Fahrenheit 9/11

[cine]

the way Jack Mathews is speaking in this article, it looks as though Moore made the right choice in going to the PCA.

[Two Lane Blacktop]

He chose to patronize the public as bastions of good taste

As much as I couldn't give a crap about awards and such, this still cracked me up.  

All awards are useless except as publicity devices, correct?  So Moore chose to be present for the one that would give more publicity rather than the one that was "important" because it was from...  er, critics and New York.

It just cracks me up.

2LB

[Myxo]

He chose to patronize the public as bastions of good taste

As much as I couldn't give a crap about awards and such, this still cracked me up.  

All awards are useless except as publicity devices, correct?  So Moore chose to be present for the one that would give more publicity rather than the one that was "important" because it was from...  er, critics and New York.

It just cracks me up.

2LB

Actually, some of the awards are cool. The SAG awards every year are a pretty good barometer of the films for that year. Critics choice awards are good too. Though, neither of them get much publicity so I can see where you're coming from.

[MacGuffin]

Moore Gets No Love From Old High School

Oscar on the shelf or not, Michael Moore is not getting much respect at his old high school. Despite his fame and many honors, the filmmaker has been rejected all four times that he has been nominated for Davison High School's Hall of Fame.

"Would you want him as a role model? Would you want your son or daughter to be like him?" asked Don Hammond, a member of the Hall of Fame selection committee. "I haven't talked to anybody yet who's for him. The word to describe Michael Moore is embarrassing. He embarrasses everybody."

Ryan Eashoo disagrees. The 1997 Davison High graduate has spent 80 hours the last two weeks and $600 of his own money trying to get Moore elected.

"We've been blacklisted," Eashoo, 25, told the Detroit Free Press. "I'm a huge Michael Moore fan. He's a great producer, great filmmaker, always sticking up for minorities. He's kind of an underdog."

So far, Eashoo has 300 signed nominations of Moore. His goal is 2,000 by Feb. 1. The committee meets Feb. 11 to choose its inductees.

[MacGuffin]

Eastwood Threatens Moore

Clint Eastwood has chillingly warned documentary-maker Michael Moore he'll face certain death if he ever points his camera at him. Picking up a Special Film-making Achievement prize for Million Dollar Baby at the National Board Of Review Awards dinner in New York on Tuesday, Eastwood urged the Fahrenheit 9/11 director to avoid making him the subject of a future project if he values his life. However, Eastwood - a staunch supporter of the Republicans - did admit he and Moore have a shared view of how American society should operate. He said, "Michael Moore and I actually have a lot in common - we both appreciate living in a country where there's free expression. But, Michael, if you ever show up at my front door with a camera - I'll kill you." And when Eastwood noticed the audience had erupted in laughter to his threat, he emphasized, "I mean it." However, Moore's representatives insist the comments were intended as a joke: "Michael laughed along with everyone else, and took Mr Eastwood's comments in the lighthearted spirit in which they were given."

[MacGuffin]

A National Guardsman who lost his right arm near the shoulder and left arm above the wrist in Iraq filed suit Friday in Suffolk County, Massachusetts, against filmmaker Michael Moore for allegedly including him in "Fahrenheit 9/11" without his permission, claiming defamation and invasion of privacy. Sergeant Peter Damon, who was injured in October 2003, was featured in a 10-second clip in Moore's documentary that depicted him awaiting surgery at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C. But those 10 seconds of footage were from an interview with NBC News' Brian Williams, and Damon claims that he was never asked, nor did he consent, for the interview to be used elsewhere. Damon says he disagrees politically with Moore and that the interview made it appear as if he were complaining about the war effort instead of talking about the pain he felt when he lost his arms. (Moore has denied any intention to demean the service of U.S. troops through the film.) Damon's seeking $100 million and also named Harvey and Robert Weinstein, Miramax, Lionsgate and NBC in the suit. The Weinsteins, NBC and Lionsgate had no comment.

[©brad]

$100 million? what the fuck.

[modage]

10 seconds, 100 million, thats like 10 million dollars a second!  not even TOM CRUISE makes that kinda money!

[hedwig]

why did it take him two years to realize he wanted to file suit..

