Posted on 05/22/2004 11:02:05 PM PDT by My Favorite Headache
CANNES, France - American filmmaker Michael Moore (news)'s "Fahrenheit 9/11," a scathing indictment of White House actions after the Sept. 11 attacks, won the top prize Saturday at the Cannes Film Festival (news - web sites).
AP Photo
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AFP Slideshow: Cannes Film Festival
'Fahrenheit 9/11' Wins Cannes' Top Prize (AP Video)
"Fahrenheit 9/11" was the first documentary to win Cannes' prestigious Palme d'Or since Jacques Cousteau's and Louis Malle (news)'s "The Silent World" in 1956.
"What have you done? I'm completely overwhelmed by this. Merci," Moore said after getting a standing ovation from the Cannes crowd.
The grand prize, the festival's second-place honor, went to South Korean filmmaker Park Chan-wook's "Old Boy," a blood-soaked thriller about a man out for revenge after years of inexplicable imprisonment.
Moore was momentarily flabbergasted when he took the stage to accept the award, a big difference from his fiery speech against President Bush (news - web sites) after winning the best-documentary Academy Award for 2002's "Bowling for Columbine."
"You have to understand, the last time I was on an awards stage, in Hollywood, all hell broke loose," Moore said.
The best-actress award went to Maggie Cheung (news) for her role in "Clean" as a junkie trying to straighten out her life and regain custody of her young son after her rock-star boyfriend dies of a drug overdose.
Fourteen-year-old Yagira Yuuya was named best actor for the Japanese film "Nobody Knows," in which he plays the eldest of four sibling raised in isolation, who must take charge of the family when their mother leaves.
The directing and writing prizes went to French filmmakers. Tony Gatlif won the directing honor for "Exiles," his road-trip about a couple on a sensual journey from France to Algeria.
Agnes Jaoui and her romantic partner, Jean-Pierre Bacri, won the screenplay award for "Look at Me," their study in self-image centering on an overweight young woman who feels neglected by loved ones. Jaoui and Bacri also co-star.
"Fahrenheit 9/11" won the top award at a festival that sharply divided Cannes moviegoers, who found a solid crop of good movies among the 19 entries in the festival's main competition but no great ones that rose to front-runner status.
While "Fahrenheit 9/11" was well-received by Cannes audiences, many critics felt it was inferior to Moore's Academy Award-winning documentary "Bowling for Columbine," which earned him a special prize at Cannes in 2002.
Some critics speculated that if "Fahrenheit 9/11" won the top prize, it would be more for the film's politics than its cinematic value.
With Moore's customary blend of humor and horror, "Fahrenheit 9/11" accuses the Bush camp of stealing the 2000 election, overlooking terrorism warnings before Sept. 11 and fanning fears of more attacks to secure Americans' support for the Iraq (news - web sites) war.
Moore appears on-screen far less in "Fahrenheit 9/11" than in "Bowling for Columbine" or his other documentaries. The film relies largely on interviews, footage of U.S. soldiers and war victims in Iraq, and archival footage of Bush.
Just back in Cannes after his daughter's college graduation in the United States, Moore dedicated the award to "my daughter and to all the children in America and Iraq and throughout the world who suffered through our actions."
"Fahrenheit 9/11" made waves in the weeks leading up to Cannes after the Walt Disney Co. refused to let subsidiary Miramax release the film in the United States because of its political content. Miramax bosses Harvey and Bob Weinstein are negotiating to buy back the film and find another distributor, with hopes of landing it in theaters by Fourth of July weekend.
Moore said after the ceremony that he expected right-wing media outlets in the United States to characterize his prize as an award from the French, whose government opposed the U.S.-led war on Iraq. He noted that the nine-person Cannes jury that awarded prizes had only one French member and four Americans, including jury president Quentin Tarantino (news) and actress Kathleen Turner (news).
Many Americans now realize the French are "good friends of America who tried to do the right thing and tell us this was the wrong road," Moore said. "We owe the people of this country an apology for the way they were debased and treated in our media."
Thai director Apichatpong Weerasethakul's "Tropical Malady" — widely regarded by Cannes audiences as a snoozer for its elongated scenes of a man wandering a jungle alone, with no dialogue — won the festival's third-place jury prize.
Another jury prize went to Irma P. Hall for her role as an elderly Southern woman who foils a casino robbery in the Coen brothers' crime comedy "The Ladykillers," starring Tom Hanks (news) as the heist's ringleader.
Keren Yedaya's "Or," about a Tel Aviv prostitute in failing health and her teenage daughter, won the Golden Camera award for best film by a first-time director. The U.S.-born Yedaya, who grew up in Israel, gives lectures about the problems of prostitution for government officials and mental-health professionals.
Earlier Saturday, Senegalese filmmaker Ousmane Sembene (news)'s "Moolaade," an examination of the ritual of female circumcision that earned rave reviews, won the top prize in a secondary Cannes competition called "Un Certain Regard."
