teh Forum

http://www.michaelmoore.com/

Based on the press it's been getting, and the fact that it won the top "Palme D'Or" prize at cannes, I'm really excited about this movie.

I have a feeling that if it gets proper distribution, it will change the course of the elections, and may go down in history as being one of the most significant political films of this time.

I hope your optimism is met and that it doesn't just turn into a polarizing agent making Moore head preacher to the choir and cement his position as complete whack job to the right-wingers and unworthy of their open mindedness (ha).

Is it really that hard to convince a bunch of French people that George W. Bush is a complete idiot?

No but everyone who saw Bowling for Columbine and Dude, Wheres My Country has got to be dying to see this one. I really want to see it.

I don't get the name 'Bowling for Columbine' although I saw and enjoyed it. Does 'for' mean 'towards' and is 'bowling' a pun on the game and 'moving rapidly and cheerfully in the direction of'?

I wish Moore would be a little more incisive sometimes, and lose that disgusting bifurcating gut.

enderzero wrote:Is it really that hard to convince a bunch of French people that George W. Bush is a complete idiot?

Out of the nine cannes judges, 4 were american, and only one was french. The other 4 were a "bunch of anti-american foreigners."

NY times just put up a first-hand review

Good lookin out.

Took some patience to get it to run... I imagine the site is a bit busy.

Check out the great new poster for this film. It premiered last week in LA and NYC and hits the general public in the soloplexus this Friday! RT 83%

Gotta love freedom of speech...

What's the "Dude where's my country?" book about? did it inspire the 9/11 movie?

"Inspire" may not be the right term. It is just sort of the logical next step in the Moore Plan. Fahrenheit will be his 3rd successful film.

Moore's career started in 1989 with the critically acclaimed documentary "Roger & Me" about injustice in the GM plants of Flint, Michigan (Moore's home town). This film set the tone for Moore's career of political toned humor (or maybe ‘political messages with a humorous bite’ is more accurate).

In 1994 Moore launched the TV series "TV Nation" which was where I first came across him. I remember this show as a very funny look at some of the oddballs out there. It followed a format a bit like the investigative specials on the Daily Show. You might call it "investigative satire." In particular I remember a trip to a cult-like group that was stockpiling for the Armageddon which was believed to be coming in the next few months. After the date safely passed us by, Moore returned with cameras rolling to ask the leader what went wrong. Brilliant! I wish someone had asked the homeboys in Panawave if it ended up being Tama-chan that saved us from the Soviet radio waves last year. I was really disappointed when this show went off the air.

Moore went on to make some movie called "The Big One" in 1997 that no one saw and then wrote "Downsize This" around the same time which sold copies but didn't make a lot of noise in the midst of the soaring Clinton economy.

In 1999 Moore launched a series on Bravo called "The Awful Truth" that eschewed the "investigative satire" for straight "sock-it-to-the-man-ism." Moore and his team took on big corporations from attacking Walmart on the sale of firearms to the unfair handling of health cases by big HMOs and even antiquated anti-sodomy laws still on the books in some states (get onboard the sodomobile!). While not able to reach a huge audience on Bravo, the show did win critical acclaim which helped make the DVD release of the series wildly popular and thrust Moore back into the spotlight not seen since Roger & Me.

Around this time Moore directed a few high profile music videos including Rage Against the Machine's "Sleep Now in the Fire." In this video he and the band and a huge crowd of extras tried to enter the New York Stock Exchange and were stopped by police and security. This made headlines coast to coast (as well as a cool video) pushing along Moore's career.

After the political climate of America shifted considerably following the election debacle of 2000, Moore took a considerably more central role as a strong voice from the left with his book "Stupid White Men ...and Other Sorry Excuses for the State of the Nation." This book, which was mainly about how Bush and his regime stole the election, was written prior to September 11th, but then delayed for months in the sensitive post 9/11 climate. When it was finally released in February of 2002 it received critical acclaim and set records for non fiction sales.

