Early in David Zucker’s “An American Carol,” we’re offered the protagonist Michael Malone, professional film-maker and rabble-rouser, with his heart in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Zucker, being the smart guy he is, realized a two-dimensional portrayal of Malone (a stand in for Michael Moore) wouldn’t do the film or himself any credit.
He sought to fill this hole by showing Malone as a troubled and unfulfilled artist, searching for his shot at real film and not documentaries.
To paraphrase Malone: “I want to make movies like John Ford.”
Not that Moore has ever given niceties or genial comparisons to his targets.
Two-dimensional would be broad for Moore, who reduces his subjects to sound bytes and hyper-edited, out-of-context renderings that could make Mother Theresa look like Heidi Fleiss. Who can forget “Roger and Me,” and Moore’s scene of mansion parties with polo and the rest – in Detroit of all places.
Moore, never one to lose touch with the zeitgeist, turned his sites on the economy and the financial industry with his latest, “Capitalism: A Love Story.” “A ringing call to wipe out capitalism,” as Kyle Smith put it.
Not enough of a ringing call to avoid distribution and give his film away “to the people,” as you would expect from a card-carrying radical.
I made an effort to review Moore’s latest during the fall. Finding the film would be difficult – not a single theater in my Republican-heavy county was carrying it. The local “art” theater in the past sported marquees like “Gran Torino,” “Brokeback Mountain” and “Slumdog Millionaire,” but not Moore’s latest.
Instead was “G-Force,” featuring Jerry Bruckheimer’s latest creation of capitalistic goodness – a merry band of talking spy-hamsters.
So off I went to find a theater carrying Moore’s spiel. I finally found a location two counties away at the local ultra-mega-ultra-plex, complete with 40 screens. It also cost 20 bucks for a ticket and a box of popcorn.
Given Moore’s spirit of the moment, I decided to speak truth to power and search for the film on uTorrent instead, but it was nowhere to be had. Sure, “Battlefield Earth” was more than available, so was “Slap Shot 2.”
To no avail, no “Capitalism.” But no fear, I can always count on my public college to issue me the latest in liberal propaganda. A week later, my public policy professor entered the room with promises of Michael Moore. Sadly, it was excerpts from some PBS talking-head, a few choice clips and Moore’s rant on owning stock.
Surprised as I was to see Moore defiantly practice the values of that which he despises, I was less surprised by the clips I viewed in class. One choice – and highly edited – shot featured the “evil banker of the moment” from the 1980s telling Ronald Reagan to hurry up with a speech while the two stood side-by-side at a podium – obvious evidence that Reagan was a puppet for the financial industry.
The shock to the system was too much to bear, and I summoned all my wherewithal to piece together enough fortitude to combat this ugly thought – what if the evil Saudis who ruled the world from Fahrenheit 9-11, fought the evil insurance companies that ruled the world from “Sicko,” who in turn fought the evil car companies that ruled the world in “Roger and Me?”
With all these clandestine operations pulling the strings, one would think all-out Armageddon would breakout at any moment. I supposed we have Moore to thank.
After Moore’s quick lesson on finances, we viewed a scene of a family with a defaulted home. This quickly sped into PBS’s own reporting on the subject, featuring a “typical Brooklyn neighborhood” and a map of “red flags” showing all the defaulted mortgages in the neighborhood.
After much haranguing, the interviewer asked one resident why she didn’t read the entirety of her loan papers: “Who reads all that stuff? It was so long.” When the community organizer came on, I quickly took a bathroom break.
Moore took a brief shot at Chris Dodd and his ilk. While some would wish to give him credit for that, I don’t. Moore’s solution to our problems is a system in which Dodd has all the control.
Watching the small smattering of footage from his film, one thought rang through my mind – Bernie Madoff is going to jail, Chris Dodd is up for re-election this fall and has the Vice President campaigning for him. Now tell me, who needs further regulation?
“An American Carol” ends with a majestic shot of Monument Valley. It was John Ford’s signature setting. As Michael Malone sits with his nephew on his lap, we are treated to John F. Kennedy.
According to Smith, Moore finished his screed with a French socialist anthem and a call for a new economic order – I wish I could have saw it.
His wish – to have Dodd run the entire financial system. Madoff and company always have the market to deal with. You can’t cheat death and you can’t cheat the market, eventually it will get you. It exists whether you want it or not. What options do we have to keep Moore’s new leaders of the financial realm honest?
The answer – none.
One adage was tied to Ford and his films – “He didn’t make them as they were, but how they ought to be.” Moore has established his films reflect nothing of what is, and I’m not sure he even knows what they ought to be. What they are is bitter.
