SOCRATES AS A WRESTLER

This entry is the second part of the section entitled "The Storyteller" in my essay "Yes, He Makes Movies", devoted to Mike's contribution to film.


Mike is one these big bad wrestlers who, in best wrestling style and tradition, attacks and crushes the SEEMINGLY weak and flustered… and wins, much to the joy of the watchers.

Oh, the immoral bastard ! Oh, the bloodthirsty watchers ! How can such an approach be ethical ? Boo ! Boooooooo !!! goes the self-righteous mob – louder than a poor guy’s bombs.

PLAYBOY: You were criticized for embarrassing former NRA president Charlton Heston in Bowling for Columbine. Some viewers felt you took advantage of an aging, ailing man.

MOORE: I take exception to that. I was very respectful.

PLAYBOY: Heston looked ridiculous. He was frail and flustered.

MOORE: He was opposing gun controls in the aftermath of high school shootings. That made him fair game. All I did was ask some questions. He said the problem with America is our mixed ethnicity. He said he was proud of the white guys who founded the country. I was stunned. I was respectful when I asked the questions, but at the same time, how am I supposed to treat someone who, after leaving my interview, went back out campaigning for laws that would allow people to have Uzis and cop-killer bullets? Once again, most Americans are with me on this. They understand that duck hunters don't need Uzis and cop-killer bullets.

http://www.playboy.com/arts-entertainment/features/michaelmoore2/04.html

But, Mike, aren’t you catching your subjects off guard ? How can this be fair game then ?

And - Boo ! Boooooooo !!! goes the self-righteous mob – louder than a poor guy’s bombs.

Apparently Bush and other members of his administration don't know what every TV reporter knows, that a satellite image can be live before they get the cue to start talking. That accounts for the quease-inducing footage of Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz wetting his pocket comb in his mouth before slicking back his hair. When that doesn't do it, he spits in his hand and wipes it down. If his mother is alive, I hope for his sake she doesn't see this film.Such scenes are typical of vintage Moore, catching his subjects off guard.

http://www.fahrenheit911.com/about/press/view.php?id=6



Oh yeah – and in Comencini’s masterpiece “Lo Scopone Scientifico” too, capitalism was embodied by a frail, sick, ever so moving old lady who was just trying to steal, not only the poor’s money, but most of all the poor’s HOPES of ever becoming as rich as her.

I will say this, though: at the point where Charlton Heston wanders abstractedly away when the questioning gets too hot, with Moore in angry pursuit, the ageing actor suddenly wears an expression of weary, wounded blankness very similar to Ronald Reagan's when he was being questioned about the Iran-Contra scandal.

http://arts.guardian.co.uk/fridayreview/story/0,12102,839711,00.html

The truth, as always, lies in MIKE’S MIKE. This seemingly incredibly violent, incredibly unfair struggle is in fact the sweetest, the fairest, the most terrifyingly peaceful there is to be found : no blows, no jabs, no punches from the Big Bad Angel. The violence is in the Frail Moving Weakling. The injustice pours out of the mouth of The Frail Moving Weakling and into the Mike of the Big Bad Angel, like toads from the villains in the ancient tales. And all the Big Bad Angel does is LISTEN. LISTEN in Golden Silence.

And IT HURTS !!!!!!!!

MICHAEL MOORE: I'm not going to give you the popcorn pleasure of watching me throughout the two hours shoving a stick up every member of the Bush administration.

EW: I'd say you did that throughout the movie.

MICHAEL MOORE: I let them do that themselves. They have the funniest lines.

http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/mikeinthenews/index.php?id=89

Heston took his NRA show to Denver and did and said exactly what we recounted. From the end of my narration setting up Heston's speech in Denver, with my words, "a big pro-gun rally," every word out of Charlton Heston's mouth was uttered right there in Denver, just 10 days after the Columbine tragedy. But don't take my word – read the transcript of his whole speech.

http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/wackoattacko/

But, Mike, aren’t you still big and bad and fighting the frail and the weak ? How can this be right, whatever the intelligence and the elegance that you put in it ?

And - Boo ! Boooooooo !!! goes the self-righteous mob - louder than a poor guy’s bombs.

Well, self-righteous clowns – remember that The Frail Moving Weakling only LOOKS like a frail, moving weakling. Remember that the Wrestling is ALL A SHOW.

The Frail Moving Bastard is in fact rich, powerful, merciless, dead as ice and cold as stone. But he’s able to achieve a rather good and convincing schtick of Pity Me I’m Just A Man by CUTTING HIMSELF FROM ALL THE EVIDENCE OF WHAT HE REALLY IS.

(In this case) this is the Dick Clark restaurant, it is his name and he is a shareholder in it, and he profits from it. He didn't put the gun under the bed that the boy found. He didn't shoot the little girl. He didn't make that woman poor. But he was trying to benefit from her poverty. He was trying to get a tax break. He wasn't motivated by altruistic reasons, like, "Let's try to employ as many poor black women as we can to raise their standard of living." No! Try, "Let's get workers for our restaurant at the bare, base minimum wage and then let's get a tax break so we don't have to pay our fair share of the taxes that could help elevate some of the poverty." All right? That's his little role in it, and he can't just divorce himself from it.

http://www.splicedwire.com/02features/mimoore.html

And so, the receptive Big Bad Angel who listens is also an ACTIVE WRESTLER, whose art and strategy consist in forcing the Frail Moving Bastard to MARRY AGAIN HIS DIVORCEES.

One technique is THE CROSSCUTS, which display analogies and metaphors meant to RESTORE THE TRUTH :

Why are these gun nuts upset that their brave NRA leader's words are in my film? You'd think they would be proud of the things he said. Except, when intercut with the words of a grieving father (whose son died at Columbine and happened to be speaking in a protest that same weekend Heston was at the convention center), suddenly Charlton Heston doesn't look so good does he? Especially to the people of Denver (and, the following year, to the people of Flint) who were still in shock over the tragedies when Heston showed up.

http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/wackoattacko/

Another technique is THE QUESTIONS, which display impossible answers and missing pieces to RESTORE THE TRUTH :

It's vintage Moore, for example, when he brings along a Marine who refused to return to Iraq; together, they confront congressmen, urging them to have their children enlist in the service. And he makes good use of candid footage, including an eerie video showing Bush practicing facial expressions before going live with his address to the nation about 9/11.

http://www.fahrenheit911.com/about/press/view.php?id=6

And this is how the rare Frail Moving Bastards who are mad enough to actually think of themselves as frail and moving – LOSE.

Where does your relationship now stand with Nike CEO Phil Knight?

Deep tongue kissing.

Seriously.

Nike is very upset at this film. They got ahold of a bootleg copy and called and said, "We'd like to meet with you." I thought they were going to tell me they're going to build the factory in Flint, where I challenged them to build one. Instead, their director of public relations flies to New York and takes me out to breakfast. I sit down at the table and he says to me, "What would it take to have two scenes removed from the movie?" And I kind of freaked out. I didn't even want to hear what the offer was. I just said, "Well, I'm not taking anything out of the movie. I'll add a scene. I'll add a scene of you building that factory in Flint."

What scenes does Nike want out?

He said Phil was upset at two things in the movie where he felt he misspoke himself and he wanted to clear up. The thing about the fourteen-year-olds he didn't care were working [in Nike factories in Indonesia]. He said the age is actually sixteen, something Phil had already told me in the second interview. The second thing was, "In five years, one of those poor little Indonesians is going to be your landlord." They sort of figured out there's some subtle racism in that statement, and they wanted it out.

What made Nike invite you over in the first place?

I have no idea. Maybe Phil just thought he was a hip, groovy guy. Maybe his wife told him to.

http://industrycentral.net/director_interviews/MICHAEL MOORE02.HTM

But, Mike…Shut the fuck up now, self-righteous MOB.

SHUT THE FUCK UP !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

SAME OLD STORY

This entry is the first part of the section entitled "The Storyteller" in my essay "Yes, He Makes Movies", devoted to Mike's contribution to film.



localroger has an interesting theory about Michael Moore, the filmmaker : to him, “he keeps making the exact same movie over and over. And surprisingly, it gets better every time.”

http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2004/7/4/84621/13655

In other words, Mike keeps on telling the same STORY in rumbling spires, and with each new movie he’s getting closer to its own perfection.