Moore began appearing on more and more political television shows, and with his release of the documentary "Bowling for Columbine" in the summer of the same year, Michael Moore was a genuine star. "Bowling for Columbine" focused mainly with the gun lobby, NRA, and ability to obtain firearms in the USA. It flashed some impressive numbers comparing other countries and made many Americans realize how much higher our 30,000 annual deaths due to guns were than the rest of the world. It touched lightly on the subject of 9/11, but was very sensitive to its recent occurrence. Bowling set box-office records for a documentary and was met with huge amounts of acclaim, including winning the Academy Award for Best Documentary.

After the back to back successes of a highly politicized book and film, Moore sat back and soaked up the controversy for a bit, making numerous television appearances. At the 2003 Oscars, Moore used his podium time to slam President Bush and his run up to the war in Iraq. While a brilliant chance to reach a huge number of people outside of his typical audience, some people blame this outburst for helping to push Michael Moore to the status of left-wing whacko in the conservative-leaning American's mind.

In October of 2003 Moore's political acceleration continued with the release of his latest book "Dude, Where's My Country." The book featured a cover image of a Stalin-esque statue of George W. Bush being torn down by Moore himself. Once again the recipient of critical acclaim, the book dealt mainly with the connection between Bush and the Bin Laden family, but went on to cover many other issues facing the nation at the time. After getting a good deal of flak over his sources for his earlier work, Moore was more careful in his citations in this book, including putting them inline throughout the first chapter.

The controversy over Disney backing out of the release of Moore's forthcoming "Fahrenheit 9/11" did a better job to publicize the film than could have been hoped for. It appears, however, that the film should be able to carry the publicity on its own after winning the immensely prestigious Palme d'Or at Cannes.

Fahrenheit 9/11 is about the Bush regime's planning of the lead up to the war in Iraq, including the handling of September 11th and their connections. Moore had cameras on the ground in Iraq and it is rumored that when footage started coming back of soldiers and their testimonies to what was really going on there, Moore decided to lead the film in that direction. It has, of course, received critical acclaim and from the looks of the trailer should be a lot of fun and quite sobering at the same time. Look for a full review next week.

I see.

Today is the day.

I am sure interested to see how America responds. How many people will Moore reach? How many conservatives already wrote this off as the leftist propaganda of the liberal media?

What is Michelle Malkin talking about in her latest column? Apparently Hollywood, like the rest of the country, was more supportive of WWII than the current conflict. Shocking!! What is her point? Michael Moore is wrong to release something critical of the administration or its policies during such an important time? Give me a break!

Fahrenheit has fallen to 81% on RT (79% amongst 'Cream of the Crop' reviews). While still a very respecatble score, I can't help but wonder how many reviewers are politically biased. I admit that if I was to watch a pro-Bush diatribe from the right I might be motivated to give it a poor review no matter the quality of the film. I don't say that out of lack of journalistic integrity, but journalists are people too and bias is a part of human nature.

"Paranoid left-wing propaganda from beginning to end... Moore should be proud of himself. He's made a film America-haters everywhere will love."
-- Chuck O'Leary, FANTASTICA DAILY

Lou Lumenick's less emotional but still negative review for the New York Post

"Less a documentary than a political manifesto, Moore wears his agenda like a badge of honor."
-- Michael Elliot, MOVIE PARABLES

But that small sampling does seem to be the minority. 81% is still overwhelmingly positive. To compare there are only 14 films in the current top 100 box office revenues (which basically covers every movie playing in theaters right now) that have scored higher than 80% and half of them have made less than $2 million (not to say that box office success is a measure of a film's quality, but the other half are "art house flicks" and Fahrenheit is sure to bring in more than that this weekend). Those 7 films are "Super Size Me" (93%, $8.7M), "Pulse: A Stomp Odyssey" (92%, $6.8M), "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" (92%, $34.1M), "Shrek 2" (90%, $378.6M), "Harry Potter 3" (88%, $190.9M), "Mean Girls" (87%, $82.8M), & "Kill Bill Vol. 2" (86%, $65.4M).

If "Fahrenheit 9/11" consisted solely of talking heads and unflattering glimpses of public figures, it would be, depending on your politics, either a rousing call to arms or an irresponsible provocation, but it might not persuade you to re-examine your assumptions. But the movie is much more than "Dude, Where's My Country," carried out by other means. It is worth seeing, debating and thinking about, regardless of your political allegiances.
-- A.O. Scott, THE NEW YORK TIMES

"Though it's clearly a hate letter to Bush, it's a cleverly composed one, and it will succeed in infuriating and satisfying audiences in approximately equal measure."
-- Frank Swietek, ONE GUY'S OPINION

See all Fahrenheit 9/11 reviews

I think I may go try to see this now.

This is an incredibly powerful movie. I highly recommend that everyone sees it. If anyone feels like they would rather not sit through two hours I just feel like I should say that the issues that this movie addresses are real issues that affect every American. No matter what you think this stuff does affect you, and it will affect your children if you have them. Also, these are not hard to deal with issues (like say, racism or the death penalty). These are concrete, easy to understand issues regarding the president of the United States, his cabinet, and the actions that have taken place in the last 4 years leading up to and encompassing the current war in Iraq. I cannot stress enough that if you feel like you would rather just ignore what is going on in the world to reconsider. Even if you do not see this movie, you should be talking about these issues.

The film opens with the 2000 election and briefly recounts the events covered in the first chapter of Stupid White Men. This is a very brief introduction and it is done well. It follows Bush through the next 9 months, most of which he spent vacationing. It then tastefully handles the September 11th events and from there describes, at length, the president's connections with Saudi Arabia and the Bin Laden family.

Throughout the movie Moore makes numerous conclusions regarding Bush's motives for bringing America to war with Iraq. These conclusions are not facts, of course, but he makes a compelling argument. I cannot imagine coming to any other conclusion given the facts (which, regardless of what conservatives may lead you believe, are facts). It is a fact that Bush said there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. It is a fact there were not (actually there are plenty... ours). It is a fact that multiple members of Bush's staff said there was a solid link between Iraq and Al Qaeda. It is a fact that no link can be show or even made plausible, and the recent 9/11 panel findings say that it is not believed there ever was a link. So why send over tens of thousands of troops to Iraq? This is where conclusions need to be drawn and this is why Moore has made the movie. The Moore conclusion is that war in Iraq equals money for Bush, his family, his friends, his supporters, and his cabinet members. Moore spends most of the movie giving evidence of this.

Like all of Michael Moore's movies there are plenty of scenes depicting the big man giving the little guy the finger. Much time is spent with the soldiers in Iraq and even more with the families back home. We often see a soldier being forced to pin an Iraqi down or make an Iraqi mother cry and then see Bush or Rumsfeld's talking head telling us that we are there for the benefit of the Iraqis. There are also some graphic scenes of wounded American soldiers from which Moore cuts to a Bush official touting victory or a crying mother asking why. It is clear that Moore has an agenda. This is not balanced, unbiased media. But Moore's agenda is noble and it never sways from the truth.

Technically speaking this documentary is a masterpiece. The two hour runtime went by like it was 20 minutes. The message is never clouded, issues are never confusingly handled, and it never feels overly ambitious. The flow of the film is the best of any of his documentaries yet. On top of that, Moore continues with his uncanny ability to put a pit in your chest and well tears in your eyes one minute and have you busting out laughing the next.

I was really afraid that Moore would go too far with this movie. I was afraid he would alienate the middle-of-the-roaders with his whako conspiracy theories. That is not at all what happens here. Of course there are plenty of people that wrote Michael Moore and this movie off long ago, but anyone open minded enough to see, or even that allows themselves to be talked into seeing this movie, will walk away at least thinking about things a little bit more critically. I am happy to say that in no way did Moore go over the top with this film.

I spend a lot of time thinking about the state of affairs in America and about the upcoming election. I voted for Nader in 2000 because I felt like Bush and Gore were two sides of the same coin. Neither one of them, and further more neither the Republican nor the Democratic parties, represented who I was and still today how I feel the world should be. But for this election I long ago decided that it was more important to get Bush (and his regime) out of office, even if it meant compromising on a President Kerry, who also doesn't exactly fit my bill as ideal president. Over the last couple weeks I again wondered why Nader was continuing with his campaign and after recently hearing him speak began to think about whether I was compromising too much by voting for a guy like Kerry. This film has reaffirmed my belief that while in 2000, Gore was just a little bit better than Bush, in this post 9/11 world John Kerry is so much better than Bush that any compromise is worth making to ensure that he is not president for the next 4 years. Just imagine what kind of message it would send to the rest of the world about Americans if we reelected George W. Bush in November.

