Fahrenheit 9/11

[MacGuffin]

'Fahrenheit' tops $100 million

As "Fahrenheit 9/11" crossed the $100 million mark this weekend, a first for a feature-length, theatrically released documentary, Michael Moore noted that a new benchmark has thus been set for nonfiction films. "Before, you couldn't convince exhibitors that there was an audience for nonfiction films," the Oscar-winning director said. "Now the challenge is on myself and other filmmakers to continue making things for this audience." Moore couldn't be happier about the performance of the film, distributed by Lions Gate, IFC Films and Harvey and Bob Weinstein's Fellowship Adventure Group. As part of his and the film's campaign to defeat President Bush's re-election, Moore said he will attend the Democratic Convention today at the invitation of the Congressional Black Caucus, and Lions Gate is hoping to keep his film in theaters until the November election.

[RegularKarate]

Got this email this morning from the Alamo:

Fahrenheit 9/11 in Bush's Backyard

Fahrenheit 9/11
Hosted by Michael Moore


It seems certain "political forces" have conspired to keep Michael Moore's controversial film 'Fahrenheit 9/11' from screening in the Crawford, Texas area (home of George W. Bush) – can you believe it?! According to an article in the Austin American-Statesman, sparked by an editorial in the Waco Tribune, local residents who found this appalling began a campaign to correct this several weeks ago. Rallying around the Crawford Peace House they contacted Moore directly for some help. Being the gauntlet-throwing kinda guy he is, Moore apparently took a quick liking to the idea. He called Lions Gate. Last week Lions Gate contacted us. And just like that you've got your self an on-the-fly addition to our Rolling Roadshow calendar!

Michael Moore is flying in to host this event and has personally invited the President to attend via an open letter posted to his website!

please bring a battery powered Boom Box, Radio Walkman, or the like!! We think there is a strong possibility that the-powers-that-be will attempt to force us to stop the screening by invoking the Noise Ordinance. Our back-up plan will be to completely shut down the PA system and continue the film with the audio broadcasting from a low-powered FM transmitter

[modage]

pfft.  drama queens.

[Jeremy Blackman]

Once you see Outfoxed do make sure to give us your opinion. I was thinking of buying it.

The editing was average. Every single graphic was obnoxious and distracting. There's one scene with a vertical wipe that slides across this guy's face to avoid a jump cut... I had no idea what it was at first... some kind of wobbly public access level iMovie effect. And the "call to action" thing at the end is just bizarre and unecessary. But the material is so good that I don't really care. To see this irrefutable deconstruction of the Fox propaganda model is incredibly satisfying and sickening.

[coffeebeetle]

Agreed.  Unless you watched Fox every day for an extended period of time, you'd have no idea just how warped their programming really is.  This film put all of this in focus and forced you to see with your own eyes.  The editing was, as JB said, amateurish (that's actually being too kind) but the interviews were EXTREMELY insightful.

[Ravi]

http://www.dvdanswers.com/index.php?r=0&s=1&c=4510&n=1&burl=

Columbia has officially announced Fahrenheit 9/11 which is the latest film from Michael Moore. The new documentary looks at the events following on from September 11th, and how the Bush Administration apparently used the tragic event to push its agenda. The disc will be available to own in shops from the 5th October this year, priced at $28.95. The documentary itself will be presented in 1.78:1 anamorphic widescreen along with an English Dolby Digital 5.1 track. Extras will include a featurette entitled The Release of Fahrenheit 9/11, a montage called The People of Iraq on the Eve of Invasion, a new scene entitled Homeland Security: Miami Style, an Outside Abu Ghraib Prison featurette and an Eyewitness account from Samara, Iraq. Completing the package will be an extended Michael Moore interview with Abdul Henderson, Lila Lipscomb at the Washington D.C. Premiere, a featurette on some Arab-American Comedians and their acts and experiences after 9/11, Condoleeza Rice's 9/11 Commission Testimony and a Rose Garden press briefing after the 9/11 commission appearance.

[MacGuffin]

'9/11' is pirated to Cuban TV
From staff and wire reports

Unauthorized Cuban showings of Michael Moore's "Fahrenheit 9/11" will not disqualify the divisive film from Oscar eligibility for best documentary, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and Lions Gate Releasing said Tuesday.

Under Oscar rules, documentaries can be disqualified if they are shown on television or the Internet within nine months of their theatrical release. Moore's movie, which debuted in June, has been shown on Cuba's state-run television network and in the country's movie theaters, according to CNN and Reuters.

Lions Gate, which is releasing "Fahrenheit 9/11" in the United States, said that the showings in the communist country were not sanctioned and that they originated from a pirated copy.

"We're absolutely not going to punish someone for having their film pirated or stolen," academy spokesman John Pavlik said Tuesday.

