Xixax Film Forum

Moore Moves Ahead with Sicko
Source: Associated Press Tuesday, July 27, 2004

With Fahrenheit 9/11 becoming the first documentary to cross the $100 million mark at the domestic box office, director Michael Moore expects a smooth path on raising money to make Sicko, his critique of health-maintenance organizations.

The Associated Press says Moore would not provide details but said financing of his next movie was in the works, thanks to Fahrenheit 9/11, which cost just $6 million to make.

"Clearly, if you make a movie that has this ratio of how much it costs to its gross, you're going to find an easy time making your next film," Moore said.

The idea for Sicko stems from a segment Moore did on his The Awful Truth TV show, in which he staged a mock funeral at an HMO for a patient denied an organ transplant he needed to survive. The HMO relented and paid for the transplant.

Giving them a sick feeling
Drug firms are on the defense as filmmaker Michael Moore plans to dissect their industry.
Source: Los Angeles Times

America's pharmaceutical industry is putting out an advisory about the latest potential threat to its health: Michael Moore.

Moore, the filmmaker whose targets have included General Motors ("Roger & Me"), the gun lobby (the Oscar-winning "Bowling for Columbine") and President Bush ("Fahrenheit 9/11") has now set his sights on the healthcare industry, including insurance companies, HMOs, the Food and Drug Administration — and drug companies.
 
At least six of the nation's largest firms have already issued internal notices to their workforces, preparing them for potential ambushes.

"We ran a story in our online newspaper saying Moore is embarking on a documentary — and if you see a scruffy guy in a baseball cap, you'll know who it is," said Stephen Lederer, a spokesman for Pfizer Global Research and Development.

In September and October, GlaxoSmithKline, the second-largest in retail sales, as well as AstraZeneca and Wyeth, sent out Moore alerts, instructing employees that questions posed by the media or filmmakers should be handled by corporate communications. Heavyweights Sanofi-Synthelabo and Aventis Pharmaceuticals each sent out similar memos before their recent merger. Merck & Co., Abbott Laboratories, Eli Lilly & Co., Bristol-Myers Squibb, Novartis Pharmaceuticals and Teva Pharmaceutical Industries send periodic messages about dealing with the press but haven't singled out Moore by name. Johnson & Johnson declined to comment.

Moore's project is only the latest bit of bad news for the embattled industry. Popular — and lucrative — drugs such as Vioxx, Celebrex and Aleve have been linked to cardiovascular problems, and the possibility of lawsuits is looming. Canada is undercutting U.S. drug prices, and health budgets are being slashed. And then there's increased scrutiny by the FDA, whose oversight of the drug industry and its relationship to it is raising many questions.

"We have an image problem — not only with Michael Moore, but with the general public," said M.J. Fingland, senior director of communications for the Washington, D.C.-based Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America. "We're criticized on the Hill and in the press — put in the category of the tobacco industry, even though we save lives."

The industry, Fingland said, has made great strides in the last three years — ever since a new ethics policy was implemented in 2001. Drawn up with the help of the American Medical Assn. and other medical specialty groups, it restricted the types of gifts given to doctors, for example, setting a $100 ceiling on each. Although pharmaceutical companies can still sponsor meetings, they no longer have free rein to treat doctors to five-star dinners or pick up their hotel tabs.

"Giveaways, lavish trips are a thing of the past," Fingland said. "We've cleaned up the business considerably."

Despite the improvement, pharmaceutical executives are bracing for the worst.

"Moore's past work has been marked by negativity, so we can only assume it won't be a fair and balanced portrayal," said Rachel Bloom, executive director of corporate communications for the Wilmington, Del.-based AstraZeneca. "His movies resemble docudramas more than documentaries."

Rumors are already flying within the industry about Moore's moviemaking tactics. Moore, it is said, has hired actors to portray pharmaceutical salesmen who offer gifts to doctors who promote their products. There's also word that he's offered physicians $50,000 apiece to install secret cameras in their offices in an effort to document alleged corruption.

In September, employees said that Moore was shoving a microphone at people at GlaxoSmithKline, Bloom notes, even though he was in town only for a radio appearance.

"We have six business centers nationwide, all of which report 'sightings,' " Bloom said. "Michael Moore is becoming an urban legend."

Tentatively titled "Sicko," Moore's film will probably be released in the first half of 2006, sometime between the Sundance and Cannes film festivals. No deal has yet been reached, but an announcement is expected after the new year. There's interest in the industry, he says, on the part of some of the major studios and not just their specialty divisions.

Reached at his home in Michigan, the director declined to say whether he's hired actors to portray pharmaceutical salesmen and denied paying doctors to help him install secret cameras. ("I didn't need to. So many doctors have offered to help, for free, in an effort to expose the system.") He does admit to hanging around hospitals, insurance companies and pharmaceutical companies, including two that have not issued internal alerts.

It's getting harder and harder to find corporate executives, however, who are willing to sit down for interviews, Moore said.

Moore decided to make a film about healthcare because it's "a hot-button issue with the average American — the domestic issue of the day," he said. "Being screwed by your HMO and ill-served by pharmaceutical companies is the shared American experience. The system, inferior to that of much poorer nations, benefits the few at the expense of the many."

Tackling the health industry first occurred to the documentarian after he shot a segment for his now-defunct TV show, "The Awful Truth," about a man fighting his insurance company to pay for a kidney and pancreas transplant. He said the viewer response was enormous — as was audience reaction to a derogatory line about HMOs in the Jack Nicholson-Helen Hunt movie, "As Good As It Gets." There was a raw nerve, he ultimately decided, that wasn't being addressed.

Last summer, the Endeavor agency, which represents Moore, tested the Hollywood waters — sending out a six-page outline of "Sicko" to a host of independent producers, independent film companies and the major studios. The movie, according to the treatment, would end with Moore sailing to Cuba with ailing Americans to take advantage of that country's free healthcare. That, he says, was only a joke made on a late-night talk show.

According to the summary, human interest stories about victims of the system will be interspersed with interviews. He will dig up conflict-of-interest concerns aimed at members of Congress overseeing Medicare and will look at politicians who accept campaign contributions from a host of insurance companies, as well as concerns about the "merger mania" in the healthcare industry.

Nancy Pekarek, vice president of corporate media relations for British firm GlaxoSmithKline, said employees are uneasy about an assault.

"We've been getting voicemail messages," she said. "This is their career, after all, and it's no fun to be targeted. The problem is that Moore's film [isn't likely to] reflect the stringent standards of today."

The movie, Moore said, is only in its early stages "and already people are freaky-deaky."

While "Sicko" is coming to life, "Fahrenheit" hasn't been laid to rest. Beginning on Inauguration Day, Moore will be documenting the activities of the Bush administration for "Fahrenheit 9/11 1/2 ."

"The word is out to whistle-blowers, in networks and corporations, that Bush has his sequel — a second term," Moore said. "And one bad sequel deserves a good one. What form it takes depends on the 'improvisation' of my lead actor. I'm more than happy to share residuals with him if he'd sit down with me for 10 minutes."

where's the trailer and/or promotional material?

Quote from: metroshanewhere's the trailer and/or promotional material?

this thread was made back in the summer before we laid those rules down. you ass.

Quote from: MacGuffinWhile "Sicko" is coming to life, "Fahrenheit" hasn't been laid to rest. Beginning on Inauguration Day, Moore will be documenting the activities of the Bush administration for "Fahrenheit 9/11 1/2 ."

I knew he'd do this.

Quotethis thread was made back in the summer before we laid those rules down. you ass.

Ah, you mean back when they could move threads, you pitiful boy?

don't get all myxo on me, dude.. cause you sound like a tool. thanks.

Michael Moore Updates: Sicko Status and Traverse City Film Festival

For all of those who've been wondering where hell Michael Moore is, he has finally spoken. The controversial filmmaker wrote a letter to Anne Thompson of The Hollywood Reporter to fill everyone in on what he's up to:

Michael Moore Letter
Here's Michael Moore's latest update on his many activities:


Friends,
Just a quick note to let you know how things are going.

Back in February, I asked if people would send me letters describing their experiences with our health care system. I received over 19,000 of them. It was truly overwhelming as we literally took a month and read them all. To read about the misery people are put through on a daily basis by our profit-based system was both moving and revolting. That's all I will say right now.

We've spent the better part of this year shooting our next movie, "Sicko." As we've done with our other films, we don't discuss them while we are making them. If people ask, we tell them "Sicko" is "a comedy about 45 million people with no health care in the richest country on earth."

But like my other movies, what we start with (General Motors, guns, 9/11) is not always what we end with. Along the way, we discover new roads to go down, roads that often surprise us and lead us to new ideas -- and challenge us to reconsider the ones we began with. That, I can say with certainty, is happening now as we shoot "Sicko." I don't think the country needs a movie that tells you that HMOs and the pharmaceutical companies suck. Everybody knows that. I'd like to show you some things you don't know. So stay tuned for where this movie has led me. I think you might enjoy it.

At this point, we've shot about 75% of "Sicko" and will soon begin putting it together. It will be released in theaters sometime in 2007.

And if you don't hear much from me in the meantime, it's only 'cause I'm busy working. I realize that my silence doesn't stop the opposition with their weird obsession for me! It seems like not a week passes without my good name being worked into some nutty news story or commentary. (I have to say, though, I did enjoy Tom Delay blaming me (http://www.michaelmoore.com/_media/delay_runs_from_moore.mov) and Ms. Streisand for why he had to resign from Congress!)

I hope all of you are enjoying your summer. If you're near the state of Michigan later this month, I'll be putting on the second annual Traverse City Film Festival (http://www.traversecityfilmfest.org/) in Traverse City, Michigan. I've personally selected 60 or so movies that I love, many of which did not get the notice or distribution they deserved. Others are brand new independent movies and documentaries that I hope will find a large audience when they are released.

The film festival will take place in this beautiful town in northern Michigan, from July 31st to August 6th. Appearing in person with their films will be David O. Russell ("Three Kings"), Lawrence Bender ("An Inconvenient Truth"), Terry George ("Hotel Rwanda"), Larry Charles ("Borat"), plus Jeff Garlin, Jake Kasdan, and other filmmakers. We're also going to show every feature film made by the greatest American director of all time, Stanley Kubrick. Joining us in person will be his executive producer, Jan Harlan, and actors Malcolm McDowell ("A Clockwork Orange") and Matthew Modine ("Full Metal Jacket"). We'll also be presenting a special salute to films made in Iran (a sort of "Let's get to know them first this time!" effort).

If you'd like to see the entire list of films, click here (http://www.traversecityfilmfest.org/tixSYS/2006/filmguide/title-detail.php). Tickets go on sale today (July 7) at noon. To purchase your tickets (all seats $7), click here (http://www.traversecityfilmfest.org/tixSYS/2006/filmguide/title-detail.php) or call 231-929-1506. Last year we had 50,000 admissions, and we expect most films to sell out early this year.

Well, that's it for now. Bush has quietly closed down the special section of the CIA that was devoted solely to capturing Mr. bin Laden, so we can all rest easy now. I wonder who his next scary evildoer will be. A fearful nation awaits its marching orders, sir!

Yours,

Michael Moore
mmflint@aol.com

P.S. Don't forget to visit my website (http://www.michaelmoore.com/) which I update every day with all the news the Bush stenographers (a/k/a "Mainstream Media") fail to put on page one.

Quote from: MacGuffin on July 08, 2006, 01:02:47 PM
We're also going to show every feature film made by the greatest American director of all time, Stanley Kubrick.

The floors of the world are wet with Xixax drool right now.

I don't live very far from Traverse City. Should I try to get tickets? hmmm..naw.

Weinsteins Expect Big Things from Sicko
Source: Cinematical

At the Traverse City Film Festival, Michael Moore finally talked in practical terms about his health care film, Sicko, for the first time. Though he's clearly passionate about exposing the problems with American health care, Moore still seems to be struggling a bit with the film -- after all, he says, "everyone knows that health care is a mess in this country." His goal, then, seems to be less education than motivation: Moore hopes that Sicko "pushes health care to the top of the public agenda" and, presumably, forces politicians to get involved. The problem, though, is that all the health care companies know exactly who Moore is, so the moment he shows up to document the struggles of a family dealing with an outrageous situation, "they get free health care." According to Moore, "There has been a 100% success rate of the people we're filming of getting whatever they need from the HMOs, pharmaceutical companies, whatever." Well, that's progress. Now all we have to do to fix things is have Moore travel to all the families with complaints, and the health care issue will be solved, right?

In addition to the pressure of simply pulling the film together, Moore is facing high expectations, from both his supporters and his bosses, Harvey and Bob Weinstein. According to Moore, the pair have been securing financing for the film by telling potential investors that it will gross $40 million, a total that would make Sicko the third highest-earning documentary of all time. Whoa. I mean, it's nice for bosses to have confidence and all, but couldn't they have said, like, $15 million? At this rate, ending up the fifth most successful doc ever would make Sicko a failure to its investors.

Michael Moore Documentary Rattles Health-Care Giants
Trade Groups on the Defensive; Pharma Companies Allege Bias

NEW YORK (AdAge.com) -- The health-care industry is worried sick over "Sicko."

Few details have emerged about the 2007 documentary from Michael Moore, the filmmaker who ripped apart Detroit automakers with "Roger and Me" and now has his sights set on the $1.5 trillion pharmaceutical and health-care industry. But it's still enough to mobilize health-care trade groups who are trying to discredit the film.

No balance from Moore
"A review of America's health-care system should be balanced, thoughtful and well-researched to pin down what works and what needs to be improved," said Ken Johnson, senior VP for the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America. "You won't get that from Michael Moore."

Added a spokesman for one of the top 10 pharma companies: "We expect it will be one-sided and biased, just like his other documentaries."

Several other pharmaceutical makers did not return calls for comment. But Pfizer, AstraZeneca and GlaxoSmithKline all advised their employees last year not to speak to Mr. Moore when he began his research for "Sicko." It is not known whether any HMOs or drug companies will appear in the film.

"We were approached, but declined," said a spokeswoman for a second top-10 drugmaker. "Frankly, as much as we felt like we wanted to get our message across, in the end we didn't want to subject ourselves to the editing process."

Academy Award winner
Mr. Moore, the Academy Award-winning director of "Bowling for Columbine" and "Fahrenheit 9/11" -- the latter the biggest-grossing documentary in movie history -- recently told Variety that the drug companies have been on to him for some time.

"They're so hip [to me] that whenever we have a family" with a health-care nightmare "they get free health care," Mr. Moore said during panel discussions last month at his second annual Traverse City Film Festival in Michigan. "There has been a 100% success rate of the people we're filming of getting whatever they need from the HMOs, pharmaceutical companies, whatever."

On his website, Mr. Moore offered a snapshot of what the documentary entails. "Back in February, I asked if people would send me letters describing their experiences with our health-care system, and I received over 19,000 of them," he wrote. "To read about the misery people are put through on a daily basis by our profit-based system was both moving and revolting. We've spent the better part of this year shooting our next movie, 'Sicko.' As we've done with our other films, we don't discuss them while we are making them. If people ask, we tell them 'Sicko' is a comedy about 45 million people with no health care in the richest country on Earth."

Film in flux
Mr. Moore didn't return calls for comment. But on his site he said that, like his other films, what he starts with is not necessarily what he ends with.

"That, I can say with certainty, is happening now as we shoot 'Sicko,'" he wrote. "I don't think the country needs a movie that tells you that HMOs and the pharmaceutical companies suck. Everybody knows that. I'd like to show you some things you don't know. So stay tuned for where this movie has led me. I think you might enjoy it."

Quote from: MacGuffin on August 23, 2006, 01:08:11 AM
"I don't think the country needs a movie that tells you that HMOs and the pharmaceutical companies suck. Everybody knows that."

yeah, leave that to morgan spurlock.

Michael Moore dissects U.S. health care

First, General Motors. Then gun control, followed by George W. Bush. Now rabble-rousing filmmaker Michael Moore has turned his irreverent camera on health care in America.

"Sicko," Moore's dissection of the health care system, promises to be another hilarious documentary romp, based on excerpts he showed Friday night at the Toronto International Film Festival.

During a two-hour appearance, Moore discussed his career as a counterculture journalist, provocative filmmaker and liberal standard-bearer, and he played three clips from "Sicko," which he said would be in theaters next June.

The segments presented stories of personal health care nightmares, including that of a woman denied payment for an ambulance ride after a head-on collision because it was not preapproved.

"They try to find every way they can to deny it to you or not sell it to you," he told a packed theater. "Or they try to find anyway they can not to pay the bill."

The "Sicko" excerpts also included a segment comparing Canada's public health care to the privatized system in the United States, concluding that Canadians have more equitable access to medical services.

The idea for "Sicko" grew out of a segment from Moore's TV show "The Awful Truth," in which he staged a mock funeral outside a health-maintenance organization that had declined a pancreas transplant for a diabetic man. The HMO later relented.

Health care representatives downplay the potential impact of Moore's documentary.

"We can't control what a major Hollywood entertainer does," said Mohit Ghose, a spokesman for the trade group America's Health Insurance Plans. "Our focus remains on a positive agenda of high-quality health care for more Americans."

With a laid-back persona but an in-your-face documentary style, Moore broke onto the scene with 1989's "Roger & Me," chronicling his efforts to meet with GM boss Roger Smith amid the economic chaos the automaker's plant closings had on Moore's hometown of Flint, Mich.

Moore's 2002 gun-control film "Bowling for Columbine" won the documentary prize at the Academy Awards. He followed with 2004's "Fahrenheit 9/11," skewering Bush for his actions over the Sept. 11 attacks. The film topped $100 million at the box office to become the biggest documentary hit ever.

Given Moore's devoted fans and a subjective, opinionated documentary style the filmmaker likens to a newspaper's op-ed section, "Sicko" has set the health-services industry on edge.

Ken Johnson, senior vice president of the trade group Pharmaceutical Researchers and Manufacturers of America, said industry officials were "freaking out and pulling their hair out" when they first got word of Moore's documentary.

They have since calmed down, Johnson said.

"Michael Moore is a political activist with a track record for sensationalism. He has no intention of being fair and balanced," Johnson said.

MOORE'S 'SICKO' STUNT
TAKES 9/11 WORKERS TO CUBA
Source: New York Post

Filmmaker Michael Moore's production company took ailing Ground Zero responders to Cuba in a stunt aimed at showing that the U.S. health-care system is inferior to Fidel Castro's socialized medicine, according to several sources with knowledge of the trip.

The trip was to be filmed as part of the controversial director's latest documentary, "Sicko," an attack on American drug companies and HMOs that Moore hopes to debut at the Cannes Film Festival next month.

Two years in the making, the flick also takes aim at the medical care being provided to people who worked on the toxic World Trade Center debris pile, according to several 9/11 workers approached by Moore's producers.

But the sick sojourn, which some say uses ill 9/11 workers as pawns, has angered many in the responder community.

"He's using people that are in a bad situation and that's wrong, that's morally wrong," railed Jeff Endean, a former SWAT commander from Morris County, N.J., who spent a month at Ground Zero and suffers from respiratory problems.

A spokeswoman for the Weinstein Co., the film's distributor, would not say when the director's latest expose would hit cinemas or provide details about the film or the trip.

Responders were told Cuban doctors had developed new techniques for treating lung cancer and other respiratory illness, and that health care in the communist country was free, according to those offered the two-week February trip.

Cuba has made recent advancements in biotechnology and exports its cancer treatments to 40 countries around the world, raking in an estimated $100 million a year, according to The Associated Press.

In 2004 the U.S. government granted an exception to its economic embargo against Cuba and allowed a California drug company to test three cancer vaccines developed in Havana, according to the AP.

Regardless, some ill 9/11 workers balked at Moore's idea.

"I would rather die in America than go to Cuba," said Joe Picurro, a Toms River, N.J., ironworker approached by the filmmaker via an e-mail that read, "Joe and Mike in Cuba."

After helping remove debris from Ground Zero, Picurro has a laundry list of respiratory and other ailments so bad that he relies on fund-raisers to help pay his expenses.

He said, "I just laughed. I couldn't do it."

Another ill worker who said he was willing to take the trip ended up being stiffed by Moore.

Michael McCormack, 48, a disabled medic who found an American flag at Ground Zero that once flew atop the Twin Towers, was all set to go to.

The film crew contacted him by phone and took him by limo from his Ridge, L.I., home to Manhattan for an on-camera interview.

"What he [Moore] wanted to do is shove it up George W's rear end that 9/11 heroes had to go to a communist country to get adequate health care," said McCormack, who suffers from chronic respiratory illness.

But McCormack said he was abandoned by Moore. At a March fund-raiser for another 9/11 responder in New Jersey, McCormack learned Moore had gone to Cuba without him.

"It's the ultimate betrayal," he said. "You're promised that you're going to be taken care of and then you find out you're not. He's trying to profiteer off of our suffering."

Moore's publicist did not return calls from The Post. But McCormack played a tape for The Post of a telephone conversation between himself and a Moore producer. The woman is heard apologizing for not taking McCormack, while saying the production company was not offering anyone guarantees of a cure.

"Even for the people that we did bring down to Cuba, we said we can promise that you will be evaluated, that you will get looked at," said the woman. "We can't promise that you will get fixed."

Participants in the Cuba trip were forced to sign a confidentiality agreement prohibiting them from talking about the project, the sources said.

Travel to Cuba is severely restricted from the United States, but Moore's crew was granted access, the producer told McCormack, through a "general license that allows for journalistic endeavors there."

Some called the trip a success, at least logistics-wise.

"From what I heard through the grapevine, those people that went are utterly happy," said John Feal, who runs the Fealgood Foundation to help raise money for responders and was approached by Moore to find responders willing to take the trip.

"They got the Elvis treatment."

Although he has been a critic of Cuba, Moore grew popular there after a pirated version of his movie, "Fahrenheit 9/11," was played on state-owned TV.

Sicko
Source: Entertainment Weekly

What's the new gotcha documentary from Michael Moore — that notable crusader for openness and accountability — about? That's an excellent question, so we called him up. Except he wouldn't talk about it. Then we asked The Weinstein Co. for some information. And, well, they didn't have any. What about a photo? Um, nope. And, frankly, we didn't have time to camp outside Moore's Manhattan office with a tape recorder and a baseball cap — and no one at EW really has the facial hair for the gig anyway.

So let's share what we do know. The movie is a documentary. (Obviously.) It's about the health-care industry. (Hence the title.) And Moore is the star. (When hasn't he been?) No matter what you think of the Flint, Mich., filmmaker, the man knows his hot-button issues; and given the number of Americans without health care — an estimated 46 million — this is surely one of them. While shooting Sicko, Moore reportedly brought ailing Ground Zero workers to Cuba for treatment, apparently to demonstrate the advantages of socialized medicine. Moore has now directed two of the highest-grossing docs of all time — and he hasn't lost his flair for the controversial. Whether he chats about this movie or not, we'll be paying attention. It would be just plain silly not to.

Weinsteins set 'Sicko' release date
Moore film to rollout June 29
Source: Variety

The Weinstein Co. has pegged a June 29 rollout for Michael Moore's Cannes-bound docu "Sicko" and brought in Lionsgate to partner on releasing the documaker's first pic since "Fahrenheit 9/11."

Division of labor will see Lionsgate booking theaters on "Sicko" in the U.S. while TWC handles all marketing and publicity duties and puts up all P&A costs.

TWC is also handling international rights and is offering the doc -- a critical look at the U.S. health care system -- in Cannes after its world preem.

People close to the pic's domestic partnership said that TWC was attracted to Lionsgate because of Lionsgate's exclusive pay TV pact with Showtime for docus.

Pact reteams Bob and Harvey Weinstein with Lionsgate three years after the movie-mogul sibs picked the indie studio to help roll out "Fahrenheit 9/11."

"Lionsgate was very helpful the last time, and this time we're happy to have them involved again," Harvey Weinstein said. He added that he sees "Sicko" as a less controversial film than "Fahrenheit."

"I've seen this movie with Republicans and Democrats, and this is one time Michael has sort of unified everyone," he said. "The health care industry might not have a very good July Fourth."

Lionsgate's Tom Ortenberg added that he sees the June 29 date as a prime pick for the docu.

"That will be six weeks from the film's Cannes presentation for us to open," he said. "With July 4 coming on a Wednesday, we see that entire week as virtually seven straight Saturdays."

"Fahrenheit" brought in $222.4 million in worldwide B.O. and won the Palme d'Or at Cannes.

June release date pits "Sicko" against Disney's computer-animated "Ratatouille" and Fox actioner "Live Free or Die Hard," as well as specialty fare including Focus drama "Evening" and MGM's "Death at a Funeral."

Weinsteins' hired guns set 'Sicko' spin
Lehane to consult on Moore film
Source: Variety

Concerned that the health care industry will lash out at Michael Moore's docu "Sicko" after its world preem, the Weinstein Co.'s Harvey Weinstein has brought aboard political strategist Chris Lehane as a consultant on the Cannes-bound pic.

Gotham-based praiser Ken Sunshine -- who reps clients in entertainment, public affairs, labor and health care -- has been brought on as well and will travel to Cannes with Lehane, Moore and the Weinstein Co. team.

Lehane is no stranger to Moore docs, having served as a press strategist for the release of the firebrand filmmaker's anti-President Bush screed "Fahrenheit 9/11" in 2004. Lehane was Al Gore's press secretary during his the 2000 presidential run and served as a White House spokesman and lawyer for President Clinton. He's worked as an adviser and consultant to various Democratic candidates. He is a partner in California-based communications firm Fabiani & Lehane.

"If the HMOs strike, I'm going to need two guys who can strike back," Harvey Weinstein told Daily Variety Wednesday.

TWC tapped Lionsgate earlier this week in a deal for the latter to book domestic theaters and a feevee deal with Showtime while the Weinstein Co. handles all marketing, PR and P&A costs on the U.S. health care critique.

TWC targeted Lionsgate because of Lionsgate's output deal with Showtime.

Weinstein's hiring of Lehane and Sunshine seemed timely on Wednesday, the same day Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America senior veep Ken Johnson issued a statement bashing Moore's "Fahrenheit" follow-up.

"A review of America's health care system should be balanced, thoughtful and well-researched," the news release stated. "You won't get that from Michael Moore."

"Michael Moore is a political activist with a track record for sensationalism. He has no intention of being fair and balanced."

TWC is handling all world rights on "Sicko" but won't offer them until after the pic's Cannes preem.

Michael Moore faces U.S. Treasury probe

Academy Award-winning filmmaker Michael Moore is under investigation by the U.S. Treasury Department for taking ailing Sept. 11 rescue workers to Cuba for a segment in his upcoming health-care documentary "Sicko," The Associated Press has learned.

The investigation provides another contentious lead-in for a provocative film by Moore, a fierce critic of President Bush. In the past, Moore's adversaries have fanned publicity that helped the filmmaker create a new brand of opinionated blockbuster documentary.

"Sicko" promises to take the health-care industry to task the way Moore confronted America's passion for guns in "Bowling for Columbine" and skewered Bush over his handling of Sept. 11 in "Fahrenheit 9/11."

The Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control notified Moore in a letter dated May 2 that it was conducting a civil investigation for possible violations of the U.S. trade embargo restricting travel to Cuba. A copy of the letter was obtained Tuesday by the AP.

"This office has no record that a specific license was issued authorizing you to engage in travel-related transactions involving Cuba," Dale Thompson, OFAC chief of general investigations and field operations, wrote in the letter to Moore.

In February, Moore took about 10 ailing workers from the Ground Zero rescue effort in Manhattan for treatment in Cuba, said a person working with the filmmaker on the release of "Sicko." The person requested anonymity because Moore's attorneys had not yet determined how to respond.

Moore, who scolded Bush over the Iraq war during the 2003 Oscar telecast, received the letter Monday, the person said. "Sicko" premieres May 19 at the Cannes Film Festival and debuts in U.S. theaters June 29.

Moore declined to comment, said spokeswoman Lisa Cohen.

After receiving the letter, Moore arranged to place a copy of the film in a "safe house" outside the country to protect it from government interference, said the person working on the release of the film.

Treasury officials declined to answer questions about the letter. "We don't comment on enforcement actions," said department spokeswoman Molly Millerwise.

The letter noted that Moore applied Oct. 12, 2006, for permission to go to Cuba "but no determination had been made by OFAC." Moore sought permission to travel there under a provision for full-time journalists, the letter said.

According to the letter, Moore was given 20 business days to provide OFAC with such information as the date of travel and point of departure; the reason for the Cuba trip and his itinerary there; and the names and addresses of those who accompanied him, along with their reasons for going.

Potential penalties for violating the embargo were not indicated. In 2003, the New York Yankees paid the government $75,000 to settle a dispute that it conducted business in Cuba in violation of the embargo. No specifics were released about that case.

"Sicko" is Moore's followup to 2004's "Fahrenheit 9/11," a $100 million hit criticizing the Bush administration over Sept. 11. Moore's "Bowling for Columbine" won the 2002 Oscar for best documentary.

A dissection of the U.S. health-care system, "Sicko" was inspired by a segment on Moore's TV show "The Awful Truth," in which he staged a mock funeral outside a health-maintenance organization that had declined a pancreas transplant for a diabetic man. The HMO later relented.

At last September's Toronto International Film Festival, Moore previewed footage shot for "Sicko," presenting stories of personal health-care nightmares. One scene showed a woman who was denied payment for an ambulance ride after a head-on collision because it was not preapproved.

Moore's opponents have accused him of distorting the facts, and his Cuba trip provoked criticism from conservatives including former Republican Sen. Fred Thompson, who assailed the filmmaker in a blog at National Review Online.

"I have no expectation that Moore is going to tell the truth about Cuba or health care," wrote Thompson, the subject of speculation about a possible presidential run. "I defend his right to do what he does, but Moore's talent for clever falsehoods has been too well documented."

The timing of the investigation is reminiscent of the firestorm that preceded the Cannes debut of "Fahrenheit 9/11," which won the festival's top prize in 2004. The Walt Disney Co. refused to let subsidiary Miramax release the film because of its political content, prompting Miramax bosses Harvey and Bob Weinstein to release "Fahrenheit 9/11" on their own.

The Weinsteins later left Miramax to form the Weinstein Co., which is releasing "Sicko." They declined to comment on the Treasury investigation, said company spokeswoman Sarah Levinson Rothman.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070511/ap_en_mo/film_michael_moore

Moore blasts Bush over film-trip probe
By DAVID GERMAIN, AP Movie Writer
LOS ANGELES - Filmmaker

Michael Moore has asked the Bush administration to call off an investigation of his trip to Cuba to get treatment for ailing Sept. 11 rescue workers for a segment in his upcoming health-care expose, "Sicko."

Moore, who made the hit documentary "Fahrenheit 9/11" assailing President Bush's handling of Sept. 11, said in a letter to U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson on Friday that the White House may have opened the investigation for political reasons.

"For five and a half years, the Bush administration has ignored and neglected the heroes of the 9/11 community," Moore said in the letter, which he posted on the liberal Web site Daily Kos. "These heroic first responders have been left to fend for themselves, without coverage and without care.

"I understand why the Bush administration is coming after me — I have tried to help the very people they refuse to help, but until George W. Bush outlaws helping your fellow man, I have broken no laws and I have nothing to hide."

Harvey Weinstein, whose Weinstein Co. is releasing "Sicko," told The Associated Press the movie is a "healing film" that could bring opponents together over the ills of America's health-care system.

"This time, we didn't want the fight, because the movie unites both sides," Weinstein said. "We've shown the movie to Republicans. Both sides of the bench love the film. The pharmaceutical industry won't like the movie. HMOs will try to run us out of town, but that's not relevant to the situation.

"The whole campaign this time was not to be incendiary. It was, can Michael Moore bring both sides together?"

The health-care industry Moore skewers in "Sicko" was a major contributor to Bush's 2004 re-election campaign and to Republican candidates over the last four years, Moore wrote.

"I can understand why that industry's main recipient of its contributions — President Bush — would want to harass, intimidate and potentially prevent this film from having its widest possible audience," Moore wrote.

Treasury officials in Washington said Friday they would have no comment on the contents of Moore's letter, citing a policy against discussing specific investigations being conducted by Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control, the agency that enforces the trade embargo against Cuba.

"Generally speaking, as administrators and enforcers of U.S. sanctions, OFAC is required to investigate potential violations of these programs," Treasury spokeswoman AnnMarie Hauser said. "In doing so, OFAC issues hundreds of letters each year asking for additional information when possible sanctions violations have occurred."

OFAC notified Moore in a letter dated May 2 that it was conducting a civil investigation for possible violations of the U.S. trade embargo restricting travel to Cuba.

Moore questioned the timing of the investigation, noting that "Sicko" premieres May 19 at the Cannes Film Festival and debuts in U.S. theaters June 19. The Bush administration knew of his plans to travel to Cuba since last October, said Moore, who went there in March with about 10 ailing workers involved in the rescue effort at the World Trade Center ruins.

Weinstein said the investigation would only help publicize the film.

"The timing is amazing. You would think that we originated this. It reads like a fiction best-seller," Weinstein said.

OFAC's letter to Moore noted that he had applied in October 2006 for permission as a full-time journalist to travel to Cuba, but that the agency had not made any determination on his request.

The agency gave Moore 20 business days to provide details on his Cuba trip and the names of those who accompanied him.

Moore won an Academy Award for best documentary with his 2002 gun-control film "Bowling for Columbine" and scolded Bush in his Oscar acceptance speech as the war in Iraq was just getting under way.

The investigation has given master promoter Moore another jolt of publicity just before the release of one of his films. "Fahrenheit 9/11" premiered at Cannes in 2004 amid a public quarrel between Moore and the Walt Disney Co., which refused to let subsidiary Miramax release the film because of its political content.

Miramax bosses Harvey and Bob Weinstein ended up releasing the film on their own and later left to form the Weinstein Co., distributor of "Sicko."

"This is `Fahrenheit' all over again. `Let's pressure somebody.' Last time it was Disney, this time it's direct," Harvey Weinstein said.

"Fahrenheit 9/11" won the top prize at Cannes and went on to become the top-grossing documentary ever with $119 million.

---

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070511/ap_en_mo/cuba_moore

Cuba: Michael Moore victim of censorship
By ANDREA RODRIGUEZ, Associated Press Writer

HAVANA - Cuba characterized American filmmaker Michael Moore as a victim of censorship and the U.S. trade embargo as it reported Friday on a U.S. Treasury Department probe of his March visit here for his upcoming health-care documentary, "Sicko."

Moore took the trip, for a segment in the film, with about 10 ailing workers involved in the rescue effort at the World Trade Center ruins.

The Communist Party daily Granma called the 45-year-old U.S. travel and trade sanctions "a criminal action that has cost lives and grave consequences for the inhabitants of the island," as well as Americans.

"Any resemblance to McCarthyism is no coincidence," the newspaper opined, referring to the political witch hunt that U.S. Sen. Joseph McCarthy carried out against suspected American communists in the 1950s.

The U.S. government's targeting of Moore "confirms the imperial philosophy of censorship" by American officials, it added.

The Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control, which oversees U.S. sanctions against other nations, sent a letter to Moore on May 2, notifying him of a civil probe for possible violations of the U.S. trade embargo.

Treasury officials in Washington said Friday they would have no comment on the contents of Moore's letter, citing a policy against discussing specific investigations. But Treasury spokeswoman AnnMarie Hauser said OFAC issues hundreds of letters each year asking for additional information when possible sanctions violations have occurred.

The filmmaker suggested Friday that the probe was politically motivated.

"I understand why the Bush administration is coming after me — I have tried to help the very people they refuse to help," Moore wrote in the letter, which he posted on the liberal Web site Daily Kos. "But until George W. Bush outlaws helping your fellow man, I have broken no laws and I have nothing to hide."

Moore confronted America's passion for guns in "Bowling for Columbine," which won the 2002 Oscar for best documentary, and skewered
President Bush over his handling of Sept. 11 in "Fahrenheit 9/11."

"Sicko" premieres May 19 at the Cannes Film Festival and debuts in U.S. theaters June 29.

Any guess as to when we'll see a trailer for this? Seems like it should be soon.