I went to get tickets at lunch... The whole day was already sold out. It seems to be only playing at the Neptune around here...

I have returned on new computer. Horray.
Saw F911 last night at the 11:30pm showing at the Meridian. Very good, but no new info was presented. It's the packaging that Moore is so good at. His showcase of the insidious military recruiters was ingenious. Also interesting that I saw Moore defending his film last weekend on Stephanopolous's news show concerning some misrepresented statements made by Rep. Mark Kennedy, in the "recruit congressional kids" segment of F911. I was surprised that Kennedy's speaking part was wholly removed from the film that I saw last night. Nothing like last minute tweaking.... Moore made me even more mad than I was before, and more motivated....

No new info... to you. I imagine there a few people (hopefully) that see it that learn a thing or two.

in Pensacola, Fla., Monica Moody, a 20-year-old restaurant hostess who described herself as a conservative Republican, proved to be Mr. Moore's perfect target.

"Oh my goodness, I cried," Ms. Moody said. "I'm still trying to process everything. It really makes me question what I feel about the president. I'm still going to respect him as our president, but it makes me question his motives. Of course, I think that's the whole point of the film, to question his motives. But after watching it, I do question my loyalty to the president. And that's scary for me." -- NYT

I have been following the Fahrenheit News Wire which you can get here. One thing is for sure; this movie has been getting a lot of attention.

A few interesting items of note:

Ray Bradbury, Author of 1953's sci-fi classic Fahrenheit 451 has made a statement damning Michael Moore for using the similar title without permission. (full story) He is demanding an apology and for Moore to change the film's title. "My book is known all over the world and that title is my title." -- Ahhh, what clever timing. This story was posted the day the movie came out. Not that there hasn't been plenty of talk about this movie for the last 2 months. What, has Bradbury been in cold storage? To release this story coinciding with the movie's release is such a blatant publicity stunt that it is laughable. ha.

A conservative political group called Citizens United has called for television ads for the film to be removed from airwaves after July 30th citing new laws governing the use of so-called "soft money" for political campaining. Apparently the group thinks the movie is so anti-Bush that it is pro-Kerry, who I don't remember ever being mentioned in the film. Michael Moore isn't even a Democrat! Moore has blasted back calling this an attempt to limit his 1st Ammendment rights and promising to fight. more

Mark Kermode, writer for the British paper The Observer really, really slams Moore.

Estimates show that Fahrenheit 9/11 made over 8 million dollars on Friday, setting it on track to break the record for total box office sales by a documentary in its FIRST WEEKEND! The previous record holder was Moore's "Bowling For Columbine" with $21.6M total gross in 2002.

Conservatives are planning an anti-Michael Moore film festival to take place later this year in Texas. "'We want everyone to see Michael Moore's film,' said festival founder Jim Hubbard, a lawyer based in Dallas. 'But we also want everyone in America to see Michael Moore Hates America." Cool.

Well like Kermode says, there is no such thing as bad publicity. It looks like a lot of people are going to see Fahrenheit 9/11. Certainly everyone is going to know about it.

It would seem that one of the main results of this movie is that it has really opened the debate. It has brought up the topics that had previously been avoided and allowed major credible sources to begin discussing them. A perfect example of that is today's LA Times editorial spelling out exactly what has gone wrong in Iraq (everything) and blasting the administration for its mistakes.

Story Here (free login may be required - feel free to use this: L:monkeylair/P:monkey)

A year later, more than 90% of Iraqis want the U.S. to leave their country. The president boasted in July that if Iraqi resistance fighters thought they could attack U.S. forces, "bring them on." Since then, more than 400 personnel have been killed by hostile fire.

The missteps have been many: listening to Iraqi exiles like Ahmad Chalabi who insisted that their countrymen would welcome invaders; using too few troops, which led to a continuing crime wave and later to kidnappings and full-blown terror attacks. Disbanding the Iraqi army worsened the nation's unemployment problem and left millions of former soldiers unhappy — men with weapons. Keeping the United Nations at arm's length made it harder to regain assistance when the need was dire.

