Fahrenheit 9/11 Brings the House Down in Cannes!

Oh no you don't

 

There is no true message without truth. We already know that guns kill people.

 

I agree with spreading a message, as long as you use the truth and not lies to do so.

 

Moore is definately great for giving us excitement and being an antagonist ...however.. he plays fast and loose with the truth sometimes and other times Im offended by his abuse and 'use' of tragedy too.

His Roger and Me was excellent and over-all he is definately doing the right thing exposing some real bad attitudes of the 'haves'... but he also did things like lead the audience to believe that it was former GM employee's being evicted on Christmas eve... they werent.
The facts as you see them are true.. but the 'way' they were presented and what you 'didnt know' was skewing.

In Bowling for Columbine - I was with him most of the way... until he once again used a false representation of Canada to 'contrast' American culture.
Its true that Windsor is a fairly peaceful city with few gun deaths .. BUT... overall, Canada has an extremely high murder rate and being kicked to death outside a 7/11 is not necessarily better than getting shot by a handgun!

Moore could have easily taken you to some places in Toronto (with very strict handgun laws) and probably caught a murder on film if he waited a day or two!

Then Moore all but ruined the whole film with , what I considered a terrible sneak-attack and just plain rude trick on Charlton Heston. It was very good of Heston to meet with him and Heston was being very very open and willing to discuss it - and Moore just blind-sided him with a cheap gimmicky attack.

Putting that girls picture on Hestons porch was just about the most shameful and cowardly thing Ive seen. Too bad. Ruined what might have been a good conclusion.

My favourite Moore moment - when he had his TV series The Awful Truth ..lol.. and they lined up car alarms outside a car alarm CEO's house on Sunday morning and set them all off LOL!

I was behind Moore 100% on that one!

 

The Bushes and the Bin Ladens: passionate anti-war film is a tale of two families

It was strident, passionate, sometimes outrageously manipulative and often bafflingly selective in its material, but Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11 was a barnstorming anti-war/anti-Bush polemic tossed like an incendiary device into the crowded Cannes festival.



It included a full-scale denunciation of the links between the Bush and Bin Laden families, the petro-commercial association which allowed dozens of the Bin Laden family to leave the country for Saudi Arabia after 9/11 and which necessitated the Iraq war as a massive diversion. .....





From there, Moore sketches out the Texan-Saudi link through the Bin Ladens. This very much involves George Bush Sr, who far from being a retired old gentleman, is a vigorous player in the business and political scene, fully availing himself of the ex-presidential prerogative of receiving intelligence briefings. Moore has a terrifying and funny sequence when he shows the rabbit-in-car-headlights expression on the president's face when he is told about the second plane hitting the towers while at a children's literacy event. A stopwatch appears in the corner of the screen, as the minutes tick by and the president keeps reading My Pet Goat, not knowing what to do without his advisers to tell him. ....






http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,3604,1219219,00.html

 

skip, although i disagree with rat on some of his points regarding bowling for columbine, i've seen nothing to indicate that he's blindly patriotic and sees america as better than anyone else. rather, i think he's equally cynical towards everyone.

rat, although i agree that mr. moore was a bit self-servingly selective in what he chose to show, and rather opportunistic in his use of other people's tragedy, i don't think that he was trying to portray americans as gun-loving wackos, and i think that if the only message you got out of the movie is "guns kill people", then you may have missed the point. what i got out of the film was not "guns kill people", so much as that it was about our culture of fear.

and we do have a culture of fear, it does manipulate us. rather than teaching our children to reach out and participate in our communities, to interact and socialize in a natural, healthy manner, and to develop their own intellects and opinions and freely voice them, we raise them in hermetically-sealed, locked environments, usually segregated by race and class, we teach them not to talk to strangers, we send them to be "educated" in a dumbed-down, age, gender and usually class-segregated school system with an enforced, artificial and predatory social structure, and we encourage them to just go along with everyone else and not make waves because we're afraid of what other people will think. we are born into sterile hospitals, we go home strapped in a carseat enclosed in an automobile, we spend our childhoods in front of televisions and being herded through school corridors, and when we reach adulthood our lives revolve around our jobs. no wonder we are so afraid. almost from birth we have no real interaction with our communities and our environments, as a culture we are becoming more and more withdrawn, and as we pull ourselves inward, we are starting to fear what's on the outside, and this fear is driven by the only thing that penetrates our shells: the bombardment of images by the sensationalist media. ironically, i think that moore is just as guilty of that himself, just from the other direction.

