Slashdot Mirror
Cannes' Palme d'Or goes to Michael Moore
An anonymous reader writes "The Palme d'Or of the Festival de Cannes was presented this year by Charlize Theron to Fahrenheit 9/11 by Michael Moore. I don't know if it's the first time this prize is awarded to a documentary, but I guess it's rare enough to be mentioned, especially given the problems this film encounters."
Its the second documentary to get it...
Jaques Coustau got one to.
Secure messaging: http://quickmsg.vreeken.net/
Not to mention that most of Fahrenheit 9/11 is shamelessly ripped off from Alex Jones' 2002 documentary 9/11: The Road to Tyranny. Frankly, Michael Moore is the biggest fraud I've ever seen. Why do people worship this cretin? He's the biggest threat to Democrats since Ralph Nader.
I guess that's why he calls them "mockumentaries". Note that he has emphasized many times that they are not documentaries....
four of the nine jurors were American: Mr. Tarantino, Kathleen Turner, the director Jerry Schatzberg, and the Haitian-born novelist Edwidge Danticat. one juror, the actress Emanuelle Béart, is a French citizen, British actress Tilda Swinton, Benoit Poelvoode, a Belgian actor; Peter von Bagh, a Finnish critic; and the Hong Kong director Tsui Hark made up the rest of the jury. taken from here
Tarentino told Moore exactly the opposite: "It's not only for the message: it's a good movie".
Michael Moore
In particular,
Agreed.
... Far from [being] the political hot potato ... Fahrenheit 9/11 is more like a lot of hot air."
Check these out (my emphasis added):
Hollywood Reporter commented that the film offers "no debate, no analysis of facts or search for historical context. Moore simply wants to blame one man and his family for the mess we are now in."
Lou Lumenick in the New York Post described the film as an "incredibly superficial and misleading treatment.
Peter Bradshaw commented in Britain's Guardian newspaper: "It was strident, passionate, sometimes outrageously manipulative and often bafflingly selective in its material, but Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11 was a barnstorming anti-war/anti-Bush polemic tossed like an incendiary device into the crowded Cannes festival."
From a newsletter I subscribe to @ ShowBizData.com
He selectively chooses material to illustrate his extreme leftist views (don't forget what radical politics has brought the world) and then works to use his position to spew propaganda.
In no way could anyone with a proper measure of critical thinking call this a documentary...
/me sips his coffee and ponders a new sig...
After reading about Operation Northwoods via the FOIA with my own eyes, I'm not willing to put anything past whatever gang of thugs happens to be in charge.
As for Michael Moore, I get the feeling from watching his documentaries that he's a "David Icke" - someone who surrounds a kernel of truth with a significant amount of hogwash such that the general perception is that all of the information presented by that person is hogwash. IOW, a disinformation artist.
?
Posts like yours are all over the place. I hear people complain about Fox news in real life too...
Firstly, "Rush Limbaugh Is A Big Fat Idiot" was by Al Franken and not Michael Moore. Secondly, the title of Moore's book was not "Fat White Men", it was "Stupid White Men (and other sorry excuses for the state of the nation)".
For the record, I happen to enjoy Moore's books and movies (and, like you, want to see Bush gone-and I'm not even American!). He's at least getting people interested in politics, which is always a good thing.
By summer it was all gone...now shesmovedon. --
Miramax own a partial stake in the success of the film at the box office. If a decision were to be made for the film to be released onto the interweb as gratas, it would have to include the approval of the Weinsteins.
Of course, Moore could always just do it himself without approval - meaning he'd be liable for every cent Miramax put up to pay for the filming of it.
I swear, if I see another Slashdot comment with "It will be interesting to see"...
You may want to read:
Michael Moore responds to the wacko attackos , in which he debunks most of this nonsense.
- Does not wear a baseball hat
- Is clean-shaven
- His hair is neatly combed
- His clothing is, approximately, "business casual"
His entire public "physical appearance" is a costume, designed to flatter the stereotype of "regular American" held by the Europeans who prompted today's news and the NPR-ish Americans who model themselves on them.What I'm listening to now on Pandora...
Even if Moore wanted to release the film for free online it's by no means certain that he could, given that it's owned by Miramax, not Moore himself.
While it's made by Moore's company, Dog Eat Dog Productions, the actual copyright resides with Miramax who are effectively paying Moore to produce a film for them.
He does?
Here's a quote from his website:
"Fahrenheit 9/11 is the first documentary to win the Palme since Jacques Cousteau's "The Silent World" in 1956."
Hmmm... next.
Ironically, the word ironically is often used incorrectly.
A documentary is:
* a film or TV program presenting the facts about a person or event
* relating to or consisting of or derived from documents
* factual footage arranged in such a way that it informs and expresses a point of view
The problem is that Michael Moore's last two "documentaries" are none of the above. They present some facts and some material derived from documents and some factual footage, but they also consist of a large quantity of invented and staged footage and manipulation of factual footage spliced together and mixed up in such a way that it is no longer factual.
One could take video of a priest giving multiple sermons and arrange it in the editing room in such a way as to present a god-fearing priest as stating that god does not exist. Though every frame of the material could be factual, the product of it as derived and manipulated by the editor is entirely false, fictional and misrepresentative to the point of having absolutely no establishment in fact or truth.