In his remarkable essay, localroger still somehow fails to describe the exact plot of the Moorean Lost Story. He limits himself instead to a familiar but reductive analogy with the “Emperor’s New Clothes” tale instead : “Moore is simply the little boy at the Imperial parade who is willing to wonder very loudly why that guy with the crown isn't wearing any clothes.”

He then notices rightly that the pro-Moore and anti-Moore factions don’t define themselves by their political belongings (pro-Bush / anti-Bush, or even pro-capitalism / anti-capitalism), but rather through THEIR IDEA OF OBSCENITY : “The people who like Moore are the ones who have also noticed that the Emperor is naked and who welcome a voice brave enough to say it openly. The ones who dislike him are the ones who have some kind of investment in the fineness of the Emperor's raiment.”

(above : scene of “A Cheaper Way to Conduct a Witch Hunt”, the opening ketch to “The Awful Truth” series, I, 1)

And finally, according to him, the progress lies in “growing into more universally relevant topics.”

All of this is true. But not enough to explain Mike’s success in GETTING ACROSS WHAT EVERYBODY KNOWS.

For Andersen Just Said It.

But MIKE JUST DID IT.

“What comes across to the common person who is not parsing the discourse like a debate squadder is a damning sufficiency of things that undeniably speak for themselves”, in localroger’s words, indeed. But Andersen didn’t show this sufficiency of THINGS. Andersen didn’t go to the HEART OF THE MATTER. Andersen merely showed the OBSCENITY of it all.

Whereas MIKE SET THE CONTROLS TO THE HEART OF THE SUN.

Whereas the Moorean Story is a QUEST.

The Quest of Socrates setting out as a Lone Wrestler to become Scrooge’s Nemesis.

LOUD AND CLEAR AND SUBTLE

This entry is the fourth part of the section entitled "The Innovator" in my essay "Yes, He Makes Movies", devoted to Mike's contribution to film.


“Roger and Me” had a FORMULA. The film was lauded for its unique combination of acerbic editorializing and exploration of the deterioration of the Flint community in a most casual, accessible and personal manner. The former is the Moorean touch. The latter is the Quality Mainstream touch.

Mike has always been a master provocateur, adept at raising temperatures and arousing passions. Under his shambling, wilfully unglamorous persona lies a shrewd intelligence, someone with the keenest of eyes for the preposterous and the absurd, a filmmaker who knows both what he can make fun of and what makes fun of itself.

Mike is Today’s Master of Agit-Prop. And he handles it through the dialectics of emotion and restraint on the one hand, and the dialectics of comments and silences on the other.

(above : an Agit Prop poster based on the crosscut technique used by Mike in Roger and Me to point out the true nature of Roger's Christmas wishes)

Agit-prop is a contraction of "agitation and propaganda". The term originated in Bolshevist Russia, where it didn't bear any negative connotation at the time. It simply meant "dissemination of ideas". In the case of Agit-prop, the ideas to be disseminated were those of communism, including explanations of the policy of the Communist Party and the Soviet State. In other contexts, propaganda could mean dissemination of any kind of beneficial knowledge. "Agitation" meant urging people to do what Soviet leaders expected them to do at various levels. In other words, propaganda was supposed to act on the mind, while agitation acted on emotions, although both usually went together.

Now the Moorean Touch lies in the truly exceptional dignity the filmmaker shows in practicing this lost, difficult and now pejoratively connoted art. Its secret is simple – obscenely simple, to some : he treats the victims like victims, and the villains like villains.

Mike, who’s been accused of coming close to emotional pornography in occurrences such as his extended depiction of Lila Lipscomb’s pain in F9/11, or his leaving a photograph of murdered little Kayla at Heston’s home, finds in fact in such scenes the perfect dialectics between emotion and restraint, which generates in turn the most powerful emotional punch and the most effective appeal to a vast and receptive audience in the American heartland we ever witnessed since Chaplin and Capra. But, rather than featuring grisly images of the World Trade Center collapsing, he lets the screen go dark, like he was closing the eyes of 3 000, relying on sound to convey the horror of the event. And this scene restores the sense of infinity attached to the loss of these innocent victims, and brings back the sense of obscenity where it belongs – to the mainstream media.

As acknowledged by CNN Reviewer Paul Clinton :

“The heart-wrenching grief of Lila Lipscomb is a taste of exactly what the USA needs now: a head-on, popular confrontation with the Bush war machine. It's great if much of Fahrenheit 9/11 makes people uncomfortable. Better still that it makes the warmongers burn with shame at the senseless loss of life they have caused. And it'll be the very best if it helps fire the US people to throw out the warmongers and build movements for lasting social change.”

http://www.greenleft.org.au/back/2004/591/591p13.htm

Yes, this coming from a CNN reviewer. Now so much for the voyeurism.

On the other hand, the villains receive the perfect parallel treatment, through the dialectics of comments and silences. In F9/11, Mike doesn’t rub political salt into the continuous incompetence of the Bush administration, or its behavior. He doesn’t need to say anything when the AG starts singing Let the Eagle Soar. He doesn’t need to comment on Bush‘s “I call you my base” fund raising dinner. He lets the “talkies” do the work – and the effect is infuriating.

As for the traitors – the PR people dispatched when Mike charges, cameras rolling, into their polished corporate lobbies – their (self-)treatment is even harsher. Unable to laugh at his engaging brattiness, these hapless flacks must politely push him toward the door while defending corporate downsizing in an era of record profits. The look on their faces—a fascinating blend of fear, frustration and "I hear what you're saying, bro"—expresses the potency of the big-picture questions Mike asks in Roger and Me and The Big One.

Did you ever feel sorry for the PR people you pestered during the
filming of The Big One?

Look—they're workers too. The CEO won't come down and talk to me, so they've got to deal with me. So, I do feel bad for them on one level. On another level, they're the good Germans. And I gotta tell you something: Most of them are former journalists who saw they could make three times the money in PR. And every day, they sit in those cozy little offices and get softball questions from the mainstream press. For one lousy day out of their lives, some overweight guy in a ball cap comes into the lobby and asks a simple question: How do you defend the position that the company just made a record profit and laid off ten thousand people? They know it's indefensible; they're not stupid.

http://industrycentral.net/director_interviews/MM02.HTM

And above all that, but not, NEVER beyond good and evil, Mike never forgets decisive subtlety for his undertones in overall style. Discreet Monna Lisa smiles at the Winks of Fortune. Hints at the Cosmic Joke behind it all. This he calls his “10 percenters” :

I put these little films in the movies, I call them the 10- percenters. I know that only 10-percent of the audience will get it, but they're going to love me for it, because they're going to be part of the 10-percent who will get the joke. I know that less then 10-percent will read the French title of the film poster (Heston sits in front of the French poster for A Touch of Evil during his interview with Moore.) Thee French call [the movie] "A Thirst for Evil." A thirst for evil… and he asked to sit in front of it! We're just going, 'WOW!' Not everyone gets it when the women in the bank (where you can get a free gun if you open an account) says while I'm trying to remember how to spell, 'Caucasian,' and she says, 'I don't think that's the part they're going to be worried about.' That line just speaks volumes! Two white people sitting down, 'Ah. Don't worry about that part, you're a white guy!' (laughs)

http://www.themovieinsider.com/celebrities/cid/116/

Now if the 10-percent were ever to turn into 90-percent, none of my pro-Moore pieces would be necessary, Dumb-ya’s would never get elected ever again, and the world would go rounder.

But it isn’t done….

ATYPICAL DOCUMENTARIAN

This entry is the third part of the section entitled "The Innovator" in my essay "Yes, He Makes Movies", devoted to Mike's contribution to film.


At this point, there’s a need to go deeper into the seemingly shocking contradiction between the words “documentarian” and “Genius”.

First of all – he Makes Movies – but does that make him still a documentarian ?

Is "Fahrenheit 9/11" a Documentary Film, or What is a Documentary Film?
by Eugene Hernandez

Discussions about Michael Moore's "Fahrenheit 9/11" have raised questions about what exactly a documentary film is. (…) During a panel discussion about telling political stories, at the Nantucket Film Festival just days before the release of "Fahrenheit 9/11," panelists debated some of these very issues. (…)

How do you define the term "documentary film"?

Liz Manne, partner in the NYC-based production and consulting company Duopoly : "Clearly the definition evolves as our culture evolves, and morphs over the course of time -- whether you call it 'documentary,' 'non-fiction,' 'reality,' or simply 'unscripted,' all these terms are partly accurate and partly inaccurate."

Matt Dentler, from the reactionary SXSW Film Festival in Austin, Texas which is currently promoting “Manufacturing Dissent” (*) : "A documentary was once best described as 'academia on film' but now is best defined as 'journalism on film.' It may be world news, it may be arts & leisure. It may be serious and disturbing, it may be hilarious and irreverent. It may be Walter Cronkite, it may be Hunter S. Thompson. Whatever the case, it's journalism." (…) "It's also borderline propaganda, just like a newspaper's endorsement for a politician during an election. No matter how important I feel the message is, and no matter how much I agree with it, it's hard to look at the film as objective." Dentler added that he liked the film and agreed that it is a documentary. "Historical documentaries or 'talking head' pieces should tell both sides of the story, both sides of the history. And, in a sense, 'Fahrenheit' tries to portray itself as a historical doc, but it's really closer to propaganda. I think a very key point of this is how the film credits Michael Moore as the writer, a credit (that) documentaries rarely feature."

Josh Braun of Submarine, who has repped a number of docs for sale : "While we assume the term documentary film presently conjurs up thoughts of box office success stories such as 'Super Size Me' and 'Spellbound,' these films are really non-fiction narratives that start from a reference point of documentary film but have structural roots in fictional narrative and reality television. Therefore the term as it applies (or doesn't) to the new crop of non-fiction narrative films is outmoded and requires an overhaul."

(*) This is a personal note from fear_and_hate_9_11

http://www.indiewire.com/onthescene/onthescene_040702docs.html


Beyond moderate and objective Liz Manne, and against anti-Moore borderline fascist Matt Dentler, let Josh Braun’s be my conclusion. Say no Moore…

Now, what makes Mike so ATYPICAL a documentarian ?

First off, his global outlook and the universality of his aims necessarily cause bold, broad and clear-cut artistic licenses in the treatment of his MOVIES : and that means CLEVER EDITING, DISTORSION OF CHRONOLOGY AND STAGING THE FACTS FOR THE SAKE OF A HIGHER BUT TOO LENGTHY TRUTH.

For example, in Roger and Me, Reagan's visit and the pizza shop was in 1980, before he was president and Robert Schuller came to Flint in 1987, after the Great Gatsby party. This criticism was later reaffirmed by film critic Pauline Kael in a review in the New Yorker, when she declared the flick "a piece of gonzo demagoguery."

In defense, Moore stated in the interview, "The movie is essentially what has happened to this town during the 1980's. I wasn't filming in 1982...so everything that happened happened. As far as I'm concerned, a period of seven or eight years...is pretty immediate and pretty devastating....I think it's a document about a town that died in the 1980's, and this is what happened....What would you rather have me do? Should I have maybe begun the movie with a Roger Smith or GM announcement of 1979 or 1980 for the first round of layoffs that devastated the town, which then led to starting these projects, after which maybe things pick up a little bit in the mid '80's, and then _boom_ in '86, there's another announcement, and then tell that whole story?....Then it's a three hour movie. It's a _movie_, you know; you can't do everything. I was true to what happened. Everything that happened in the movie happened. It happened in the same order that it happened throughout the '80's. If you want to nit-pick on some of those specific things, fine."

http://www.cs.uu.nl/wais/html/na-dir/celebrities/michael-moore-faq/part1.html



For example, plenty of well-meaning Good Germans complained that, in F9/11, the story of Lila Lipscomb’s political conversion was fake because, the first time Mike met her, her son had already died in that helicopter crash, but he still constructed the sequence in such a way that you don't know he's dead until later in the film.

Only trouble is that this ANECDOTE doesn’t prevent the STORY from being TRUE… Lila did convert to anti-war after her son died.

And TRUE IN A SUPERIOR WAY… for a MOORE STORY beats an ANTI-MOORE ANECDOTE any time.

The truth is that chronology is distorted because Mike’s movies can reach up to TIMELESSNESS, in the superior significance of the overall substance as well as in the superior accuracy of the overall form :

As for the clip preceding the Denver speech, when Heston proclaims "from my cold dead hands," this appears as Heston is being introduced in narration. It is Heston's most well-recognized NRA image – hoisting the rifle overhead as he makes his proclamation, as he has done at virtually every political appearance on behalf of the NRA (before and since Columbine). I have merely re-broadcast an image supplied to us by a Denver TV station, an image which the NRA has itself crafted for the media, or, as one article put it, "the mantra of dedicated gun owners" which they wear on T-shirts, stamp it on the outside of envelopes, e-mail it on the Internet and sometimes shout it over the phone”.

Are they now embarrassed by this sick, repulsive image and the words that accompany it?

http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/wackoattacko/

Moore cleverly structures Fahrenheit 9/11, achieving a sort of lyricism with his “rhyming couplets” effect. The rounding up of suspected resistance fighters in Iraq by US soldiers parallels images of the way US military recruiters target blacks in the poor parts of Flint. The wailing grief of an Iraqi woman whose uncle's house has been bombed is reflected by the heart-wrenching grief of Lila Lipscombe in Flint, whose son was killed in Iraq.

http://www.greenleft.org.au/back/2004/591/591p13.htm

And still, the last word to all of this Superior Art, Superior Truth and Superior Knowledge remains a frustrating, and secretly excruciating, “What do I know ?”. For, contrary to what one might think from Godard’s really stupid statement that “Moore is more intelligent than his movies”, the tiny reed of a man in Mike does bow, at the end of the day, to the impossibility to possess his own art : his stories, and the makings of of his documentaries, are clearly journeys of discoveries for the man with the mike himself, who makes no bones about not having the answers EVEN THOUGH HE HAS SO MANY OF THEM.

And THIS is Genius.


(above : "Voyage to Lilliput", from Gulliver's Travels)

BEYOND NICK BROOMFIELD

This entry is the second part of the section entitled "The Innovator" in my essay "Yes, He Makes Movies", devoted to Mike's contribution to film.

One might (and has) argue(d) that these tremendously effective and intelligently honest methods are nothing new. Nick Broomfield invented them, not Michael Moore. Nick Broomfield was the innovator, not Michael Moore.

(above : Mike with fellow documentarians Kopple, Spheeris and Broomfield, barefoot on the left)


And so, at about the same time as Rob Blackwelder was falling a victim to Mike’s Superior Truths (10.27.02), in his essay entitled “One of Us”, Tim Grierson was asking a very good question :

“Why is it that people generally treat Michael Moore like a conquering hero” (yes, they roughly still did in 2002), “Why is it that people generally treat Michael Moore like a conquering hero but Nick Broomfield as a slimy weasel? In reality, aren't they the same person? Both are documentarians. They both use their films as journalistic investigations into societal issues. Not content to stay behind the camera, each guy plays a visible, central role in his movies."

Alas, this new applicant for the Championship of Truth finds it smart to subsequently spend the rest of his ink re-establishing Broomfield as the real conquering hero, and Moore as the real slimy weasel – completely unaware that Michael Moore’s Crucifixion had begun, and that he was part of the Crucifiers.

From this wasted essay, one can still learn about Broomfield’s greatness. But, from here, we can only infer Mike’s Superior Greatness, and that’s what I’ll do afterwards.

Grierson :

“Nick Broomfield's films aren't as noble, but that's fine; they don't operate under any false pretense. A serial killer, a Hollywood madam, a rock-star suicide, and now the bloody murders of two hip-hop superstars -- this is normally the stuff of National Enquirer fodder, but Broomfield is fascinated by such unconventional subjects. What he's done with the terrific Biggie and Tupac (as he's done so many times before) is sift through a seemingly unsavory story to find some unusual characters and milieus, bravely and entertainingly exposing them along the way.

Biggie and Tupac investigates the unsolved murders of legendary rappers Notorious B.I.G. and Tupac Shakur. Unfortunately for Broomfield, the film's release coincided with a lengthy piece in the Los Angeles Times, which offered a much different theory behind the individual killings. But much like Oliver Stone's impassioned muckraking in JFK, the question of "Who did it?" in Biggie and Tupac is less important than illuminating the buried and little-known information involved in these cases. Neither JFK nor Biggie and Tupac purport to be unquestionably true, but they both achieve a greater purpose -- they make you see the case in a new light, they shake up your preconceptions, and they provoke
you to keep asking questions.”

