My apologies if wrong, I literally haven’t seen it since 1989- I thought there was the implication in there that he promised this or that or said he did not intend the layoffs, etc.
He definitely paints him out to be a callous asshole, and plays up the pathos of asking him to come and visit families evicted on Christmas Eve or some such bullshit. What is the point- the company made a decision to close a factory it felt it needed to close and as a result a small city that relied heavily on those jobs was pretty much ruined- and the sun came up this morning- where’s the revelation? What would would it prove to have some laid off guy get to stand in his foreclosed home and call Roger Smith names? Does Roger get sexually excited when thinking of the laid off workers? Does he revel in that people are now in the poor house becasue of him? If not, what’s the point of the film?
Again, I haven’t seen it in 20 years, so if any of the above is wrong, my apologies.
I like Moore’s films because they discuss things that I’m interested in, from a perspective that I don’t often see. I don’t think he’s the second coming or anything like that, and I take his films with a similar grain of salt like the one I use when watching the news. If there were other films on similar subjects, with similar perspectives, I would watch them, too. Anyone want to pony up some easily accessible titles for me to add to my must-watch list?
One thing that grates me about this issue (and so many issues on the SDMB) is that people who are anti-Moore (which is quite a reasoanble position to hold) seem to think that people who are at least somewhat pro-Moore (which is quite a reasonable position to hold) are in fact rabidly blindly pro-Moore (which is a much less reasonable position to hold).
I’ve enjoyed several of Moore’s movies. And I think that he has done the country an ENORMOUS service by making and releasing several of his movies when he did, which brought some vitally important issues into the forefront of national discussion. (I’m particularly thinking of F911 and Sicko.) That said, I do think he were a bit more careful about not playing fast and loose with editing and vague-but-inaccurate implications, and he seems like a bit of a douchebag, personally. (Although that’s just a vague impression.)
So, I’m glad he exists, but, even though I’m a liberal, I hardly consider him to speak for me, and wouldn’t really say I’m a “fan”. (Whereas, I’m definitely a fan of, for instance, Al Franken.)
That pretty much what Richard Gere of all people said when interviewed in Manufacturing Dissent- something to the effect of ‘I don’t always agree with his methods or tactics, but the general work he’s doing is something I agree with so I support him.’
The point of the movie was to show the audience what happened to a city when the corporation it depended on decided to lay off a big chunk of the population. The efforts to confront Roger were a stunt, intended to emphasize the disconnect between the world Roger inhabited and the conditions that were created for his ex-employees. As for Moore himself trying to evade some other guy, wecan surely all agree that making a movie just to bash some other filmmakers is a pitiful waste of human talent and energy. Hence, for Moore to duck that filmmakers is only common sense.
In any case, I don’t do pit threads, so I’ll bid you all good day. Happy bashing.
Well, we’re no longer in GD, but The Pit. Given the nature of the OP, a good move. So I don’t need to wade through the crap so kindly supplied. How nice of Moore to provide a cottage industry for those nitpicking his work. But some of the nitpickers probably are a wee bit jealous that Moore is rich & famous. And they aren’t.
Yes, I know what editing is; it isn’t always linear. I watch/read anything with a grain of salt. Most people do.
So you don’t need to read material that you have not read but are denouncing, simply because the thread moved?
Well I’ve actually had a person in a converstion rail away about what an evil bastard Heston was for holding the imaginary Denver rally two days after the shootings. You should realize that not everybody is as bright as you- look at how many people mindlessly went along with Dubya’s invasion, all because he said there were nukes in Iraq. One can’t say Moore is any different just becasue he’s a liberal, it the same crap, just on a different side, which doesn’t make it right.
And there is no nitpicking minor stuff, like he said something happened at five o’clock when it happend at five thirty- were talking full on fabrications.