I would like to see Bush and his administration replaced this year (though whatever they are replaced with will be little better as is always the case in politics), but I don't have to cling to or support the satirical or downright fradulent claims of a hypocritical entertainer to further my cause.
Here you go (again):
http://www.hardylaw.net/Truth_About_Bowling.html
Ironically, the word ironically is often used incorrectly.
The film has footage of independent 'embedded' cameramen in Iraq, showing pictures that the corporate US networks won't show for fear of upsetting their sponsors. Read the revievs and watch the film before you judge.
Warning: The file doing the rounds on P2P networks "Fahrenheit.911.Michael_Moore.LIMITED.(CANNES_'04) .XviD.SCREENER.-NOX.txt" is a fake.
A few years ago, Moore had an ex-employee arrested, when said employee tried to get an interview with him.
http://partners.nytimes.com/library/national/regio nal/061700ny-col-tierney.html
"Noam likes to make wild claims while assuming you'll take his word for it...Moore at least cites his sources."
Huh? What??? Are you on crack? Almost every book of Chomsky's I've ever read has been choc-a-block with footnotes and citations. Picking the first Chomsky book at random off my shelf (Year 501: The Conquest continues) I find that there's 20 dense pages of footnotes at the end, followed by 6 pages of bibliography. That's a fairly lightweight set of citations, by Noam's standards.
I suppose some of Chomsky's books are collections of interviews with people like David Barsamian, and aren't intended as formal scholarship, which might be the ones you're thinking of.
Either that or you've never actually picked up a book by Chomsky, which appears to be the case with at least half of Chomsky's critics.
I have plenty of proof. Things that people have said are a matter of public information. Then compare them to what Moore presented. See the drastic and intentional difference between what was said and meant and what Moore presented. Such as the splicing of the Heston speech which turned things 180 degrees and on their head. Or the editing of willy horton into bush ads in a way to represent commercials that never actually existed. Moore has done all of this and the evidence is right in front of you. And if you want more real evidence that you can personally verify, google it.
One news network gives both sides, and you libs can't stand it." Which one would that be? FOX News? You can't be serious.
Hannity & Colmes, for one. Sean Hannoty is a Conservative, Alan Colmes if a liberal. If you try saying that Alan Colmes isn't liberal (besides brilliant), then you either have your head up your ass, have never heard of Alan Colmes, or simply have blind hatred of Fox News. Hell, his last book is called Red, White & Liberal: How Left Is Right & Right Is Wrong for G-d's sake!
Of course, now that I've proven you wrong, you'll have to reply with a retraction. But, of course, you won't. So I'll just be content with having sucessfully negated your post.
Well, Riefenstahl made films that glorified Nazism. Among other things, Nazism was responsible for mass murder on an industrial scale and attacking most of Western Europe. I'd be interested to hear which group that Moore glorifies has done anything on that scale?
Reality is defined by the maddest person in the room
google: fox news bias
Turns up numerous pages with examples of Fox bias.
The classsic:
http://www.fair.org/extra/0108/fox-main.html
More current:
http://www.oreilly-sucks.com/foxbias.htm
Staged in what way? Michael Moore writes on his site that the bank was indeed a licensed arms dealer, and had all the necessaries on-site to do background-checks and issue firearms.
Moore also claims that the only prior arrangement with the bank was phoning to ask permission to film. Do you have anything to suggest it wasn't so? From what I understand, you're saying that the bank was somehow used as a film-set, where they convinced the people in the bank to do something highly irregular (if they normally give a voucher, why would they hand over a weapon on-site) just because Moore asks them to?
Now, most of the documentation about that film is fairly clear and easy to read, and I didn't notice anything suspicious about it. So it will take more than a claim of "but it was staged" if your ideas are to carry more weight than the film-maker involved. Perhaps some evidence would be a good start?
Oh yeah? from the horse's mouth.
You can't take the sky from me...
Fox went to court over the issue of whether a news organization had the right to lie or distort news stories under the First Amendment. Fox won in the end, at the third or fourth attempt. This blew up over a reporter Jane Akre, who argued that her bosses at Fox had pressured her to change a story about the effect of some hormone treatment on cattle - her report was to say that milk from these cows was dangerous for humans. There is a link to the story here. This is why people say that Fox isn't about news.
Reality is defined by the maddest person in the room
From wikipedia.com
On what the jury president said to him:
Quentin whispered in my ear, 'we want you to know that it was not the politics of your film that won you this award. We are not here to give a political award. Some of us have no politics. We awarded the art of cinema, that is what won you this award and we wanted you to know that as a fellow filmmaker.
Read his book 'Stupid White Men', he doesn't think the Democrats are much better than the current crew.
It makes the same ad hominem attacks that it accuses Moore of making, does not back up it's cliams with references and is clearly as much of a "no-spin zone" as any ultra right wing conservative crack pot media outlet such as Rush Limbaugh's "no spin" talk shows.
And yes, I will leave it at that because thats my informed opinion on the matter and this is a web site whos foundation is opinion. If you want to know how I can reach the above conclusion, please go read the website you linked to and then attempt to map it's statements back onto the actual reality we live in.