Pete Townsend had a saying about the emerging punk rock scene in the late 1970s – “The uglies had won.” Moore, his style and his politics are as ugly as they come.
on 
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Michael Moore: The anti-John Ford
January 5, 2010
(Guest post by JohnFN)
Early in David Zucker’s “An American Carol,” we’re offered the protagonist Michael Malone, professional film-maker and rabble-rouser, with his heart in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Zucker, being the smart guy he is, realized a two-dimensional portrayal of Malone (a stand in for Michael Moore) wouldn’t do the film or himself any credit.
He sought to fill this hole by showing Malone as a troubled and unfulfilled artist, searching for his shot at real film and not documentaries.
To paraphrase Malone: “I want to make movies like John Ford.”
Not that Moore has ever given niceties or genial comparisons to his targets.
Two-dimensional would be broad for Moore, who reduces his subjects to sound bytes and hyper-edited, out-of-context renderings that could make Mother Theresa look like Heidi Fleiss. Who can forget “Roger and Me,” and Moore’s scene of mansion parties with polo and the rest – in Detroit of all places.
Moore, never one to lose touch with the zeitgeist, turned his sites on the economy and the financial industry with his latest, “Capitalism: A Love Story.” “A ringing call to wipe out capitalism,” as Kyle Smith put it.
Not enough of a ringing call to avoid distribution and give his film away “to the people,” as you would expect from a card-carrying radical.
I made an effort to review Moore’s latest during the fall. Finding the film would be difficult – not a single theater in my Republican-heavy county was carrying it. The local “art” theater in the past sported marquees like “Gran Torino,” “Brokeback Mountain” and “Slumdog Millionaire,” but not Moore’s latest.
Instead was “G-Force,” featuring Jerry Bruckheimer’s latest creation of capitalistic goodness – a merry band of talking spy-hamsters.
So off I went to find a theater carrying Moore’s spiel. I finally found a location two counties away at the local ultra-mega-ultra-plex, complete with 40 screens. It also cost 20 bucks for a ticket and a box of popcorn.
Given Moore’s spirit of the moment, I decided to speak truth to power and search for the film on uTorrent instead, but it was nowhere to be had. Sure, “Battlefield Earth” was more than available, so was “Slap Shot 2.”
To no avail, no “Capitalism.” But no fear, I can always count on my public college to issue me the latest in liberal propaganda. A week later, my public policy professor entered the room with promises of Michael Moore. Sadly, it was excerpts from some PBS talking-head, a few choice clips and Moore’s rant on owning stock.
Surprised as I was to see Moore defiantly practice the values of that which he despises, I was less surprised by the clips I viewed in class. One choice – and highly edited – shot featured the “evil banker of the moment” from the 1980s telling Ronald Reagan to hurry up with a speech while the two stood side-by-side at a podium – obvious evidence that Reagan was a puppet for the financial industry.
The shock to the system was too much to bear, and I summoned all my wherewithal to piece together enough fortitude to combat this ugly thought – what if the evil Saudis who ruled the world from Fahrenheit 9-11, fought the evil insurance companies that ruled the world from “Sicko,” who in turn fought the evil car companies that ruled the world in “Roger and Me?”
With all these clandestine operations pulling the strings, one would think all-out Armageddon would breakout at any moment. I supposed we have Moore to thank.
After Moore’s quick lesson on finances, we viewed a scene of a family with a defaulted home. This quickly sped into PBS’s own reporting on the subject, featuring a “typical Brooklyn neighborhood” and a map of “red flags” showing all the defaulted mortgages in the neighborhood.
After much haranguing, the interviewer asked one resident why she didn’t read the entirety of her loan papers: “Who reads all that stuff? It was so long.” When the community organizer came on, I quickly took a bathroom break.
Moore took a brief shot at Chris Dodd and his ilk. While some would wish to give him credit for that, I don’t. Moore’s solution to our problems is a system in which Dodd has all the control.
Watching the small smattering of footage from his film, one thought rang through my mind – Bernie Madoff is going to jail, Chris Dodd is up for re-election this fall and has the Vice President campaigning for him. Now tell me, who needs further regulation?
“An American Carol” ends with a majestic shot of Monument Valley. It was John Ford’s signature setting. As Michael Malone sits with his nephew on his lap, we are treated to John F. Kennedy.
According to Smith, Moore finished his screed with a French socialist anthem and a call for a new economic order – I wish I could have saw it.
His wish – to have Dodd run the entire financial system. Madoff and company always have the market to deal with. You can’t cheat death and you can’t cheat the market, eventually it will get you. It exists whether you want it or not. What options do we have to keep Moore’s new leaders of the financial realm honest?
The answer – none.
One adage was tied to Ford and his films – “He didn’t make them as they were, but how they ought to be.” Moore has established his films reflect nothing of what is, and I’m not sure he even knows what they ought to be. What they are is bitter.
Pete Townsend had a saying about the emerging punk rock scene in the late 1970s – “The uglies had won.” Moore, his style and his politics are as ugly as they come.
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