Preemption is a failed doctrine. Forcibly changing the regime of an enemy that posed no imminent threat has led to disaster. The U.S. needs better intelligence before it acts in the future. It needs to listen to friendly nations. It needs humility.

This is great! This isn't a syndicated liberal columnist, this is a panel-one editorial in the LA Times! Thanks to Moore for getting the ball rolling. Now people are talking.

I definitely agree about the dialogue that's happening, but the LA Times is usually dismissed by conservatives as a liberal rag, as is the NYT.

What I meant by "no new info" is that there was nothing presented in the movie that hasn't already, at some point over the last few years, already been put out in the media. This makes the right-wing freak out all the more interesting to me . . . but now they are deriding the film as nothing but smoke and mirror falsehoods and misrepresentations. Madness. Moore's bundled package of facts will change a few minds (despite the assertion of the "Meet the Press" talking-heads this morning).

I am excited to hear that the movie is out now... I am in china so Im a bit out of the loop. I have watched Bowling for columbine and BBC's Bush family fortunes. It sounds fairly similar to that BBC documentary. Has anyone else seen it?

I feel the same was as you Ender

I spend a lot of time thinking about the state of affairs in America and about the upcoming election. I voted for Nader in 2000 because I felt like Bush and Gore were two sides of the same coin. Neither one of them, and further more neither the Republican nor the Democratic parties, represented who I was and still today how I feel the world should be. But for this election I long ago decided that it was more important to get Bush (and his regime) out of office, even if it meant compromising on a President Kerry, who also doesn't exactly fit my bill as ideal president.

So i just didnt vote in 2000. I wonder how uncommon this no-confidence in Presidential canidates is? I have no idea what to do.

A problem with the Election is that Bush has the support from most of the religious groups because he renounces gay marriage and abortion. I am sure that many people fear these things more than the Iraq situation.

Its a strange world.

Hey Jon, thanks for stopping by. I hope everything is goin well over in China.

I am interested to hear your point of view on the movie. You should try downloading it. I am sure there are some good rips out there. I am assuming your parents are Bush supporters. Do you think they would even consider seeing a film like this?

It looks like Fahrenheit broke the $21.5M set by Bowling for Columbine during its entire run (highest grossing docu) with a weekend total of $23.9M (according to Reuters)

By contrast, most of the other movies in the top five were showing in more than 2,500 theaters each, giving "Fahrenheit 9/11" a much higher per-theater average -- above $27,000 -- than any of its competition and demonstrating that it was playing to packed houses.

Ok, I finally saw the film. I apologize if my review isn't as well written as Rylans, which was very well written. The movie was very well done and very entertaining. I agree with ryland, there's definitely something to be said about a movie that can make you teary eyed one minute and laughing aloud the next. And they ended the film with my favorite clip of bush. I remember watching that clip of bush on the daily show a couple years back and thinking...wow! I liked it a lot, but I think I would've walked away with a lot more had it not been so one-sided. Are there any independent or republican voters on this forum? I'm a little surprised that no one else has really mentioned this. I consider myself to be independent and conservative, so sometimes it's a bit hard for me to be persuaded by those who are on the far end of either side of the spectrum since they're normally very biased, Moore being one of them. However, I still analyze all arguments the same way, regardless of a persons partisan orientation. If a person doesn't speak on and consider both sides of an argument and give reasons supporting their stance, then I'm not gonna learn a thing nor am I gonna be persuaded...and Moore certainly didn't do this. I didn't see or hear Moore mention once the other side of the war, I didn't see any interviews with soldiers that supported the war or soldiers that supported bush. And that certainly doesn't mean there weren't any. I didn't see any scenes of victory, only scenes of carnage. I've seen lots of footage of Iraqi's praising and thanking the US, but not in this movie. And when it came to Bush, all he show were clips of bush sounding stupid (including my favorite clip), but I personally think Bush is a little more intelligent than how Moore portrayed him. Had Moore showed both sides then I definitely would have learned a lot more. But as it stands, I didn't walk away from this film with anything other than a dent in my wallet. Since when did movies start costing $12.50?

Hey beeph. I hear what you're saying, but just to address a couple of things you said...

