There's no thread started on it yet, so here I am, jumpin in.
He's been toting the clips around the talking bobblehead shows, and he told Bill Maher he expects a "revolution" or something to that effect...
I think he'll be sorely disappointed if that's what he believes. I think this will be like Sicko and Roger & Me...something to make people go "hm" but nothing that will be any more than some buzz. I think Bowling for Columbine got more responses from people, mostly because of the Marilyn Manson coverage, and the fact that it was about the gruesome twosome.
Personally I don't ascribe to A LOT of what Moore says, but I find him interesting as a detractor nonetheless.
Quote from: Jenne on September 30, 2009, 04:40:50 PM
There's no thread started on it yet, so here I am, jumpin in.
He's been toting the clips around the talking bobblehead shows, and he told Bill Maher he expects a "revolution" or something to that effect...
I think he'll be sorely disappointed if that's what he believes. I think this will be like Sicko and Roger & Me...something to make people go "hm" but nothing that will be any more than some buzz. I think Bowling for Columbine got more responses from people, mostly because of the Marilyn Manson coverage, and the fact that it was about the gruesome twosome.
Personally I don't ascribe to A LOT of what Moore says, but I find him interesting as a detractor nonetheless.
yep, he seems as willing to twist perception as much as any other spag... but he usually makes some decent arguments or at least brings a magnifying glass in to look at the bullshit.
Exactly, Dr. Rat Bastard.
But he usually has to make a really big leap to "make his point", and as soon as he does that, his credibility (for many) is shot... because if he got that bit wrong, it tends to throw the rest of the film in doubt.
Well, I think he uses hyperbole to ill effect, really. He comes off as fair and balanced as Fox News, and pretends he's better than them. He's not, he's spinning as much as they are--he'd seem more genuine if he just copped to that fact and made it known he knows what he ends up looking like--not the crusader for justice he is pretending to be.
Quote from: Jenne on September 30, 2009, 04:40:50 PM
He's been toting the clips around the talking bobblehead shows, and he told Bill Maher he expects a "revolution" or something to that effect...
I saw him on Maher, he kind of stumbled when he was trying to make the argument about how we should keep democracy, but ditch capitalism. I think he was trying to make the well-worn point that because corporations have no motivation to do anything other than make as much money asap, they invariably end up screwing everyone involved with them. I think the democracy angle was thrown in there to suggest that "the people" should be able to have a more direct and involved say in what rights we extend to corporations, and to enforce accountability where appropriate.
Not sure how much hope to hold that the movie would make this point any better, as he seemed to have all the eloquence of a G20 protester. Money bad. Rah! Rah!
Moore makes about one spot-on point in each of his movies that gets buried beneath over the top stunts and ridiculous publicity grabs. In Sicko he interviews a guy whose job it was to go back through health coverage the company has paid for and find reasons why it won't be covered - kind've fucked up. He has a funny segment where he juxtaposes arguments against national health care with examples of it working elsewhere. Then he pulls a stunt by bringing 9/11 firefighters to Guantanamo Bay for health care.
He's also either the biggest douche ever or his intention gets lost in the shuffle. His interviews with Dick Clark and Charlton Heston, in Sicko and Bowling for Columbine respectively, were painful to watch. He either, very stupidly, expected the spokesman/figurehead to answer for serious ethical concerns on the topic or wanted to demonstrate that these are just ignorant old men who have no idea what they're standing for.
I actually dug Bowling for Columbine quite a bit overall, though. As condemning as he is towards several factors contributing to the shooting, he ultimately concludes that none of the arguments have any more merit than something completely arbitrary.
for those who don't care enough about Moore to google whatever his latest movie is about, what is his latest movie about?
Quote from: Triple Zero on September 30, 2009, 10:51:12 PM
for those who don't care enough about Moore to google whatever his latest movie is about, what is his latest movie about?
"Capitalism: A Love Story"
Didn't really read this thread but I popped in to say, "Fuck Michael Moore."
how much money do you figure he's gonna make off this movie?
Quote from: rong on October 01, 2009, 07:33:43 AM
how much money do you figure he's gonna make off this movie?
Just enough to fund his next movie about how it's really the Democrats who prevented the uninevitable rebellion this movie predicted.