(Grierson quotes from http://www.knotmag.com/?article=467)


The same can be said of Michael Moore… but Mike plays TWO OR THREE OCTAVES HIGHER (and here lies Grierson’s real main beef against him : “Nick Broomfield's films aren't as noble….” Moore is not dwarfish enough for his taste).

The Columbine slaughter, too, was tabloid fodder.

Mike, too, sifted through a seemingly unsavory story to find some unusual characters and milieus, bravely and entertainingly exposing them along the way.

Mike, too, investigated… but he investigated APPARENTLY SOLVED MURDERS – to find that the real murderers were NOT “monsters” Klebold and Harris… but AMERICA AS A WHOLE.

Ouch.

In BFC, too, the question of "Who did it?" is less important than illuminating the buried and little-known information involved in these cases…. But EVEN MORE IMPORTANT IS THE WIDELY KNOWN INFORMATION ABOUT BANKS, WALMARTS AND LOCKHEEDS – so that America doesn’t stand accused so much as the “everybody knows” type truth of CAPITALISM AS A CULTURE OF DEATH. Ouchhhhhhhhh….

Like JFK and Biggie and Tupac, BFC doesn’t purport to be unquestionably true, but it both achieves a greater purpose -- they make you see the case in a new light, they shake up your preconceptions, and they provoke you to keep asking questions.

However, beyond these ambitions, BFC’s GREATEST purpose of all is to ALSO PROVIDE THE ANSWERS THAT EVERYBODY KNOWS, PLUS THE ANGER THAT NOBODY FEELS….

….Ouch, ouch, ouch !….

And so, the awful truth isn’t that Moore is the slimy weasel. It’s not even that both documentarians are to be put on a par. It’s that MOORE IS BEYOND BROOMFIELD : a Broomfield with Genius. He’s to Broomfield what the Beatles were to Little Richard or Buddy Holly.

OUCH.

KARMA MAN

This entry is the first part of the section entitled "The Innovator" in my essay "Yes, He Makes Movies", devoted to Mike's contribution to film.


In a confrontational interview following the release of BFC and in the wake of the anti-Moore mania that was soon to win over each and every conformist heart, one by one, the Lying Man of Truth has defended his methods.

He was inspired on this day. In a tremendously powerful and convincing, yet casual, demonstration, the Man of Truth converts doubting but unwary Rob Blackwelder, who should have run from the light to keep his illusions, by sheer means of rationality and common sense. This masterly display of the power of dialectics is called “Gunning for Michael Moore” – a title that was surely found after the meeting actually took place - and it sure is something to read, actively read and witness.

Rob first confesses to having “a problem with some of Moore's conclusions and many of his methods, including some of his blindsiding interview tactics, his tendency in this film to leave out information that could provide a bigger picture when talking about specific cases of gun violence, and his scattershot way of assigning blame.”

He consequently takes Mike to task, asking him from scratch why he didn’t place any blame at the feet of the uncle who left the gun where the kid could find it, but went to L.A. to hassle Dick Clark instead, even though he really had no connection to the event except that he was a major shareholder in the restaurant that got a tax break for hiring the welfare mom.

Mike answers precisely : “Blaming the uncle for having the gun there in his house was done sufficiently by the mainstream media. Because I live there, I saw all that. The uncle not only was blamed, but he's now in prison.” And those familiar with the F9/11 controversies will have recognized here the “No blame on Saddam” pattern.

He then elaborates on the mother’s doomed two jobs karma, which forced her to involve the uncle.

RB: OK, I'll give you that. I'll give you that, but...

MICHAEL MOORE: That's a big give, though!

RB: I understand the problems with the welfare-to-work...

MICHAEL MOORE: It's not just problems with the welfare-to-work. It's inherently evil. It's an act of terrorism.

And those familiar with the Roger and Me controversies will have remembered the factory/Mc Veigh exploding buildings crosscut pattern.

Now for Dick Clark, and also in karmic terms : “his is the Dick Clark restaurant, it is his name and he is a shareholder in it, and he profits from it. He didn't put the gun under the bed that the boy found. He didn't shoot the little girl. But he was trying to benefit from her poverty. He was trying to get a tax break. (…) That's his little role in it, and he can't just divorce himself from it.”

And the Socratic lecture ends in the same spiralling ricochet logic, involving capitalist selfishness which just CAN’T DIVORCE ITSELF FROM THE POLITICS OF FEAR : "I wanted to say something much larger about how society is manipulated by politicians and corporations into being in a constant state of panic and fear," Moore asserted, "and how once you get the population whipped up like that, conservative regimes can get just about anything they want out of the people without firing a shot."

“Since I'm not pretending to be an objective journalist in this article, I'll just conclude by saying, Amen to that, Brother”, Rob has to conclude with suitable but all too rare humility.

(All excerpts from http://www.splicedonline.com/02features/mimoore.html )


Call Michael Moore The Karma Man. The one who understands the intermingling and intertwining of personal responsibilities to an extent which makes him able to grasp the Superior Truth inherent to his seemingly tiny topics, by means of spiralling ricochets. That’s how he’s far, far beyond his original inspiration – Nick Broomfield. (see next post)

THE ABSOLUTE DUEL

This entry is the third part of the section entitled "The Eternal Artist" in my essay "Yes, He Makes Movies", devoted to Mike's contribution to film. It deals with Mike as the heir of Frank Capra : a direct democrat.




(above : Mr Smith goes to Washington, only to non-meet the Multi-headed non-listening Hydra in Congress)


Like Capra, Mike chose direct democracy as his main strategy.

His work, in his movies as well as in his TV series, revolves around a very simple pattern :

He questions some person of great power or wealth whom he feels, knowingly or not, betrayed the public trust.

The chase, the fight, the showdown : these are the three steps and the Trinity to the Battle of Evermore between the Man of Art and the Man of Power.

And this Absolute Duel becomes even more absolute when the Artist infringes on the Politician’s prerogatives, to make himself heard, and WIN. And THIS is what The Moderate and Objective Enemy calls lying.

Ever since the Greek tragedies, artists have, from time to time, asked themselves how they might influence ongoing political events. It's a tricky question because two very different types of power are involved. Many theories of aesthetics and ethics revolve round this question. For those living under political tyrannies, art has frequently been a form of hidden resistance, and tyrants habitually look for ways to control art. All this, however, is in general terms and over a large terrain. Fahrenheit 9/11 is something different. It has succeeded in intervening in a political programme on the programme's own ground. For this to happen a convergence of factors were needed. The Cannes award and the misjudged attempt to prevent the film being distributed played a significant part in creating the event.

To point this out in no way implies that the film as such doesn't deserve the attention it is receiving. It's simply to remind ourselves that within the realm of the mass media, a breakthrough (a smashing down of the daily wall of lies and half-truths) is bound to be rare. And it is this rarity which has made the film exemplary. It is setting an example to millions - as if they'd been waiting for it.

John Berger

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uselections2004/comment/story/0,14259,1289515,00.html



And THIS is how all the sugary lying of humor and satire leaves you burning with the Truth of a ferocious, lasting, and hopefully untameable ANGER…

Chaplin, again – NOT too serious, too honest Capra this time :

T: FAHRENHEIT 9/11 reminds me of the Charlie Chaplin movie "The Great Dictator". That movie was very much criticized at the time of its release. People said, "it's not a comedy; it's more like propaganda and it is very preachy." What do you think about Charlie Chaplin?

MICHAEL MOORE: Chaplin in America is remembered as the great comedian. But the other truth is, he was a great political force. He was a socialist and he used his comedy and his filmmaking always on the side of the little guy and against the rich man. It was always the Little Tramp against the boss, the Little Tramp against the policeman, the Little Tramp against the factory, right? That was his character, that's what he did. And he combined comedy with the tragedy. And people flocked to the cinema to see him. And he had a profound effect on the movies, on people, on politics and he became a danger to the point where he was threatened and couldn't get in the country because he was blacklisted. I don't have a favorite. I'm both of those people. In the famous insignia of comedy and tragedy, you know, the two masks, those Greek masks of comedy and tragedy? Well, that's what you see in my films. They're two sides of the same coin. Our best comedians have been the angriest people. Charlie Chaplin was an angry man. Richard Pryor was an angry man. George Carlin, I don't know if you know him, a comedian in the United States, is an angry man. Lenny Bruce, angry man. And they turned their anger into comedy, and then into a message to people. I hope people don't see me as just an angry guy, because I'm not just that. I'm all these other things too.

http://www.japattack.com/japattack/film/moore01.html



And when the anger is here, THEN the tragedy can happen.

