HOT

Michael Moore's forthcoming hotties unveiled at Toronto....

On September 8, Mike's appearance in a sold-out "Maverick Night" was the first of several political highlights at the festival. Wearing his sneakers and baseball cap, he gave the lucky audience a preview of Sicko, emphasizing problems getting health insurance in America, the contrast with next-door Canada and differences between what he described as a "me-first" American society and a gentler "let's help others" attitude elsewhere. He also showed a short clip of The Great '04 Slacker Uprising, a documentary recounting his 60-day, 60-city tour in the 2004 presidential election campaign to persuade Americans to vote, preferably not for Bush.


SLACKERS

The Great '04 Slacker Uprising, which may be released straight to DVDin late '07, after "Sicko" but before the 2008 U.S. presidential election, was presented first. Mike introduced it as the chronicle of his 60-day, 60-city attempt to get out the vote on behalf of Democratic challenger John Kerry.

While already working on "Sicko", which will be released by The Weinstein Company, Mike went to Bob and Harvey Weinstein with the idea for this post-election movie. In its opening moments, "The Great 2004 Slacker Uprising" is described on screen as the story of "one filmmaker's attempt to turn things around, " but festival technical problems marred Moore's attempts to show segments from the film, ultimately forcing him to cancel the clips.

"This is painful, " Mike said, after a second clip was scrapped due to persistent sound problems. While praising the festival as one of the best in the world, he was clearly frustrated with the situation.

According to movie critic Peter Howell, here's the surprise: what we'll see, set to a mournful rendition of "When Johnny Comes Marching Home, " will be more critical of Kerry than Bush. The documentary castigates Kerry for bungling his early poll lead on Bush, by failing to respond ina timely manner to a smear campaign on his Vietnam War record and his muddled stance on Iraq.

If it's true, I will be more than extremely pleased about that : I will get my rocks off. The first message that the Dems need to hear is that they suck, suck, suck. And suck. The appalling state of the Democratic party is, to me, a worse cause for concern than what it allows, lets be and sometimes helps happen.


SICKO

Three segments from Sicko were shown at Toronto. IndieWire promises that it will no doubt stir an even greater debate about the U.S. health care system than what we're already witnessing.

The clips presented stories of personal health care nightmares, including that of a woman denied payment for an ambulance ride after a head-on collision because it was not preapproved. "They try to find every way they can to deny it to you or not sell it to you, " Mike told the theater. "Or they try to find anyway they can not to pay the bill."

The "Sicko" excerpts also included an older Canadian couple who buy health insurance even for their short days trips to America, and another Canadian man living in America who had to return to Canada to have a tendon repaired for free, rather than pay $24, 000 for the procedure in the U.S. The comparison between Canada's public health care and the privatized system in the United States, concluded, would you have guessed, that Canadians have more equitable access to medical services.

Two months into editing this new movie, Mike admitted that he made the rare exception of showing something as a work-in-progress out of loyalty to the festival, where he first screened "Roger and Me." Normally, he explained, he avoids talking about or showing a new film until it is completed. "I have to [keep it secret]," he quipped, "Because I am up to no good."

And acknowledging any anonymous pharmaceutical industry reps who might be in the audience, he explained that when no insurance company would back him in the making of the film, he thought the movie might be doomed. "How did you get around that, " Larry Charles asked Mike. "I don't want to say," Mike responded, "'cause they're here..."

Ken Johnson, senior vice president of the trade group Pharmaceutical Researchers and Manufacturers of America, said industry officials were "freaking out and pulling their hair out" when they first got word of Moore's documentary. They have since calmed down, Johnson said.

"We can't control what a major Hollywood entertainer does," said Mohit Ghose, a spokesman for the trade group America's Health Insurance Plans. "Our focus remains on a positive agenda of high-quality health care for more Americans."

Indeed. They can't control what a major Hollywood entertainer does. That's why the health care representatives seem to have chosen to downplay the potential impact of Mike's documentary - a well known card. LOL.

But to those anonymous health care industry reps in the audience, Mike cautioned that his film "will not be necessarily what you think its going to be." In one example, the director compared the no holds barred tactics of American football with the seemingly more fair regulations that guide international soccer, as a way of apparently explaining that his movie will consider the deeper reasons for America undervaluing health care.

Ambitious, interesting and visionary like BFC was it seems. Will Sicko be a history of selfishness, like BFC was a history of violence ?

THE FANTASY OF BUSH'S ASSASSINATION

A hypothesis or a fantasy ?

The ongoing Toronto film fest is going to feature Gabriel Range's Death Of A President, a "what if" taking the pulse of the nation two years after Bush has been murdered.

So, two years after the mini-scandal raised by Nicholson Baker's Checkpoint (2004), in which two characters spent the novel daydreaming on the subject and discussing the pros and cons of the possibility, the idea of Bush's assassination re-surfaces, this time under the form of a fake doco set in the future :

The hypothetical assassination of U.S. president George W. Bush, winner of the heated 2004 presidential election, has drawn a lot interest to Gabriel Range's "D.O.A.P." (Death Of A President"), a Toronto fest feature that TIFF co-director Noah Cowan calls "the most dangerous and breathtakingly original film" he has seen this year. The movie is structured as an investigative doc made two years after an unknown gunman kills Bush.