Probably the day after Cannes. That way, if it wins an award, they can use it in the campaign.

That makes sense.

Wait a minute, I forgot, it's playing out of competition. Can it win anything out of competition? Seems like a stupid question, but I really have no idea.

Quote from: martinthewarrior on May 13, 2007, 08:10:04 PM
Can it win anything out of competition?

only our hearts.


and hype.

Healthy debate surrounds Moore's docu 'Sicko'
Source: Hollywood Reporter

CANNES -- There's a gathering storm of controversy surrounding Michael Moore's new documentary "Sicko," which will have its world premiere Saturday at the Festival de Cannes. But as far as the international distributors circling the film are concerned, it could prove no more than a tempest in a teapot.

Pro- and anti-Moore factions are trading blows in the U.S. following news that the U.S. Treasury Department is investigating the "Fahrenheit 9/11" director for possibly violating America's trade embargo with Cuba by taking ailing Sept. 11 rescue workers to the island for medical treatment.

On Tuesday, Moore challenged former U.S. senator and possible presidential candidate Fred Thompson to a debate over health care after Thompson accused Moore of having a soft spot for Cuban leader Fidel Castro -- Moore even suggested Thompson might have violated the embargo himself by importing Montecristo cigars from Havana.

"They started this," Moore said of his critics, "and I think that somehow by making some sort of example of me, that helps them with a certain community in terms of voters." The director went so far as to send a duplicate master of the film to a "safe house" outside the country to ensure he would have no problem providing Cannes with a print.

While the debate could provide plenty of free publicity for the Weinstein Co., which will release "Sicko" in the U.S. on June 29 through Lionsgate, the Cuba controversy is not playing big overseas.

"The Cuba embargo is an issue that is very confusing for non-Americans and one that few people outside of Miami care about, to be honest," a prominent German acquisitions exec said. "The controversy is being covered by all the papers in Europe, but I don't think anyone will go see the movie because of it."

TFM Distribution, which is releasing "Sicko" in France, said they were waiting to see the reaction of the Cannes audience before forming a promotion strategy for the film. Japanese distributor Gaga Communications is adopting a similar "wait-and-see" approach.

Stateside, however, Lionsgate and the Weinstein Co. are making the Treasury Department's investigation a key focus of their "Sicko" campaign. The Weinstein Co. has hired David Boies, the chief attorney in Al Gore's recount battle against George Bush in the 2000 U.S. presidential election, to help on the "Sicko" case. Chris Lehane, a political consultant on the film, said in an interview that TWC and Lionsgate would "go to the mattresses for this film and fight the Bush efforts in every way possible."

On the anti-Moore side, News Corp. properties Fox News and the New York Post have run editorials and commentaries slamming the filmmaker.

While the Treasury Dept. triggered the current contretemps, "It's Harvey (Weinstein) up to his old tricks, doing his Barnum & Bailey act," said one prominent studio marketing executive. "It's a textbook 'create a controversy' to rev up all the people who hate the government and bring attention to the movie, which is what film marketing is all about. A-plus to them."

Whether such an approach will work in international markets depends on how provocative "Sicko" is seen to be and to what degree Moore's expose of the U.S. health care system can bridge the language/culture barrier.

Glen Basner, Weinstein Co. president of distribution, said the company is taking the same approach to promoting "Sicko" internationally as it is in the U.S.

"Moore is seen in a similar way both within and outside of the US -- a cinematic version of a Mark Twain or Will Rogers -- who uses humor and imagery to stick his finger in the eye of the establishment on behalf of the little guy," Basner said. "His movies, though focused on U.S. issues, certainly transcend an American audience because they are both funny, provocative and ultimately human ... and that is why they have enjoyed both domestic and international appeal."

For many international buyers, the challenge for Moore will not be to get people to talk about his film but to convince audiences he has something new to say.

"When 'Bowling for Columbine' and 'Fahrenheit 9/11' came out they were so new, Moore's personal style, his humor. Now everyone is doing 'Moore-style' documentaries," said a prominent European acquisitions executive. "Even 'Borat' used some of the same techniques. The question with 'Sicko' is can Moore still surprise and shock us, or will this be more of the same?"

'Sicko' the Controversy
Michael Moore talks about attracting the ire of the Bush administration with his new health care documentary, and how he wishes Katie Couric would be more forthcoming with the public

It's 3:10 in the afternoon and Michael Moore has just finished making breakfast. Another episode in the lazy life of a wealthy documentary filmmaker? Hardly. Moore was up all night working on his new documentary, Sicko, a scathing look at the health care industry that's slated to debut at the Cannes film festival on May 19. Already under fire from the government for taking his crew to Cuba, Moore put aside his cereal to chat about HMOs, his treatment in the media, and (surprise!) the Bush administration.

ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: So what makes you think there's a problem with our health care system?
MICHAEL MOORE: [laughs hard] I said to the crew on the first day, ''Let's not insult the audience by telling them that the health care system is broken. Let's start with the assumption that people know it. What kind of film would we make then?''

Health care strikes me as something that's a lot harder for you to be adversarial about.
True. You know, I have done no interviews on this film. I've kept very quiet. But it's kind of funny when you're reading about your movie that no one has seen and it's described as this and that.

What's the biggest misconception out there?
That I set out to go to Cuba. [According to press reports, Moore was served with a letter from the Treasury Department informing him that they were conducting a civil investigation to determine whether he had violated the U.S. trade embargo restricting travel to Cuba when he accompanied ailing Ground Zero workers there for treatment while filming Sicko.]

Care to clear that up?
No. [laughs] I just want to enjoy the next five days reading about how I wanted to go to Cuba to show off their health care system. I think people are going to have to do a serious rewrite after [the first screening in Cannes].

But it is true that the Treasury Department sent that letter.
That is very true and very serious. And the lawyer who helped us set up everything and made sure that we were going to do everything following the law [in Cuba] has never had a client receive this kind of letter before. And he takes down Audioslave, who did the first rock concert down there, and he's taken various other groups of artists or journalists or whatever. It's a very serious letter and we're taking it very seriously.

The PR can't hurt though.
I mean, I know the conventional wisdom is that the smartest thing for the Bush administration to do would be to say nothing, to ignore the film and it'll go away. But they can't help themselves, I guess. And somebody must have gone last week, ''Hey, it's premiering in Cannes. We really gotta do something. So let's really come out against him and no one will go see the movie.''

C'mon, surely they know this publicity helps you.
They're that divorced from the popular culture. They don't really understand me, the impact of my films, or how what they did will only bring more people to the film. I wasn't going to talk to anybody until we got to Cannes and people saw it there — and then this [letter] happens. But it's serious. The lawyers are telling us that we have to take some precautions immediately to protect the film. So we had to create a digital master copy and have it shipped out of the country so that if anything was seized, at least we'd have the master to make a negative from. This is really insane when you think about it in a free country.

When something like the Cuba thing happens, do you have this little moment where you're like... GOOD. They're playing right into my hands.
No. [pause] Nope. No, that is not my first thought. My first thought is: I don't need this hassle.

Are you sitting there just as the triannual feeding frenzy is about to start thinking, ''Why didn't I make a nice fun movie like Canadian Bacon again?''
You know, I don't relish all the noise that surrounds me and my work. I'm still stunned when I read these comments: ''Oh, he must like the hype!'' The last time I was on TV was the Today show in January of 2005, when Katie Couric said to me, ''I'd rather rearrange my sock drawer than talk to you.'' And off camera she's so friendly! Telling me inside stuff like how [the White House] called the big shots at NBC to complain about an interview she did. She's telling me...how she actually got a memo, and this is in the early days of the war, saying tone it down! And I said to her during the commercial, ''Why don't you tell this on the air?'' And she says, ''Aww, I'd lose my job.'' ARE YOU KIDDING ME? You can't lose your job. You have your job. It's called the KATIE COURIC JOB! You can write an op-ed and let the public know how this kind of manipulation takes place. And she says, ''I have to really watch it.'' And then the red light comes on and she's on the attack. And that's when I said, ''I don't need this.'' [A spokesperson for Couric responds, ''Katie has done many hard-hitting interviews over the years. Her responsibilities as a journalist require that her questioning reflects several different viewpoints. I'm glad Katie left such an impression on Michael.'']

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070519/ap_en_mo/michael_moore_cuba

'Sicko' stars thank Moore for Cuba trip
By JOCELYN NOVECK, AP National Writer

It could have been a college reunion: hugs, tears, laughter, photos, and a big friendly guy in shorts and sneakers organizing it all. But the guy in shorts was Michael Moore, whose new documentary, "Sicko," takes aim at the U.S. health care industry with the same fury — laced with humor, of course, and plenty of statistics — that he directed at the Bush administration in his hit "Fahrenheit 9/11."

And the people who'd flown in for this intimate first screening, a day after the film had been shipped to the Cannes Film Festival, included grateful Sept. 11 "first responders," suffering lung problems or other ailments from their days at ground zero. In the film, Moore takes them to Cuba and tries to get them treated at the U.S. base at Guantanamo Bay — where, he contends, terror suspects were getting better medical care than the heroes of 9/11.

The Cuba trip actually accounts for just a small part of "Sicko," which aims its wrath at private insurance and pharmaceutical companies and HMOs, while praising socialized medicine in countries like France and Britain. Moore fills it with stories like that of a woman whose ambulance ride after a car crash wasn't covered — because it wasn't "pre-approved."

But Cuba has loomed large in the flurry of prerelease publicity. That's because the director, an unabashed critic of President Bush, is being investigated by the Treasury Department for possibly violating the U.S. trade embargo by traveling to the island nation. Moore has fired back with an open letter accusing the administration of "abusing the federal government for raw, crass political purposes."

At his screening Tuesday evening at a Manhattan hotel, however, Moore was focused on the reaction of his invited guests.

"Three years ago tonight, we had the first screening of 'Fahrenheit 9/11,' with victims' families," he told them. "It was a very powerful experience, and now we're honored to have all of you here. We're very proud of this film. We're confident it will have a significant impact."

When the lights came up, Reggie Cervantes, a former 9/11 "first responder" who now lives in Oklahoma, spoke first.

"It was funny. It was real," said Cervantes, 46, who says she suffers from pulmonary ailments, esophageal reflex, post-traumatic stress disorder, ear and eye infections and other problems stemming from time at ground zero. Of the trip, she said: "It feels surreal. Were we really there?"

"This trip opened my eyes," offered Bill Maher, 54, another former ground zero volunteer from Maywood, N.J., who had extensive dental work in Cuba. "I was uneducated. I remembered the Cuban missile crisis. Now, you know what? I'm going back!"

"I'm going with you," replied Cervantes.

Donna Smith, in from Denver with her husband, Larry, was in tears when she spoke. The film opens with their painful story: Plagued with health problems, they were forced to sell their home and move into the storage room of their daughter's house because they couldn't cope with health costs, even though they were insured.

"Health care is an embarrassment to our nation," Donna told Moore. "You give dignity to every American in this film."

Lost in all the publicity over Moore's trip is the reason he went to Cuba in the first place.

He says he hadn't intended to go, but then discovered the U.S. government was boasting of the excellent medical care it provides terror suspects detained at Guantanamo. So Moore decided that the 9/11 workers and a few other patients, all of whom had serious trouble paying for care at home, should have the same chance.

"Here the detainees were getting colonoscopies and nutrition counseling," Moore told The Associated Press in an interview, "and these people at home were suffering. I said, 'We gotta go and see if we can get these people the same treatment the government gives al-Qaida.' It seemed the only fair thing to do."

So the group, which included eight patients — three ground zero workers and five others — headed off by boat towards Guantanamo. From a distance, with cameras rolling, Moore called out through a bullhorn that he wanted to bring his friends for treatment at the naval base. He got no response.

"So there I was with a group of sick people," he says. "What was I going to do?"

The answer: head to Havana. There, the film shows the group getting thorough care from kind doctors. They don't have to fill out any long forms; health care is free in the Communist nation, after all.

But did the American film crew get special treatment because they were, well, an American film crew? Moore and his producer, Meghan O'Hara, insist not. "We demanded that we be treated on the same floor as all Cubans, not the special floor for foreigners," Moore told The AP. Still, the doctors obviously knew they were being filmed, so it's hard to know — although Cervantes said she went back alone with no cameras and was treated similarly.