at anyrate, my point is that i don't think that bowling for columbine was about guns as much as it was about fear. the problem is not political - left-wingers are just as fear driven at times as the right - it's a cultural problem at its core.

anyway, whether i agree with moore on every point or not, i'm looking foreward to seeing the film (i imagine it'll probably be at the little) and hearing what he has to say.

 

I grew up in Flint, so I am very aware of Michael Moore and his work. I liked Bowling for Comumbine also. I think Moore is good for America, because we are pounded with right-wing views all the time, and we need to see some from the left side sometimes. A lot of people don't go out seeking news, they hear it as it comes to them...maybe flipping between channels or something. Maybe this new movie of his will bring out soem things that would never be mentioned in American media normally.

 

Has rat actually watched Bowling for Columbine? The film doesn't portray Americans to be gun tottin wierdo's, what it does do however is highlight the similarities between America and similar western cultures and then highlights the major difference which is that America has a gun culture like no other country in the western world, which in the film is the main question asked by micheal moore "Why is this?" the film doesn't glorify guns or degrade America, but it does make people think and ask questions about the need for guns and violence.

 

Kitty Fabulous,


Your post was awesome!

I was attempting to compose a very similar post, but then I came across yours.
You said everything I wanted to say, and with clarity.

Every day in every school yard across this country our children are trapped in a Columbine of subtle aggression and hyper-competitive brutality.

Of course Michael Moore falls on his face trying to make relevent connections.

He is stubbling blind in the dark terrain of our collective subconscious Death Drive.

The ubiquitous universal death drive that reveals itself as the Funural March of Civilization.

How can Michael make the relevent connections when he, like the rest of us, was raised in the psychosis of denial.

But at least he is trying! And in his blind stumbling, he does at times push some of the right buttons.

Which is the REAL reason why we are so uncomfortable with Michael. Otherwise, why wouldn't even be talking about him.

 

Moore pisses people off simply because he reminds the sheep of the many ways in which they have again allowed themselves to lead gullibly by the nose to serve the interests of the ruling elite (and that, contrary to every founding principle of our nation, there IS a "ruling" elite, i.e. the "elected tyranny").

Since most refuse to undertake their civic duty to hold our leaders (and our very system of governance) fully accountable to "the people" from whence it draws its legitimacy, they smugly resent those who do and who do it with such flair and self deprication as Moore does. His refusal to be silent in the face of repeated attempts to remove (or otherwise silence) our collective voice makes the majority who don't lift a finger look all the more irresponsible and so they criticise him in knee jerk fashion or go for all out character smears.

The arguments are as petty as those who blindly adhere to a status quo which only ultimately serves the elite.

 

sorry (no edit button once again, HEY MODS PLEASE FIX THAT FEATURE, thanks)...

The above should read "to be led" not "to lead".

 

Prove it? How? By spewing forth the same rhetoric as everyone else? Do you want me to join a commune, too?

I don't have to prove anything to anyone, let alone you. I am an individualist, not a follower. If I lived to prove myself to people, I'd be too much like other people who I'd never want to be like.

Yes, just like Bush. What do you think, I like Bush or something?

See, it's people like YOU, Skip, who feel that if people don't believe EXACTLY what you want them to believe, these people are somehow wrong.

I never said he wasn't intelligent. But he's very arrogant, kind of like some other people I know. And I am not getting defensive about anything. Unlike some people, all I want is the truth, NOT what I want to hear. Some people will believe anything they read or hear, as long as it fits what they want to read or hear. It's no better than blindly going along with what people like Bush say, which is all lies too.

How the fuck would you know? You don't even know me! Did I ever say America is better than other countries? No! Do I think America is better than other countries? Fuck no! I look at the world in terms of humanity as a whole.

Moore isn't exposing anything that informed, intelligent people who read books already know. I already know the bin Ladens and the Bushes are tied together. Who doesn't?

