conniption

Manos: Hands of Fate, closely followed by Night of the Lepus, Glen or Glenda, and The Brain from the Planet Arous. I love the bad movies .

Look, Dukes, I'm not asking you to like Michael Moore. All I'm pointing out is that your accusations of him being a glory hog are absurd. He has a set of strong beliefs (whether or not you agree with them), and a strong desire to promulgate them (fair enough) and his methods - namely his humorous, opinionated stunt-filled films / TV shows carried by his everyman charisma - have proved extraordinarily succesful in doing that. Attacking him for being a glory hog by putting himself on screen could hardly be more off-base - was Martin Luther King, Jr a glory hog for standing behind his podium and using his magnetism, charisma and flair for rhetoric to present his views? Of course not. Note that I'm not asking you to think that Moore is as good a person as MLK or whatever - you can think he's the devil for all I care - but merely that that particular attack on him is ludicrous. Moore's work is known because he's Michael Moore. And your statement about it being the highest selling documentary shows you CLEARLY don't understand American movie receipts. Michael Moore's documentary did well because he's Michael Moore. The goodness or badness of the documentary has nothing to do with it... Read what I said again. Slower. Did I say anything about the goodness or badness of Fahrenheit 9/11? Of course not. The film hasn't even come out in New Zealand. I said, in effect, exactly what you said - you say people go to the film just because it's Michael Moore and it's hyped. well, why is it hyped? Why do people want to see his film just because it's Michael Moore? Well, because of his past film and TV work, particularly his directorial style which has always seen him put himself in front of the camera. That seems pretty reasonable - I'd go to most Coen Brothers or Tarantino films just because based on their previous works I think I'll enjoy it. Yes, if he wants to be seen as a documentarian. That's the definition of a documentary. No, it's not. All documentarians make choices about what material they include and what material they exclude from their films, and these choices reflect the documentarian's editorial concerns. A list of facts on screen with no conclusions drawn would be crushingly dull, and can't fail to be incomplete. Of course, they're not allowed to lie, and if Michael Moore lies (he hasn't been caught out for any in Fahrenheit 9/11 yet that I know of yet) I'm not going to support him. But he's free to express his opinion - just think of it as an op-ed piece in your newspaper, but in film form instead, if that makes it easier for you. Yes he can. That's free speech. And no, of course you don't. Just try not to dislike him for such phony reasons. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA -- oh, you're serious. Michael Moore has a reputation, well-earned. And he got that reputation by promoting himself and (more importantly) his work, and breaking through the considerable barriers that stand in front of his style of political message - whether you agree with it or not - getting mainstream exposure. What do you even mean by that? It's not like Moore's done many of the major things he's accused Bush of, like starting a war for fraudulent reasons that's killed millions, and so on.

Good find, sycodmn. Anyone volunteering to serve in the Vietnam War in 1972, by which time it had become obvious that the US had lost, and the US was scaling back their involvement, would really need their head read.

A great quote from the New York Daily News: This Onion article (yes, really) also offers a hilarious parody of the people who think criticism of the President is somehow unpatriotic or distasteful. Dammit, themick, you live in a democracy! Blind allegiance to the Commander-in-Chief and refusal to question him is what you do in a dictatorship. Which would you rather live in?

I don't understand this attitude at all. Moore's work is known precisely because of his oddball charisma and unique ability to present arguments and political views in unconventional, thought-provoking and funny ways. If he never put himself on-screen, if he tried to prevent his personal touch coming out in his shows and documentaries, he certainly wouldn't be putting out a film that became the highest selling documentary ever in JUST ONE WEEKEND. This whole idea that he's a glory hog, in it for the money and/or publicity... is he supposed to keep his opinions to himself and make sure he never goes past the stating of facts to actually draw some conclusions in his work? Hell no. He's an artist, regardless of whether you think he's a good artist or not, and it's his role to get his message out and present it in the most effective and memorable way he can. Hasn't the Disney affair (and the trouble he had publishing Stupid White Men before that) tought everyone that if he didn't bust his ass to promote his work, they'd simply be shut down and suppressed by big corporations with their own reasons not to upset the applecart?

It depends what your tastes are. I'm most interested in the Asian cinema (Old Boy, Hero, Ong-Bak, etc) and a few of the docos (Fahrenheit 911, The Yes Men, the Corporation, Control Room). Prices are quite high, though, so I'll probably wait to see the films that'll definitely get mainstream release, like Fahrenheit.

Who the hell wants to listen to a conservative rock band? Rock, rap and several other genres of music have their roots in rebellion, struggle and controversy, and I'll take that over the safe commercial crap that many bands churn out because they're afraid to say something that might upset a potential customer. There'll always be bands that are too ham-fisted or simplistic in their attempts to cram politics or ethics in their songs, but that isn't an argument that politics in music sucks any more than Vanilla Ice is an argument that rap sucks. To me, addressing real issues, political or otherwise, in lyrical form will always be one of the primary purposes of music, and any indeed most forms of art.

Ah... Bastard is one fucking good song.

UK: Goody Two Shoes by Adam Ant - never heard of it US: Ebony and Ivory by Paul McCartney & Stevie Wonder - hmm, a song about ignoring skin colour by someone who's blind - what would he know about the subject?

None of the big media companies who are distributing pornography are likely to do exposes on themselves, are they? So if other media companies aren't allowed to comment on the issue because that's an 'underhanded tactic', how can anyone ever report on the subject?

I don't know that Bowling really was a message movie, per se. At least, there's no 1 underlying message dominating the whole movie - Moore looks at all sorts of stuff from poverty to the NRA to American violence in other countries to gun ownership levels to the 'culture of fear' created by the media, but leaves a fair bit of room for viewers to make up their mind.

Bush doesn't even read newspapers - not even right wing ones - so I'm pretty sure he'll stay a million miles away from this one.