Zola, this time – NOT too peaceful, too hopeful Capra :

He didn't call it "J'Accuse!" but he might as well have.

Like Emile Zola, whose celebrated 19th century open letter assailed the French government for being a party to intolerable injustice, Michael Moore in Fahrenheit 9/11 has launched an unapologetic attack, both savage and savvy, on an administration he feels has betrayed the best of America and done extensive
damage in the world.

http://www.fahrenheit911.com/about/press/view.php?id=5

SINGING IN THE RAIN

This entry is the second part of the section entitled "The Eternal Artist" in my essay "Yes, He Makes Movies", devoted to Mike's contribution to film. It deals with Mike as the heir of Charlie Chaplin : a satirist.

(above : Machine raging against Charlie Chaplin in "Modern Times")

Like Chaplin, Mike chose humor as his main weapon :

"Political humor is a good way of providing a message -- as opposed to giving a sermon." - Michael Moore

http://www.cs.uu.nl/wais/html/na-dir/celebrities/michael-moore-faq/part1.html

In spite of being a preacher, Mike is a satirist first. He’s a satirist first BECAUSE he’s a preacher.

For satire alone provides the necessary distance to get intellectually angry. That is, angry for good.

Brecht, for one, had noticed that the phenomenon of catharsis generated by tragedy according to Aristotle was in fact a nuisance : people get stirred, people get moved, people cry… and then people forget. Whereas the hidden coldness of satire, behind its cool, deadpan LOOKS, drops the anger like a stone to the bottom in the well of your heart…

…and you don’t forget….

World: Canadian Bacon was the funniest film at the festival, at the same time one of the most serious. How does humor fit into political action?

Moore: First of all, I think humor is a very effective means of communicating a message to people. I think we've all seen that too many people are turned off by the sort of soapbox kind of preaching. That stuff's good when you're preaching to the converted, but when you're trying to convert, for whatever reason, wherever we're at now in 1995 in America, it doesn't work very well. So I decided to use my sense of humor as a means to affect change, to get people thinking about the issues.

Underlying the humor though is a very serious point, and underneath that is a lot of anger. I think some of the best comedy comes from people who are very angry about the situations they see in the world and the humor sort of acts as a means to deal with the frustration of living in the society in which we live.

http://www.pww.org/archives95/95-09-23-3.html

THE HEIR OF SOCIAL COMEDIES

This entry is the first part of the section entitled "The Eternal Artist" in my essay "Yes, He Makes Movies", devoted to Mike's contribution to film.



Mike has realized and known since long that Something is rotten in the state of Hollywood, Denmark :'

'Most films in America are dumb and stupid and make a lot of money,'' he says. ''Then you have a few art-house films that don't make much money. I think there's a big middle ground. People who live in the Pittsburghs and the Milwaukees and the Flint, Michigans, have a brain and would like to see a film that has all the normal movie conventions but is also about something. Why do these things have to be incompatible? Couldn't you have a Jim Carrey movie that makes social commentary?'' The great divide between comedy and commentary didn't always exist, in Moore's view. ''Look at Charlie Chaplin, our great film comedian,'' he says. ''All his early films were social comedies or political comedies. He was commenting on the times in which he lived. Where are those films today? They don't exist. The closest we get is 'The Player' and a few others."

http://www.michaelmoore.com/dogeatdogfilms/cbcst.html


Yes, Romeo Social and Juliet Comedy divorced a long time ago. And Mike says : “Come together… Right now, over me.”

Capra, Chaplin, Sturges : Michael Moore is the heir of social comedies.


Think back to Roosevelt. He had the Capras, Sturges, Steinbecks and they moved millions, the nation, with their art. That brought popular support to a radical agenda. Don't need to make polemical documentaries.

http://www.thenation.com/edcut/index.mhtml?bid=7&pid=2104


For example, Roger and Me was described as “a comedy about 30,000 people losing their jobs.”

http://www.cs.uu.nl/wais/html/na-dir/celebrities/michael-moore-faq/part1.html

Capra, in particular, showed how one single ordinary guy can be crucial to his environment : his family, his city (“It’s a Wonderful life”), his country (“Mr Smith Goes to Washington”).

And Charlie Chaplin “made comedies about the politics of his time. Where are these films today? These are the films I want to make," he said. "It's difficult to pull off -- making people laugh and think at the same time. Hollywood seems to think those two things are incongruous."

http://www.michaelmoore.com/dogeatdogfilms/cbhrep.html

Mike is their heir.

"I MAKE MOVIES"

"I make movies," Moore told me plainly, when I asked him how he answers the critics who say his films are not documentaries. "I don't write non-fiction books," he continued, referring to his successful career as an author. "I don't call it non-fiction, I call it a book."

http://www.indiewire.com/people/people_040624moore.html

I have set out to write my thoughts about Michael Moore’s contribution to film.

But all of my efforts will be lost on the reader if I overlook the basic paradox at the core of his work, and if he/she fails to admit that essential truth that, although Mike makes documentaries, he is NOT a documentarian ; and that, although Michael Moore “lies”, he is NOT a liar.

Mike writes books. He doesn’t call them non-fiction, he calls them books.

Well, just the same, Mike MAKES MOVIES. He doesn’t call them documentaries, HE CALLS THEM MOVIES.

In other words, Mikes endorses a superior, global vision of what The Truth is : his base is non-fiction, but his home is vaster and includes personal themes, artistic references and lineage, and an original know how when it comes to the lost and ancient art of storytelling.

In Godard’s words, “A great artist who starts from fiction is bound to meet non-fiction in the end. A great artist who starts from non-fiction is bound to meet fiction in the end.”

And the fact that this very filmmaker, initially enthusiastic over Roger and Me when it looked weak and doomed, failed to acknowledge Mike’s genius and finally rejected F9/11 in 2004 at Cannes without having seen it, only goes to show how much The Truth of Lies is difficult to really figure out and to really accept, even to those who can see it.

INTRODUCING A SET OF ESSAYS ABOUT MIKE AS A FILMMAKER

I have written a lengthy, detailed, and hopefully enlightening piece about Michael Moore as a filmmaker.

Erm.

Actually, very lengthy.

Being all of a sudden savagely fed the solid content of 24 typed pages, my blog savagely fought back as blogs will do : various technical bugs and problems which finally forced me to back down... I fought the computer and the computer won.

Tell you what : I'm going to do that little by little. One part at a time. Maybe even one sub-section at the time. And, in order for it all to still make overall sense (something I'm keen on), I'll limit myself for tonight to the general outline of what I have, to be honest, to call a mini-book.

Here goes then :

TABLE OF CONTENTS

TITLE : YES, HE MAKES MOVIES


INTRODUCTION : I MAKE MOVIES (Putting An End To The Obsession with “The Real Documentary”)


I - THE ETERNAL ARTIST

A – THE HEIR OF SOCIAL COMEDIES
B – SINGING IN THE RAIN
C- THE ABSOLUTE DUEL

II - THE INNOVATOR

A – KARMA MAN
B– BEYOND NICK BROOMFIELD
C- ATYPICAL DOCUMENTARIAN
D – LOUD AND CLEAR AND SUBTLE


III – THE STORYTELLER

A – SAME OLD STORY
B – SOCRATES AS A WRESTLER
C – SCROOGE AND HIS NEMESIS


CONCLUSION : HE MAKES MOVIES (The Documentary Ends Where The Quest Begins)

SYNOPSIS

Mike "makes movies", as opposed to "documentaries" (for the pro-Moore) and to "crockumentaries" (for the anti-Moore). Meaning that he's BASICALLY A FUCKING ARTIST.

Heh.

Like all true innovators, Mike has roots and lineage. He's the Heir of Capra and Chaplin and that means he tries to get Romeo Social and Juliet Comedy to marry again on the one hand, Man of Art and Man of Power to divorce again on the other ("The Eternal Artist").

But Mike is of course better known for his revolutionary methods and techniques. He didn't create them, but he brought them to perfection : his subjective non-fictional stories, both loud and subtle, can reach up by spiralling ricochets to mythical status, allowing us to get a grip on the world and on our own freedom ("The Innovator").