I don't read books made by actors and movie directors like Al Franken and Michael Moore, but people who at least have credentials to be talking about what they're talking about.

You know NOTHING about me, Skip, and I would prefer you stop passing judgment on people you don't know. It only makes you look bad, not me.

 

If those with "half a brain" knew the Bushs' and bin Ladens were linked, it would be showing up in the polls. I'd say that 42% that still supports Bush, has no clue they are linked.

Unfortunately, Moore's films don't appeal to "mainstream audiences" and are mostly viewed by the fringe (like us on this thread). The publicity generated because of Disney's refusal to allow Miramax to release the film, will help fill movie houses once it is released (thank you Mr. Redford), hopefully before the November election.

I have the highest respect for Michael Moore. Not necessarily for the content of his films, but because he tackles controversial subject matter. Most of us just sit back on our asses, not producing one bit of "art" in any medium, and then we bitch and moan because we don't like what we see. Well, this man is producing something and his films cause us all to react to his "art." More power to him.....

 

It's not Moore's work I dislike as much as it is his attitude. As someone above stated, the way he treated Charlton Heston in BFC - no matter what he feels about the guy - was downright uncalled for and flat-out rude. I would never treat a person like that. You don't go to somebody's house after being invited and so rudely put them on the spot like that. It only makes Moore look like the opportunist he is.

 

it's unfortunate and off-putting, but i think that intelligence and arrogance usually go hand-in-hand. (and um, rat, you have to admit you too can be both very intelligent and arrogant yourself sometimes. like in your last post: making the connection between the bushes & bin laden is intelligent, insisting those who don't lack even half a brain is arrogant.) i think it's often a natural combination. unfortunately our in our media-nursed, fear-fed, culture, the average slob isn't aware of the connection, or any connection, and even if you spelled it out and dropped it in their laps they wouldn't see it. people have been culturally conditioned since birth to keep their heads in the sand, keep themselves in line, and believe whatever the tv tells them. and i don't think it's merely a question of intelligence. my brother is totally brilliant, but he accepts everything the media spoon-feeds him, not becuse he's stupid but because he'sfearful to question the only thought patterns he's been exposed to his whole life.

i agree that michael moore is arrogant, and self-serving, and it galled me how much he seemed to enjoy having the camera on him while "comforting" that weeping teacher. i detest charlton heston, but the way mr. moore treated him was rude. i think mr. heston's a paranoid, insensitive idiot, but he's not personally responsible for that little girl's death, or the huge cultural problem that led to her death. however, i think moore's work is valuable in that he's making statements no one else has the balls to make. let's not throw the baby out with the bathwater.

 

Oh, I can be very arrogant. But I admit it. Mostly, I am just opinionated, and I don't place a whole lot of emphasis on if people like what I have to say or not. But I at least try to be civil to people. Or at least as civil as I can, before people start throwing names around.

 

Oh no you don't

 

i fail to see the importance of the bushes and the bin ladens being "connected?" The bin ladens are like the largest constructors in saudi arabia..anyone who does business in saudi arabia will have ties to them! not to mention they disowned osama bin laden....so whats the big deal?

Are we to blame families for one persons actions?

 

Regarding 'ties' between Bin Ladens and Bushs.

This is where I often find Moore is dishonest by what he 'does not' show the audience.
Pull the camera frame 'back' and you see that there are really no more than a handful of super-rich, super affluent and influent families in the world of Big Oil.
Because its a global industry there are obviously going to be many many 'ties' between all the families moneys.

I dont think a lot of people really understand that the Bin Ladens are MASSIVE and ANY business in the entire middle east could probably be 'Connected' to them in some way!

So... what Moore does is count on the audience to be naive (not ignorant because - why would you know any different)
Then he picks out any connections (not telling you that statistically its impossible to miss)
Then he contrives it all in a big 'AHA!' after 'leading you' along some imagined 'secret trail'.

Well.. I think we can all agree it was bullshit how he side-swiped Heston.
You may not agree with Heston but give him credit - he actually invited Moore into his house for a free open talk .. and... Heston seemed to want to be very flexible and honest.
Not many celebs would answer a phone without a lawyer present and Moore really hurt himself over that.