Daily reminder: Michael Moore is fat, invalidating all his opinions.
Quote from: Cain on October 01, 2009, 10:27:43 AM
Daily reminder: Michael Moore is fat, invalidating all his opinions.
i bet he knows where to get a good donut
Quote from: Cain on October 01, 2009, 10:27:43 AM
Daily reminder: Michael Moore is fat, invalidating all his opinions.
:lulz: :lulz: :lulz: :lulz: :lulz:
In the documetary "The Corporation", he was just a guest speaker, but he did mention that he uses capitalism, and corporations, for that matter, to make money as much as any other director or writer. The corporations fund him because he sells. I think he's just as caught up in his delusions as half of America-he think's he's bring down capitalism, but in effect, he is being as coruppted by it as the people he condemns.
Quote from: Yes_No_Maybe_Confused on October 02, 2009, 02:50:42 AM
In the documetary "The Corporation", he was just a guest speaker, but he did mention that he uses capitalism, and corporations, for that matter, to make money as much as any other director or writer. The corporations fund him because he sells. I think he's just as caught up in his delusions as half of America-he think's he's bring down capitalism, but in effect, he is being as coruppted by it as the people he condemns.
Everyone uses capitalism. That's capitalism. Capitalism isn't automatically "corruption".
I think on NPR, he mentioned that it was unfettered capitalism he didn't like. He mentioned that when he was a kid ( :roll: ), there was a social contract between the workers and the company, that if the company did well, the workers did well; but this is no longer the case, corporations are bastards, yadda etc ad nauseum.
One thing I really like about Michael Moore, is that for his previous movies, he has encouraged people to pirate them in order to get the message out. I find his stunts infantile and his logic barren, but I also find somewhat endearing the degree to which he really believes in the message - he does seem to be motivated primarily by compassion.
I watched his plug for the movie on Bill Maher's show. Very well spoken, but still kind of confusing. Moore says he wants to replace capitalism with democracy. Maher pointed out - um, but democracy in itself isn't an economic model?
The first thing Moore says in the interview is that part of his goals are to defect hate away from Obama. Give the right wing something to focus on other than the president. I gotta doff my hat at this sentiment. Why is the left wing sitting with their hands folded in a defensive position? Win lose or draw, I'm glad someone is making a ruckus.
The movie seems to be about how in the olden days (good capitalism), you used to be able to work hard and get rewarded for it. Now you work real hard and barely break even. Something about how the richest people engineered the system long ago, and we're now feeling the eventual conclusion.
Best part of the interview was at the end, where Maher says goodbye and "I hope your movie makes millions of dollars". Moore laughs. Of course he's here to make money off his Anti-Capitalism movie.
So I'm not going to pay Michael Moore for an anti-capitalism commercial. But I AM going to pirate it. :p
I think what he meant by "democratic capitalism" or whatever you want to call it, is the idea that while companies should compete on the free market to make money and all that, there should be more equity among the people who work for that company. Almost like the companies are socialist nation-states in themselves.... No more billion-dollar wage gaps between the CEO and the cubicle rat.
Exactly how he goes about doing this, or even if it's a good idea, I have no clue.
maher asked him, "so what exactly do you want us to do? You talk a lot about 'rising up', but what's better than what we've got now?"
Moore kind of dodged that one.
Maher pointed out that it's not like the rich are exclusively the greedy folks in this country. Every single person you pass on the street would be a heartless tycoon if you gave 'em the chance.
Yup. Moore seems to be working on a premise just as faulty as most economists, only instead of "a person will act rationally given enough information," he believes "a person will act compassionately if given economic control".
Well think about it though. Pretty much anyone who was born and raised since the late 70s/80s has been living in a world where consumption is king. People say the 80's were the Me-Decade but I'm not sure that ever really ended, and the damned housing bubble is how that shit blows up. Poor people wanting to own a house they had no realistic opportunity to afford offered some Madoff-quality mortgage and they sign their damned names, not thinking that it would come back and bite them ino the ass. Except, it bit EVERYONE in the ass. The one good thing that might come out of this recession is to tamp some of that shit down. But I'm not too optimistic about that one. If and when the good times get rolling again, I fully expect us to be in this same place 20-30 years from now if not sooner.
