fault with him on this front.

Now, I will agree with Cinema Blend on one point. Moore really should have made sure that either this movie was available throughout the world or he should have worked out a deal with his distributors to make it so before the lawsuits came flooding down on his fans. However, to lay the blame for this problem at Moore’s feet is wrong. He doesn’t own the international copyrights and he did give notice that the download was only available to the US and Canada.

There are plenty of reasons to dislike Moore. I personally see no need to invent ones that have no real merit, and this one doesn’t.