For Mike is a Storyteller, and the power of the universal Story he bears inside him ridicules the imbecile particular Anecdotes in which the Dwarves try to lock him, because of their tiny, miserable idea of The Truth. He also IS his Story. Beyond Andersen, he tears apart the Emperor's New Clothes. Beyond Socrates, he turns his questions into weapons and tools. Beyond Nemesis, he turns his vengeance into listening, seeing and testifying. ("The Storyteller")

There never was any "documentary". There always was a Quest.

MANU-FACT-URING FACT BASTARDS

This is Dedicated, with all due respect, to the Canuck tribe of the IMDb F9/11 board....

...and to their fwends as well....

Just check my use of COLORS...

Toronto filmmakers focus on Michael Moore

Friday,
March 9, 2007 CBC Arts


A documentary about filmmaker Michael Moore by Toronto's Rick Caine and Debbie Melnyk is drawing buzz ahead of its premiere at the South by Southwest festival in Austin, Texas.

Manufacturing Dissent follows filmmaker Michael Moore during the release of Fahrenheit 9/11 and questions many of his tactics.

One of the documentary's revelations is that General Motors chairman Roger Smith, the apparently elusive subject of Moore's 1989 debut Roger & Me, had been interviewed for the film, but Moore simply chose to leave the footage out of the finished cut.

http://www.cbc.ca/arts/film/story/2007/03/09/southwest-festival.html

"I don’t really understand the point of this documentary?"

Manufacturing Dissent Movie Trailer featuring Michael Moore

Posted By Peter Sciretta On 20th February 2007 @ 06:40 In Movie Trailers, Documentary, Independent, Movie Marketing, Film Festivals, SXSW



(…) Synopsis: Manufacturing Dissent seeks to separate fact, fiction and legend, tracks Michael Moore on tour during the release of the explosive Fahrenheit 911(and the subsequent Slacker Uprising Tour and 2004 US election), all the while chronicling the politically supercharged climate in America that has fueled Moore’s transition from mere filmmaker to icon of the political left.

(…)And before you ask, dissent is a sentiment or philosophy of non-agreement or opposition to an idea (eg. a government’s policies) or an entity (eg. an individual or political party which supports such policies).

I don’t really understand the point of this documentary? Is it to discredit Moore? To make him look like a fool? Can someone explain to me the point? Is it negative? Positive? Non-partisan?

http://www.slashfilm.com/2007/02/20/manufacturing-dissent-movie-trailer-featuring-michael-moore/

Now here is the picture that this person who "doesn't really understand the point of this documentary" chose to adorn his commentary :

...and here is the picture that the DOCUMENTARIANS chose for a poster to their documentary...

AND NOW TO * THE POINT *.....

The Point - Manufacturing Fat Bastards, Made (Up) In Canada

PART 1 - THE (TRAIN) SPOTTING

Doc by Toronto filmmakers questions Michael Moore's tactics

Christy Lemire - AP - Sunday, March 11, 2007

As documentary filmmakers, Debbie Melnyk and Rick Caine looked up to Michael Moore.

Then they tried to do a documentary of their own about him - and ran into the same sort of resistance Moore himself famously faces in his own films.

The result is Manufacturing Dissent, which turns the camera on the confrontational documentarian and examines some of his methods. Among their revelations in the movie, which had its world premiere Saturday night at the South by Southwest film festival: That Moore actually did speak with then-General Motors chairman Roger Smith, the evasive subject of his 1989 debut Roger & Me, but chose to withhold that footage from the final cut.

The husband-and-wife directors spent over two years making the movie, which follows Moore on his college tour promoting 2004's Fahrenheit 9/11. The film shows Melnyk repeatedly approaching Moore for an interview and being rejected; members of Moore's team also kick the couple out of the audience at one of his speeches, saying they weren't allowed to be shooting there.

At their own premiere Saturday night, the Toronto-based filmmakers expected pro-Moore plants in the audience heckling or trying to otherwise sabotage the screening, but it turned out to be a tame affair."It went really well," Melnyk said. "People really liked the film and laughed at the right spots and got the movie and we're really happy about it."

Moore hasn't commented publicly on Manufacturing Dissent and Melnyk thinks he never will. He also hasn't responded to several calls and e-mails from The Associated Press.

"There's no point for Michael to respond to the film because then it gives it publicity," she said."

(President) Bush didn't respond to Fahrenheit 9/11, and there's a reason for that," Caine added.The two were and still are fans of all his movies - including the polarizing Fahrenheit 9/11, which grossed over $119 million (U.S.) and won the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival - and initially wanted to do a biography on him. They travelled to his childhood home of Davison, Mich., visited his high school and traced his early days in politics and journalism.

"The fact that he made documentaries entertaining was extremely influential and got all kinds of people out to see them," said Melnyk, whose previous films with Caine include 1998's Junket Whore. "Let's face it, he made documentaries popular and that is great for all documentary filmmakers.""All of these films - Super Size Me, An Inconvenient Truth - we've all been riding in his wake," said Caine. "There's a nonfiction film revolution going on and we're all beneficiaries of that. For that point alone, he's worth celebrating."

But after four months of unsuccessfully trying to sit down with Moore for an on-camera interview, they realized they needed to approach the subject from a different angle. They began looking at the process Moore employs in his films, and the deeper they dug, the more they began to question him.

The fact that Moore spoke with Smith, including a lengthy question-and-answer exchange during a May 1987 GM shareholders meeting, first was reported in a Premiere magazine article three years later. Transcripts of the discussion had been leaked to the magazine, and a clip of the meeting appeared in Manufacturing Dissent. Moore also reportedly interviewed Smith on camera in January 1988 at the Waldorf Astoria hotel in New York.

Since then, in the years since Roger & Me put Moore on the map, those details seem to have been suppressed and forgotten."

It was shocking, because to me that was the whole premise of Roger & Me," Melnyk said.

She and Caine also had trouble finding people to talk on camera about Moore, partly because potential interview subjects assumed they were creating a right-wing attack piece; as self-proclaimed left-wingers, they weren't.

Despite what they've learned, the directors still appreciate Moore.

"We're a bit disappointed and disillusioned with Michael," Melnyk said, "but we are still very grateful to him for putting documentaries out there in a major way that people can go to a DVD store and they're right up there alongside dramatic features."

http://www.canada.com/topics/entertainment/story.html?id=9a9567d6-106b-4cbd-9019-f74fcb14ec19&k=55604

Manufatturing Fact Bastards, THE LIES

THE (HOUSE WASTE) SORTING

PART 2 - THE LIES

confrontational documentarian : MM NEVER was confrontational. He always was pesky. He always used his Mike to Let Them Talk. “And he never gives an answer…”

their revelations : There are NO revelations to this miserable REMAKE OF “MICHAEL AND ME” (which wasn’t successful enough for the two fatasses’ tastes). As REPORTED, “the fact that Moore spoke with Smith, including a lengthy question-and-answer exchange during a May 1987 GM shareholders meeting, first was REPORTED in a Premiere magazine article three years later”, and “Moore also REPORTEDLY interviewed Smith on camera in January 1988 at the Waldorf Astoria hotel in New York.” I, for one, already knew it.

The Point - Manufattturing Fact Bastards, THE DECEITS

THE (HOUSE WASTE) SORTING

PART 3 - THE DECEITS

the Toronto-based filmmakers expected pro-Moore plants in the audience heckling or trying to otherwise sabotage the screening : McCaine and his Whore of Babble-On felt (RIGHTLY) guilty for acting like The Seventh RIGHT-WING ATTACK on Mike (“This Divided State” being the only pro-Moore documentary done in the direct WAKE of his HARD WORK) and expected the same kind of punishment that Republican slandering sites got in 2004 from a NOW LATE, LAMENTED pro-Moore dedicated Army

Michael : These true, dedicated pro-Moore left-wing McCaine and his Whore of Babble-On NEVER call him by his Real Name : MIKE. They call him MICHAEL instead. Like Ralph Nader.

"There's no point for Michael to respond to the film because then it gives it publicity," she said.

"(President) Bush didn't respond to Fahrenheit 9/11, and there's a reason for that," Caine added.