[grand theft sparrow]

Because he didn't want to be just another person on the "I hate Michael Moore" bandwagon at the time.  He wanted to make sure that everyone knows that his lawsuit is genuine and not some cheap ploy to exploit Moore's fame for his own personal gain.

[RegularKarate]

If the footage is from an interview that Moore paid to use isn't he covered?

[©brad]

If the footage is from an interview that Moore paid to use isn't he covered?

yes, he should be. the stock house from which he bought the footage from should be liable.

[rustinglass]

did george bush want to be in the movie?

[Jeremy Blackman]

Take a look at the clip. The guy is simply talking about the pain of his injuries... he says nothing that could even be construed as political. He is, however, followed by someone else who does say something political. Maybe that's the complaint. 

I've been waiting for a "Michael Moore lied!" revelation that's actually true, and I'm somewhat disappointed that, yet again, this isn't one. It's simply an effort to make Michael Moore look anti-veteran, which he will, to some, no matter how he responds.

[MacGuffin]

Take a look at the clip. The guy is simply talking about the pain of his injuries... he says nothing that could even be construed as political. He is, however, followed by someone else who does say something political. Maybe that's the complaint. 

Iraq veteran sues Moore over 9/11 film

A veteran who lost both arms in the war in Iraq is suing filmmaker Michael Moore for $85 million, alleging that Moore used snippets of a television interview without his permission to falsely portray him as anti-war in "Fahrenheit 9/11."

Sgt. Peter Damon, a National Guardsman from Middleborough, is asking for damages because of "loss of reputation, emotional distress, embarrassment, and personal humiliation," according to the lawsuit filed in Suffolk Superior Court last week.

Damon, 33, claims that Moore never asked for his consent to use a clip from an interview Damon did with NBC's "Nightly News."

He lost his arms when a tire on a Black Hawk helicopter exploded while he and another reservist were servicing the aircraft on the ground. Another reservist was killed in the explosion.

In his interview with NBC, Damon was asked about a new painkiller the military was using on wounded veterans. He claims in his lawsuit that the way Moore used the film clip in "Fahrenheit 9/11" — Moore's scathing 2004 documentary criticizing the Bush administration and the war in Iraq — makes him appear to "voice a complaint about the war effort" when he was actually complaining about "the excruciating type of pain" that comes with the injury he suffered.

In the movie, Damon is shown lying on a gurney, with his wounds bandaged. He says he feels likes he's "being crushed in a vise."

"But they (the painkillers) do a lot to help it," he says. "And they take a lot of the edge off of it."

Damon is shown shortly after U.S. Rep. Jim McDermott, D-Wash., is speaking about the Bush administration and says, "You know, they say they're not leaving any veterans behind, but they're leaving all kinds of veterans behind."

Damon contends that Moore's positioning of the clip just after the congressman's comments makes him appear as if he feels like he was "left behind" by the Bush administration and the military.

In his lawsuit, Damon says he "agrees with and supports the President and the United States' war effort, and he was not left behind."

He said that, while at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center recovering from his wounds, he had surgery and physical therapy, learned to use prosthetics and live independently. He also said that Homes For Our Troops, a not-for-profit group, built him a house with handicapped accessibility.

"The work creates a substantially fictionalized and falsified implication as a wounded serviceman who was left behind when Plaintiff was not left behind but supported, financially and emotionally, by the active assistance of the President, the United States and his family, friends, acquaintances and community," Damon says in his lawsuit.

Moore did not immediately return calls seeking comment Wednesday. A message was left for Moore at a personal number in New York and with HarperCollins, publisher of Moore's 2002 book, "Stupid White Men...And Other Sorry Excuses for the State of the Nation!"

A spokesman for Miramax Film Corp., also named as a defendant, did not immediately return a call.

Damon did not immediately respond to a request for an interview.

"It's upsetting to him because he's lived his life supportive of his government, he's been a patriot, he's been a soldier, and he's now being portrayed in a movie that is the antithesis of all of that," Damon's lawyer, Dennis Lynch, said.

Damon is seeking $75 million in damages for emotional distress and loss of reputation. His wife is suing for an additional $10 million in damages because of the mental distress caused to her husband, Lynch said.