Quote from: LMNO on October 02, 2009, 02:31:32 PM
Yup. Moore seems to be working on a premise just as faulty as most economists, only instead of "a person will act rationally given enough information," he believes "a person will act compassionately if given economic control".
same old same old, we talk about how Communism and libertarianism fail for the same reason "not accounting for human nature"
Quote from: fomenter on October 02, 2009, 06:07:03 PM
Quote from: LMNO on October 02, 2009, 02:31:32 PM
Yup. Moore seems to be working on a premise just as faulty as most economists, only instead of "a person will act rationally given enough information," he believes "a person will act compassionately if given economic control".
same old same old, we talk about how Communism and libertarianism fail for the same reason "not accounting for human nature"
Guess we're left with Leviathan. The crime is getting caught, and few crimes are actually going to get dealt with.
Quote from: Cramulus on October 02, 2009, 02:16:19 PM
The movie seems to be about how in the olden days (good capitalism), you used to be able to work hard and get rewarded for it. Now you work real hard and barely break even. Something about how the richest people engineered the system long ago, and we're now feeling the eventual conclusion.
John Robb has been hammering away at this point for ages. As far as he's concerned (and I actually tend to agree) the defining point where things changed was the transfer from Keynsian economics to a more neoliberal model and all that implied. In other words, Thatcherism/Reaganism (though in actually this started a few years before they came to power). Since then, real wages haven't changed very much at all, and consumption has been fuelled by massive amounts of credit. More women entering the workforce and cheap credit have been able to sustain the impression of improving conditions of life for the middle class, but its not really the case.
Here is the sort of thing he has been writing recently
QuoteThis is hilarious -- in that a set of indicators that clearly delineates a prolonged and precipitous decline of America gets so little coverage, zero outrage, and generates complete inaction. Where's the patriotism (or is that now only defined by a willingness to engage in foreign misadventures or a burn money on boondoggles from outrageously overpriced defense contractors?), a concern for the collective us? Where's the worry about our kids and our futures? Nah, that kind of thinking doesn't work anymore. As I said before: Hilarious.
The Census Bureau reported that median household incomes slid over the last decade. Of course, this new figure also means that household incomes only increased ~$5k (inflation adjusted dollars) or ~11% over 35 years! All of this so called gain has to do with improvements in the household's second income. Given that median male incomes are lower than 35 years ago, it's likely that in order to produce this gain, households as a unit, worked much harder (I suspect that the total number of hours worked by the family went up much more than 11%).
Worse, this 'gain' occurred during a time period when the educational requirement necessary to get a middle class (or median) income in the US expanded to include a college education -- which is entirely funded out of pocket (so much for the idea of the level playing field). If you factor out the rising (at many multiples of the rate of inflation) cost of college for a family's two workers, what does this picture look like?
A lost generation (or two) doesn't even seem to cover the magnitude of this failure. That characterization implies stasis and it is much worse than that. On the income side alone (counting education), it's a glide path to failure. Add in rising household expenses (health, housing, autos, etc.) and debt (over leverage) -- the term collapse comes readily to mind.
http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/johnrobb/2009/09/a-lost-decade-for-us-households-try-a-lost-generation-or-two.html
Holy shit.
I'm always shaken when it's put in so succinct and blunt a fashion.
Also this:
Quote(http://img40.imageshack.us/img40/1766/31669384.gif)
The implications of this chart are staggering....
This might be one:
There is a strong line of reasoning that the USSR collapsed when the nomenklatura (bureaucratic elites, the most important people in a government run economy) decided to work against the state. In short, the non-financial benefits of being in the bureaucracy were in decline as attempts were made to reform the Soviet system. So, when a window of opportunity arrived (the attempt to privatize sectors of the economy to improve economic performance), they jumped at it. A trickle of privatization turned into a flood as the nomenklatura looted the state of anything/everything of value.
I think that this is a more plausible reason for the decline of the USSR than anything else that I've heard.