Is F911 one-sided? Completely, but Michael Moore has never called it fair and balanced or any BS like that. So everyone knew what they were getting into when they saw the movie. I think the important thing to remember is what MM said within the movie and in interviews about the movie. That we've already seen the "other side" of the argument, and nothing but a one-sided argument going into Iraq and the war on terror. Arguably, there wasn't a single major news source that questioned the war, and basically what we got was the media cheerleading the country into Iraq and Afghanistan. None of them asked the hard questions, or translated the news clips of shouting Iraqis that otherwise appear to be incensed maniacs screaming unwarranted hatred for america, none of them showed soldiers questioning their duty in iraq, and none of them showed a side to the story other than pro-war. So F911 is that other side of the story we haven't seen, and I think it's refreshing that it's not tainted by the story we've seen over and over again.

(apologies if this is getting too lengthy)
Most people on the right and even on the left in america label MM as extreme left, but more than a guage of where he stands, I think it's more revealing about where the center in America stands. If you guage Moore's views by Canadian or European values, he stands to the left. If you guage him by American political values, he stands on the extreme left. I think it's helpful to consider that the center of American politics stands very far to the right compared to other countries.

You call yourself a conservative. Just out of curiosity, are you a fiscal conservative, a social conservative, or both?

there wasn't a single major news source that questioned the war

Very true, and for good reasons too.

You call yourself a conservative. Just out of curiosity, are you a fiscal conservative, a social conservative, or both?

Definitly more social than fiscal, which I think has a lot to do with why I've moved from the left towards the middle over the years...but still a little on the left. Why do you ask?

Good reasons for not covering the downsides to a war that was

• - illegal by any standard
  - based on flawed intelligence
  - ill-planned and undermanned
  - lacking an exit scenario

I wonder which good reasons those would be.

It's a bit sad that people don't read more books and so come to rely on a fat fuck like Moore to show them a slice of the truth.

There's nothing wrong with being conservative - but Bush and his cronies are not conservative, as their actions show. Nowadays when somebody says they're conservative, they just mean that they like to be lead around by the nose and lied to in a slick and professional manner.

Good reasons for not covering the downsides to a war that was


- illegal by any standard
- based on flawed intelligence
- ill-planned and undermanned
- lacking an exit scenario

did you come up with those yourself, or did you read that in a book somewhere? Oh I know, you saw it in a movie once. Did you ever see that one movie Starship Troopers, where those enormous bug like aliens attacked earth in the year 2040 and the humans found the motherbrain of the alien race on their home planet and blew it up. Bang Bang Bang! BOOM! Zaaam! Wow what a movie! Now that was a war! And just think, if that movie never came out, we'd be totally unprepared when the grand attack comes in the year 2040.

dyam ocean! I wish I had read a million friggen books, then I'd be cooler than everyone else. Probably not as cool as you though.

I hope your optimism is met and that it doesn't just turn into a polarizing agent making Moore head preacher to the choir and cement his position as complete whack job to the right-wingers and unworthy of their open mindedness (ha).

Ha- true fact! Right wingers and conservatives are close minded. Did you know that Beeeph likes to be lead around and lied to in a slick and professional manner? Cause he does ! ( he's a dirty dirty... gasp! conservative) I say we burn him at the stake for being a heretic! Beeeph, thou broke the first commandment when thy forsaked thy Lord and Savior, Micheal Moore.

I could stereotype liberals and throw out fictional "facts". Don't doubt it! Take it easy on the Beeph, he's speaking his mind like Micheal Moore. But is that too much to ask from a group of rapists, murderers, and people who lie in a slick and professional manner? I think so... Oops! Did i just stereotyped liberals?

Definitly more social than fiscal, which I think has a lot to do with why I've moved from the left towards the middle over the years...but still a little on the left. Why do you ask?

I'm just always curious when someone calls themselves a conservative because sometimes people are fiscally conservative/socially liberal and vice versa. Just trying to figure out where you're coming from... thats all.

dirtyprettylittlething wrote:But is that too much to ask from a group of rapists, murderers, and people who lie in a slick and professional manner? I think so... Oops! Did i just stereotyped liberals?

no.


Hey a good read for everyone (including the lying rapist murdering liberals/conservatives of the forum) is Noam Chomsky's semi-daily blog. While it's not always written about breaking news, it offers some very wise (IMO) commentary on related recent history and current affairs.