michael moore: oscars, truths, and fictitions

Started by Rudie Obias, March 23, 2003, 09:27:38 PM

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godardian

Quote from: Gamblor the Manwhore
Quote from: classical gas
Quote from: NEON MERCURY..
.as an American he is an embarrasment.....

why do you think that?  just curious...i think it's the opposite.  He's maybe more American than anyone.  does anyone like Bill Maher, btw??

I love Bill Maher, except for his infatuation with PETA. They actually recommended eating roadkill as a proper way to eat meat. (I can get the link if you want it)

I'm glad Nichols is suing Moore. Not that I like this guy or anything (or think he isn't anything other than the craziest idiot out there) but what Nichols alleges sure seems right to me. Maybe they could revoke Moore's oscar because of this (please!). www.bowlingfortruth.com

Funny, I think Bill Maher's PETA association is the most interesting thing about him. I tentatively like him... he's way too smug and self-impressed at times, though, in a way Michael Moore just can't compete with. And his show is way overrated for what it is. The concept makes for very intriguing television maybe 1/3 of the time. The rest of the time, it's just know-nothings and attention-grabbers loudly screaming for the most airtime, which I can't watch.

I like Al Franken and Joe Conason better than either of those two.
""Money doesn't come into it. It never has. I do what I do because it's all that I am." - Morrissey

"Lacan stressed more and more in his work the power and organizing principle of the symbolic, understood as the networks, social, cultural, and linguistic, into which a child is born. These precede the birth of a child, which is why Lacan can say that language is there from before the actual moment of birth. It is there in the social structures which are at play in the family and, of course, in the ideals, goals, and histories of the parents. This world of language can hardly be grasped by the newborn and yet it will act on the whole of the child's existence."

Stay informed on protecting your freedom of speech and civil rights.

Jeremy Blackman

I agree with the criticisms of Bill Maher (except I think PETA is picked on too much). I would gladly defend his controversial comments (that supposedly got his show cancelled)... but his personality is grating. His outspoken-ness may be similar to Moore's, but their personalities are opposites.

godardian

Quote from: Jeremy BlackmanI think PETA is picked on too much.

Absolutely. I mean, I do disagree with some of their priorities, but I think the main reason people don't like them is that they perform the valuable service of pointing out some pretty gross hypocrisies in the way we humans go about things.
""Money doesn't come into it. It never has. I do what I do because it's all that I am." - Morrissey

"Lacan stressed more and more in his work the power and organizing principle of the symbolic, understood as the networks, social, cultural, and linguistic, into which a child is born. These precede the birth of a child, which is why Lacan can say that language is there from before the actual moment of birth. It is there in the social structures which are at play in the family and, of course, in the ideals, goals, and histories of the parents. This world of language can hardly be grasped by the newborn and yet it will act on the whole of the child's existence."

Stay informed on protecting your freedom of speech and civil rights.

classical gas

hmm...i'm actually unaware of Maher's views on PETA, or i just can't recall...could someone explain please.....

Pedro


MacGuffin

"Don't think about making art, just get it done. Let everyone else decide if it's good or bad, whether they love it or hate it. While they are deciding, make even more art." - Andy Warhol


Skeleton FilmWorks

Stefen

Yeha im wondering the same thing. He was supposed to have it out by the election so he still has time. But does anyone have any details?

Edit: nevermind.
Falling in love is the greatest joy in life. Followed closely by sneaking into a gated community late at night and firing a gun into the air.

Mavis

fahrenheit 9/11. i read that book. it was good. i heard he's adapting it so that its more political now with war stuff. i hope it still stays true to the novel or else critics or going to HATE it, imo.

MacGuffin

BYU Student Makes Documentary on Moore

A former Brigham Young University film student has maxed out his credit cards to make a $10,000 documentary about "Fahrenheit 9/11" director Michael Moore's controversial visit to Utah Valley State College.

"This Divided State" premieres Thursday at UVSC's Ragan Theater. Steven Greenstreet, who cut the 102-minute production from 66 hours of interview and event footage, said he's trying to find a distributor.

He's entering the documentary in a dozen film festivals and plans are in the works with the Center for American Progress to fund a national college tour, the 25-year-old filmmaker said.

Greenstreet had been working on a documentary about political divisions when he heard in September that Moore was planning to come to UVSC.

"I immediately just grabbed my camera and ran to the school and filmed the whole day," he said. "The halls were packed with students ... it was just a huge crush of political debate and an overwhelming sense of activity and electricity."

Moore arrived Oct. 20, applauding student leaders who took heat for inviting him and paying the $40,000 speaker fee with student money. Nine days earlier the college had invited Sean Hannity, a conservative Fox News commentator, to balance Moore's criticism of President Bush and the war in Iraq.

As with the visit, Greenstreet's film is stirring some emotions.

Kay Anderson, a real estate broker who offered student leaders $25,000 to rescind Moore's invitation, has written a letter to Greenstreet's lawyer asking that his interviews not appear in the film.

"We were cautious about who we granted interviews to," Anderson said. "We didn't want to end up in a Michael Moore-type documentary."