How the mechanism that collapsed the USSR (per the above) applies to the US has yet to be seen. But, as the chart above shows us, something very, very wrong is in motion. It goes beyond Republican/Democrat, conservative/liberal, public/private, and all of the common methods of division or debate. It's systemic.
http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/johnrobb/2009/09/no-rising-tide.html
And this one:
QuoteOver the last thirty years, the social compact that divided value produced by productivity improvements between workers and corporate/financial interests broke down. All the value from improvements (they were mighty) in productivity went to corporations/finance. Median incomes stagnated for 30 years and the illusion of growth was produced by the extension of cheap debt. It was also the driver behind the ahistorical rise in the stock market and ultimately the recent financial meltdown.
That would be bad enough, but it's getting worse. Median incomes are now on a downward track to give corporations the ability to return to profitability through increases in productivity (a massive 6.4% rise in the last quarter).
This could be an interesting trend line. Rather than keep median wages at status quo levels (as we have over the last thirty years), this is one where corporate/financial interests claw back on the gains in median wages between the end of WW2 and the mid seventies. In that direction lies complete and utter failure.
http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/johnrobb/2009/08/more-breakage.html
Why do people always equate capitalism with Corporate Capitalism? Isn't a mom and pop owned shop part of the whole so-called capitalism racket?
I doubt Michael Moore would shit all over a mom and pop shop.
Yeah, corpratism != Capitalism
If anything Michael Moore is going to hurt credibility of the less well known people who are trying to explain whats really going on.
many of the torrents floating around are fakes - you might be getting the Wedding Singer or something
if anybody spots a working torrent, please link!
I liked the Wedding Singer.
Quote from: Hoopla on October 02, 2009, 09:25:04 PM
Why do people always equate capitalism with Corporate Capitalism? Isn't a mom and pop owned shop part of the whole so-called capitalism racket?
I doubt Michael Moore would shit all over a mom and pop shop.
As far as I can see, most of those shops have been put out of business by state-favoured corporations and massive multinational enterprises.
I've lived in some pretty desolate places in my time, and I can only recall a few shops who were locally owned. A couple of pubs, a butcher's, a few hairdressers and a general store.
Almost everything else is owned by some giant company, comglomerate, franchise or brewery. Small shops are not worth taking into consideration, because in most places they're not really relevant anymore.
There is a cure for everything wrong with capitalism/communism/socialism/democracy/discordianism:
KILL FUCKING EVERYONE.
Quote from: La Terrorista on October 07, 2009, 04:09:05 AM
There is a cure for everything wrong with capitalism/communism/socialism/democracy/discordianism:
KILL FUCKING EVERYONE.
1. Get a big, nice yacht from some rich fuck that has three or something.
2. Contact North Korea and arrange a mid range missle with nuclear capacity in exchange for the yacht.
3. pain the missle with Indian markings
4. smuggle nuke to India, or simply launch from Indian waters at Pakistan.
It doesn't matter if it makes it, or detonates, the launch will be detected and the pieces will be easier to identify if it doesn't. Hopefully someone gets horked off enough to launch their own nukes, that sets others off and bada-boom, no more people. Much fewer people anyway. Just an idea :D
Quote from: Jenne on September 30, 2009, 04:40:50 PM
He's been toting the clips around the talking bobblehead shows, and he told Bill Maher he expects a "revolution" or something to that effect...
I think he'll be sorely disappointed if that's what he believes. I think this will be like Sicko and Roger & Me...something to make people go "hm" but nothing that will be any more than some buzz. I think Bowling for Columbine got more responses from people, mostly because of the Marilyn Manson coverage, and the fact that it was about the gruesome twosome.
On the contrary, I believe that this will be the film that finally gets him institutionalied. All of the clips on the ad make him look insane; The first time I saw it I thought that it was a parody :horrormirth:
Plus, what the hell is this documentary supposed to accomplish? Everybody already knows that AIG and the banking and housing and insurance industries are corrupt. Everybody already knows about the recession. Hell, I purposely
avoid watching the news and even
I know about it!
They might as well just have an hour-and-a-half long film ofMichael Moore beating an actual dead horse! :deadhorse:
Actually, to tell the truth, I would be much much
MORE inclined to watch Michael Moore beat n actual dead horse for ninety minutes than I would be tosee his new movie...
:deadhorse: :deadhorse: :deadhorse:
Would I be terribly out of line by mentioning that Mr. Moore is bloody rich off his movies while he gripes about the evils of capitalism?