Kind regards
"A few great minds are enough to endow humanity with monstrous power, but a few great hearts are not enough to make us w
I'll bite. Halliburton, for a start.
Let me say that again. HALLIBURTON.
I'll spare you the 72 point font that will really express how much emphasis I'm putting on this as I scream it from my deskchair: HALLIBURTON!!!
As I posted in another thread for a slightly different reason:
"80% of misinformed Americans get thier information from FOX news" (Link to Google cache of same article, since the original seems to randomly require registration...)
Political bias is a matter of debate, but they certaintly don't seem to be "fair and balanced" do they?
=Smidge=
Most the article is discussing issues not even raised on the page I linked. He only addresses two issues from that page, near the end of the article.
The first is regarding the Heston/NRA speech in Colorado after columbine. I have tried to see it from his perspective has described here, but I just can't. He claims "Far from deliberately editing the film to make Heston look worse, I chose to leave most of this out and not make Heston look as evil as he actually was."
How can he think anyone that can think critically will buy this explanation?
View the speech as presented by Moore in the movie, and then read the actual speech. He's as creative as a plastic surgeon, nipping and tucking, here and there, until all meaning is replaced with Moore's agenda.
He left out the opening of his speech which explains that the NRA meeting was shortened, festivities cancelled, out of respect. Heston said, "As you know, we've canceled the festivities and fellowship we normally enjoy at our annual gatherings. This decision has perplexed a few and inconvenienced thousands. I apologize for that. But it's fitting and proper that we should do this
FYI, the NRA is required to hold an annual meeting, and it was decided it would be held in that location long before Columbine happened. Moore cut out this part of the speech, did not bother informing anyone of the logistics ore requirements of the NRA annual meeting, presented it almost as if the NRA decided to come there and have this fire-breathing meeting in order to piss off Columbine mourners. Moore also started out this section of film with a snippet from a speech that happened long ago, far away. The "cold, dead hands" outtake. Incidentally, that was not a fire-breathing speech about gun rights, but was Heston saying thanks for the antique, collectable gun that was just presented to him.
Anyway, the extend of this colorful editing job by Moore is covered very well in the link I provided above, and you can verify everything for yourself.
He then goes on to address the statistics game, but I don't hold much stock in the statistics presented by anyone, including Moore and the guy that wrote the page on hardylaw.net.
I did enjoy, near the end of this article, where Moore states, "I can guarantee to you, without equivocation, that every fact in my movie is true."
A mere three paragraphs later, he then states:
Well, at least he can admit when he's wrong... uhh.
Ironically, the word ironically is often used incorrectly.
That's partly because Moore is a member of the NRA and stands behind the second amendment. He's a midwest, blue-collar/union-oriented liberal, not an liberal.
His movies would be more credible if he didn't try to present them as documentaries. They're not documentaries. They're commentaries.
Unless, of course, they know the definition of documentary:
Does his movie employ documentation (film clips)?
Yes?
You can't take the sky from me...
Here is the Kuro5him link referred to.
He makes a claim, has no real evidence to back it up, and then twists facts to make it seem like he was right all along.
Sounds like someone else and his case for the war. It is also precisely what you have done.
Why did he win? Europeans hate America politics at the moment
No, they hate war. As does most of the sane world including, according to recent polls, over half of American citizens.
The nice thing about being a troll is that you can make statements without haven to consider the burden of facts. Here are the key passages:
four of the nine jurors were American: Mr. Tarantino, Kathleen Turner, the director Jerry Schatzberg, and the Haitian-born novelist Edwidge Danticat. "I fully expect the Fox News Channel and other right-wing media to portray this as an award from the French," Mr. Moore said. Only one juror, the actress Emanuelle Béart, is a French citizen.
"If you want to add Tilda," he said referring to the British actress Tilda Swinton, "then you could say that more than half came from the coalition of the willing." (The rest of the panel was made up of Benoit Poelvoode, a Belgian actor; Peter von Bagh, a Finnish critic; and the Hong Kong director Tsui Hark.)
So we have: 4 from the US, 1 from Britain, 1 from Belgium, 1 from France, 1 from Finland, 1 from Hong Kong. For the geographically challenged, that means 4/9 of the jurors were Europeans (and one of those doesn't really agree)
You don't get too hung up on facts yourself, it seems. You should apply for a job at FOX news.
When the story broke about the bomb going off that was hooked up to a sarin gas shell (Sarin is a nerve agent, a weapon of mass destruction), for that day and the next, you could find no news story on CNN.com about it. Not one. It was covered on FOX News and MSNBC's websites. Nothing on cnn.com. On the third day, I did manage to find an article that was discussing something else about the war, and at the bottom it mentioned the sarin bomb found.
I have seen several stories about WMD being found in Iraq since the war began (or ended if you like sticking your head in the ground)and so far not one has turned out to be actual WMD. Still these stories played prominantly on the 24 hour news cycle. Invariably, several days later, the true identitiy of the "WMD" is found and oubviously not as widely publicized, especially on fox. Ever since the WMD mobile lab with canvas sides (that sounds like a sterile environment) which was paraded around as "proof" of WMD, I have taken every such story with a large grain of salt. Especially when it comes from fox. WOLF!
I can't say for sure that this "sarin" is not real, but I can say that so far 100% of the WMD news stories have been fabrications by either the government or the "news" media.
bit trollent
I'll assume you're being serious, although it seems more likely you're trolling.
...) to people who had comitted a felony, but were felony-free themselves. That's illegal, and it made the difference in deciding who became president. And guess what, They (Jeb Bush's cabinet) are doing it again for the 2004 elections.
First things first: paragraphs. Learn what they are, use them, more people will read what you type and actually take you seriously.
Secondly, go read mediamatters.org and see how biased towards the neocon view all of the mainstream tv is. The reality is that neocons are not just plain wrong on many issues (their economic theories, like trickle-down economics, have long since been disproven, and their military policies are outright failures, e.g. the war in iraq). Yet somehow they manage to get their voice not just mentioned on mainstream news, but presented as having equal value to the truth. It's not biased when you don't report lies. Take a skeptical look at the actual facts that people like Rush Limbaugh, Bill O'Reilly and Anne Coulter say (go look up the actual quotes and the actual statistics they cite), and you'll see they lie and distort to serve their own wrongheaded worldview.
Additionally, the reality is that the "liberal" voices you hear on mainstream tv are people cherry-picked to make a poor argument, like Alan Colmes. The left has much better arguments, but the good arguments don't end up on the tv screen. It's a well known strategy to discredit your political opponent, and the right has practiced it with much success.
Now, as for specific responses to what you typed:
Their idea of "balance" is to have a commetator, 3 panelist (all of which spout liberal garbage), and one somewhat moderate conservative. That is their idea of balance. Air America, the so far disappointing attempt by the left to "get their message out" will fail. Why? simple. They are not entertaining. I listened to it a few times on XM, and all it was was whinning, name calling about what is wrong with the conservatives. Did they offer any constructive ideas? No.
You should read your own post. First you accuse the mainstream media of left-wing bias, then you say air america is the left's attempt to get their message out. Why would the left need air america if the mainstream media was biased towards the liberal view? Additionally, I have listened to air america, and I've heard a lot of constructive ideas. My guess is you haven't listened for more than a few hours at best. Try listening for a week.
Why do you think they are working to allow convicted felons, and prisoners the "right" to vote?
Are you talking about the scrubbing of the voter rolls in the 2000 florida elections? You should read up on that. They didn't just remove people who had comitted a felony, they removed people with similarities (names, locations,
It's a valid point to say that people convicted of a felony shouldn't be allowed to vote. But you should look into how racist the US judicial system is. Black people get convicted of a lot more crimes, and sent away for much longer terms. That by the very definition is racism, and the only way you can say it is fair is by taking the position that black people are subhuman (naturally commit more and worse crimes than white people). As a result, the system is rigged to ensure people who would vote democratic (the disenfranchised and the poor) don't get to vote because they get locked away more than middle-class white people.
I also invite you to follow the money. Look at how the entire media industry has been making record profits from bush being in the whitehouse (and the matching media deregulation), and how they donate primarily to the right. If they really had a liberal bias, why would they be republican donors, and why would they be biting the hand that feeds them?
Mind you, I'm not opposed to the classical conservative worldview, of small government, sane fiscal policies, and maintaining t
Please investigate your sources more carefully.
The study you are quoting (which speaks highly of NPR) was conducted by The Program on International Policy Attitudes, which has many of the same funders as NPR. The director of PIPA is a well-known liberal. (Check the 'About us' link from the front page). This is obviously an attempt to create an appearance that NPR is a better news source.
Denver Isuzu Suzuki
Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt [is] the chief military spokesman in Iraq
m ai n/
t ml
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4997808/:
Field-test results could be in error
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said the results were from a field test, which can be imperfect, and more analysis needed to be done. "We have to be careful," he told an audience in Washington Monday afternoon.
Rumsfeld said it may take some time to determine precisely what the chemical was.
Two former weapons inspectors -- Hans Blix and David Kay -- said the shell was likely a stray weapon that had been scavenged by militants and did not signify that Iraq had large stockpiles of such weapons.
Kimmitt said he believed that insurgents who planted the explosive didn't know it contained the nerve agent.
http://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/meast/05/17/iraq.
Kimmitt said the artillery round was of an old style that Saddam Hussein's regime had declared it no longer possessed after the Persian Gulf War.
Kimmitt said it appeared that whoever set up the roadside bomb was unaware that it contained the chemicals.
"It was a weapon we believed was stocked from the ex-regime time," Kimmitt said. "It had been thought to be an ordinary artillery shell, set up like an IED [improvised explosive device]. When it exploded, it indicated that it had some sarin in it."
The general said the Iraqi Survey Group, headed by Charles Duelfer, would determine if the shell's discovery indicated Saddam possessed chemical weapons before the U.S. invasion last year. Officials in Washington said another shell -- this one containing mustard gas -- was found 10 days ago in Iraq.
No other evidence of possible chemical weapons has been found in Iraq. The Bush administration cited weapons of mass destruction as a key reason for its invasion.
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,120137,00.h
Kimmitt said the shell belonged to a class of ordnance that Saddam's government said was destroyed before the 1991 Gulf war (search). Experts believe both the sarin and mustard gas weapons date back to that time.
"It was a weapon that we believe was stocked from the ex-regime time and it had been thought to be an ordinary artillery shell set up to explode like an ordinary IED and basically from the detection of that and when it exploded, it indicated that it actually had some sarin in it," Kimmitt said.
[...]
Washington officials say the significance of the find is that some chemical shells do still exist in Iraq, and it's thought that fighters there may be upping their attacks on U.S. forces by using such weapons.
The round was an old "binary-type" shell in which two chemicals held in separate sections are mixed after firing to produce sarin, Kimmitt said.
He said he believed that insurgents who rigged the artillery shell as a bomb didn't know it contained the nerve agent, and that the dispersal of the nerve agent from such a rigged device was very limited.
[...]
"Everybody knew Saddam had chemical weapons, the question was, where did they go. Unfortunately, everybody jumped on the offramp and said 'well, because we didn't find them, he didn't have them,'" said Fox News military analyst Lt. Gen. Tom McInerney.
No it wasn't. If you had read both with a critical eye, you'd realize that the K5 article was a weak apologist ranting. Everything is passed off as "regular film editing." Documentaries should not do "regular film editing" if such editing would lead the public to believe something decidedly different had actually occurred.
The best example of this is the Heston speech in Colorado after the Columbine shootings. How a reasonable person could look at the actual speech delivered and then what Moore did to it and not conclude this was extremely dishonest "film editing" of a documentary escapes me.
Another great example was buying ammo in the Canadian Wal-Mart. Moore wasn't just "a regular citizen", he's a regular citizen who obtained a firearms importation license in Canada. Through "regular film editing," that part was never mentioned by Moore.
Education is a better safeguard of liberty than a standing army.
Edward Everett (1794 - 1865)
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5013506/ http://www.cbc.ca/story/arts/national/news/2004/0
Napster-to-go says "Fill and refill your compatible MP3 player", which is a lie. It's not MP3. It's WMA with DRM.
Mockmentaries refers to those scripted comedy films that take documentary style (handheld, talking-head interviews, bad lighting/framing). Many of Christopher Guest's films are good examples:
Spinal Tap
Waiting for Guffman
" A Mighty Wind"
See the difference. These are all staged and scripted(act/performance). Moore's films are anything but mockumentaries. They are neither staged nor scripted!!! (except for narrations, which is necessary)
The parent post is rated completely wrong and/or overrated. I can't belive that people are swallowing this horse sh*t without a doubt...
Let me weigh in with reviews of Bowling for Columbine, and one (the New Republic) review of his new movie. Moore is hardly honest, even accounting for his bias. And note that of these reviews, only the WSJ and National Post are conservative, the NYT, Slate, American Prospect, and TNR are left:
"Well, the speaker ought to know. As critics have pointed out repeatedly, Mr. Moore himself is a world-class expert on 'fictition'; in fact, when it comes to truth telling, not to mention logic, you might say that less is Moore."
"Mr. Moore is hardly the first to engage in a little nostalgic mythmaking. What makes him unique is his willingness to construct his myths on a scaffolding of calculated untruths. "
-- The Wall Street Journal
"Yes, it is a free country, but it is not a perfect one. Because in a perfect country, an irresponsible, intellectually dishonest windbag like Moore would not be a rich, successful, Oscar-winning documentarian. He would instead be just another anonymous nutter, mumbling about fluoride in the water and penning anti-establishment tracts by candlelight in some backwoods Appalachian shack. And he would never, ever find another funder for his 'art.'"
-- The New Republic
The problem is, once you delve beneath the humor, it turns out [Moore's] "facts and hard-core analysis" are frequently inaccurate, contradictory and confused...Like many of the political celebrities increasingly filling our TV screens and bookstores, he is entertaining, explicitly partisan, and all too willing to twist facts to promote himself and his vision of the truth.1
- Spinsanity
The slippery logic, tendentious grandstanding and outright demagoguery on display in "Bowling for Columbine" should be enough to give pause to its most ardent partisans...Mr. Moore, when it serves his purposes, is happy to generalize in the absence of empirical evidence and to make much of connections that seem spurious on close examination.
- The New York Times
ONE OF THE MOSQUITO-BITE IRRITAtions of being on the left is finding your ideals represented in public by Michael Moore...Although he'd have made a crackerjack ad man, he's a slipshod filmmaker, and the movie quickly collapses, burying its subject beneath bumper-sticker rehashes of received ideas...At once punchy and incoherent -- Moore contradicts himself vividly every few minutes -- the film has the scattershot shapelessness of a concept album made by a singles band.
Although Moore takes delight in thumping Cops and TV newscasts, he himself uses tabloid techniques and is guilty of manipulative heartlessness.
- LA Weekly
His journalism, in short, on the subject of Canada and Canadians, is nothing short of shoddy, manipulative and untrue. The same can be said for his journalism on his own country, and indeed on the terrible and complicated issue he purports to adjudicate.
- National Post (Canada)
If you want about as clear a demonstration as you're likely to find of the difference between truth and politics, go see Eminem's 8 Mile...and then go see Michael Moore's Bowling for Columbine...Though Moore claims to have made a documentary, his examination of American gun culture presents viewers with a more heavily edited fiction than producer Brian Grazer's attempt to clean up Eminem. Whereas the rapper's movie reaches for the sort of truth mere facts cannot convey, Moore's film grabs viewers with the old demagogue's trick of using just as much factual information as is necessary to lead people toward false conclusions.
- The American Prospect
"[T]he greatest danger to liberalism isn't the likes of Rush Limbaugh or Andrew Sullivan, but blowhards like Alan Parker and Michael Moore--the thugs of humanism. Given the way in which it's administered, I don't support the death penalty for people. But I emphatically support it for certain careers."
-- Slate
Oh come on. In the current American society you cannot move without being sued :)
In the UK we even have beer adverts satirising the "sue" culture.
Only a fool would believe totally the stuff that Moore and Frankin etc. put out.
But personally I agree, and having looked into albeit briefly into some of their arguments and come up with my own opinions I come down more on their "side" rather than Coulter and that awful DJ whose name I cannot even commit to memory.
LIAR!
> Oh, you won't hear anything from moore about Comrade Clinton. He's a saint in the eyes of the left.
Then, you clearly haven't read Stupid White Men.
Unfortunately Amazon won't let us search inside of that book.
But from Dude, Where's My Country:
p27: "During one of their visits there, in May 1998, two Taliban members-this time in the U.S. sponsored by Clinton's State Department-took in some more sites"
Backmatter: "If you'd like to know more about the forty-seven people President Clinton had 'killed,' simply check your favorite Internet search engine and type in the words, 'Clinton Body Count.'"
There's more in Stupid White Men.
Napster-to-go says "Fill and refill your compatible MP3 player", which is a lie. It's not MP3. It's WMA with DRM.
And pudge is a conservative.
I'm a liberal, and I'll tell you the same thing: watch The News Hour with Jim Lehrer & Meet the Press.
It's state sponsored news, sure, but I honestly think Jim Lehrer would spontaneously combust before he allowed himself to be spun.
There are no trails. There are no trees out here.
Yes, this is a documentary, and here, in France, we have more than 5 documentaries per month at theaters
Oh my god ! What have you done ?
Michael Moore, to the president of the jury, Quentin Tarantino, a coworker of Miramax.
But everyone made a standing ovation for more than 20 minutes during the official presentation.
why don't I get mod points when I need them?
This is a LIE. LIAR!!!
Go look it up before you spew lies stupid.
He still lives in Flint.
Someone sees him dressed up a few times and wham! attacked forever. bet you can't find photos...know why? because he almost never does it.
You know, famious people dress down to hide from their fans when they want to be left alone. In Moore's case, he'd have to dress up--even then, with those glasses, nobody could miss that ugly face...
Last time I checked, Disney was not a governmental agency...
They are beholden to their stock holders and their only true purpose is to turn a profit. They weigh the costs of various business... their profit is a function of providing family friendly entertainment, and the distribution of this propaganda would anger a great majority of their consumers, directly leading to reduced profitability. So, they chose to pass on distributing the product.
Now, did they bury the product altogether, so that noone can see the movie? No, because it can still be seen, and obviously winning awards. Has anyone been killed to silence the criticism? No, everyone's still alive and chattering as far as I can see. Has anything been done in any fashion to edit the movie, anything beyond the normal criticism that exists around hollywood? Nope. So, that leads me to believe that no censorship has taken place. And the founding fathers agreed, because that is why corporations cannot be held to censorship laws, only the government.
Why do you think they are working to allow convicted felons, and prisoners the "right" to vote? Are you talking about the scrubbing of the voter rolls in the 2000 florida elections? You should read up on that. They didn't just remove people who had comitted a felony, they removed people with similarities (names, locations, ...) to people who had comitted a felony, but were
felony-free themselves. That's illegal, and it made the difference in deciding who became president. And guess what, They (Jeb Bush's cabinet) are doing it again for the 2004 elections.
NO, I'm talking about allowing people who are in prison to vote.
Expand you horizons a bit and watch PBS. There's The Newhour, Frontline, Now, etc.
Because in the rest of the world murders are committed with rocks and knifes. I'm pretty sure there are parts of the world were people simply go missing and are never heard from again. Look into archangel and what it is they do to protect the world. The question you should ask is, "Are murders more prominent in the United States than in other parts of the world per capita?" I'm sure there is a reason that fat troglodyte doesn't want to put things into more of a real perspective because it doesn't suit his socialist make everyone feel the pain agenda. You see people are much easier to brain wash if you appeal to their emotional side tempering it wit just enough logic to lul them into a false sense of reality. So to counter that I simply say go educate yourself and try and carry around more than your emotions as your guide. Irrational people with rationalized support are very dangerous just ask a recovering alcoholic.
You are a moron. It makes for a great conspiracy theory but do you really put that much stock in such an outlandish rumor. If it was true you can bet Disney would have broke it as a story and published Moore's movie. Don't be some lemming troll who can't put two and two together. This mealy a way of Moore pushing his anti Bush agenda by releasing rumors that are both promoting his POS movie and his agenda at the same time what a win win for him.
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/story .jsp?story=518901
To set the record straight: Moore admitted that this was a publicity stunt (through a slip-up, not intentionally).
-bZj
.sig
"Bill Clinton lied under oath in his testimony when charged with sexual harassment, denying the accuser her day in court."
The accuser was not denied her day in court. He lied when he was being asked about having sex with somebody else not the accuser. You should do some basic research before posting.
"The issue was always about whether he used his office as governor to engage in a pattern of illegal sexual harassment of NON-consenting partners,"
"Lied? Or believed the reports of the intelligence community that Sadam had NOT destroyed his weapons and was making more"
He was duped by Ahmed Chalabi who was working for the iranian intelligence. He got pwoned by the inranians. He did their bidding by getting rid of saddam hussein.
It was very easy to do because all you had to do was to tell GW anything that he already believed. If you told him Saddam Hussein ate babies for lunch he would have taken that the truth because he already believed it. It's a great way to haxor anybody of limited intelligence who does not read or keep up on current events. Just present him with lies that he is likely to believe and he won't question you.
"The world is now on notice that if knock the chip off the shoulder of the USA you just MIGHT find it accepts the challenge and you get pounded into the ground."
Who did we pound into the ground and why? It was osama who attacked us and iraq got pounded into the ground. This tells the world that they should strike at the US wnever possible because we are unable to keep focus on our enemies and attack random targets who have oil instead.
"And that if its troops screw up and start oppressing those under they control, the US will ADMIT it, INVESTIGATE it, REMOVE them from their posts and TRY them for crimes."
That's just a joke. First of all only 6 people will get tried even though the use of torture and rape of prisoners was widespread in cuba, afghanistan, kuwait and iraq. Secondly the punishment is a joke. One guy just got the maximum punishment which was a year in prison. A year for raping somebody. Is that punishment? Will anybody be tried for murder in the case of the 9 people who died in US prisons. Will they also get a year in prison for beating a guy to death? Who will go to jail for dripping 500 pound bombs into a crowded city like falujah and will they be tried ourside the mass grave that sits in what used to be a soccer field?
"I wish that were true. It would be a MAJOR improvement to the way we've been treated in the past."
Arabs in my town are afraid to go out. One has already been killed. Others have been threatened. Lots of property has been destroyed. How are they doing in your town?
evil is as evil does
"If Bill Clinton had been doing something on his watch BESIDES getting a blowjob, the war and half trillion dollars would not have been necessary. 9/11 might not have happened."
Maybe the whole impeachment thing did turn out to be a distraction huh? I mean if he had a blow job it probably distracted him for like 10 minutes but the impeachment that's another story isn't it?
I also think that 9/11 would have been averted if bush hadn't told the palestenians to go fuck themselves but that's another story altogether. Bill Clinton was actually not hated by the arabs who felt that he at least tried to be fair with them.
"George Bush is one of the worst public speakers I've ever seen (for a President)."
My dog can speak better then him.
" But at least he's doing something."
Doing awful and wrong things is not better then doing nothing. He has fucked up this thing beyond all belief. All he can say now is. "I know it sucks, it's going to suck for a long time, don't look for things to get any better soon". I'd rather he did nothing.
"He's not stupid, much as a lot of you would like to make him out to be."
Oh yes he is. He got duped by the iranian intelligence. How much stupider do you have to be?
"You don't get to be President by being stupid."
Sure you, if your daddy was the president and the republican party backed you up and the corporations give you 200 million dollars.
'That will virutally guarantee that radical fundamentalist Islam does the same thing in Iraq that it did to Iran."
Saddam Hussein was a secular socialist you dumbfuck. He was hated by all religous fundamentalists. Osama referred to him as "the communist". Before the war did you ever see a picture of him in fundamentalist garb? Did you ever see a picture of him praying? Did you ever see him with a beard that all muslim fundamentalists wear? We deposed a secular socialist leader. Before the war Iraqi women were the most educated and highest paid women of all arab kingdoms.
"You figure out the consequences to the stability of our world if a major piece of the energy supply is suddenly controlled by a culture who would just as soon (and actively tries to) kill you as look at you. "
Saddam Hussein never attacked america. He had nothing to do with 9/11. He had no intention of ever attacking america. He was no threat to america even if he wanted to attack us.
"I would vote libertarian or someone independent, but a vote for anyone else is a vote for Kerry, and I can stand that less than I can Bush. OK"
Please don't vote until you do more research. You are woefully uninformed.
evil is as evil does
"Now let's talk about bias. When the story broke about the bomb going off that was hooked up to a sarin gas shell (Sarin is a nerve agent, a weapon of mass destruction), for that day and the next, you could find no news story on CNN.com about it. Not one. It was covered on FOX News and MSNBC's websites. Nothing on cnn.com. On the third day, I did manage to find an article that was discussing something else about the war, and at the bottom it mentioned the sarin bomb found."
Yes, I noticed this as well. I usually read both cnn and fox, as well as others, and try to sort it out for myself because you cant trust any one news source
Vote for Pedro
" but it's not his right to lie or to distort the truth with the intention of deceiving his audience."
True, but lets not drag Bush into this discussion yet again.
Jean-Luc Godard, the legendary French director who helped to launch the New Wave movement in the 1960s, had harsh words for Moore this week. Godard's latest film, Notre Musique, premiered on Monday, the same day as Fahrenheit 9/11. Later in the week, Godard lashed out at Moore at a press conference, calling him "halfway intelligent." Godard went on to say that the Flint, Mich.-born director lacks subtlety. "Moore doesn't distinguish between text and image," Godard argued. "He doesn't know what he's doing." "Post-war filmmakers gave us the documentary, Rob Reiner gave us the mockumentary and Moore initiated a third genre, the crockumentary."
And way to imply that Godard made that last comment, whereas if you read the link you will find that it comes from two men who are about to release an anti-Moore book. Good work using Moore's supposed tactics against him.
http://www.themoviebox.net/movies/2004/DEFGH/Fahre nheit_9-11/trailer.html
Artificial intelligence is no match for natural stupidity
But that does not violate her right to free speech.
You are absolutely right about this. My point is that a democracy needs an open culture that inspires debate in order to flourish.
Given the history of my country I may be over-sensitive to this issue. But from what I've been told by my grandparents the culture of intimidation came before the collapse of the 1st German republic. If people are afraid to speak up for whatever reason your constitution becomes nothing more but another piece of paper.
One drop can kill, yes. But only if it enters through the eyes or bloodstream. To kill 3,000+ people with 1 gallon of Sarin, you'd have to inject each one or spray it in their eyes.
s iy ah_ii_refs/n15en156/970409_cia_72668_72668_13.html
And Iraq did have binary shells. Here's a report from then that shows it.
http://www.gulflink.osd.mil/khamisiyah_ii/khami
And a shell that old would not be "worthless". That's the whole reason for making them "binary". Sarin is very fragile. But in a binary round, it can last many years.
Show me one place in Franken's book where he claims, without the slightest hint of sarcasm, to be an unbiased political commentator. Show me one place where the grandparent claims Franken to be such. ... ...
...
I'm waiting.
Fact is, you won't find one. Franken is refreshingly honest when compared with, "Fair and Balanced! We Report, You Decide!"
Now, if you don't grasp the fact that even people with agendas which disagree with your own might be sources of factual information, there's nothing I can do to help you. Otherwise, why not pick up the book and read what Franken actually says regarding Alan Colmes? Or are you afraid of getting liberal cooties?
You want the truthiness? You can't handle the truthiness!
Incidentally, I am for cooperation and integration with Europe. I am also for the end of Middle-Eastern Islamo-fascist dictatorships. I'm not really convinced Europe is interested in that, however. I hope things turn around.
I don't see "The Palestine problem" as the root cause of the "middle east unrest." That's naive, and buys into the typical propaganda from Middle-Eastern leaders seeking to keep attention away from themselves. I think the root cause of the "middle-east unrest" is the panoply of theocratic dictatorships in the Middle East who oppress and torture their citizens, in combination with extremist strains of Islam -- the Wahabbism, for example, that the Saudi dictatorship subsidizes and exports.
Instead of believing the tripe on CNN, NBC, etc, I've been looking for the opinions of actual Iraqis. You may find this blog entry interesting; it's written by an Iraqi. In fact, I will copy the text of it here.
Napster-to-go says "Fill and refill your compatible MP3 player", which is a lie. It's not MP3. It's WMA with DRM.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Harvey discovered and promoted Tarentino. Harvey is producing the movie. Tarentino gets to chair the festival, Harvey's latest project wins. Coincidence?
Probably not. And I love Moore. I think it's important that this movie gets seen. However, he probably did not deserve to win one of the most prestigious awards in cinema for it. His movies make you think, they are more factual than Fox News, and they are fairly amusing. Great cinema? Not quite.
What this really shows is that anti American sentiments have reached such a feverd pitch that the rest of the world is willing to award a film that doesn't really deserve it, just to make sure the message is heard.
And in case any of you are confused, it is Weinstein that got rich of off Moore's films, not Mike. Moore is probably fairly comfortable now, but certainly not rich.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
His so called movies are an insult to people who make real documantaries. His work is so full of crap it's unreal. Why doesn't this fat clown go to a real documentary, oh yes he is to lazy to do so. It's to much work to get off his ass and do anything but edit his diatribes. I have an idea for his next movie "Travels of a Turd" Michael follows a turd from it's birth to the waste treatment plant. Along they why he talks with other turds. http://www.gobpl.com
http://www.gobpl.com
I know I shouldn't feed the trolls, but here goes: the 9-member jury included 4 American citizens, 1 French, 1 Belgian, 1 British, and I don't know about the other 2.
The whole idea of a chemical artillery shell is that it is fired from a standard gun. Therefore it has to have the same dimentions and mechanical properties as a regular shell. Add to this the fact that the shell is 20 years old (the production runs of the Iraqi "binary" type sarin shells occured in the 1980's), it was stored in unknown conditions (possibly even fired and found in fields) and you will get yourself a piece of rusted junk that would require an expert to recognise.
In the 1990's, before leaving, UNSCOM said there were over 500 such shells filled with sarin they couldn't account for.
The actual number of the "binary" type sarin shells produced was 170 and this production run was experimental. According to UNSCOM, they were all accounted for and believed to be used as follows: 10 filled with mock chemicals, 10 filled with real stuff but tested (exploded) in the lab and remaining 150 fired at a gunnery range. The current theory as far as I know is that the shell might have been misplaced in that process, or more likely, it was actually fired on the test range and turned out a dud and subsequently dug out after all these years by some ammo-scavenging guerrilla. The examination of the shell would determine if it was inded the case.