There is a difference between a documentary and propaganda. Documentary will give you facts from both sides of the fence. Moore is too one sided for that.
It’s easy to become engrossed in his movies because they shine a conspiracy theory light on the subjects at hand.
Unfortunately I lost all respect for the man himself when he backed Ralph Nader in the 2000 election and then blamed him for Al Gores loss. I beleive you support a candidate based on his ideals win or lose
My complaint is only with the actual words of the speech itself. It was lame- Cartman could have done better. Something articulate or witty denouncing Bush would have been great, instead we get “fictitious war, fictitious president, fictitious reasons, shame on you, shame on you?” Who even says shame on you anymore? This guy has months to prepare for this moment, and we get a bunch of repetitive jibberish that sound like the rambling of a homeless guy in the park? 
A documentary is a movie that presents an argument. There’s no requirement that it be evenhanded. I think the first movie that won an Oscar for best documentary didn’t even have any real footage of the event it was depicting. Different standard, maybe, and it doesn’t excuse any dishonesty from Moore. But sometimes I hear people say that his movies are not documentaries because they are biased, and that’s not true.
Heh.
Well, you saw the event, he was seething with anger. Apparently he just decided at the last moment to drop his prepared speech for an ad-libbed political rant. Not a bad choice under the circumstances, at least his sincerity was unmistakeable, the more so because he wasn’t even trying to be witty.
What is really most annoying to me is that in Europe he’s very popular. Having lived in Europe for four years I had to debunk a lot of his crap from Bowling for Columbine a lot.
“No it’s not normal to get a gun when you open a bank account”
“No I don’t own a gun”
etc.
But the thing is that a lot of young people in Europe don’t seem to understand that he does stretch the truth, and I constantly had to state that he does this. I agree with most of his ideas, but he really does do his message a disservice by making shit up sometimes.
But F911 was pretty cool just for the creepy thing with Wolfowitz licking his comb to make his hair stick.
ewwww.
I’ve always found it interesting that Mr. Moore and his [del]ass-kissers[/del] supporters claim allow people to think his work is documentary - until someone calls bullshit on him. Then, it’s “I’m just an entertainer, it doesn’t have to be accurate.”
That puts him in the same class of weasel as Limbaugh in my book.
The first Oscars for a Documentary were awarded in 1942; there were 4 winners:
I’m sure the Nazis & the Japanese considered the films one-sided.
How unfair that a chubby guy keeps earning money for his films. And getting all those awards. And using dishonest techniques like “editing.”
People support him because they like seeing his films.
Have you read any of the debunking on the sites you asked for, or any of the comments posted here? Are you really implying people are just jealous of fat guy getting rich and winning awards? Just to pull out one point of out hundreds, you don’t think its dishonest to flat out imply Charlton Heston ran to Denver 48 hours after the shootings and gave his cold dead hands speech? Or that Moore was given a gun two minutes after opening a checking account? Surely you know the difference in editing for time/content/flow and editing for deception- he even splices words and sentences from many different speeches to “prove” what he wants in some cases.
F911 was a worthy film even if you only consider footage of people speaking for themselves. And, it filled a need, it needed saying.
I think I’d prefer Moore to be more accurate and above reproach. But, he’s what he is, and given that, still overall I appreciate the few of his films that I’ve seen.
That site itself is packed with distortions, outright lies, and broad, unsupported claims. You’ll have to do better than that.
There are far superior anti-war films than F911. His implication that Bush got us into war to enrich his oil buddies and that his loyalties lie with Saudi Arabia are ridicilous and not supported by any facts. As someone else said here, Bush has so many faults you don’t need to make crap up. Moore, however, decided to paint an ignorant conspiracy theory about the war and did a huge disservice to the anti-war movement.
Michael Moore makes hard-hitting documentaries which tell the truths that most Americans prefer to ignore: that corporate greed has crippled entire cities, that crimes is much higher in America than in comparable countries, that Bush deliberately lied us into war, and that Americans pays too much for health care and get too little in return. The fact that so many people have dedicated their lives to blasting him with mindless hatred is proof enough of the fact that he’s bringing the truth. If he were largely a liar, they’d have forgotten him by now.
All your points are true, and documentary films could and have been made about all of the above that are 100% accurate; however, such facts without the sensationalism and deception that Moore prefers would not be as entertaining to moviegoers and thus if Moore chose the path of the honest documentarian he wouldn’t be a multi-millionare. Why is that many many honest documentary fillmakers have made films on the same and similar topics and are broke and unknown and rely on grants and donations, and the only two the average person knows are Moore and the douchebag who did Super Size Me? Are these the two best documentary filmmakers out there? Hardly.
That’s one of the dumbest arguments I’ve ever heard on this board, and I’ve been here for nine years.
Your first sentence answers your second. Michael Moore’s films are (a) hard-hitting and (b) entertaining. Thus they bring in large audiences. Thus the political establishment has to take notice of the points he makes. Other documentaries are boring, and thus they attract small audiences, and thus the political establishment ignores them.
Moores first “documentary” is filled with lies, half-truths, and deliberate misrepresentations. His "style’ is akin to the UFO nuts-take something that has a slight grain of truth, then embellish it to the point where is has no relationship to reality. Its the sort of propaganda style embraced by "Mother Jones’ and “Rollingstone”-and about as reliable as the national enquirer.
Still, he sells a lot of films.
No one is arguing the establishment doesn’t care for him, or that his films are popular, or entertaining, or that people are taking notice of him- those are a given.
You seem to imply that if I used judicious tape editing and video splicing to “prove” George Bush and Osama Bin Laden are close personal friends, and OBL is living in a wing of the White House, that would be ok with you if the resulting film was entertaining and made a lot of money and a lot of yokels loved it and bought into it? If your post cound was 3850 less I’d swear you were taking the piss out of me.
The man spent an entire film showing how Roger Smith was ducking him as was a deceitful lying backstabbing asshole as a result, and then he goes and does the same ducking of the makers of Maufacturing Dissent.
Moderator’s Note: I think the OP got it right the second time around, so off to the Pit this goes.
I say or imply nothing of the sort. In that hypothetical situation the thesis the film would be a lie. The thesis of every Moore film is entirely honest, as you’ve admitted. In most cases where people accuses Moore of lying, the accusers themselves are lying. In the other cases, they’re obsessing over trivialities.
Could you tell me exactly where in the film he makes this claim? Moore’s point was that Roger ruined the lives of thousands of employees. That’s what makes Roger a worthless excuse for a human being.
Hardy’s first “truth” is a Silly-Putty® stretching of the vicious Willie Horton ads. Dukakis had (foolishly, in my opinion) promised a clean, truthful campaign. The Horton ads are generally attributed to Lee Atwater, who later apologized for them, when he learned he was dying. The ads, for which the link no longer works, blamed Horton’s furlough on Dukakis, though the governor was not in the chain of command for that program. After the damage had been done, and before Dukakis defended himself, GHW Bush half-heartedly denounced the Willie Horton ads, and called for a “kinder, gentler” America, thus robbing his opponent of the chance to counter-attack.
This is now known as the Kindler Gentler Gambit, because GHWB didn’t always handle the phrase well. You shred your opponent by way of some back-channel org, then you call for a civil tone in the campaign. :rolleyes: