Pajiba

Well, he COULD put his effort and energy into coming up with a solution, but pointing fingers will earn way more money at the box office. Everyone knows that!

The thing is, without knowledge of the causes of the meltdown,how can you can you figure a way out. The current powers that be(Bernanke) are completely ignorant of the causes of the bust and are thus attempting to fix it by means of the very activities that produced it. It is very important to know what got us into this mess if we are ever going to climb out.

I actually like Moores movies despite the fact that he's an asshole and he never explores the other aspects of his subject (i.e. health care). Despite that he is a good film maker and does have messages that should and are exposed to the public.

I'll certainly rent this, if only because I find the subject matter so interesting.

I can't stand Michael Moore. His style is a bastardization of tradition documentaries and he heavily manipulates his subjects and audiences to achieve the results he wants. He is a propagandist in the worst form.

Well barf, I think Diablo and StupidRookie have pretty much hit the nail on the head. I actually found Bowling for Columbine the least offensive of his movies.

I'm not going to argue for or against Michael Moore having only seen one of his films. I find your definition of documentary interesting though. I think it is flawed. You seem to imply that 'traditional' documentaries (whatever that means) are a full picture of whatever is being documented while Michael Moore's style isn't. The truth is that EVERY documentarian is giving you a commentary on whatever is being documented. Michael Moore is very frank and in your face about it. Even the documentary Unser täglich Brot (Our Daily Bread) which doesn't contain any music or dialogue whatsoever is a commentary about a subject. I remember back in college when I studied some visual anthropology how the lecturer used to show us a picture of a situation in a society and we'd have a discussion about it but then the lecturer will show us different pictures showing a wider area or showing different things happening in that same society which often changed our perspective or point of view. Just to give you an example if you see a film where a cow being taken to be slaughtered for people to eat you might feel really sorry for it and say that humans are barbaric. If you then see shots of animals hunting each other you might then just say killing animals for food is normal after all. At least humans do it in a bit more orderly way than tigers. If you then realise that that cow is feeding a couple of starving children you'll forget all about the barbaric act and you'll just be thankful these kids are getting some food. After all, even if barbaric, it's good that people get some nutritious food which they can afford...

My whole point is a documentary is about what's not being documented as much as what is being documented. Every documentarian picks and chooses. Every documentarian has an agenda or belief that s/he wants to portray and every documentary is a commentary about something particular. I'd classify Michael Moore's films as documentaries.

barf, watch some more of Michael Moore's movies, then get back to me on the asshole-ness.

If anything, in Bowling For Columbine he ambushed a senile Charlton Heston and ripped off Matt Stone and Trey Parker. South Park has way better social commentary than anything Moore can drudge up.

Plus, I can't think of too many populists that live in mansions.

Oh... what a surprise, MSOC is mentioning her blog. Yes, you're just like Michael Moore, except not famous, wealthy or important.

I love Michael Moore, and I don't care how obnoxious he is at times, I love him. I consider him a hero. I have no doubt I'll be interested in this.

The only Moore movie I've ever seen of Moore's is Canadian Bacon, which I thought was really funny if a bit uneven, but while barf makes excellent points about documentaries, they don't address the criticism I've seen of his work.

Everyone would do well to bear in mind the fact that there is no such thing as biasless media. The limited time frame of the medium prohibits it. Some artisans of the trade attempt to weigh things evenly, while others are more deliberately and sometimes admittedly championing a view they do not see as even-handed or mainstream. The truth is, though, that even if you present material without commentary, you have still influenced your viewer with every choice you've made, from obvious things like soundtrack, to more subtle ones like camera angles, to the supremely subtle material-edited-out-and-thus-not-seen.

The primary criticism I have seen of Moore's work is that he goes beyond these methods and deliberately misleads by cutting audio and footage together in such a way as to obfuscate timelines and context, make things appear they were said to one group when they were actually said to another, and other things along those lines. That belongs to a different league from agenda-driven selection of clips. I leave it to others to do their own research on this, there are endless websites devoted to untangling his work. It's worth taking a look.

Basically though, I don't think he changes many minds, which is why I don't get my panties in a twist about him. He polarises, which makes people like me happy because I don't like the government getting much done.

So I'm wrong because Michael Moore is awesome and changing facts and context to make your arguments is cool as long as you do it to jerks (presumably there's an official list of them somewhere so we can all know who it's cool to change facts about), and also the lists of errors (or whatever you want to call them) in Moore's films are incorrect because they're written by jerks.

Excellent.

MM comes across as an asshole, and it's fair to make that call based on his public persona. But in reality he's actually a pretty nice guy- a few kids from my film class worked for him in college and he invited us to his office for a free rough-cut screening of "bowling for columbine." I also know his daughter, who is beyond sweet and a total doll, unlike some of the other celebuspawns I've known. I think he comes across as an asshole because he's trying to fight assholes- fighting fire w/ fire. I don't always agree with his approach to things, but I think the fact that he provokes thoughtful debate is invaluable to society whether you like him or not. Even if his films are skewed, I think they help inspire people from both sides of the spectrum to fact-check and investigate the issues for themselves...of course not everyone will come away from his films looking to be better educated, but even if only a few do that's still a good thing.

1) How can misrepresentation be the truth, no matter what you think of Michael Moore?

2) You obviously don't know anything about my politics. I have a piece published on this very site about how full of shit (and equally so, though in different ways) almost everyone in politics is, so no, I don't think conservative sites are "darn tootin'" because they're conservative, but I also don't think that the fact that I don't agree with their politics makes everything on them automatically wrong. Reason and facts make things right or wrong, which was my point. You said that the fact that a bunch of jerks wrote the lists of distortions in Moore's work makes them wrong. That's just not true. Whether they're correct or not makes them right or wrong.

3) I agree with you that putting forth fallacious arguments out of passion, whether well-meaning or not, is a sad state of affairs. That's the primary criticism I have of Moore (given that it's true that he does it; I leave that up to people to figure out for themselves), and the primary reason I'm arguing with you.

4) Perhaps you misunderstand what I meant about the government getting things done. The government should operate smoothly in all of its functions except legislation. It should be such a pain in the ass to get everybody to agree on new legislation that only the things we can almost all agree on get passed. That's the way the system is supposed to work because we're supposed to be a bunch of grownups who can basically wipe our own asses and don't need the government to swoop in and lick up the dingleberries.

Actually, it's a pretty cool system. I can't begin with its problems, but the most notable sources come from either our popular culture or our legal system. Which is worse, or is there something else more brooding? Yes, and we should be working to improve in all areas. That is one of the good things about a two-party system. They more or less want the same thing, go about it in their own ways, and get it finagled in four years if the public good isn't jive.

I used to think your way, and I am even hesitant to blame the legal system or popular culture as the nexis. We are incredibly selfish. We expect to see ourselves in elected officials. It is important to 65% of Americans whether a politician is married and faithful. It is hugely important that they look good when they come to your town. We are electing politicians instead of statesmen. Yeah, they are both people who know how to get what they want without losing face or power, but statesmen do it for the greater good.

C-Span is about as full of conjecture and ridiculous as MSNBC these days. I don't watch regularly, but our popular culture made it so that all you need to do is market government. It doesn't matter what you're selling if the presentation rocks. If you've committed any crime making such a fantastic presentation, our legal system has it so that virtually any American can avoid taking responsibility for his crime if we pay enough money into the legal system, whether you're a Senator from Alaska or just a guy with a DUI. It's easy to point at Obama on this premise, he is both a great presenter and a lawyer) but the genius of the Republican party for over 50 years has been this selling technique. It's finally caught up with them (as I do not believe they were doing anything more than collecting data in 2008) in the tide of these past few months, but unfortunately, their reaction is to double down on fallen leaders like Gingrich, Cheney, AEI, PNAC2, and to a lesser extent the Limbaugh. Not all Democrats are good, but we are sinking deeper into the quicksand by the kind of two-party Middle School Dance we are seeing now. Skewering people like Moore is a natural reaction if you don't agree with his politics, but instead of a third party (Libertarian, less so) we need an informed public. You are right about the conduct of both Republicans and Democrats, Eep especially in this moment. Moreso because the Democratic and Republican officials are taking the wacko letters they receive and funneling right onto the floor of Congress.

And this part bothers me to, Dustin: he’s kind of a self-important blowhard who has a tendency to insert himself too often into his films As someone who gets accused of that sort of thing regularly, let me tell you, you should try to see it from the other perspective. Trying to lead the horses to water with a splash of the cold, bracing truth is basically herding cats. It takes a special talent to create work that will entertain and enlighten at the same time. I've made my mistakes certainly, and I get a distressingly high level of the type of hatred slung at Michael Moore for the tough but fair content on my blog. It just takes a certain je ne savoire faire to achieve those results, and jealousy is a necessary byproduct.

Once again, NOT written or posted by me.

The person styling himself Sean Patrick O'Guinesss, I suspect, is signing in as me. Which is fucking pathetic.

Also pretty BAD at it. If you can't even mimic me properly, why are you bothering, asswipe?

I am not, in fact, the Mary Scott O'Connor impostor.

However, he/she is so good that the two are virtually indistinguishable.

My suggestion? It is someone from the comment section where a certain someone had a nervous breakdown about various personal problems unrelated to the commenters there, and lashed out before slinking away to accuse impostors of besmirching the good name of her crazy-ass conspiracy blog.

Or it's a "Fight Club" situation.

Dear USA:

You're the best country ever (so you keep telling us), but you do have a few tiny problems.

I'm talking, of course, about daddy issues. Especially in re. your president, aka the Queen of America.

When you have a bad president, you seem to believe your whole country, nay, the world, is going to hell in a handcart. When you have a good president, your entire country is (or will be) sweetness and light, which must be spread to the lucky, lucky rest of the world. Who could possibly find something to criticize?

I take it you are in the latter phase, at the moment.

I'm not sure I have a good original bbq recipe, and I don't often write recipes down or measure when I'm doing my own work. I do have a good side that a friend thought up, though:

Slice up an eggplant into about 1/4-1/8" rounds. Brush them with olive oil, then sprinkle with Tony Chachere's. Put them on a hot grill and... well, you kind of have to figure out when to turn them on your particular grill, but if you get it just right the outside is slightly crispy and the inside is still really moist and melts in your mouth. Great stuff.

Or if you want to do burgers, look up one of the online sage and gorgonzola burger recipes (I found one using "sliders" instead of "burgers"). I have Rachael Ray's recipe at home, which I have to admit is dynamite, but I think those flavors just work, period.

And apparently for some it's an acquired taste, but I LOVE Rich 'n' Charlie's salad (recipe available in plenty of places on the internet). Be aware that you have to make it I think 30 minutes to an hour in advance so the lettuce will be wilted (I think some of the recipes mention this). You haven't done it correctly if the lettuce is fresh and crisp.

Oh, Jackseppelin, does it matter? In the end, it's just some bitter twerp who cannot pass himself off as me -- which would be really fucking easy to do. I mean, my god -- I don't think I've ever made a comment here without saying "fuck " at least once, and this dorkwad has attempted to supplant me at least twice and not used profanity either time.

That's fucking retarded.

Plus, while I freely admit to being incredibly pretentious, i do NOT sound like a seventeenth century countess. Ever.

And I speak fluent motherfucking French. Something this dipshit could not possibly have known, but there you have it. Pays to do your homework.