Moore's film also remains eligible for consideration in other Oscar categories.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Kuwait bans showings of '9/11'
From Associated Press

Kuwait, a major U.S. ally in the Persian Gulf, has banned Michael Moore's "Fahrenheit 9/11" because it deems the movie insulting to the Saudi Arabian royal family and is critical of America's invasion of Iraq, an official said.

"We have a law that prohibits insulting friendly nations, and ties between Kuwait and Saudi Arabia are special," said Abdul-Aziz Bou Dastour, cinema and production supervisor at the Information Ministry.

[MacGuffin]

FEC dismisses '9/11' electioneering complaint

WASHINGTON -- Federal authorities on Friday dismissed a complaint by a conservative political organization that "Fahrenheit 9/11" violated the nation's election laws.

In a short opinion made public on Friday, the Federal Election Commission ruled that the advertising campaign for the movie complied with the Federal Election Campaign Act of 1971.
 
"The Commission dismissed this matter since the Respondents had not violated the Act because the relevant electioneering communications period does not begin until July 31, 2004 and because the Respondents stated that they did not intend to run such ads during the electioneering communications period," according to an FEC release.

Citizen's Untied and its president, a long-time conservative political investigator, accused the film's director Michael Moore, distributor Lion's Gate Entertainment and producers Harvey and Bob Weinstein and others that it qualified as "electioneering communications" under the act because it was made with the "express purpose of influencing the outcome of the 2004 presidential election."

In particular it accused the film's producers and distributors of violating the election law because the marketing campaign is paid for with corporate money and "includes broadcast ads and the release of a trailer that includes references to and/or images of President Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney, U.S. Sen. Byron L. Dorgan (D-N.D.) and other candidates for federal elective office."

The film's distributors praised the FEC action.

"Since distributors had not violated the Act and had no intention to do so, the Commission unanimously dismissed the case and closed its file on the matter," Lions Gate Films, IFC Films, and the Fellowship Adventure Group said in a release. "The distributors feel that this was the correct and proper response under the circumstances, and applaud the Commission for its timely and appropriate decision."

[rustinglass]

I got an email of this. Well... it is a pretty well constructed argument, judge for yourselves. I think it's the best Michael Moore criticizing I've ever seen.
http://www.davekopel.org/terror/59Deceits.pdf

[Jeremy Blackman]

It's a well-constructed argument because it's from one of the biggest right-wing think tanks (propaganda machines) in the country. There are some valid criticisms (like the Clarke thing). But almost every statement in this document is ten times as false, misleading, and manipulative as the movie itself:

1. The Gore "victory" rally isn't celebrating a Florida win. It  was held before the polls had even opened."

What I got out of that clip is how strange and surreal it was for Gore to be celebrating. You can tell they know they haven't won yet. I mean, just look at De Niro's face.

2. Like all the other networks, Fox mistakenly said that Gore  had won in Florida. The first network to retract the Florida  mistake was CBS, not Fox.

This is really disgusting because the retraction is not even mentioned in the movie... the point is that Fox was the first to call it for Bush and the rest followed. And this article doesn't argue with that. But it makes it seem like Moore was wrong... he wasn't even close to being wrong. Of course Fox wasn't the first to retract the Bush mistake... they would be the last! What is this article trying to do, confuse people?

3. A 6-month study by a consortium of major newspapers  shows that Bush would have won the Florida recount under  any of the terms which Gore sought in his lawsuits.

From Moore's website:

[A] consortium [Tribune Co., owner of the Times; Associated Press; CNN; the New York Times; the Palm Beach Post; the St. Petersburg Times; the Wall Street Journal; and the Washington Post] hired the NORC [National Opinion Research Center, a nonpartisan research organization affiliated with the University of Chicago] to view each untallied ballot and gather information about how it was marked. The media organizations then used computers to sort and tabulate votes, based on varying scenarios that had been raised during the post-election scramble in Florida. Under any standard that tabulated all disputed votes statewide, Mr. Gore erased Mr. Bush's advantage and emerged with a tiny lead that ranged from 42 to 171 votes.  Donald Lambro, "Recount Provides No Firm Answers," Washington Times, November 12, 2001.

"The review found that the result would have been different if every canvassing board in every county had examined every undervote, a situation that no election or court authority had ordered. Gore had called for such a statewide manual recount if Bush would agree, but Bush rejected the idea and there was no mechanism in place to conduct one."   Martin Merzer, "Review of Ballots Finds Bush's Win Would Have Endured Manual Recount," Miami Herald, April 4, 2001.

See also, the following article by one of the Washington Post journalists who ran the consortium recount.  The relevant point is made in Table I of the article. http://www.aei.org/docLib/20040526_KeatingPaper.pdf

4. Investigation by the Palm Beach Post and others shows  that race was not a reason why election officials mistakenly disqualified some voters because they were incorrectly  thought to have felony convictions.

Sorry to dispute the credibility of the Palm Beach Post, but I seriously doubt it was coincidental. Again, from michaelmoore.com...

Database Technologies, a subsidiary of ChoicePoint, "was responsible for bungling an overhaul of Florida's voter registration records, with the result that thousands of people, disproportionately black, were disenfranchised in the 2000 election.  Had they been able to vote, they might have swung the state, and thus the presidency, for Al Gore, who lost in Florida. Oliver Burkeman, Jo Tuckman, "Firm in Florida Election Fiasco Earns Millions from Files on Foreigners," The Guardian, May 5, 2003 http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,12271,949709,00.html.  See also, Atlanta-Journal-Constitution, May 28, 2001.

In 1997, Rick Rozar, the late head of the company bought by ChoicePoint, donated $100,000 to the Republican National Committee. Melanie Eversley, "Atlanta-Based Company Says Errors in Felon Purge Not Its Fault," Atlanta Journal-Constitution, May 28, 2001.  Frank Borman of Database Technologies Inc. has donated extensively to New Mexico Republicans, as well as to the Presidential campaign of George W. Bush. Opensecrets.org, "Frank Borman."

5. Bush's Presidency before 9/11 was not in serious trouble.  No commentator said that he looked like a lame-duck president. Congress had passed his #1 bill (the tax cut) and was  on the way to passing his #2 bill (the education bill). The  scene at the end of the movie in which Bush tells a rich audience "I call you my base," was from an October 2000 charity fund-raiser. Both Gore and Bush spoke at the fund-raiser  and, as is the custom at the fund-raiser, made fun of themselves.

As for Bush's popularity, the polls don't lie. Is it really surprising that the Republican congress liked him? As for the "I call you my base" comment, yes it was a "charity" fundraiser, but a fundraiser for the Catholic church, which, in my mind, is no less corrupt and greedy than Wal-Mart. And his audience was super-rich, which is why he said "This is an impressive crowd - the haves and the have-mores. Some people call you the elites; I call you my base."

I could go on and on through all of them, but I don't feel like writing a novel. They're mostly exclusionary and misleading suggestions that are unsupported by facts. Check out the evidence that Michael Moore has provided. And the most frustrating thing is that it argues with things that aren't even claimed in the movie. Isn't that deceitful?

Some of the later "deceits" are hilarious, especially 54 and 55.

And the end of the article claims he's a life-long Democrat and endorsed Nader in 2000. Is there anything remotely left-wing on his website, besides his token ACLU membership? This man has done more Bush apologizing than Ari Fleischer and has more NRA connections than Ted Nugent. (which mean's he's probably been after Moore since Bowling for Columbine)

[hedwig]

[Ghostboy]

Has anyone read 'Bush's Brain,' that book about Karl Rove? I saw the documentary based on it today, and thought it was a piece of crap...really bad documentary filmmaking which does almost nothing to convince the viewer of Rove's insidious nature...which one would think wouldn't be that hard. Anyway, I'd recommend not seeing the movie and reading the book instead, which the film is basically an 80 minute advertisement for anyway.

[MacGuffin]

Moore reaches deal for book of letters from Iraq
Source: Hollywood Reporter

NEW YORK -- "Fahrenheit 9/11" helmer Michael Moore has inked a deal with publishing house Simon & Schuster to publish a collection of letters sent to the helmer from U.S. troops stationed in Iraq. Slated to hit shelves in November, the tome's title will be "Will They Ever Trust Us Again?" "I'm proud to give voice to the troops who have written to me," Moore said in a statement issued by Simon & Schuster. The publisher is additionally releasing "The Official 'Fahrenheit 9/11' Reader" to coincide with the documentary's DVD/home video rollout in October. The "Reader" contains the full transcript of the film, released by Lions Gate Films, IFC Films and Bob and Harvey Weinstein, as well as additional material. To date, "Fahrenheit" has taken in more than $115 million. Columbia TriStar Home Entertainment will release the record-breaking documentary on video Oct. 5. The deal to acquire "Will They Ever" was brokered by Simon & Schuster executive vp and publisher David Rosenthal and Mort Janklow of Janklow & Nesbit. The letters in the volume were received by Moore during the past year, and much of the correspondence was directed to his Web site, www.michaelmoore.com.

[Jeremy Blackman]

Very good news! Mmmm... thank you MacGuffin.

I just hope it doesn't have him on the cover... not even a Kevin Smith peek-a-boo.

The question, of course, is when in November this book will be published.

[cine]

I just hope it doesn't have him on the cover... not even a Kevin Smith peek-a-boo.

My dream DVD cover is of Michael Moore and Kevin Smith playing peek-a-boo together. Moore on the left, Smith on the right.