Did you actually read the link? Moore took two ads. One of which mentioned Willie Horton, one of which did not. One was done by the Bush campaign, one was not. He edited them together, made one new ad out of the two and then added a caption that didn’t belong to either of the commercials. A caption that was incorrect in the original movie. That has nothing to do with if you believe the two separate ads were truthful or not. How it was portrayed in the movie was a fabrication.
But that is not nearly the worst of it. In comparison it is minor. Go on to read the next thing about Heston and the NRA. That goes more than a little past editing.
I have no problem with documentaries that are biased towards a certain point of view. Why wouldn’t they be? It is one person’s perspective. But when they start making shit up it becomes something else. Fiction.
I must respectfully disagree with you on this point; I don’t think most people evaulate what they see, hear, and read for truthiness. I think taking in information with your critical faculties engaged is the exception rather than the rule.
so, folks in their cars and actually on line at polling places didn’t vote because … they heard the race for President was over on TV ten minutes before the polls closed?
Just how many people in Florida have TVs in their cars, and were watching them while waiting on line to vote?
'Cause you’ll notice that the cite referenced is Joan Konner, James Risser & Ben Wattenberg, Television’s Performance on Election Night 2000: A Report for CNN, Jan. 29, 2001, not “The Media’s” or “Broadcast Journalism’s”, television’s.
Dave Kopel doesn’t seem to be above “stretching the truth to make a point” any more than Moore is.
Yup, these are the AoMPAaS’s rules for the category “documentary”,
that’s it, nothing about the film meeting some journalistic standard of truthiness.
As I recall it, the point was that the guy(s) who should be feeling the pain of poor business and the decisions that make it poor never actually have to see or feel any of it.
If the Roger Smiths of the world were fired and their homes went into foreclosure, then maybe “laid off guy” would at least feel that the playing field was somewhat level.
The fact that Roger Smiths of the world never seem to get fired or get their wages cut or lose their job benefits etc proves it is not.
Oh, I’d have to study those sites to “denounce” them, just as the Moore Haters have spent hours poring over his movies. Calling them crap is just a reaction to similar crap I’ve read.
Yes, I’m bright. I’ve known Dubya since he was my governor & I’ve never believed he was worth a damn.
How many people died because of Moore’s “fabrications”? As many as have died in Iraq?
Exactly! It was just a post, not meant to be taken literally
seriously though, I meant he used real credentials in a phony way, like if I get a young girl to come to my car as I’m an actual cop, and they try and assault her.
First of all, I’m a best-of-both-worlds guy when it comes to Moore: I think he’s an insufferable asshole who makes good movies.
The one question that I always ask to his haters, and that I never get an answer to, is show me a documentary that’s not biased or edited. They seem to think ‘documentary’ = hard news or something. Nothing could be further from the truth.
Just last weekend I watched The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters, an innocuous documentary if there ever was one, only to log onto the internet and find out it was very creatively edited. Some of the events were shown out of sequence, some things that would’ve made bad characters look good (and vice-versa) were removed, and one Kong champ - along with his record-breaking high score - was completely left out of the film!
You know what, though? It was still entertaining. It was still informative. And the overall thesis survived intact.
Say Michael Moore is fat (if you’re really immature), say he’s an asshole, say his movies suck, but don’t say they aren’t documentaries. You sound hilariously stupid.
Your point has been made several times upthread, not that anyone has taken that position here anyway. Most docs are done to get you to agree to the makers POV, no problem there- the problem is when you make up shit to prove a point. You want us to think Charlton Heston is an asshole, fine, maybe he is, just don’t base your centerpiece for doing so on the totally fabricated notion that he ran to Denver 48 hours after the shootings to hold a pro gun rally and gave his cold dead hands speech there. Its dishonest.
Take for example Errol Morris’ (a real documentarian BTW) The Thin Blue Line- he feels this guy on death row is innocent of the killing of a cop. How does he go about this- by painstakingly showing how in his (possibly biased) interpration of the facts of the case that he has, how the guy isn’t guilty- he doesn’t invent spliced video of the guy being asleep in bed 100 miles away when the killing occured, as Moore might well do.
