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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."
It's probably not even the message on it's own that won it for him. Rather, Disney's unwillingness to distribute the film with that message.
Moore currently doesn't have a US distributor because of the Disney/Miramax situation, but Moore feels so strongly about the the content of Farenheit 911 and that American voters especially need to see the movie before the November election.
I'm personally not a fan of Michael Moore at all, but I will give Moore a lot of credit if he does what seems to be the best option right now: release the movie online, for free. If he does that, he shows that he isn't being a hypocritical war profiteer - he cares more about people hearing the message than the paycheck.
The petition to release the movie is here.
http://www.talknerdy.org
I don't live in the US, so i can verify his claims. From what i read and hear, however, it does seem that criticism against Bush is generally regarded as not a wise move, and is to be avoided.
So, saying that Moore's works are not documentaries is not really a revelation that 'uncovers his true face', since he himself admits that there are flaws in his works.
Slashdot Sig. version 0.1alpha. Use at your own risk.
The linked article was a little slim on details, but I found the AP article that says that Tarantino was the president of the jury for Palme d'Or, and actress Kathleen Tuner (of Baby Geniuses fame) sits on the panel as well. Plus in other cool news, the AP article says that an edited-together 4-hour complete version of Kill Bill was shown. Can't wait for the special edition DVD on that one.
FOX News is a favorite target of liberals.
Even though I feel CNN is slanted to the left, I normally read CNN.com. However, with all the jokes pouring in about FOX News, I decided to start reading their news articles. I have yet to find a news article or see a news cast from them that appears biased. Can you please locate a biased news article and point it out to me?
They have biased commentary shows on FOX, no question. The no-spin-zone my ass. But all the NEWS I have seen and read from them has been spot on.
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.
I wonder why that is.
Ironically, the word ironically is often used incorrectly.
The link one of the sibling posts is looking for is this, a response to the hardylaw article.
"If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear." --George Orwell
InstaPundit.com has been posting links to other prison abuse stories. For some reason, these aren't getting as much attention in the mainstream media ("all Abu Ghraib, all the time").
Maybe the French, Germans, Arabs, public employees unions, California Attorney General, and their apologists should take note.
May 22, 2004
PRISON MANAGEMENT PROBLEMS AND A DYSFUNCTIONAL CULTURE OF ABUSE in the California prison guards' union.
posted at 03:53 PM by Glenn Reynolds
May 21, 2004
SOMEONE TELL 60 MINUTES about this secret underground prison:
'It starts off by being stripped naked in front of 10 police officers including two women, gratutious humiliation is used to break you down.' '... worst jail that you can possibly imagine.' 'Not even a hole to go to the bathroom. You have to piss against a wall and you sleep in piss on the concrete floor.' The torture victim demands 'the immediate shutdown of this secret underground prison'. It's not at Abu Ghraib, it's in Marseille, France.
No doubt Ted Kennedy will be condemning it soon.
posted at 07:41 PM by Glenn Reynolds
May 21, 2004
MORE STORIES OF ARAB PRISONERS BEING ABUSED:
ARAB prisoners beaten and tortured, innocent bystanders killed by gunfire - another damning human rights report.
But the difference this time is that the violence is being perpetrated not by coalition forces in Iraq, but by the Palestinian Authority, and the victims are its own people.
The report, partly funded by the Finnish government, claims Palestinian cities are in a state of near anarchy, with people on the payroll of Yasser Arafat's Palestinian Authority (PA) blamed for 90 per cent of gangland violence.
It highlights numerous incidents of torture of prisoners and refers to the killing of civilians in gunbattles between Palestinian factions.
It is another blow for Mr Arafat's organisation, which was recently accused of misusing 134 million of European Union funds. Mr Arafat was accused of signing cheques to people linked with terrorist activity.
I'm sure Ted Kennedy will have comments.
posted at 09:55 AM by Glenn Reynolds
May 18, 2004
IRAQI EMIGRES ON ABU GHRAIB: This is interesting:
Hadi Kazwini is an Iraqi engineer who moved to Australia in 1997 and lives in Sydney with his wife and three children. He is amazed at the gullibility of those Australians who have taken the Arab response to the photos at face value.
This sort of brutality goes on all the time, it is happening now in jails right through the Middle East, he says. But of course there are no photos. This is selective outrage.
Kazwini believes that the behaviour revealed by the photos is awful and the US soldiers involved should be punished. But he says some of the Iraqi prisoners shown were Saddam's killers and torturers. They have been responsible for far worse violations of human rights than the Americans.
Where is the outrage about this, he asks. I haven't seen
The World's Smallest Political Quiz
The site is biased towards libertarianism, and the "quiz" is overly simplified, but the concept is quite sound IMO.
For example, in Bowling for Columbine, Moore wasn't including the scenes about the bank that awards shotguns to its depositers as an indication of how easy it is to get a gun. He was making a point about the absurd prevalence of gun ownership in the USA. Yet at the bowlingfortruth website, their point is that he misrepresented the amount of paperwork and legal checks necessary to obtain the actual firearm.
Sorry, but that just WASN'T the point. And NRA fanatics are probably not able to grasp the point of the film because their judgement is clouded by their unwillingness for any restrictions on gun ownership. I'm not saying NRA members, mind you; I'm referring to the fanatical portion of their membership, a minority I'm sure.
So don't be afraid that your opinion of Moore will drop after visiting these sites. If you liked Moore before, you will still like him; if you hated him as a commie liberal, you'll just have some cookie cutter arguments neatly packaged for you next time someone mentions him at work.
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.