Quote from: Halfbaked1 on October 08, 2009, 03:50:18 AM
Would I be terribly out of line by mentioning that Mr. Moore is bloody rich off his movies while he gripes about the evils of capitalism?
No, you'd just be explaining what we already know.
Quote from: Halfbaked1 on October 07, 2009, 05:52:14 AM
Quote from: La Terrorista on October 07, 2009, 04:09:05 AM
There is a cure for everything wrong with capitalism/communism/socialism/democracy/discordianism:
KILL FUCKING EVERYONE.
1. Get a big, nice yacht from some rich fuck that has three or something.
2. Contact North Korea and arrange a mid range missle with nuclear capacity in exchange for the yacht.
3. pain the missle with Indian markings
4. smuggle nuke to India, or simply launch from Indian waters at Pakistan.
It doesn't matter if it makes it, or detonates, the launch will be detected and the pieces will be easier to identify if it doesn't. Hopefully someone gets horked off enough to launch their own nukes, that sets others off and bada-boom, no more people. Much fewer people anyway. Just an idea :D
But what about the poor animals that get caught in the crossfire :aww:
No, better to use a genetically engineered super virus. Viruses have a greater species specificity than nuclear bombs. Preferably something that becomes contagious before its symptoms become apparent (perhaps a genetically modified AIDS virus that spreads through the air?), ...uh, anyway, and then release it into some international airport or something; preferably one with planes (or whatever) heading to places that most pandemics don't usually reach (as well as preferably at least one plane each heading to China, Iran, Saudi Arabia, North Korea, and also every state in the American "Bible Belt".) :cheers:
http://trueslant.com/matttaibbi/2009/10/06/michael-moores-problems-are-our-fault/
Interesting review. Here is the tl;dr version:
QuoteI found most of the content of Moore's movie horrifying. It was also striking to me that the theme he is addressing here, i.e. the rapid peasant-ization of most of the country, is basically a taboo subject for every other major media outlet in the country. The vast majority of our movies are either thinly-disguised commercials for consumer products (Law Abiding Citizen), remakes of old shows and movies designed to transport us back to the good old days when life was better (i.e. Fame) , or gushy nerf-tripe with no hard edges crafted to serve as escapist fairy tales for stressed-out adults wanting to dream of happy endings (Love Happens).
What we call a "good movie" is usually also escapism, and sometimes even also a nostalgic remake, it just happens to be well-done and expertly directed, with great production values and acting performances (I haven't seen it yet. but I assume Where the Wild Things Are will fall into this category).
But we're living in a time of extreme crisis almost nothing on TV or in the movies is designed to get us thinking about how to fix our problems. If anything, most of the stuff on TV is designed to jack up our anxiety level without offering any solutions except the short-term fixes of buying and eating — witness the endless reality shows in which ordinary people slave away and scheme against each other for weeks on end for a 1 in 12 shot at a (pick one) modeling job/date with a non-deformed, non serial-killing person/chance to be shouted at by Donald Trump.
Now that stuff is cynical and monstrous. It is my sincere hope that the people who are producing these programs will someday be tried and executed by war crimes tribunals at the Hague.
At least Michael Moore is getting us talking about the right topics. And while I get that the right way to start a revolution is not to wildly misinterpret the nature of capitalism in a coffeeshop conversation with Wallace Shawn (whose line about the grabber product was the funniest thing in the movie, by the way), well, it's not really Michael Moore's job to start a revolution. He probably thinks it is — and this is that "Atlas" complex fellow True/Slant writer Joseph Childers is talking about — but that's only because nobody else out there, in the major media at least, is doing a freaking thing.
It's natural for Michael Moore to behave like someone who thinks he's taking on the world alone. Because he is, sort of. If we want him to stop behaving like this, it's kind of on us to do something about it. At some point we're going to have to make a commitment to giving up our escapist entertainments for a while while we fix our actual lives. I'm as guilty as everyone else, spending half my time watching movies and sports. putting off my problems until later. If we all did less of that, my guess is that we might start thinking less like movie and TV critics, and more like citizens — at which point the flaws in Moore's movies won't seem so bad at all. We might not even notice them.