Treasury officials will not comment specifically about Moore's case. He has a few more days to provide additional information. Moore originally applied in October 2006 for permission to go to Cuba under a provision for full-time journalists, but never heard back.

The patients he brought had all struggled at home with health care costs. Some, like Cervantes, had lost their health insurance because they could no longer work, and were navigating the workmen's compensation system.

John Graham, a disabled carpenter and EMT from Paramus, N.J., came to the screening with his daughters. On 9/11 he was at his job at the carpenter's union offices, near the World Trade Center. He rushed over before the second plane hit, spending 31 hours at first, then helping out for months after that. He says he was later diagnosed with lung problems, burns on his esophagus, chronic sinusitis and post-traumatic stress disorder, among other things: "I need a notebook to remember everything."

Graham, who stopped working in 2004, now lives on $400 per week in workmen's comp payments. He split from his wife and says he is unable to keep up with childcare payments.

In Cuba, Graham had five full days of medical tests and received medication for his reflux problems. Cervantes was treated for eye and nose infections, among other things, and in a drugstore found pills for only pennies that cost her more than $100 at home. Maher had the longest treatment, to correct dental problems — he said ground zero-related stress and dreams about "people falling from the sky" made him grind his teeth at night.

Moore hopes his latest film will make people stop and think about what he sees as the tragic ills of the health care industry.

"We are the richest country in the world," the director said. "We spend more on health care than any other country. Yet we have the worst health care in the Western world. Come on. We can do better than this."

Review: Sicko
By ALISSA SIMON; Variety

Three years after winning Cannes' top prize for "Fahrenheit 9/11," docu helmer and agent provocateur Michael Moore returns to the Croisette with more polemics-as-performance-art in "Sicko," an affecting and entertaining dissection of the American health care industry, showing how it benefits the few at the expense of the many. Pic's tone alternates between comedy, poignancy and outrage as it compares the U.S system of care to other countries. Given Moore's celebrity and fan base, plus heightened awareness of pic resulting from the heated battle that's already begun between left and right, returns look to be extremely healthy.

Pic should also play well internationally, providing an eye-opening lesson for foreigners who may be inclined (like Moore's Canadian cousins) to take out insurance from their homeland before visiting the States.

Chief criticism of the pic is that it paints too rosy a picture of the national health care of the countries he compares America to, including Canada, England, France — and Cuba.

Employing his trademark personal narration and David vs. Goliath approach, Moore enlivens what is, in essence, a depressing subject by wrapping it in irony and injecting levity wherever possible: a graph shows America's position in global health care as No. 38 — just above Slovenia — and is followed by film footage of primitive operating conditions; and he offers a long list of health conditions that can deny a person insurance coverage, with the list scrolling into deep space accompanied by the "Stars Wars" theme.

Pic explores why American health care came to be exploited for profit in the private sector rather than being a government-paid, free-to-consumers service as are education, libraries, fire and police. Moore comes up with an archival audio recording of Richard Nixon from February 1971, praising Edgar Kaiser and his system using incentives for less medical care. The next day Nixon addresses the nation, proposing a new health care strategy that amounted to a less-per-patient expenditure to maximize profit.

Pic starts by sketching a gamut of health-care horror stories from average Americans: those who can't afford insurance, those who are denied coverage for various, often ludicrous reasons, and those who believe themselves well-protected, but find that the moment they avail themselves of medical services their insurance provider uses obscure technical reasons to refuse coverage, retroactively deny claims and cancel insurance, or raise rates so astronomically that the patient is forced into the ranks of the nearly 50 million uninsured.

Perhaps most emotionally affecting story comes from Julie, a hospital worker whose husband had a potentially terminal illness that medical staff thought could be treated with a bone marrow transplant. Insurance deemed the treatment experimental and refused to cover it. Unable to afford an alternative, the husband died.

The congressional testimony of a former Humana medical director provides a devastatingly direct description of what she calls "the dirty work of managed care." Constantly told that she was not denying care to patients, rather simply denying them Humana's coverage, her career advanced as she saved her corporation money.

Moore appears in his shambling folksy persona about 40 minutes into the pic, interviewing foreign citizens, American expatriates, hospital workers and doctors in countries with nationalized health care. The dramatic contrast with America is played for laughs, as the seemingly incredulous Moore continually mutters, "What do you mean it's free?"

Pic's most dramatic (and now controversial) tactic involves Moore taking a group that includes 9/11 rescue volunteers with medical problems that haven't been covered by insurance to Cuba — first to Guantanamo Bay, which Moore proclaims as the only place on American soil with universal health care, and then to a Havana hospital where they are given treatment. Cuban seg wraps with a poignant expression of emotional solidarity between 9/11 volunteers and Cuban firemen who pay them homage.

Pic incorporates extensive archival footage (some of which comes across as grainy on the bigscreen) as well as home movies and photographs. Extracts from Communist musicals, classic comedies and horror films provide Moore further opportunity for comic editorializing.

(https://xixax.com/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.xixax.com%2Fimages%2Fsickoposter.jpg&hash=d280c1940adb0ce676a622184ab9f4cf71277491)

Michael Moore's "Sicko" confronts American public over health care
The filmmaker compares our health care system to models of superior, government-provided care in France, Canada and Cuba.
Source: Los Angeles Times

CANNES, France - Michael Moore and his movies have always been hard to miss. But with "Sicko," his acidic new documentary about health care, there's suddenly less of the filmmaker and his usual methods to be found.

Not wanting the limelight, Moore is forgoing the competition at this year's Cannes Film Festival, where he won the top prize with 2004's "Fahrenheit 9/11." In "Sicko," he isn't chasing down insurance and pharmaceutical executives for confrontational interviews. The famously outsized filmmaker, having spent several years studying health care, even has lost 25 pounds-"One way to fight the system," he says, "is to take better care of yourself." But what's most striking about "Sicko" is that Moore's current target is much harder to pinpoint.

While the foils of his earlier films were obvious -- General Motors in "Roger & Me," the gun industry in "Bowling for Columbine," the Bush administration in "Fahrenheit 9/11" -- the ultimate protagonist in "Sicko," opening June 29, is American indifference.

"When people say there is no confrontation in this movie, to me there is a big confrontation in this movie," Moore said in an interview here. "Because I am confronting the American audience with a question: 'Who are we, and what has happened to our soul?' To me, that's maybe more confrontation than going after the CEO of Aetna or the CEO of Pfizer." The reason Moore feels compelled to ask this "Sicko" question is because, he feels, the country unthinkingly settles for substandard and ruinously expensive medical treatment, especially when compared to countries with universal health care.

Although the film is filled with terrible medical outcomes -- the movie opens with an uninsured carpenter with severed digits who must decide if he wants doctors to reattach his ring finger for $12,000 or his middle finger for $60,000 -- "Sicko's" central thrust is to hold up models of superior, government-provided care in France, Canada and (in a twist that has landed Moore in hot water with the U.S. Treasury Department) Cuba.

"I don't have to convince the American public that there is something wrong with our health care system. I think most American people already feel that way," said Moore, who enjoys great coverage himself through the Directors Guild of America. "That's why I don't spend a lot of time in the film on the health care horror stories. I wanted to propose that there's a different way we can go with this. I'm hoping that the American people, when they see this film, will say, 'You know, there is a better way, and maybe we should look at what they are doing in some of these other countries..."

In a choice that certainly endeared "Sicko" to the local audience, Moore spends much of the film focusing on France's socialized medicine. Doctors lead comfortable lives, patients receive attentive care, employers grant extended health-related leaves -- all reasons the World Health Organization ranked France tops in its global 2000 survey of the best health care countries.

That the United States ranked only 37th on the WHO list, just two slots ahead of Cuba, particularly infuriates Moore: With more wealth and technology than any other country, we nevertheless have 50 million citizens without insurance, 9 million of them children. As "Sicko" anecdotally documents, many Americans eligible for insurance can't afford it, and a long inventory of preexisting conditions limits the insurability of those who can.

Among "Sicko's" villains are politicians who pocket millions from HMOs and pharmaceuticals while denouncing universal care as little better than a Communist plot. The film is particularly tough on Sen. Hillary Clinton, once an advocate for universal care and now among the health care industry's biggest money recipients. (Moore says "Sicko" distributor Harvey Weinstein, a longtime friend and supporter of the Clintons, asked him to cut the sequence, but he refused.) To highlight the shortcomings of U.S. health care, Moore at one point in his film focuses on the plight of several chronically ill Sept. 11 rescue volunteers. Convinced that enemy combatant detainees receive better care in Guantanamo Bay than these national heroes do in the United States, Moore and the volunteers take a boat to Cuba. Despite its poverty, Moore says, Cuba's health care system is a model for the third world.

But what makes for one of "Sicko's" most memorable sequences also sparked the wrath of the treasury department, which said the visit violated the Trading With the Enemy Act. Moore said he had until Tuesday to respond to government requests for information about the trip, and that the penalties conceivably could include confiscation of the footage and criminal prosecution. "The lawyers are cautioning me to not treat this as a joke, which was my initial reaction."

If the Cuba inquiry put the spotlight back on Moore himself, the filmmaker says that wasn't his intention.

"I'm not going to be the one sticking my neck out here," he says. "People are going to have to come along. They are not going to be able to say, 'Let Mike go after this. We'll come along later when it looks safe.' And I don't need to convince the American public that there is something wrong here. I am hoping to inspire them in some way, to become active, and to do something."

Sneak Peek:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iFUtAaeYxno

Quote from: modage on May 19, 2007, 01:47:04 PM
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That's a very Apatow-esque poster.

The 40-Year-Old Surgeon?







God, I'm sorry about that.

kinda gross. i like the first one.

Quote from: sparrowhoff on May 21, 2007, 03:04:05 PM
The 40-Year-Old Surgeon?

Felt Up?

Freaked and Geeked?

Quote from: sparrowhoff on May 21, 2007, 03:04:05 PM
God, I'm sorry about that.

Film Offers New Talking Points in Health Care Debate
Source: New York Times

Few of them may become Michael Moore fans. But some insurance industry officials and health policy experts acknowledged yesterday that the film documentary "Sicko," Mr. Moore's indictment of health care in this country, taps into widespread public concern that the system does not work for millions of Americans.

The movie, which had its first showing at the Cannes Film Festival on Saturday and received many favorable reviews, presents a series of heart-rending anecdotes meant to illustrate systemic failures and foul-ups under the nation's insurance industry — even if many of the major pieces of evidence are ones that have been widely reported elsewhere and in some cases date back 20 years.

The film, which will be released in this country on June 29 after a well-calculated publicity campaign by Mr. Moore, is arriving as health care has become the leading domestic policy concern in many national polls, second only to the Iraq war. Although they have not had a chance to see the film yet, many American health care and insurance industry experts have been tracking it intently, based on media reports.

Without commenting on the movie's central criticisms of the insurance system, the head of America's Health Insurance Plans, a trade group in Washington, suggested that discussion of the movie could advance the industry's interest in obtaining more government money for people who do not have insurance.

"If the movie results in members of Congress and governors putting this issue squarely on the table as the No. 1 priority, we will be part of that discussion and will welcome it," said Karen Ignagni, president of the health plans group.

Uwe E. Reinhardt, a health economist at Princeton, said that based on reviews, the movie is "exaggerated, biting, unfair," but he added that a number of recent books and reports by academic experts had been at least as critical.

He cited "Redefining Health Care," a book by Michael E. Porter, a Harvard Business School professor, and Elizabeth Teisberg, a Stanford University economist, along with "Who Killed Health Care?" by Regina Herzlinger, also at the Harvard Business School.

"My point is we are on the verge of a populist reaction to the health system," Professor Reinhardt said. "The American people are on the point of being fed up."

Perhaps not coincidentally on Sunday, "60 Minutes," the CBS television magazine show, took up a scandal that is part of Mr. Moore's film — and has been well chronicled in The Los Angeles Times — about the abandonment by Los Angeles hospitals of homeless patients after they have received medical treatment.

Last week, Kaiser Permanente, the nation's largest nonprofit health insurer, settled criminal and civil lawsuits, agreeing to establish new rules for discharging such patients, and to pay $55,000 in fines and to cover the city attorney's investigative costs. Kaiser will also contribute $500,000 to help the homeless with follow-up care and other services.

