Michael Moore. What can be said about this extraordinary filmmaker that has not been said already? He’s made some of my favorite films like The Big One, Roger & Me, and the award winning Bowling For Columbine and has single-handedly put politics into the mainstream with his eye opening arguments about the state of America. But he’s done so through humor and interesting books that tell you what’s going on in Lamen’s Terms instead of in a boring technique that is best suited for propaganda, which is what people think Moore is creating with the release of Fahrenheit 9/11, which is one of the best films to be released this year without a doubt for many different reasons. His views have been satirical, misleading, and incompetent, but if you have noticed these thoughts have been coming from a lot of the pig-headed right wing fundamentalists out there who have nothing better to say.

Since the 1980s Michael Moore has been creating films for American audiences that are educational, yet very real and frightening whether he’s talking about the state of American employment or how bad our economy is. The most commercialized of his films, Bowling For Columbine, won an Academy Award last year and rightfully so since it was a dramatic view of gun control in America and how easy it is for people to access guns. It left you wide awake afterwards, but it also made you think about how Michael Moore would be able to top what he had done. With Fahrenheit 9/ll, he gives a huge rant of mostly anti-Bush statements and facts that would make democrats extremely happy while giving conservative republicans more reasons to despise the smart filmmaker. A lot of people will call this one sided and it is. It’s Michael Moore’s opinion most of the time, but he also gives major facts to back up what he’s been saying just to prove that what he’s saying isn’t a satire like most people think. That’s pretty cool, if I say so myself.

Fahrenheit 9/11 came out late last month alongside some really big movies like Spider Man 2 and White Chicks and everything was against the movie. TV stations didn’t want to play trailers for the movie until late at night, which basically isolated the movie goers, but gave it a word of mouth advantage that’s pretty admirable. Miramax, which is owned by Disney, didn’t want to release it due to the controversial issues discussed in the seams of the film so Moore had to independently release it with Dog Eat Dog and Lions Gate Films. It’s sort of odd that Disney would deny a movie of this stature, but are gearing up to release a strictly propagandic (another new word, ©) film for kids called America’s Heart And Soul (a movie I will definitely be missing). It just makes you think. But with everything that happened, the movie is bringing in some money due to how truly controversial it is. But it doesn’t purposely come off as just being controversial for the heck of it just to make some bucks (cough, The Passion of The Christ, cough), which is another good thing about this movie.

This is a documentary in case you haven’t been paying attention to what I’ve just written in three paragraphs or if you haven’t heard anything about this movie already. Since this is a documentary there isn’t a storyline per se so it may seem slower paced than people may like, but I didn’t care because I was deeply interested in what was being discussed in the flick. The story is basically Michael Moore’s narrative about how Bush has some family ties with the Saudi’s responsible for September Eleventh and how something fishy is going on between America and the Middle East that citizens don’t know about (and oil isn’t the only thing). The movie also briefly talks about how the 2000 presidential election was a sham and how poorly executed it was and how Bush could have easily cheated his way into the office (which is my personal opinion if you ask me). But a big chunk of the movie is about the whole 9/11 issue and it truly changed America and how years later something still doesn’t smell right about how the government treated the whole tragedy. Does everything end there? Not a chance. Moore then converses about how our government tries to enlist students and minimum wage people into the army through manipulation.

The movie seamlessly talks about these subjects in a smooth pace and when it shifts the focus to talk about something else, it does so in a way that people will not get confused or overwhelmed. A large bit of the movie was about the war in Iraq and how unnecessary it was/is. This will surely be one of the most controversial aspects of the movie because it gives you a timeline of the events that happened before the war started like the government denying that the Iraqi government had weapons of mass destruction and then months later invading the country because of the weapons that they told us in the first place that they had not found. Plus, didn’t a British investigator confirm that there were no weapons? And since we’ve been in the war have we found any weapons? After watching the movie it really got the motor in my head running because it’s so thought-provoking. The social commentary in the movie is a sure enough reason to pull at people’s heartstrings as Michael Moore gets an American family on film holding in tears about their deceased son. This is a movie that will change your life once you watch it and the humane way that the family was captured on film as they were telling their story just makes you really sad.

But then Michael Moore shifts the focus and the movie has its funny parts. This movie will evoke many different feelings from you like sadness, anger, and humor. How many movies can do that? There were times that I was close to tears when it showed some American troops that Michael Moore spoke with killing innocent people with part of a Bloodhound Gang (or should I say RANCID song) playing in the background protesting, “The roof, the roof, the roof is on fire / we don’t need no water let the mother f-er burn / burn mother f-er / burn”, and as I was watching this part of the movie than it really gave me the feeling that everything I’ve been hearing on the news isn’t true (duh). Like about how soldiers don’t like war, but it seemed that these guys were playing Doom out there in the frontlines and were loving it. Anyways, back to comedy. The movie is hilarious. Some parts were sad and anger-inducing, but other times you will be laughing so hard you will feel as if you just popped out one of your ribs. One part in question is when Michael Moore talks to a representative from Congress who admits that Congress never read the very stupid Patriot Act law (which violates every American’s first amendment law, if you don’t already know). After talking to the guy, Moore goes out in an ice cream truck and drives around block reading the law to Congress.

Michael Moore is known for these tactics to get peoples’ attentions sort of like how he organized a protest for laid off workers at the Pay Day factory in The Big One or the whole bullet refund scene in Bowling For Columbine, but he takes the cake in Fahrenheit 9/11 after he talks to the family with the deceased son. He gets brochures for the army after finding that only one congressman has a son in the armed forces and he goes outside of the capital building and tries to have the other congressman sign up their kin, but to no avail. The whole thing was funny and eye opening since none of the politicians signed their kids up; they only ignored the filmmaker. Littered in the movie are things about Bush that are equally funny like little bits of his speeches where he messes up and says something stupid. At the end of the movie is definitely the funniest and best part of the film because after being so glum you are given a gift of laughs as you see Bush trying to explain a metaphor. The results are hilarious.

I eavesdropped on a conversation between a hick and his friend who were sitting in back of me at the movie theatre. It was fifteen minutes before the movie was to start so I had to listen to their banter. One of them was telling the other guy how much he hated Michael Moore and loved Bush. His friend was saying that same thing and was asking why they went to see the movie (and I was wondering the same thing to tell you the truth). They were still ranting on and on about their views of the election when the movie started, but fifteen minutes into the flick they finally shut their mouths and at the end of the matinee they were equally silent and I spied them as I was leaving the theatre and saw that they were very glum as if they really got a lesson out the movie and how their minds were probably changed by the film. This movie definitely has a target audience: independents and democrats, but that doesn’t mean that people in between can’t see the movie and get changed. Some might say how this is propaganda for the donkeys and left wings and although some of it is, if you pay attention to the techniques that Moore uses in order to not isolate any viewers then you will see how truly groundbreaking he is. If you go into the darkened room with an open mind then you will most likely enjoy the film to the full extent, although I have to admit that anti-Bush entrepreneurs will love the movie a whole lot more. It’s a perfect movie for the election season and, in my opinion, it will change the outcome of the race for president.

© Jason Haskins, 2004

“JiggyJay”






Recommended: Yes