The 12-day festival's closing film — "De-Lovely," Kevin Kline (news)'s musical biography of Cole Porter — screened immediately after the awards. Kline and co-star Ashley Judd (news) then hosted a beach concert featuring Sheryl Crow (news), Alanis Morissette (news), Natalie Cole (news) and other singers from "De-Lovely" performing Porter tunes.
The festival was to wrap up Sunday with encore screenings of award winners and other key movies that played the festival, including a combined, four-hour version of Tarantino's two "Kill Bill" installments.
Ok, ignoring him isn't working.
New strategy: Let everyone see his work as quickly as possible. Distribute widely in a manner that won't give him any money.
Thoroughly parse and debunk. His fans won't turn away from him, and we'll still hate him as much as we do know, but hopefully we'll be able to convince the fencesitters that he is lying scum.
That's also that country that made a couple best sellers out of books claiming that the US launched a missle (painted to look like a plane) into the Pentagon on 9-11-2001.
"You are either with us or the terrorists."
"But but but those weren't 'recent' French missiles discovered in Iraq..."
Heck, it's got to be an improvement over the previous Commander in Chief deploying troops over the phone WHILE he was receiving oral sex. Bill Clinton showed that he didn't treat these mens' lives with any respect.
The problems with teen sex (and pregnancy, STDs, rape, molestation, homosexual seduction, and even depression) aren't because of "sex education" informing kids of the mechanics of reproduction, it is that there is a definite agenda PUSHING for teen sex.
It is an international movement (with strongholds in California and Europe). Look up "sex positive" teaching sometime.
These people want teens (and pre-teens) engaging in sex without shame (at all ages). They don't necessarily encourage adult-minor sex but they aren't willing to make solid judgement calls against it either.
This site has been shut down (partly out of finances, partly out of political pressure) http://www.allaboutsex.org/ but it still exists as a link to other sites (some government?) that push for this agenda.
I wonder what he makes of the science linking abortion to cancer risks.
Strawman arguement - HMOs and insurance companies exist to make money and should be regulated by the market like everything else. If the government provides bad service where do you go?
Why not look at Canada where those who can't wait for public healthcare (like Tom Green) come to America to get diagnosed and treated (for lifethreatening ailments like cancer).
"Rush should be treated the same as any other person in this situation. Not singled out for extra zealous prosecution and punishment because he’s a prominent conservative."
I recommend that the troll check with Florida to see just how few prosecutions have been made of this charge (I think it was one, offered as a plea bargain). The DA has an agenda.
You’re referring to the Iraqi “constitution” no doubt. It’s socialism here, and it’s socialism there. Conservatives (not necessarily Republicans) do not agree with it.
Iraq was a socialist country (Saddam Hussein admired Joseph Stalin). I think this is a part of the reason the Marxists sided with Iraq in this war with the US.
Once people are hooked on suckling at the government teat, it can be difficult to wean them.
Nationalized healthcare in Saddam's Iraq left many without. We were told it was because of the "sanctions". We know/knew better. Saddam had billions for palaces and mosques.
In socialist systems, all people are equal. However, some are more equal than others.
Sadam was never a “good guy”. Did we help arm him in the past? Yes we did. You need to learn more history before you make goofy statements like that. It was considered in our best interests to help him in his war on Iran, and it came back to haunt us. Please explain when exactly “Cheney did business with him”. More talking points, no doubt.
He probably thinks that Joseph Stalin is still a "good guy" even though he killed 20million people. Or maybe he thinks that we shouldn't have teamed up with Stalin to defeat Adolph Hitler?
If he wants to address these issues, he needs to discuss them one at a time on relevant threads or else post a vanity (think THAT one will last?).
The left does not want the truth to be exposed.
We saw how Democrats held their tongues and refused to criticize Bill Clinton (they could not concede any conservative arguments). They even suffered through supporting the Clinton Administration's excesses at Waco and in the Elian kidnapping.
Well I am here to say that the left is even more embarassed by the hard left turn that Democrats exhibit now.
Penn Jillette is a self-declared "little l" libertarian (then again so was Bill Maher) and he recently said that he thinks that Michael Moore is a Republican agent (he makes the left look that bad).
I've heard other leftists (just in conversation) being put off by the socialists at Pacifica radio, the conspiracy theories, the "victimized" whine. They hate Bush (and some don't but they are hesitant to admit it, a few will) but there is absolutely nothing that makes them want to see John Kerry as president for 4 years.
More likely one of many long dormant "suicide" accounts.
Being anything other than a die hard, anti-U.S. Marxist on Airliners.net is just asking to be suspended or banned. I only stay just to see how many of them I can annoy by posting the truth.
The great propagandists of the Third Reich and the Soviet Union are gleefully hailing this decision.
It's probably the best weight loss option Chewbacca has at this point in time.
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