Another scene in "Sicko" shows a clip of Congressional testimony given in 1996 by Dr. Linda Peeno, a former medical reviewer for the health insurer Humana, who said that her job was to save the company money. "I denied a man a necessary operation," she testified, referring to a ruling she had made in 1987. Ms. Peeno's testimony has been widely recounted over the years.

A Humana spokesman, Thomas Noland, said that the cased cited by Dr. Peeno involved whether a man in a hospital in Las Vegas had coverage that would pay for a heart transplant. Dr. Peeno had said "correctly that it did not cover heart transplants," Mr. Noland said.

Stuart Altman, a health policy expert at Brandeis University, acknowledged that accounts of insurance companies denying care "make people furious." But he questioned whether "Sicko," even if it became a box-office hit, would have any true impact on health care policy.

"Most Americans never see these problems," said Professor Altman, who is dean of the Heller Graduate School for Social Policy and Management at Brandeis. "Most are reasonably healthy to begin with," he said. "And even those that have some problems have this strong fear that they would be the loser" in a different system, run by the government, he said.

"They hate the system — it's too expensive — but we have been hearing about these things for 35 years," Professor Altman said. "Unless we have a meltdown which affects the middle class — that is nowhere near happening — we will not be willing to fundamentally restructure the system."

Meanwhile, in Cannes yesterday Mr. Moore discussed the next steps for "Sicko" in a meeting of nearly a dozen people. Participants included Harvey Weinstein, the movie executive whose company financed the film and will market and help distribute it, and Chris Lehane, a former political adviser in the Clinton White House who is serving as the movie's spokesman.

To ride the Cannes momentum ahead of the film's United States release, the team plans to start running newspaper advertisements superimposing health insurer logos on tombstones and to use the michaelmoore.com Web to solicit whistle-blowers from the ranks of insurance company employees.

In a half-joking conversation, it emerged that Mr. Weinstein, a supporter of Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, had tried to persuade Mr. Moore to revise the film's depiction of Mrs. Clinton.

The early part of the film unrolls as a virtual love letter to Mrs. Clinton, chronicling her efforts as first lady to stage an overhaul of the health care system. But the tone changes as the film proceeds, lumping her among the members of Congress who, "Sicko" contends, are financially beholden to insurers.

Mr. Weinstein "just wanted me to leave in the bit where she was young and sexy," said Mr. Moore, referring to the scenes of Mrs. Clinton as first lady, making clear that he had declined to make the cuts.

"I just felt the film was over, you know, by about 30 seconds," Mr. Weinstein said, laughing. "It's not because I support her."

The conversation turned to whether Mr. Moore planned to back any of the current proposals for health care reform, or whether he would come up with his own plan. Some suggested that he stick to his position that the insurance companies be done away with, replaced by national universal health care system.

"Let's be honest, no one's going to support dismantling the private health care system," Mr. Moore replied. "I don't think the insurance companies are just going to give up the profit motivation."

Quote from: martinthewarrior on May 11, 2007, 06:53:29 PM
Any guess as to when we'll see a trailer for this? Seems like it should be soon.

How soon is now.



Trailer here. (http://movies.aol.com/movie/sicko/26778/trailer)

awesome.

 :yabbse-angry: stop using "Brazil" in your trailers, you bastard trailer guys... the "Malkovich" trailer owned that song years ago...




...was "Brazil" used for the "Brazil" trailer?...


...in Brazil...

Great trailer... I cant wait to see this... I hate the fucking fat bastard but he makes me laugh.

"Laughter is not the best medicine, its the only one."

ATTN: NYC

Sicko
Preview screening with Michael Moore in person
Thursday, June 28, 7:00 p.m.

2007, 120 mins. 35mm. Directed by Michael Moore. Direct from its premiere at the Cannes Film Festival, the new documentary by Michael Moore (Fahrenheit 9/11, Bowling for Columbine) is a no-holds barred attack on the American health-care system, focusing on inequality and inefficiency. Manhattan theater to be announced.
Tickets $14 for Museum members/$20 for nonmembers/ free for Patron-level members and above. Call 718.784.4520 or click here (http://www.movingimage.us/site/screenings/mainpage/buy_tickets.html) to order online.

Moore, distrib lash out at gov't 'Sicko' probe
Source: Hollywood Reporter

NEW YORK -- Michael Moore, Harvey Weinstein and attorney David Boies were the center of a three-man circus Monday as they faced a packed room of cameras and reporters to officially respond to a U.S. Treasury Department investigation of Moore's trip to Cuba shown in his upcoming health-care expose "Sicko."

"We're prepared to go to court to stop this discriminatory attack," Boies said in his Midtown Manhattan conference room. "We view the actions taken as a form of harassment."

In a letter dated May 2, Dale Thompson, chief of general investigations and field operations at the Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control, informed Moore that his trip to Cuba was under investigation for violating the trade embargo.

Alleging a Bush administration smear campaign that inadvertently appears to be giving a promotional boost to the film, Boies publicly released his response letter requesting "information regarding the person or persons who participated in making the decision to send Mr. Thompson's letter, the nature of the discussions that took place and the knowledge your office had of Mr. Moore and his trip to Cuba at the time the letter was sent."

Moore said he traveled by boat to a point just outside the Guantanamo Bay detention camp to make the point that suspected al-Qaida detainees were getting better health-care treatment than three ailing Sept. 11 rescue workers onboard with him. The director then decided to go to Cuba to seek treatment for the workers and to film Cuba's health-care system. Moore applied for an Office of Foreign Assets Control permit before his Cuba trip, but it wasn't issued before he went to the country.

Boies' letter cited the Cuban Assets Control Regulations allowing for "travel-related transactions directly incident to journalistic activities in Cuba." It did not address Moore's role in bringing the patients to Cuba, but Moore said that "subjects of the work of journalists are transported by (journalists) all the time. We were acting not just as journalists but as human beings (to help) rescue workers. ... Take off your journalistic hats for a moment -- does this upset anyone?"

Weinstein declined to specifically address a recent comment from a studio marketing executive who said that the co-head of the Weinstein Co. was "doing his Barnum & Bailey act" (HR 5/16). In his opening comments at the news conference, Weinstein said he asked a Bush administration official why they would launch an attack that would only serve to help promote the film and was told it was to show their key Florida constituency and its Cuban-American population that the administration was "kicking Michael's ass" over what could be perceived as a pro-Fidel Castro movie.

According to organizers, the news conference also was prompted by a New York Post article Sunday claiming that the Bush administration also was investigating the Sept. 11 workers on the Cuba trip.

"In my 25 years in the movie business I've never seen anything like this, where the government has tried to impact a movie like 'Sicko,' " Weinstein said. Moore added that a separate negative of the film, including the 15 minutes of Cuban footage, was sent to Canada in case the government attempts to seize it "like they could seize 10,000 Cuban cigars."

When asked whether he and Weinstein were capitalizing on the government's actions for promotional value, Moore sarcastically replied, "Bob (Weinstein) and Harvey did call Mr. Bush and ask them to investigate us." He added, "It's an odd thing to accuse us of. We were going to open this movie quietly, and then to receive a letter like that. ..."

A Treasury Department spokesperson chose not to respond to the allegations, saying, "We don't comment on investigations, including confirming or denying the existence of an investigation."

In the wake of a string of boxoffice disappointments, the Weinstein Co. is looking to strike a populist chord with "Sicko," which it is releasing through Lionsgate, the studio with which the Weinsteins collaborated on Moore's "Fahrenheit 9/11."

"Sicko" is set to open June 29 in 600-1,000 theaters, possibly building to 1,200 in its second weekend and 1,400-1,500 in the third week, depending on its performance. Lionsgate will handle the booking of domestic theaters; the Weinstein Co. is shouldering all other responsibilities.

But while "Fahrenheit" bowed in 868 theaters to $23.9 million and went on to gross $119.2 million domestically, the Weinstein Co. is attempting to downplay the expectations surrounding "Sicko," with one source close to the company saying that Weinstein sees the $9 million docu emulating Moore's earlier film, "Bowling for Columbine," which grossed $21.6 million domestically.

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Moore hype of healthcare film hits fever pitch
The filmmaker makes the rounds in Sacramento to promote his documentary 'SiCKO.'
Source: Los Angeles Times

SACRAMENTO — Blending a movie premiere and a political rally with a savvy that even Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger might admire, documentary filmmaker and provocateur Michael Moore stormed through California's Capitol on Tuesday to promote his new film, "SiCKO," his indictment of the country's healthcare system.

Sacramento is not usually a first-choice locale for movie premieres — 2006's "Akeelah and the Bee" was the last. But the Capitol's current focus on overhauling California's healthcare system made it the ideal set for Moore, who built his reputation on such movies as "Roger and Me" and "Fahrenheit 9/11."

"SiCKO" is a compendium of horror tales about Americans stiffed by private insurers. Swarmed by hundreds of unionized nurses who embraced him with the enthusiasm of groupies, Moore championed a solution that is a political nonstarter here: abolishing private insurance in favor of a government-run, Medicare-like system.

"There is no room for the concept of profit when it comes to taking care of people who are sick," Moore thundered at an afternoon rally with members of the California Nurses Assn., which backs legislation that would create a "single-payer" state insurer.

Schwarzenegger has promised to veto it. Even if he were swayed in favor of it, Republican lawmakers would not provide the votes needed to enact $95 billion in taxes to pay for the program.

With Schwarzenegger and Democratic leaders proposing to expand the role of private insurers, single-payer advocates welcomed the attention Moore brought to their cause, including the 14 television cameras that trailed him Tuesday.

"I'm personally very grateful you made this film," said state Sen. Sheila Kuehl (D-Santa Monica), sponsor of the single-payer legislation, SB 840. She spoke at a briefing where Moore addressed like-minded lawmakers.

"It's telling, finally, the American people that their healthcare system is very, very sick," Kuehl said.

Wearing a rumpled blazer and jeans that he later traded for shorts, Moore showed himself an adroit politician, calibrating his movie's message to each audience he addressed.

At a morning press conference with Assembly Speaker Fabian Nuñez (D-Los Angeles), Moore praised Schwarzenegger for breaking with Republican orthodoxy by acknowledging that the healthcare system was drastically broken. He chided the governor, however, for opposing single-payer insurance, saying that the governor owed his "very healthy body" to the state medical care provided by his Austrian homeland.

"I'm sure between all of you, you're going to find the right solution for California and act as a beacon of hope for the rest of this country," he told Nuñez and other Democratic legislators.

His briefing with legislators amounted to an extended trailer for his film, as he described stories he had incorporated about hospitals that dumped poor patients on Los Angeles' skid row and people who received inadequate healthcare even though they had insurance. Moore brought along several of the people he profiled in the film to retell their stories to the lawmakers.

The showmanship reached a crescendo at a sweltering rally with hundreds of nurses outside the Capitol, most wearing red "SiCKO" promotional shirts and enthusiastically chanting, "Hey ho, hey ho, private healthcare is sick-o," and "What do we want? Single payer! When do we want it? Now."

The iconoclastic union is the same group that celebrated its defeat of Schwarzenegger's special election agenda in 2005 by dancing in a conga line on election night and repeating, "We are the mighty, mighty nurses!"

Moore and the nurses then decamped for an afternoon screening of the movie, which was followed by the official premiere, hosted by Nuñez.

Other players in the healthcare industry, including the doctors' lobby and insurers, oppose a single-payer system. But they seemed content to keep relatively quiet Tuesday rather than become live targets.

Christopher Ohman, president of the California Assn. of Health Plans, emphasized the sliver of common ground his trade group shares with Moore: Both want everyone to have health insurance.

"We know the system isn't perfect," he told reporters. "No system serving 300 million people will be." But "bringing a huge new government bureaucracy is not the way to fix American's healthcare."

Moore predicted insurers would fight intensely to oppose any healthcare changes that call for the abolition of their product.

"They're going to fight this, and they're going to scare people," he told legislators. "Ooh, socialized medicine: bad. Really? Isn't that what our police departments are? Socialized? Run by the government? Free service? You think anybody would ever ask if the fire department should have to post a profit?"

