The movie is playing the Cannes Film Festival in a couple of weeks, so we’ll be getting reports of how it is and what people who have seen it think.
Someone will pick it up. It’ll get distributed in America, one way or another.
I know that sounds weird, but the first time a few weeks ago, my beloved cat had died that morning and I really needed to get out of the house because everything reminded me of him. I wanted something colorful and silly to cheer me up, but I fell asleep halfway through. Not because the movie wasn’t good, but I had gotten up early, having to deal with taking his body to the vet to be cremated was stressful, and my brain was fried with grief. I wanted to see it again all the way through, so my husband and I went last night. It’s cute, and kd lang sings in it.
Given Michael Moore’s record, I’d want the film extensively fact-checked before I’d let it be released under any name, service mark, trademark, or brand associated with me.
Bowling for Truth – No, “Bowling for Columbine” wasn’t factual. It wasn’t even a good approximation.
Spinsanity is a relatively non-partisan site that makes some of the same crtiiques of BfC. I agree with the need for major fact checking giving the subject of the film and Moore’s track record with integrity.
Libertarian, that comment was both predictable and stupid.
It’s not about coercing Disney into releasing the movie. It’s Disney coercing Miramax into not releasing it.
Miramax and Disney freely entered a contract. One of the terms of this contract appears to be that Disney has the right to veto the release of movies by Miramax under certain conditions. Those conditions do not seem to have been met. Hence, Disney is breaking their contract and depriving Miramax from running its business within the bounds of said contract.
Even from a libertarian point of view Disney is in the wrong here, from the looks of it.
Believe it or not, it’s possible to think the Disney corporation is great big fascist douche and to also think that they have every right to be one. It’s actually possible to be disgusted by things you think should be legal!
However, Miramax is a Disney subsidiary since the Weinsteins sold out to them in 1995. Ergo, if Disney wants to change the terms of the agreement, well, they can. They own the company, you see.
Whether or not Diney should be “forced” into releasing the movie, this is de facto censorship. It doesn’t matter that the government is making protest illegal (which they no doubt will be happy to do), but a few corporations with strong ties to government appropriate and control basically all print and broadcast media. Will it really mollify you to know that the first amendment is alive and well if a few like-minded corporations have a stranglehold on all media, while contributing to and receiving heavy government contracts from the government?
Who knows? There’s doubtlessly more to the situation than what we know.
The point, however, is that this isn’t simply a case of Disney pressuring some other company to buckle under their desires. Rather, this is Disney exercising control over one of its own subsidiaries, probably due to some questionable or suspicious content. One might question why they signed that agreement in the first place (and I’m sure that we don’ tknow the whole story), but the point remains. This action is not the draconian act of censorship that some make it out to be.
