Posted on 06/13/2004 6:41:01 AM PDT by veronica
If you know someone who likes Michael Moore, you know someone who isn't as smart as they think they are. In fact, there's a pretty good chance that they're not even as smart as I think they are, and that says a lot, because I think they're flat-out stupid. In case you've been luckier than I have and don't know who Michael Moore is, he's a grotesque monster of a man who every few years puts out a documentary that people who consider themselves intellectual hail as brilliant.
Michael Moore's movies are nothing so much as they are dishonest. He's constantly saying things that seem intelligent, but on further examination, aren't. For instance, there's a scene in his documentary Bowling for Columbine in which he says to a man in a Lockheed Martin plant, "Columbine happened down the road from this missile factory. Don't you think there's a connection?" When he said this, I thought to myself, "My heavens, it's all so clear! There's a connection between nuclear weapons and the Trench Coat Mafia!" That is, until the guy to whom the question was posed looked at Michael Moore as if he'd just vomited a live snake onto the floor and said, "Not really. We make nuclear weapons to prevent the Soviets from attacking us, and down the road, some kids went insane and shot up a bunch of innocent people."
Every single scene in Michael Moore's films are like this. They seem to be intelligent; they seem to reveal some deep inner truth, but after a few moments of scrutiny, they fall apart. If you've ever taken an organic chemistry class, you know that there's always a guy who sits up front and looks like he knows everything. You also know there's a difference between looking like you know everything and actually knowing everything. Michael Moore is an expert at looking intelligent, not at being intelligent.
Or take, for instance, the statistics Moore uses in Bowling for Columbine. Toward the middle of the movie, the number of gun-related deaths per country flashes across the screen, and because America's is highest, Moore concludes we're all pistol-packing racists. He doesn't, however, mention any of the circumstances from which the numbers come. For instance, in China most policemen are allowed to kill whoever they want for any infraction of the law without a trial. So, technically, every time a person is killed with a firearm, it's an "execution" and not a "murder." Yet according to Moore, China is a safer place than America, because China has zero gun-related murders a year.
These are just two examples of Michael Moore's modus operandi - take some facts and twist, twist, twist and twist them until they resemble what you want them to resemble. It's a shame he's so fond of making films, for he could probably build an origami space shuttle with his twisting and building skills.
In all fairness, however, my opinion could be wrong. Perhaps Moore is right, and something connects Klebold and Harris with Oppenheimer and Von Braun. Even if that's true, he's still a liar. In his book Stupid White Men, Moore recollects a conversation he had with a man named Fred Barnes. Moore said that Barnes had been on The McLaughlin Group complaining that American students don't know what the Iliad and Odyssey are, but when Moore called and put that question to him, Barnes didn't know either. Fred Barnes is an hypocrite, case closed, right? Not quite. The problem is that this conversation, which Michael Moore claims occurred, did not happen. It's all a fat, stinking lie. Fred Barnes claims it never happened, and although Moore's book has plenty of footnotes and source references, there isn't one for the "conversation" he had with Fred Barnes. That's because it's hard to cite something that never happened. As another example, Michael Moore claimed that Disney told him the day before his latest film, Fahrenheit 9/11, was to open, that they weren't going to allow it to be distributed. Moore claimed in the New York Times that he'd been told the reason was because Disney doesn't want to bad-mouth the brother of Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, who gives Disney substantial amounts of cash every year. Both of these are flat-out lies.
Disney told Moore about the distribution over a year ago. He made these insane claims to try to make it look like "The Man" was trying to silence him. Although he was told that the reason Disney wouldn't distribute it is because of Jeb Bush, he was told that by his agent's brother's pool cleaner or someone, and he was just repeating a rumor he heard. That hardly classifies as true.
