Non-fiction and Documentaries

I agree with the comments on Farenheit 911. I didn't really like it either. In fact, it kinda disgusted me to see all these college kids, kids who you'd think have a brain, raving about it after the show.

As for Blackgaurd's comments on his confrontational style, I think that is one of the best parts about him. He comes across as a push over journalist and then nails these questions that put people on the spot. I loved the close ups of Heston as he deeply thought about the questions.

In the Big One (1994), he goes around to Multi-national companies and tries to present their Chief Execs these gigantic sweepstakes winner checks, only when they look at them and as he is explaining that their award is the "Downsizer of the Year Award", and that the check is for $.86, the amount per hour they will now pay the average mexican worker.

I liked how he put Walmart (or was it Kmart) execs on the spot and, with the high school students from Columbine HS, got them to stop selling bullets in their stores. Seemed activist to me.

 

It's interesting reading through all of the discussion over Michael Moore. I have my .02 but plenty has been said. Here's some docs that I enjoyed watching and garnered a few nuggets of knowledge from.

"The Corporation" by Mark Achbar,Jennifer Abbott, and Joel Bakhan. This one was actually quite unsettling. An investigation into 'the corporation'.

Shaolin Kung Fu Tai Seng Video:
Jet Li appears in this briefly. It's a great look inside the history and techniques of the Shaolin on the premises of a Shaolin monastery. Many masters demonstrate what would seem to be impossible feats and skills.

The Magic Weed by Martin Baker
This is a history of the Cannabis plant and it's many uses both in practical as well as psychotropic applications.

 

'a'? How bout 'shitloads'?
He basically said that America was started so we could have slaves, when really slavery started in Europe.
He bitched about how some woman had to work part-time while on wellfare, does he just want America to give away money?
He makes it seem like Heston and the NRA held meetings at Denver around the time of the shooting at Columbine, NRA cancelled all Denver meetings for months after Columbine.
He makes it seem like the Klan and the NRA work together and were even founded the same year when in reality, in 1871 the Klan was already established, it was founded in 1866. In fact Ulysses S. Grant who oppossed the KKK while in office, was elected NRA's eigth president and their ninth president removed 2 governors from office from "failure to suppress the KKK"
The shooting at the elementary school in Michigan (I think it's Beull Elementary) Was done by a kid who had
previously been suspended for stabbing a kid with a pencil, had fought with the girl he later shot (Kayla?), and has stabbed a kid with a knife since then. Moore decides to depict this as a sob story. The "family business" Moore speaks of is the neighborhood crack house.
Moore is an asshole. Don't believe anything he says.

 

As for Blackgaurd's comments on his confrontational style, I think that is one of the best parts about him. He comes across as a push over journalist and then nails these questions that put people on the spot. I loved the close ups of Heston as he deeply thought about the questions
goldmund


I have no problem with his questions, as I said. I have a big problem with a guest insulting a host, especially when he invited himself in.....
It is terrible manners, and shows no class. I liked the walmart scene, I liked the whole movie until he showed such lowbrow tactics at the end. Like I said, I am no Heston fan, but I would never stoop to such disrespectful actions as that.
bg13

as for duck, the slavery in the US was unlike anything else ever seen in history.
It was uniquely vile, and that may have been what he meant. Slavery is as old as time itself, but the US version was particularly horrid.

 

Yeah I agree but, it still wasn't why the US was founded.

 

Moore has a truth filter allowing only what he regards as appropriate for his audience to grasp. He will show you the truth, but he will only show you the tip of it and then dress it up with his political agenda, which changes on a yearly basis. Strong criticism? I should explain. How can anyone say Americans are more trigger happy than Europeans? Europeans started 2 world wars, unless I'm mistaken! America is responsible for slavery? Who bought all these slaves to US soil? Which was the biggest empire at the time and the largest navy? Was it America? We live in a world where most movies screened in the Western hemisphere are from Hollywood and so our opinions are influenced by it. Violence sells, because people need to see it. Just like the Romans flocked into the coliseum to see barbarity and yet considered themselves civilized because they didn't live in a cave. Sure there are a lot of channels that show their version of the truth. And Michael Moore, in his eternal wisdom has decided to do the same thing. I think the term used to descibe such truths is propaganda. There is a saying that goes: 'two wrongs don't make a right.' We've wasted enough time on this muppet.