This one’s pretty plain to see but remains and absolute must to ALL of the “left-wing” Iscariots and ALL of the “left-wing” traitors : “Michael” = “(President) Bush”

The two were and still are fans of all his movies : McCaine and his Whore of Babble-On WERE fans, but they AREN’T. Not anymore.

But after four months of unsuccessfully trying to sit down with Moore for an on-camera interview, they realized they needed to approach the subject from a different angle : McCaine and his Whore of Babble-On can’t have REALIZED that, cuz Mike Wilsod, Brian Baloney and Larry ELDER had “REALIZED” that FACT before them. Even RABID ATHEISTS like McCaine and his Whore of Babble-On must have REALIZED that this RIGHT-WING ANTI-MOORE TRINITY came first, long before them.

those details seem to have been suppressed and forgotten : They SEEM… but they HAVEN’T BEEN.

Despite what they've learned, the directors still appreciate Moore : McCaine and his Whore of Babble-On LEARNED * NOTHING *. The Repug Trinity said it all in 2004. Unless, perhaps, their righteous attacks “seem to have been suppressed and forgotten” ? BIGGRIN.

The Point - Manufacturing Fat Bastards, THE HYPOCRISY

THE (HOUSE WASTE) SORTING

PART 4 - THE HYPOCRISY

it turned out to be a tame affair : Tame affair for tame filmmakers, tame audience and tame “left”. What a SURPRISE.

the Toronto-based filmmakers expected pro-Moore plants in the audience heckling or trying to otherwise sabotage the screening : McCaine and his Whore of Babble-On expected the audience to be pro-Moore ? What a JOKE.

"All of these films - Super Size Me, An Inconvenient Truth - we've all been riding in his wake," said Caine : McCaine explains that his documentary is SIMILAR to Super Size Me and An Inconvenient Truth, both genuine pro-Moore movies. What a SURPRISE and what a JOKE.

She and Caine also had trouble finding people to talk on camera about Moore, partly because potential interview subjects assumed they were creating a right-wing attack piece; as self-proclaimed left-wingers, they weren't : McCaine and his Whore of Babble-On describe themselves as “self-proclaimed left-wingers”. SAY NO MOORE.

The Point - Manufacturing Fat Bastards, THE SLANDER

THE (HOUSE WASTE) SORTING

PART 5 - THE SLANDER

People really liked the film : People liked to see Mike humiliated.

and laughed at the right spots : They needed no pre-recorded laughter, it was inside them.

and got the movie : They got that THE POINT was to BELITTLE MIKE.

and we're really happy about it : McCaine and his Whore of Babble-On are happy that the 300 are dead and that they’re left with an all-Persian “”””””””””pro-Moore””””””””””” audience."

Let's face it, he made documentaries popular and that is great for all documentary filmmakers : McCaine and his Whore of Babble-On acknowledge how much Mike really is A GREAT MAN. They also acknowledge that he did * THEM * ONLY GOOD.

There's a nonfiction film revolution going on and we're all beneficiaries of that. For that point alone, he's worth celebrating = “Poor, poor, pitiful, nonfictitious Fat Bastard !!”

"We're a bit disappointed and disillusioned with Michael," Melnyk said, "but we are still very grateful to him for putting documentaries out there in a major way : the Whore of Babble-On is “a bit disappointed and disillusioned” (but NOT TOO MUCH, let’s remain MODERATE AND OBJECTIVE) with “Michael” (like Nader), but she’s still very sorry for Poor, Poor, Pitiful Nonfictitious Fat Bastard, whose GREATNESS SHE’S WELL AWARE OF.

THE POINT : MANU-FACT-URING FACT BASTARDS, * THE TRUTH *

THE (HOUSE WASTE) SORTING

PART 6 - THE TRUTH

As documentary filmmakers, Debbie Melnyk and Rick Caine looked UP to Michael Moore, as stated in the TITLE. That is, they were dwarves and he was a giant. And they realized that AWFUL TRUTH when confronting their IDOL. So they set out on a QUEST TO BELITTLE MICHAEL MOORE by “questioning his tactics”, that is, “soiling his immaculate purity”.

It was shocking, because to me that was the whole premise of Roger & Me," Melnyk said : the Whore of Babble-On is shocked that THE GIANT DIDN’T ALIGN WITH HER DWARFISH MINDSET.

The lies and deceits are equally shared between the author of the article and the authors of the movie. So tightly that THEY BECOME THE TRUTH.

There are NO revelations to this documentary, other than PRICELESS ONES ABOUT THE “LEFT”.

McCaine and his Whore of Babble-On’s real AGENDA is to KILL THE STORY-TELLER and to KILL THE ARTIST, so that MIKE gets CUT DOWN to CROOKED LYING COWARDLY POLITICIAN like KERRY.“Manufacturing Dissent” is really about MANUFACTURING THE CONSENT OF MILLIONS OF SWARMING MCCAINES AND WHORES OF BABBLE-ON.

* MY POINT *

Fuck the traitors.

Death to Judas Iscariot.

Death to McCaine and his War of Babylon.

DAY OF THE WHORE

Written March 8, 2007. Slightly edited for more discretion. Will edit some more if asked to.

Once upon our time, it started this way...

What is Feminism? by Doodle1 (Wed Mar 7 2007 12:20:22) Feminists want equal rigths. But what is the fundy definitio

3 Women Pr Gloria Orenstein (Greek Chorus of the Hicks : “Is she Jewish ????? Is she Jewish ?????”) will often openly marvel at the fact that she was born on International Women's Day (March 8th) and grew up to be a professor of Women's Studies. For her experiences have taught her that "the most ordinary occurrences in our everyday lives, in what we mistakenly think of as non-sacred reality, are in fact signposts on a path whose underlying pattern has been set in motion with our birth, or more likely perhaps, even before our physical birth into this dimension." And looking back at the synchronistic signs, symbols, and omens of her life has convinced her of the genuine sacredness of worldly reality. http://www.usc.edu/dept/comp-lit/biographies/fc_bio_orenstein.html So…. HAPPY HYDES OF MARCH TO DIAMOND_D, MY FRIEND THE MOORE DISLIKER and HELEN_WHEELS, ALL WOUNDED WARRIORS OF THE GOD OF WHORE !!!! (and for those wondering about the presence of Helen here, I’ll specify that she was born on International Women's Day – simply). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/March_8 http://www.un.org/ecosocdev/geninfo/women/womday97.htm When I was a lead singer and lyricist for punk band The Phallocrats (christened by your servant, but soon to be unbaptized under the pressure of progressive hippies and feminist ass licking zealots X, drummer, and Y, keyboard player), I met Z, who was to become my best friend and still is to this day. Z decidedly fell in love with me and I couldn’t fall in love with her. Not really. This caused many a tangle which forced me to look deeper into my beliefs (in a nutshell, Death To Patriarchy) and question my own intimate postulates in regards to the nature of femininity. I perceived that the figure of the Mermaid – that Suave Obstacle to Brave Ulysses’s Quest For Home - was the one who best summed up the way I felt about women. My ma had rocked me as a child, but she had also rolled me all night long. The frigid, distant, sulking and chic approach of the Neo-Romantics of the ‘80s (a tribe I hated) was the one that suited me best. I'm taking nothing It's not my way It's almost summer now This bed's been made Some time ago a figure strolled Along the esplanade Changing in the mist and light Underneath the green arcades A blurred girl A blurred girl Are we running still? Or are we standing still? Are we running still? Or are we standing still? Standing so close Never quite touching Standing so close Never quite touching A blurred girl A blurred girl Wounded in sleep again The sequences move by me A million miles across the room A tearing sound of smiling We're fixing distances on maps And echo paths in crowds The light from other windows Falls across me now A blurred girl A blurred girl A blurred girl A blurred girl Standing so close Never quite touching Standing so close Never quite touching Never quite touching Never quite touching Never quite touching Never quite touching This song by John Foxx (!!!) from his first solo LP “Metamatic” inspired the one I wrote for Z, with a little help from my friends Y and A (composers) : It’s looking good He’s looking good She sat and he stood now she’s in the mood He’s better than nice He’s as cold as ice He’s not here. It’s looking at you He’s looking at you You smiled and he flew now you start anew He’s better than sweet He’s a piece of meat You’re not here. It’s looking like They’re looking alike They yelled and they died now who’s got the mike They’re better than you They’re bitter and blue They’re not here. It’s looking grim It’s looking dim It came and passed now it’s here to last It’s better than new It’s always been you It’s just here. She liked it.