If Moore's not above lying directly to the public about things like this in a pitiful effort to drive up sales, what makes the public think that he won't tell them lies in his "documentaries"? No matter what the crowd at Cannes says, his works are terrible to the point of frustrating my attempts to describe how bad they are. You may have heard he won an award recently at the Cannes Film Festival. Somehow, I don't suspect the judges were talking about the subtle use of shadow and contrast, the almost Kafkaesque use of symbology reminiscent of Pynchon's early works during the scene in which Moore talks about how President Bush's library burned down and he wasn't even done coloring all the books when they chose to give him the award. They probably just looked up from the checks they were about to make out to the genocidal madman, Yasir Arafat, saw an unhappy fat man whining about America and unanimously decided to hand over the prize.
Moore is certainly not an artistic genius. The only technical requirement for a documentary is that it isn't blurry, and he's certainly not a documentary-making genius, since it's easy to make documentaries when you cook the data, show one side of the argument and make up lies.
Sometime in the near future, someone is going to tell me that I'm wrong and Michael Moore is the greatest artistic genius ever to walk the face of the earth. Their logic will run along the lines of, "Since you've never made a movie, what right have you to criticize his films?" I may not have made any films, but if I eat at a restaurant and get food poisoning, I don't need to be a five-star chef to complain.
The fact of the matter is this: If you think Michael Moore is fine intellectual fare, you're not thinking enough when you watch his films. If you actually pay to see his movie, which is to say you give someone money to lie to you, I urge you in the strongest possible terms to get a vasectomy, because the world has enough idiots.
"You may have heard he won an award recently at the Cannes Film Festival. Somehow, I don't suspect the judges were talking about the subtle use of shadow and contrast, the almost Kafkaesque use of symbology reminiscent of Pynchon's early works during the scene in which Moore talks about how President Bush's library burned down and he wasn't even done coloring all the books when they chose to give him the award. They probably just looked up from the checks they were about to make out to the genocidal madman, Yasir Arafat, saw an unhappy fat man whining about America and unanimously decided to hand over the prize."
LOL, funny piece.
Truman Capote invented the non-fiction novel.
Michael Moor invented the all-fiction documentary.
Both variaties were never heard of from again.
'Must Read' Bump.
Truman Capote IMO was a genius. He invented to some degree, the modern true crime genre. In addition, he was a great writer. An odd man personally, obviously, but a great talent nevertheless IMO. Michael Moore on the other hand, is a con artist, a propagandist, a clown, a liar.
LOL - this writer has got quite a prose!
Michael Moore seems to ascribe to a saying I heard back in college:
"If you can't dazzle 'em with brilliance, baffle 'em with bulls**t."
Moore is a idiot, he reminds me of Kerry. Why anyone would want to listen to either one of them is beyond me.
Wow. Moore is a Democrat and a liar. Surpise, surprise.
Perhaps a better term for what Michael Moore produces is a "mocumentary".
Or perhaps, considering the fiction he spins into his yarns, a "focumentary".
Encouraging seeing this coming from a student. Is Drexel amore conservative school?
Lockheed Martin does not make missiles at that site in Colorado. It makes space launch vehicles for TV satellites.
Michael Moore is a documented liar.
It's never a good idea to underestimate the enemy. Learn from them, yes. Underestimate, no.
D
I love this clip from an article on CNN:
"To counteract efforts challenging "Fahrenheit 9/11," he has hired Chris Lehane and Mark Fabiani, two former political advisers to Bill Clinton and Al Gore, to establish a "war room" that will immediately support any claims made in the movie that come under attack.
The group, he said, will be staffed by six to seven people and will operate 24 hours a day, monitoring newscasts and scanning newspapers, magazines and other publications for statements made discrediting the movie.
"You come at me with anything, we come back with the truth," Moore said."
Boy do these guys have an uphill battle!!
Like Leni Riefenstahl. Very talented cinematically, just not well-equipped in the sensibilities department. at least, that is how I undertsand you argument.
But why do so many buy the shallow lies of the blubbery boob? It explains why Kerry is the possible victor in November; Moore's people are Kerry's people. And attendant to that, what are we to make of Moore's great acceptance in Europe? What changes in US policy or style would reverse that short of surrender? The problem is with devotees of the fat liar here and abroad.
I've seen Leni Riefenstahl's work and Michael Moore is no Leni Riefenstahl!
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