More Michael Moore hatred

It would be better to say that I have a problem with his tactics and style, more than anything. Bluster, shouting down the other guy instead of providing a reasonable argument, etc.

What if he decides to be a political activist that's capable of making jokes? Are you afraid time will stop?

There's no justifiable reason to do that in something that purports to be a documentary.

Moore makes the worst kind of propaganda - his political goals outweigh everything else, and serve to undermine any rational basis for his beliefs. It's fine for getting people to side with you on an emotional level - as evidenced by the general left-wing love of BfC - but it's really shit for making an effectual argument or changing opinions and views.

But I still think the KKK-NRA thing was supposed to be historical irony rather than any attempt to directly equate the two organisations.

(In part because people who don't have a strong grounding for their beliefs are the most likely to flip-flop and switch sides.)

I don't understand why people think he can't put jokes in! Is it because some people are dumb enough to take it as a fact? Anyone with a handle on anything can seperate the entertaining comic relief bits from the serious, informative bits.

That's brilliant. What I've got a problem with are jokes that don't resemble the facts. If it was a right-wing documentary implying through humor that Bill Clinton was friends with bin Laden or something, lefties would (rightfully) be up in arms.

Kevin, it's great that we have some political aspects of pop culture. That doesn't excuse playing fast and loose with evidence and avoiding making a reasonable argument at all. (de la Rocha and Morello's politics tend to make more sense than Moore's from the interviews I've read) You can have a Michael Moore or BfC inspiring kids without any of Moore's flaws and problems.

Moore (and Limbaugh)(and Fox News) insult the intelligence of their audience by assuming that they can't handle both sides of an argument, or that they can't let facts get in the way of a good rant. I find that, as I said, unhealthy.

I'd take statements like this a little more seriously were it not for those currently dominant in politics.

You mean the one that never actually happened? this thread has some people agreeing with him, some people saying they disagree but respect him, and very few actually dissing him. There's like only four truly agressive messages on the entire thread!

e.g they complain that he calls the Shah a dictator rather than a king - which is surely a matter of opinion

Not if you were a typical Iranian citizen during the Shah's regeime. A dictator is still a dictator no matter if he has the blessing of the US or not.

I find that entry-level politics concept to be insulting to the intelligence of the average person. They don't need to be treated like morons. Give them an argument, without it being Al Gore-boring, and they'll respond.

I disagree here, the "average person" is spectacularly ignorant and disengaged with respect to political and civic knowledge. Historically, the average person has responded by not voting.

Ebert writes: The pitfall for Moore is not subjectivity, but accuracy. We expect him to hold an opinion and argue it, but we also require his facts to be correct. I was an admirer of his previous doc, the Oscar-winning "Bowling for Columbine," until I discovered that some of his "facts" were wrong, false or fudged.

In some cases, he was guilty of making a good story better, but in other cases (such as his ambush of Charlton Heston) he was unfair, and in still others (such as the wording on the plaque under the bomber at the Air Force Academy) he was just plain wrong, as anyone can see by going to look at the plaque.

Because I agree with Moore's politics, his inaccuracies pained me, and I wrote about them in my Answer Man column. Moore wrote me that he didn't expect such attacks "from you, of all people." But I cannot ignore flaws simply because I agree with the filmmaker. In hurting his cause, he wounds mine.

For some reason, Moore kinda reminds me of Orson Welles's character in Touch of Evil - both have good intentions, but they use the wrong methods. And there's the bloatedness factor. And in both cases, they are up against Charlton Heston (who plays a Mexican narc in Touch of Evil). Hmm.

From what I hear about “9/11,” however, he does leave himself out of the film more than ever before, which solves some problems, but no doubt the guy still wanders off point for much of the run-time. This is actually the first of his films I feel compelled to see in the theatres, not for all the nonsense stuff either already debunked (Bin Laden charter flights out of the U.S. on 9/11) or silly (lets mock the Congress!) but as a (perhaps) damning indictment of the misleading march to War and messy clean-up. We shall see.

Then again, the fact that Moore is all but threatening his critics with libel this time out makes me want to see him fail, fail, fail.

boo hoo. not nearly as bad as the shellacking the entire world is taking from our vicious, wrong-headed foreign policy.

And I'm assuming you're wondering why the right AREN'T making their own movies in support of Bush, Elvis T. And I think they are, just in an understandably less overt way.

http://www.crankycritic.com/archive02/posters/weweresoldiers.jpg

But there's a difference in that, and propaganda designed specifically to prey on emotion and to do no enlightening and no reasoning. When that's done in the name of pro-American propaganda, we complain (Jessica Lynch, perhaps?).

I've often been baffled at why the left so often lets conservatives set the terms of debate in this.

I don't even see his stuff as documentary. I just see it as plain old propaganda. And Moore would probably agree.

I don't think so. I think he thinks of himself more as an old-fashioned muckraker. And at his best, he is.

-- spittle (ptu...), June 21st, 2004.

I don't agree. I think he sees himself as a revolutionary. He wants to effect the election. He wants all his movies to have an effect on society and CHANGE society if possible. He wants the country to be a different place and he makes movies to further that goal. That's why I used the word propaganda. I'm not saying it's good or bad. Just that he is beyond muckraking or investigative journalism. When I think of muckraking I think of someone shedding light on a subject and letting the facts speak for themselves. Most of Moore's information comes from print journalism and muckrakers and investigative reporting. Then he takes that information and does what he does with it. I'm looking forward to the movie.

Now, I don't think Moore is anywhere near the equal of someone like Steffens or Riis. But I also don't think that the muckrakers were some clarion of objectivity. (As a sidebar, I should say that I think that the drive toward "objectivity" in reportage, which goes hand-in-hand with the professionalization of the industry, is something to be lamented. It has watered down reporting as a political tool and transformed most reporters into a quivering chorus of stenographers eager to preserve their "sources" and their "access.") And I'll say it again -- I also don't think Moore is a reporter per se. His films are agitprop, and agitprop has its place.

The pitfall for Moore is not subjectivity, but accuracy.

...is being ignored again and again on this thread, which is a shame 'cos it's U&K.

found this when googling... Anyone see this ever?

Unless it's something like a hilarious photocollage that is meant to point out that Michael Moore is a heavyset man, and therefore his ideas are worthless. Keep those coming.

I am mad at myself right now for even deigning to post a response in a thread that links to some ridiculous bullshit like that "Bowling for Truth" thing. Jesus christ.

http://www.fritzliess.com/movabletype/archives/images/moore_dude_book.jpg
http://hogwild.net/images/Balloons/2003.06.08/michael.moore-madeleine.albright.jpg
http://www.attackcartoons.com/bigcameras.GIF

(I've never seen him smoke on TV).

i stopped reading hitchens when he stopped trying to make convincing arguments.

So I know, thanks, before you tell me, that a documentary must have a "POV" or point of view and that it must also impose a narrative line. But if you leave out absolutely everything that might give your "narrative" a problem and throw in any old rubbish that might support it, and you don't even care that one bit of that rubbish flatly contradicts the next bit, and you give no chance to those who might differ, then you have betrayed your craft.

a) Charlton Heston is a senile jackass (true)
b) Canadian media is always very polite, and would never exploit fear for ratings (wrong!)

Really, I wouldn't care about the film's many distortions of the truth if it made any fucking sense.

From Slate.

Funny how easily "An administration" or "A call to arms" or even "A former journalist" can be subbed in for "film," no?