The film has drawn considerable media attention, stirring debates on U.S. news channels, and last week, Toronto fest organizers were compelled to issue a statement backing their decision to include it in the festival. Planners noted that the movie is screening in the Visions program, which "spotlights films which challenge our notions of mainstream cinema and explore new cinematic territory." Continuing in the statement, the festival said, "The Toronto International Film Festival is committed to the free expression of ideas and to engaging audiences in thoughtful discussion about issues of the day. 'D.O.A.P.' contributes meaningfully to the public discourse surrounding current social issues, demonstrates highly original storytelling techniques and utilizes innovative digital effects."

Continuing, the festival noted that the perspectives and/or opinions expressed in its films do not necessarily reflect those of the Toronto International Film Festival Group. And it added, "The film is not exploitative in any way and treats what would certainly be a great tragedy respectfully and un-cynically. In the tradition of great cautionary tales, a terrible and horrifying event unveils certain aspects of society's current fears and future trends."

Of course the topic forces the fest organizers and the makers of the movie to display an extreme brand of diplomacy, and of course Bush's assassination would be "a great tragedy" and "a terrible and horrifying event", yadda yadda yadda.

And of course I haven't seen the flick. Nevertheless, I'm more than skeptical about it being about "engaging audiences in thoughtful discussion about issues of the day" and "contributing meaningfully to the public discourse surrounding current social issues".

Beneath the inevitable (and tiresome) varnish of conventional respectability that such attempts are bound to wear, I don't think that the incentive lies in any sort of intellectual approach, but in a thumping and throbbing fantasy, deep-rooted and made fascinating by despair.

It's pretty obvious that such an event would solve nothing, and wouldn't even be half as satisfactory as one might expect. When I remember the inconsolable and hyperbolic tremoloes in so many voices when Reagan died in his bed at 93, I can't help but shrug at the thought of all the eager and feisty years of "Bush's martyrdom" legends in store for us from his devoted cronies and lackeys who hold everything. No, thank you... It wouldn't be a hangover, it would be a cirrhosis. Not worth the drunkenness.

However, just like Checkpoint was really about two people who had given up on any hope of influencing their country's direction, I suspect that DOAP really proceeds from the same deafeatist and all in all sad fantasy. Dreaming that Bush is killed is pleasant, but opiated. It's especially easier than getting him impeached. His virtual murder is the guilty pleasure of a nation of slaves, smacked down by absolutism.

Still, better dreaming of that than nothing. We're still in our prison cells, but at least we quit the Stockholm syndrome. The revolutions we get we deserve.

TORONTO SURPRISE

Mike will give Toronto film festival audiences sneak peeks from his two new documentaries, one of which is Sicko, his U.S. health care shocker.

The other… is a work-in-progress called The Great '04 Slacker Uprising, a document of his political travels during the 2004 election campaign.

Who would have thought ? Just a few days ago I was still coming across rants from wingnuts yelling at Mike for his forthcoming treasonable treasonous snake in the grass yadda yadda yadda Katrina opus.

Well, even though I'm not convinced that Iran is one, I have to admit that wingnuts DO like windmills. Mike is not at all after Katrina for all it seems. (for now at least... ;) )

Back to the autobiographical tour filming method that did wonders in The Big One, he's working on - sorry, I meant cashing in on - his 2004 Slacker Uprising Tour, and therefore on FREEDOM OF SPEECH and APATHY.

Personally, I'm delighted to see him tackle those subjects. Besides the fact that I never was over-excited at the prospect of some kind of Return of Fahrenheit 9/11, even in the movie's heyday, I'd rather have Mike handle less burning and yet more thoroughgoing subjects than Katrina or Bush's too obvious and too narcissistically painful record. No "I told you so" message can hold water in that country, and Mike does need to get SOME of his popularity back in order be able to reach a decent audience and display some influence again. Of course he's going to be tagged as an egomaniac again, but that would be the lesser of two evils...

And finally I do think that apathy is our deepest - and sickest - disease, and a direct consequence of the war on freedom of speech. Why the fuck would you act when you can't even speak ?

A most excellent and promising news, then.

Thom Powers, who’s the documentary programmer for the Toronto International Film Festival and the Stranger Than Fiction series at Manhattan's IFC Center, writes on the TIFF site :

Moore’s goal during the election was to awaken apathetic young voters, and here we see Moore at his rabble-rousing best. But the real stars of the film are the immense crowds energized by his message. These scenes are an amazing foreshadowing – clearly not of Bush’s electoral defeat, but of the then-growing tide of public opinion against his administration, a tide that would eventually turn against him en masse during his second term. Moore will show segments from the work-in-progress that captures the birth of a new political generation.

Exhilarating.... no ?

The Toronto International Film Festival is now mere days away. It will run from September 7 to September 16.

The Moore night is scheduled for September 8.

I look forward to the reports (can't say "reviews", given that it will be only teasers).