Said Greenstreet: "Without the personal interview that I did with him, he doesn't get a chance to explain his motivation. I think my main purpose for doing the interview was to humanize him and show him as just another member of the community who wants to do what's right."
"Don't think about making art, just get it done. Let everyone else decide if it's good or bad, whether they love it or hate it. While they are deciding, make even more art." - Andy Warhol


Skeleton FilmWorks

Ravi

The Mormons are taking over the film industry!

SiliasRuby

Quote from: RaviThe Mormons are taking over the film industry!
Yeah, The writers and director of Napoleon Dynamite are Mormon and I guess now this guy.
The Beatles know Jesus Christ has returned to Earth and is in Los Angeles.

When you are getting fucked by the big corporations remember to use a condom.

There was a FISH in the perkalater!!!

My Collection

pete

"Tragedy is a close-up; comedy, a long shot."
- Buster Keaton

Gold Trumpet

I found this in the conservative Detroit paper (at least they have a good sports section).

Michael Moore's ready to bust loose from documentaries
Tom Long / Detroit News Film Critic
Traverse City -- Michael Moore, by far the most successful documentary filmmaker of all time, is thinking of getting out of the business of making documentaries.


Not right away. He's got the sure-to-be-controversial "Capitalism: A Love Story" due in theaters Oct. 2. But after that?

"While I've been making this film I've been thinking that maybe this will be my last documentary," says the Flint native, who filmed and starred in such hits as "Sicko," "Bowling for Columbine" and "Fahrenheit 9/11." "Or maybe for a while."

Those three films make up half of the top six documentaries ever made, according to boxofficemojo.com. "Fahrenheit 9/11" is handily the highest earning documentary ever, with a domestic take of $119 million.

But now Moore's looking to branch out as a director.

"I have been working on two screenplays over the last couple of years," he says. "One's a comedy, one's a mystery, and I really want to do this."

Moore, 55, is sitting in the driver's seat of a dark green van, parked behind the Old Opera House here on Friday afternoon. He's both frazzled and buzzed.

He's just come from a public panel discussion with the Michigan Film Office Advisory Council, a cheerleading affair for the Michigan Film Incentives law and for the growth of the local film industry.

The discussion was part of the Traverse City Film Festival, celebrating its fifth year, which Moore created and which seems to grow exponentially each summer.

His wife, Kathy, is on the phone. He has to meet her for lunch and arrange some movie tickets for her folks.

Oh, and he has to deliver his first cut of "Capitalism: A Love Story" to the studio later that night.

If the movie does turn out to be his last documentary, some fans are sure to be disappointed.

"It would leave us with a big loss if he stopped making documentary films," says Ruth Daniels, vice president for marketing for Detroit-area Emagine theaters, who remembers showing Moore's films dating back to 1989's "Roger & Me."

"His documentaries do make quite a bit of money and he's paved the way for documentary movies to become mainstream," she says. "It will leave a void."

For now, though, Moore is caught up in the enthusiasm of the festival, which ends Sunday.

"This has been the best festival yet, certainly the smoothest run, the largest crowds," Moore says.

At the panel discussion, Moore said the festival had 37 percent more sponsors this year and advance ticket sales were up 25 percent, despite Michigan's economic woes.

Over the past five years, Moore said, the festival has sold a quarter-million movie tickets, and while he's happy the crowds keep coming, he's intent on keeping commercialism to a minimum.

"My goal is to keep it as a festival for movie lovers. The fact that you can park your car and walk to all the venues, it has a real communal feel here," Moore says. "You don't want this to be Park City (home to Utah's far more crowded and industry-oriented Sundance Film Festival)."

Unlike many cultural events, the festival seems to be wholly embraced by the town it's in. Many of the moviegoers are local and more than 1,000 people volunteer at the festival.

Moore is working full time in northern Michigan now, although his perspective certainly hasn't mellowed. In "Capitalism," the director -- who has explored America's health care system, its propensity for gun violence and its journey to war in Iraq -- is taking on nothing less than the American economic system.

"I thought, why don't I just go for it and go right to the source of the problem -- an economic system that is unfair, it's unjust and it's not democratic. And now we've learned it doesn't work," he says.

"This issue informs all my other movies. I started thinking if I can only make one more movie -- I started thinking this of course during the Bush years -- what would that movie be? And this is the movie."

From his first film, 1989's "Roger & Me," in which Moore roasted General Motors, his sense of humor and strong point of view have outraged many critics while drawing huge audiences.

Moore says "objectivity is a nonsensical concept that's really been misused" and that his approach to documentaries is to make sure they're good, informative, entertaining movies first.

"The term documentary got pigeonholed a long time ago, and 20 years ago when I made 'Roger & Me,' I guess my hope was to bust loose through that strict structure and perception of what a documentary should be and allow it to be everything any other work of nonfiction can be," he says. "A nonfiction book can be a book of both fact and opinion, it can be just fact, it can be just opinion."

"Humor is OK in a documentary. Before me, I was told it had to be castor oil. No, you're making a movie; you're making a piece of entertainment. You're asking someone to leave the house on a Friday night to go to a movie."

But time's a-wasting and Moore has to dash off into his busy day. To pick up his wife. Pick up his in-laws. Grab some lunch. And then go finish what may be the last documentary he ever makes.