What I don't get is how I am expected not to have realised by myself that the movie was cleverly edited. AND at the same time I'm apparently expected to think he doesn't deserve a film-making award because his film was well edited. It baffles me.
Like the part where that wacko you linked to points out triumphantly that Heston is not wearing the same clothes (gosh!). I actually wondered when I saw the movie why he didn't crop it so that wouldn't show. Now I know, its was deliberate honesty. And yet there are some who latch on to that as proof of the contrary.
Of course Michael Moore doesn't show "both"side of the story. He shows his point of view. He's not a news outlet, he's a film maker. You are allowed to disagree and to not give him your money.
But attacking him for speaking his mind...that's just wrong.
Also, some people attack the classification of "documentary". What is it if not a film that uses documents? Is it a drama? A comedy? A musical perhaps? It uses clips (documents), it is a documentary. That's the very definition.
You can't take the sky from me...
It would be helpful if you'd point to some f a c t s to support your position. Others have tried... and failed miserably.
I mean, the guy's got an angle, but he's no liar. By the way, I highly recommend his chapter on "B-1" Bob Dornan in "Downsize This". He nearly succeeds in having (then-Representative) Dornan committed based on his House Floor ravings as quoted in the Congressional Record. It's hilarious reading.
microsoftword.mp3 - it doesn't care that they're not words...
So Moore was essentially right then.
The guy who wrote the hardylaw.net page (David T. Hardy) re-edits it regularly so that he always looks right.
David T. Hardy doesnt admit to it though, instead he cryptically calls the hiding of his mistakes "Some criticisms not given on this page."
And you are angry with Moores editing? I suspect you are angry with his politics more than mere "editing".
Bush and Blair ate my sig!
No one in the thread has mentioned it so far, but there is a rumor that Disney pulled out of distribution of Moore's film because they feared losing tax breaks for its theme parks (Disney World) and hotels in Florida, where GWB's brother, Jeb Bush, is governor. Have a look here, for example.
According to Michael Moore, Michael Eisner expressed precisely this concern to his agent, Ari Emmanuel. The Disney corporation has denied it.
If this is true, it would be the worst kind of corporate and government malfeasance. If Disney made its decision for that reason, it would be a corporate cave-ins on par with CBS when it pulled the 60 Minutes report on Brown & Williamson (remember that movie with Pacino and Russell Crowe?). If someone in the Florida government made a threat of that kind, however subtly, it would be a severe case of corruption. If brother Jeb knew about it, it would warrant his impeachment, and if George W. Himself knew it, it would warrant his impeachment as well. In a democracy we cannot tolerate the abuse of government power, especially its power to tax, in order to stifle critical statements about political leaders.
A lot of ifs, I know, and maybe none of them will turn out to be true, but this accusation is so grave that it certainly calls for independent investigation. God knows, the Republicans clamored for special prosecutors during the Clinton era for a lot less than this. This question has to be fully cleared up, and let's not wait until after the election to do it.
Always keep a sapphire in your mind
At the risk of incurring the wrath of Godwin, would it have been wrong for German citizens in the 1930's and 1940's to root for their government's defeat? (Note: government != country)
I don't care if it's 90,000 hectares. That lake was not my doing.
Thanks for that link.
I'm still going to watch his movies. It really isn't that big of a deal:
* Moore is showing us things that we didn't know before, or that our media hasn't shown us before.
* Moore is also *telling* us things he wants us to know, with his editing and presentation. People who watch his movies can tell the difference between facts he shows us and the messages he's communicating with those facts.
* Moore is profiting from tragedy. He's saying controversial things and then making money. I don't care about that. I don't care about Michael Moore as much as I care about the things he shows us and tells us.
I hold Michael Moore to higher standards than I hold our media, because I have to pay to see his movies. He still passes any reasonable bar I have set for him.
I'm going to watch for bias and slant. The one-sided body of facts I will see in his movie has already been balanced against the one-sided body of facts I have already seen in the media. When he shows me things on video, I will believe those are true. When he shows me an image and describes it, I will take that description with a grain of salt. When he shows me video made of multiple segments cut together, I won't assume he meant those happened right after each other.
I'll just enjoy his movie, and learn some things I haven't seen in the US media yet.
--Michael Spencer
Tee hee!
What do you mean, you were serious?! How could you? What?
Ever heard of a man named Andrew Gilligan? The Hutton Report? The whole thing was a cut-and-dried case of the BBC asserting its right to distort stories and transmit outright lies. And it's far from the only example.
Having said that, the Beeb is pretty good when compared to ABC, CBS, NBC and CNN, much less the print media - NYT and Jayson Blair, for example, or the hopelessly biased French and German press, or Reuters, or...
FOX is the least of the problem. Yeah, they're biased, but they don't pretend otherwise.
Nowhere in the Constitution is it written that freedom of speech implies that private organizations are obligated to provide a soapbox.
The fact that what Disney is doing is legal is totally irrelevant to the question of whether or not it is right.
Therefore, despite what Moore claims, their decision is not censorship.
Censorship does not have to be governmental in nature. One could make a compelling case that at this point moneyed entities pose greater threats to free speech at this point than the U.S. government.
Irritable, left-wing and possibly humorous bumper stickers and t-shirts
"Nowhere in the Constitution is it written that freedom of speech implies that private organizations are obligated to provide a soapbox."
"their decision is not censorship"
What happens when 'private organizations' effectively own government?
Is 1984 any less 1984 if it turned out that Big Brother was a CEO instead of the president?
Disney's behaviour was directly motivated by political considerations. Censorship seems like an apt term.