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you know, if they made this movie non-profit, it would really be something.

you wish everything was non-profit, ya commie bastard.

and why is the "i" in lower case?

Quote from: Pubrick on June 13, 2007, 09:45:44 PM
and why is the "i" in lower case?

metaphor for american healthcare treating the individual like a lower-class thing?

i don't know but in this pic it looks like s colon cko.

Quote from: MacGuffin on June 13, 2007, 12:02:29 PM
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Theres a DVD screener of this movie already out. I dled it this morning and I'm watching it now.

Great quality. And Moore won't care if you DL it and don't pay to see it, he'll probably actually be FOR IT, since you aern't giving money to the man!

It's the same as all his other movies, same sense of humor, same use of pop songs playing while asking questions, etc, etc.

Quote from: Stefen on June 14, 2007, 07:51:06 PM
Theres a DVD screener of this movie already out. I dled it this morning and I'm watching it now.

Great quality. And Moore won't care if you DL it and don't pay to see it, he'll probably actually be FOR IT, since you aern't giving money to the man!

Moore's 'Sicko' hit by Web pirates
Source: Los Angeles Times

Movie pirates are flooding the Web with bootlegged copies of "Sicko" two weeks before the Michael Moore healthcare documentary is due in theaters.

The renegade filmmaker, who has taken on the system in films such as his General Motors-bashing "Roger & Me" and "Fahrenheit 9/11," his incendiary take on the Iraq war, now finds himself the victim of a group of renegades who are widely sharing copies of the film.

Weinstein Co. spokeswoman Sarah Rothman said in a statement: "We are responding aggressively to protect our film ... but from our research it is clear that people interested in the [healthcare] movement are excited to go to the theater so they can be part of the experience and fight to reform healthcare."

As to whether the pirating of "Sicko" took the studio by surprise, Rothman noted that, "Healthcare impacts everybody right in their homes, and it is not surprising that people are eager to see 'Sicko.' "

Though the Weinstein Co. may be encouraged by the early interest in and pirating of "Sicko," the National Assn. of Theater Owners reacted with less enthusiasm.

"The vast majority of movie theft incidents (over 90%), don't occur until wide theatrical release happens," said NATO President John Fithian. "Studios, theater operators and all our industry allies make extensive efforts to prevent movie theft, or at least postpone it as long as possible."

U.S. theaters faced $670 million in lost revenue last year due to movie theft, according to a NATO study.

"Those kind of losses are unacceptable to any business," Patrick Corcoran, the association's director of media and research, said. Moore's new movie details not only the shortcomings of U.S. health insurance — which leaves tens of millions without coverage and forces the uninsured to make bank-breaking choices about treatments — but also holds up as an attainable option the socialized medicine in France, Canada and Cuba.

There were two screenings of the film in Sacramento on Wednesday, one for politicians, another for nurses. Those showings followed the documentary's much-publicized world premiere at the Cannes Film Festival late last month.

"Sicko" is scheduled for theatrical release June 29.

Last movie I saw in the theater?

Caddyshack II.

I never go to the movies anymore, I just DL everything.

I support the artists by going to their concerts when they come to town and buying merch.

Fuck the man.

Your strange customs frighten me. Congratulations!

Thanks

I want to say that this is the best documentary Moore has done thus far. He does a really good job of looking at both sides and answering the "What about those who say this?" questions. It makes me sad that he is in both of the posters for the film because he has successfully made a documentary about a subject that extends beyond his ego and his agenda. I watched this expecting another Michael Moore: Investigative Reporter on the Prowl documentary, but also knowing that it was pretty well received at Cannes, so my expectations were pretty neutral. In the end, I was impressed.

It's not really a left or right type doc. Well, it's definitely to the left, but it's sole, hidden, veiled agenda isn't to attack the republican party like his other docs were. I hate the repubs as much as anyone, but it's nice to get a doc from Moore that is just about something that everyone should care about.

Michael Moore On 'Sicko' Leak: 'I'm Just Happy That People Get To See My Movies'
Film's distributor, however, is determined to track down, take legal action against Internet pirates.
Source: MTV

"Do they think I did it?" Michael Moore said, his eyes darting back and forth. "Do they think the pharmaceutical companies did it so maybe they could destroy the box office for this movie? No! That wouldn't happen, would it?"

With a conspiratorial laugh, Moore admitted that he has no idea how "Sicko," his new documentary about the health care industry, found its way on the Internet two weeks before the national theatrical release on June 29. But he doesn't seem to mind.

"I'm just happy that people get to see my movies," Moore said. "I'm not a big supporter of the copyright laws in this country. I thought Napster was a good idea."

While that's a noble statement coming from the country's most famously outspoken liberal filmmaker, the businesspeople behind "Sicko," including distributor the Weinstein Company, aren't nearly as enthused.

"They're out there listening to this right now and they're going crazy that I'm in here saying that it's OK," Moore said.

Going crazy? Maybe. Getting really angry seems more accurate. In a statement to MTV News, Peter Hurwitz, general counsel for the Weinstein Company, said his company is outraged by the illegal pirating of the film.

"Every DVD screener that comes from the Weinstein Company is watermarked and traceable," the statement read. "We are actively investigating those who illegally uploaded 'Sicko' to the Internet, and we will take the strongest possible legal action."

Indeed, MTV News has confirmed that the Weinstein Company has hired Kroll Associates — the internationally famous security firm whose clients include the U.S. government and, before 9/11, the World Trade Center — to track down the Internet pirates.

Yet Moore doesn't seem to care. "I don't understand bands or filmmakers or whatever who oppose sharing, having their work be shared with people, because I think it only increases your fanbase.

"You know, when I was a kid, there were vinyl record albums and then cassette tapes came along, and people started making cassette tapes," Moore continued. "And I remember one day someone giving me a cassette tape of an album called London Calling by a group called the Clash. And I thought, 'Wow, this is really cool.' And suddenly I became a Clash fan. From that point on, I bought their albums and I went to their concerts. And they ended up making money off me — because somebody gave me a free tape of their music."

Perhaps Moore hasn't noticed the declining revenue of the music industry. But he does know what his intentions were for "Sicko."

"Let me say this: I'm a filmmaker, and I made this film for you to see it on a 40-foot screen," Moore said. "If I just wanted to make a TV show on a little screen, I'd do that. Or if I wanted to do something for your laptop or your iPod, I would go do that.

"There's a real visceral, emotional response people have in my documentaries, and I want you to come to the movie theater and have that collective feeling with people," he added.

Bucking tradition, several newspapers on Tuesday (June 19) published reviews of "Sicko." Typically, editors wait until the film's actual release date before printing the reviews.

Moore has taken everything in stride.

"When television was invented, they said, 'Oh, that's the end of the movies. TV's killing the movies.' Didn't kill the movies," Moore said. "Then they invented the VCR. 'Oh, that's gonna kill the movies. People are just gonna stay home and watch movies.' Didn't kill the movies.

"Nothing's gonna kill the movies because people want to get out of the house on a Friday night and go somewhere and do something," he continued. "People are still going to ask people out on dates, and it's a cheap way to go and spend a couple of hours before you go and do the thing you really want to be doing on the date."

That doesn't mean that the liberal baron isn't above a little conspiracy theory on how the film made it onto the Internet.

Moore said that based on his film's opening-weekend gross, his distributor will then decide how many screens to put the film on throughout the country. Therefore, if so many people watch "Sicko" on the Internet that the opening-weekend gross is less than expected, "Sicko" won't be released on as many screens nationwide. Fewer people will get to see the movie.

"Perhaps these people who are downloading it are becoming tools and stooges of these pharmaceutical companies," Moore said.

'Sicko' makes early appointment
Source: Hollywood Reporter

Michael Moore's heathcare documentary "Sicko," which is to roll out nationwide June 29, will open a week early on Friday in New York City, where it will play an exclusive engagement at the AMC-Loews Lincoln Square Theater. Additionally, public sneak previews of the film will be held at more than 40 theaters around the country on Saturday.

Following Monday's night's premiere of the film in New York, Weinstein Co. cochairman Harvey Weinstein, said, "Ever since the film began generating tremendous word of mouth we have been contemplating opening 'Sicko' in one theater in New York City and sneaking the film in the top markets across the country, and last night validated that plan."

Quote from: MacGuffin on June 19, 2007, 11:01:43 PM
Michael Moore's heathcare documentary

mmmmm, heathcare

Filmmaker Moore wishes Bush well at L.A. rally

Filmmaker Michael Moore on Tuesday launched into the final days before the U.S. debut of his movie "SiCKO" with two things that might surprise his detractors: a call for compassion for others and well wishes for President George W. Bush.

Moore is the director behind 2004's anti-Bush documentary, "Fahrenheit 9/11," and he is back on the attack with this Friday's release of "SiCKO," which aims to expose weaknesses in U.S. health care.

At a rally on Tuesday on the steps of Los Angeles' City Hall, the fiery filmmaker recalled his grandfather as a doctor who "wanted to help people, not make a buck."

Moore remembered nuns who schooled him as a boy and taught "the most important lesson, which is we will be judged by how we treat the least among us."

After his speech, a reporter asked if he had one thing to say to President Bush, what it might be. Moore replied in a soft voice: "I would wish him well, and ask him to please bring the troops (in Iraq) home."

To be sure, his speech had its share of barbs for politicians as well as U.S. health care providers. Moore compared Americans' payment of health insurance premiums to gamblers betting in a Las Vegas casino because, he said, insurors try to avoid paying claims.

But the compassion that sometimes filled his voice was noteworthy and in tune with the more humanistic tone of "SiCKO," compared to the combativeness of "Fahrenheit."

"This is the movie where Michael Moore gets a few Michael More haters off his back," wrote a review in show business newspaper The Hollywood Reporter. "Not that 'SiCKO,' ... avoids Moore's usual oversimplification and cute stunts. But the gist of his arguments is sound, and only a wealthy HMO executive would claim no problem exists in American medical care."

Audiences will likely find it difficult to be unsympathetic toward the numerous people Moore introduces in "SiCKO" who have had health problems and failed to receive adequate care or were bankrupted by paying bills that insurance companies denied.

After more than a month of promotions at festivals and screenings around the United States, "SiCKO" lands in roughly 440 theaters on Friday, but box office watchers said not to expect the lofty numbers of "Fahrenheit" given the low theater count, less controversial subject and competition from family film "Ratatouille" and adventure "Live Free or Die Hard."

"I just hope it ignites the spark that will lead to health care for all Americans," Moore said of his hopes for the film.

I really liked this. I think his last three films, which I saw, were very good. This one in particular explores different points of view. Although there are many experiences and things that I know that are not true, it makes a good point on healthcare which is the main topic.

I hope it gets a lot of attention and viewers like Farenheit 9/11... a lot of people need to be aware of how things are.

i got the pirate copy but i stopped watching after the first ten minutes or so. and then i erased it.  his way of narrating is ludicrous.  i fucking dislike michael moore.  i can't believe i thought farenheit was good at some point of my life. 

Borat helps Moore make 'Sicko' side trip

Michael Moore looked to his friend Borat to help muster the nerve to sail into Guantanamo Bay.

Moore met "Borat" creator Sasha Baron Cohen at last fall's Toronto International Film Festival. Cohen was there to screen "Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan," which went on to become a $100 million hit, while Moore showed off footage shot for his health-care documentary, "Sicko," which was to open nationwide Friday.

Cohen told Moore he had drawn inspiration from the filmmaker's documentaries, in which Moore doggedly pursues corporate and political bosses and puts himself into uncomfortable situations.

Moore said Cohen thanked him for helping to provide the courage for his own daring adventures on "Borat," in which Cohen's Kazakh alter-ego wrestles naked with his portly producer and draws the ire of a rodeo crowd for butchering the national anthem.

"I said to him, 'But yeah, I've never done anything like wrestle naked with another guy on the floor of an insurance-brokers or mortgage-brokers convention," Moore told The Associated Press. "So after I saw 'Borat,' if he says I was an inspiration for those things, I now have to up the ante for him. So we sailed into the mined waters of Guantanamo Bay with sick 9/11 workers and a bullhorn."


The scene in "Sicko" features Moore calling to guards at the U.S. prison in Guantanamo, Cuba, which houses terror suspects captured in military operations.