Jeanne Dielman, 23 Quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles Z was and is a radical feminist, who first introduced me to Valerie Solanas (whom I only knew by name) and her “SCUM Manifesto”. I didn’t fall in love with Z, but I fell in love with her Black Jesus Christ. So, if you feel so inclined, you can check the tribute I wrote for her, as well as for (originally) Upsize This, an absolutely terrible “left-wing”, “”””””pro-Moore”””””” site which, before the populace of the IMDb Fahrenheit 9/11 board, was to be the first to get a taste of my Dr Robert medicine, and to ban me for that (but that’s another story) : http://michaelamour.blogspot.com/search?q=valerie Now of course Valerie eats John Foxx for breakfast. As for Mike, he did write a piece called “The End of Men” – a piece clearly inspired by this she-V -, for Stupid White Men. Sadly and surprisingly, this text is (easily) one of his worst. Some critics mercilessly called it a rant and I didn’t try to dissuade them. I guess that, to Mike too, women remain a Dark Continent. And of course patriarchy has made sure that they remain a Dark Continent to themselves, to complete the picture.

Britney Spears So I’ll close this lecture on my favorite Feminist Anthem – a still of the situation and the broken record which both sums up and tears apart the Feminist Rut : X Ray Spex’s “Oh Bondage Up Yours !” in 1977 : Some people think little girls Should be seen and not heard But I think, Oh Bondage, Up Yours! One, Two, Three, Four Bind me tie me Chain me to the wall I wanna be a slave To you all Oh bondage up yours Oh bondage no more Oh bondage up yours Oh bondage no more Chain-store chain-smoke I consume you all Chain-gang chain-mail I don't think at all Oh bondage up yours Oh bondage no more Oh bondage up yours Oh bondage no more Thrash me crash me Beat me till I fall I wanna be a victim For you all Oh bondage up yours Oh bondage no more Oh bondage up yours Oh bondage no more Bind me tie me Chain me to the wall I wanna be a slave To you all Oh bondage up yours Oh bondage no more Oh bondage up yours Oh bondage no more Bind me tie me Chain me to the wall I wanna be a slave To you all Oh bondage up yours Oh bondage no more Oh bondage up yours Oh bondage no more Oh bondage up yours Oh bondage no more It was 30 years ago today, Poly Styrene taught the band to play. But she’s been going in and out of style, and now she has retired, like Leonard Cohen, in a monastery. For no Rut can be torn apart. It just doesn’t work that way. Guaranteed to raise a smile ?…. Valerie died in material and moral misery. Poly Styrene wore off too early, too soon. As for Z, she has married an asshole who hates me to piss me off, and now she spends a lot of time complaining about her man being an asshole and wondering why on earth she married such an asshole to begin with. ….Well, the International Day of the Whore is still part of the month of Mars...

The Definitive James Bond Soundrack Bond is the definitive male archetype today. A selfish, classless twit who serves the upper class so he can keep on shagging the best wines and drinking the best girls, and who's only attracted to already married women, so that he won't do what his Calvinist mom doesn't want him to do. James BOND. So this is where the bonds of marriage are today... Hell-O-Hell. Once upon our time, it started to end this way... THE DEFINITIVE JAMES BOND SOUNDRACK by Mr_Nike_Guy (Thu Mar 8 2007 13:00:43) HYMN A L'AMUUUUUUUUUUUUUR TUUUUUUUUUUJUUUUUUUR..... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mD1L3iS9jB0 SIGNATURE : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yUJjERiU4Oc#GU5U2spHI_

What is Feminism? by Doodle1 (Wed Mar 7 2007 12:20:22) Feminists want equal rigths. But what is the fundy definition?

Re: Montenegro and all that

by Waldo-6 (Thu Mar 8 2007 09:39:37)

Gypsies are cool.

SIGNATURE : Ma Ze Po?! Republikat Bananot?!!!!

Re: Montenegro and all that by JackDelahunt (Thu Mar 8 2007 09:46:53) Gypsies make cartoon movies. SANTUARY! ________________________________________ SIGNATURE : ----DEATH TO HIPPIES!----

Re: Montenegro and all that

by Waldo-6 (Thu Mar 8 2007 10:48:19)

Gypsies are like hippies, only they live in reality.

SIGNATURE : Ma Ze Po?! Republikat Bananot?!!!!



Re: Montenegro and all that

by Moores_watch (Thu Mar 8 2007 16:43:04)

Reality ?... It's immaterial...



....My wallpaper today.

SIGNATURE : Does anybody really know what time it is ? by Chicago Transit Authority.

MARS

Written March 2, 2007. Slightly edited to fit the blog concept.

Mars is the God of War.

He's the brother and the enemy of the God of Whore.

Tis the Beginning of March. "March" is "Mars" in French. "March" is the sound of charging feet in English.

I've known very early that I was a Warrior. I wasn't 10 yet when I first discovered T. Rex's "Electric Warrior" - and took it for what it was.

But I didn't know WHOSE warrior I was then.

But T. Rex wasn't cool by the PEEPS' standards. They weren't even ever that cool in England, so I'm not even telling you about America in the '80s...

Marc/Mars Bolan was infinitely more sex conscious than the too celestial Zombies. But T. Rex were a GIRLY BAND. An anecdotal, not so important band for LITTLE 13 YEAR OLD GIRLS. Julie Burchill sorted that out very well for the NME, at the time when the NME was The Enemy - now, it's just ours. Even John Peel, who discovered Marc Bolan and was his Godfather, got it all wrong about him... HE DISOWNED HIS SON.

I vaguely knew all that. Still I said innocently to the PEEPS of my school that T. Rex was my favorite band. And as I was also NOT ONE OF THEM, an orphan, and especially GREAT, those worthy sleuths immediately spotted that frail, intellectual, 4-eyed weakling as A FREAK.

And this is how it all BEGAN.

When I got out of the lunatic asylum at 19, I saw "Roger and me" and immediately knew that I was a Warrior, and whose Warrior I would be. But still it took me a long, long time, to really KNOW it. Cuz I was A FREAK. And freaks are not supposed to be warriors - they're supposed to be hippies.

This never fooled me - consciously. But now I realize how SCARED I always was to be EXPOSED. I realized that I NEVER USED MY INFLUENCE IN THE OPEN, NEVER OPENED MY MOUTH PUBLICLY, along with Zinn, Chomsky and a thousand other professors. Cuz me * I * knew, in my guts, what THEY (and perhaps even MM) didn't know : that the USA is NOT a free country. Not any more. Since long.

And I realize how much I always liked SHADOWS, how much I always acted a lot, worked a lot and did a lot, but NEVER IN THE OPEN. I had (and still have) a NEW MODEL ARMY of devoted friends and students whose main function was to HYDE me. Internet was the thing for me. Really.

In spite of all that, I always felt kind of PARALYZED. Paralyzed by SHAME. Cuz I thought of myself as a COWARD, even though my activism was very efficient and threatening to the fascists.

And this is how it all BEGAN.

"Mars" is also a book by Fritz Zorn. A guy who finally let his St Anger be. But NEVER REVEALED HIS WORLDLY NAME. I won't comment on it. Read it.

http://www.amazon.com/Mars-Fritz-Zo...72857328&sr=8-1

Fritz Zorn died of cancer, in spite of having accessed the International Herald Tribune. John Lennon was murdered.

Michael Moore is alive and well and working on "Sicko", a DOCUMENTARY about health care.

Never mind the cigarettes. They are bollocks. They are the consequence of cancer, not the cause. So is GW. Et vice versa.

I don't know if I'm going to die. Cuz I don't know if I want to. I know that solar people usually DO beat the clock. And I do know how much I infinitely loathe and despise humanity, and, with all my might, want it to die - because I'm convinced that's what's really good and just and deserved. And I loathe it a little more with each and every new awkward move from one of the hicks.

Fritz Zorn and John Lennon died of fear and hate. Michael Moore didn't. Is it because he loves humanity so much, in spite of knowing much better than me what it's really worth ? I think so.

So, the Cure, for me, doesn't consist in stopping chain-smoking. THE CURE CONSISTS IN CHANGING MY MIND ABOUT HUMANITY.

And THAT's the reason why I'm doing what I'm doing.

Not for you, hicks.