After seeing news reports about quality medical treatment the prison provided detainees, Moore went there to seek similar care for ailing Sept. 11 rescue workers who were having trouble getting health coverage in the United States.

Moore got no response from Guantanamo, so he took the workers to Cuba, where they received treatment. The U.S. Treasury Department began an investigation in May on whether Moore's trip violated the trade embargo prohibiting travel to Cuba.

What was Moore thinking as he stood on the boat, calling through a bullhorn outside Guantanamo?

"Two thoughts. I've never seen anybody sail a boat into Guantanamo Bay in a movie or on TV. I've never seen that," Moore said. "And the second thought: What the hell am I doing? There's mines. This whole bay is mined, I think, by the Cubans and the Americans on each other's sides. There's guard towers, there's soldiers with guns. How crazy is this?"

Quote from: MacGuffin on June 29, 2007, 01:06:35 AMSo we sailed into the mined waters of Guantanamo Bay with sick 9/11 workers and a bullhorn."

yeah, all that was missing was the Benny Hill music.

This felt like a hard punch in the stomach, and I needed it. Bowling for Columbine and Fahrenheit 9/11 surprised me and made me think, sure... but this is on an entirely different level. I cried like a baby.

Michael Moore's finances in robust health
The 'Sicko' director has an unprecedented deal for the documentary's profits, which he says ensures his continued independence.
Source: Los Angeles Times

Thanks to a lucrative contract negotiated with the Weinstein Co. by his talent agent, Endeavor's Ari Emanuel, Michael Moore is in line to receive 50% of "Sicko's" gross profits — arguably one of the most lucrative deals on Hollywood's books, richer even than that enjoyed by the likes of Tom Cruise, Julia Roberts and director Peter Jackson. After theater owners have taken their cut, in other words, "Sicko's" profits will be split in half between Moore and Harvey and Bob Weinstein, whose Weinstein Co. is releasing the film nationally today.

And that's not the only place Moore's deal eclipses almost all movie deals. While most actors and directors get a cut calculated on 20% of a film's DVD revenue, Moore's cut of those earnings is calculated based on all of the DVD proceeds. Of course, since Moore's films take in far less than most big-studio movies, hisbigger slice is of a much smaller pie.

The ramifications of that loaded deal are not lost on the filmmaker, particularly since "Sicko" is arguably his most populist film yet.

"It's a really interesting irony for me," Moore says, as his chauffeured Lexus SUV (a hybrid) steers through afternoon traffic on the filmmaker's return from a taping of "The Tonight Show With Jay Leno."

While some filmmakers' wealth can make their films seem elitist, Moore argues that his moviemaking and financial accomplishments actually have allowed him to remain even more focused on the real world.

"What it should do to me is remind me every single day that I have an even greater responsibility to do good with the success that I have been blessed with," Moore says. "I need to make sure that I am able to make the next film with the money that I have made on this film."

By being financially independent, Moore says, he is insulated from the corporate pressures that might try to dilute his impassioned documentaries, which include "Roger & Me," "Bowling for Columbine" and the Oscar-winning "Fahrenheit 9/11."

"The money allows me to never have to give in, never compromise," says Moore, wearing his trademark T-shirt, jeans and windbreaker, his Michigan State baseball hat off for the moment. "Nothing can ever be held over my head in the sense of, 'If you don't do this, we won't give you your money!' 'Oh, wow, I guess I'll be in really bad shape, won't I?'

"That's an enormous bit of freedom that I have — to stay completely true to the things I believe in. But I have an even greater responsibility because I have been blessed with that great success. I challenge myself with that, constantly."

During Moore's visit to Los Angeles this week, it was easy to see the different worlds in which he moves. On Monday night, he unveiled "Sicko" at an outdoor screening in front of 200 homeless people on skid row. The next night, he introduced the film to some of the town's richest residents at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences' theater in Beverly Hills.

Moments after sitting on Leno's "Tonight Show" couch, Moore mingled with the production crew, several of whom shared their healthcare horror stories and asked what they could do to improve the nation's healthcare system.

Moore says he had not been prepared for that kind of reaction. He knew that nearly everybody had their own horrible insurance tales — he received 25,000 e-mails when he solicited such stories — but he didn't expect that "Sicko" would encourage so much activism.

"Certainly, the No. 1 question I get asked is, 'What can I do?' " Moore says. "I am not prepared for that. Because I am not leading a movement to revolutionize the healthcare system in America. I am making a movie. I have spent a year and a half making this film, and this is my contribution."

Unlike most other filmmakers who decry piracy, Moore says he doesn't really mind that "Sicko" was available for unauthorized Internet downloading well before the film was released theatrically — even though it has taken money right out of his pocket.

"Harvey [Weinstein] cares deeply," Moore says. "But I want people to see it, and I believe information and art should be shared. I don't believe I am the owner of that. Now, I don't think you have the right to download my work and sell it for a profit. But I just disagree with this whole concept that sharing is bad."

"If Harvey were sitting here, he'd say, 'Well, you'd make less money.' And I'd say, 'That's exactly right. Because I don't need to make all the money I make.' "

Moore says his first-class travel, accommodations and car service are not his choice, or even his preference (the latter statement has been disputed by some people who have worked with him).

"Harvey pays for all this," he says. "I would never stay at the Four Seasons, with all due respect to the Four Seasons. If I were coming out here on my own, I would never stay there. They pay for that because that's the workplace and I'm working and we do the junket there."

People who resent his wealth, Moore says, are not generally working-class stiffs like himself who have moved into the upper class. "When one of us succeeds, we're happy about that. We don't begrudge that. The begrudging that comes from my success or my financial success comes from people who grew up in a little nicer home and somehow didn't get the same break that I was fortunate enough to get in this business. So they are embittered."

Moore says he still likes living in Michigan and the friends he has there. If money has changed him, he says, why haven't his movies changed too?

Eighteen years ago this September he was sent first-class tickets to come out here and promote "Roger & Me." "So look at the films in between," he says as his driver pulls into the Four Seasons driveway, "and ask yourself if any of that has really mattered."

Source: Hollywood Elsewhere

Yesterday's big argument on CNN's "Situation Room" between Sicko director Michael Moore and host Wolf Blitzer was splendid, riveting television and one of the strongest truth-in-media grenade blasts that has ever been felt on a mainstream news show.

Before bringing Moore on Blitzer presented a video report by CNN's medical correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta that reviewed Moore's occasional fact-fudging and simplifying in Sicko (which is true in some instances), particularly focusing on Moore's unmitigated admiration of Canadian and European health systems. But it was a typically slanted report that quoted a typical corporate-minded anti-universal health care analyst. Moore was understandably pissed and hit the roof when questioned, calling the report "biased" and "crap."

Moore then derided Gupta and Blitzer for spinning the Big Lie. He asked Blitzer to "tell the truth to the American people...just once...you guys have such a poor track record, and for me to come on here and listen to that kind of crap....you fudged the facts about this issue and the war in Iraq...why did it take you so long, Wolf, to take on Vice President Cheney? I'm just wondering when you're going to apologize to the American people and the troops....I just wonder when the American people are going to turn off their TV sets and stop listening to this stuff."

And then at the very end Lou Dobbs comes on and says Moore "as more of a left-wing promoter than Cesar Chavez, for crying out loud!" Dobbs is my idea of a real establishment prig, and the Cesar Chavez that I came to know in The Revolution Won't Be Televized isn't such a bad guy.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JpKoN40K7mA

I don't think any self respecting human being with an education (or at the very least, a brain) watches CNN, FNC, or MSNBC. Those channels don't have news, they have opinion. It's a bunch of people arguing for one side or the other. Everyone is just running in place thinking their making ground while shouting and pointing fingers.

If Jesus returned these channels wouldn't even be reporting about it, they'd just be arguing about it.

No, they'd just start reporting on the war once they realized that Jesus didn't bring Anna Nicole with him.

that's one pretty cool thing about michael moore--he'll throw down anywhere and he knows how to beat the news clowns at their game.

as for the movie, I saw it last friday night.  I wanted to see ratatoulie but the girl bought the tickets already.  the human aspect of it was really good--the heartbreaking stories were affecting and outrageous, but I fell asleep during a lot of that European healthcare stuff, only to wake up for the climax.

yeah, any news program that actually has a segment called "reality check" deserves a beating.  I think the news used to be just as biased, but now it's just a lot tackier.  I don't mind biased news--like the new york times, I know it's middle class snobbery at its finest, and I can wade through that, but come on, spinners--have some class.

edit: nevermind--Michael Moore's website has a "sicko truth squad".

The more I think about it the more I think this movie was just cheesy.

The emotional aspects of it felt so scripted it's silly.

The whole Cuba trip and how Cuban doctors and nurses are like angels with their warm embraces and hugs and heartfelt reasurrances. SCRIPTED.

Then the whole Cuban firefighters presenting the 9/11 rescue workers with trophies and hugs was so stupid. You could see everyone looking OC to read the cue cards.

obviously that was staged, but the response from the subjects were genuine.  that's what moves people, genuine emotions.

Well, it didn't move me.

He should direct Chicken Soup For The Soul next.

CNN, Moore trade 'Sicko' accusations

NEW YORK -- "Sicko" filmmaker Michael Moore called a truce Monday in his weeklong fight with CNN that flared when the network accused him of fudging facts in his popular documentary about the health-care system.

Moore had promised the network over the weekend that "I'm about to become your worst nightmare," leading CNN to post on its Web site a remarkably lengthy response to his accusations.

He noted in an interview Monday that CNN had admitted to two mistakes in reporting on "Sicko" and that he's willing to move on.

"I trust the intelligence of the American people," Moore told The Associated Press. "I don't think there's a whole lot more to do with this other than I and others are going to be a lot more skeptical with what I see on CNN."

CNN, in its statement, noted that it has given Moore multiple opportunities to discuss his concerns about the report on the air.


"It's ironic that someone who has made a career out of holding powerful interests accountable is so sensitive to having his own work held up to the light by impartial journalists, as we did in our examination of 'Sicko,"' CNN said.

Shortly before Moore appeared for an interview with CNN's Wolf Blitzer last week, the network ran a report by Dr. Sanjay Gupta that had done some fact-checking on Moore's movie. Gupta's report made Moore furious, leading to a contentious segment with Blitzer and a debate with Gupta on "Larry King Live" later in the week.

Gupta addressed several statistics in "Sicko" before concluding: "No matter how much Moore fudged the facts -- and he did fudge some facts -- there is one thing everyone can agree on: the (health care) system here should be far better."

In Gupta's report, CNN had said that Moore had reported that Cuba spends $25 per person for health care. In fact, the movie estimates Cuba's spending at $251 per person. CNN blamed a transcription error for its mistake and apologized for it on and off the air.

The network accuses Moore of "cherry-picking" numbers from different academic studies to make his arguments stronger. CNN said it believes in essentially comparing apples with apples. Moore said he tried to use the most recent data available.

Moore was also angry that Gupta interviewed Paul Keckley, who works for the Deloitte Center for Health Solutions, as a critic of "Sicko." Moore said Deloitte's chairman is Tommy Thompson, President Bush's former health and human services secretary, and that Keckley had made political contributions to Republican candidates and organizations.

The second mistake came not in Gupta's original report -- where Keckley was correctly identified as representing Deloitte -- but in an on-air debate where Gupta claimed Keckley was working for Vanderbilt University.

"His only affiliation is with Vanderbilt University," Gupta said. "We checked it, Michael. We checked his conflict of interest. We do ask those questions."

While CNN noted Moore was correct in pointing out Keckley had left Vanderbilt last year, it said Keckley's comments were factual and descriptive. Deloitte says it does not have a political agenda.

In other instances, CNN said Moore appeared to be creating a fight where none really existed. The network said it was comfortable letting viewers judge for themselves.

Moore said he believed it was important for him to let people know his side. "In the report they say that I fudged the facts," he said, "and they didn't find a single fact that I fudged."

The only real fact: Michael Moore loves fudge.

At least Michael Moore is on the right track with this one. Columbine felt a bit misguided, F911 felt too pointed, but health care really is a problem that surpasses sad stories and Eurocentric attitudes.  It is constantly suppressed, and so at least 25% of the movie had something worth seeing.