“I think as a filmmaker my first contribution would just be to make a good movie that people would love to see and leave the theatre charged, with a sense of excitement,” said Michael Moore at the Cannes Film Festival.
Michael Moore is not a politician or a philosopher or a professor. He is an entertainer and businessman, first and foremost.
Why do people get upset when he acts like an entertainer and a businessman?
Moore makes movies, specifically documentaries. For some reason, some people can’t wrap their brains around some of his work-neither the content nor the points being made. No, people get upset because he’s not “fair.”
Shockingly enough, documentaries do not have to be objective. Anyone who went to “Fahrenheit 9/11” expecting to see both sides of the issues were deluding themselves.
Michael Moore meant to make “Fahrenheit 9/11” in a specific way. It wasn’t by accident that everything in his movie is one-sided.
Michael Moore is not dumb. People who think they are smarter than him are dumb.
It’s like that old story about the rattlesnake on the mountain: “You knew what I was before you picked me up.”
People who allowed Moore to interview them and then were upset he made them look dumb deserved what they got.
Everyone knows who Michael Moore is and what kind of tactics he uses to achieve his goals.
People who think they can win a debate with him are flat-out wrong. That is precisely why health maintenance organizations (HMO’s) have instructed their employees not to talk to him as he’s filming his newest documentary “Sicko.”
You can’t outsmart the guy who gets to make the final cut.
Is it fair that he selectively edits his footage? Not particularly. But once again, why are we asking whether or not he’s being fair?
Michael Moore gets the job done.
The idea for “Sicko” stems from a segment Moore did on his TV Show “The Awful Truth.” In one episode, Moore staged a mock funeral at an HMO for a patient being denied an organ transplant.
The company relented and paid for the transplant.
Did Michael Moore use dirty tactics to achieve his goal? Yes. But who honestly cares? He’s not a journalist. He doesn’t have to abide by a certain code of ethics. He’s not a public servant. He is not obligated to tell the public the truth.
Michael Moore is a director- and a good one at that. That’s his job.
Sometimes good things happen from him doing his job. Sometimes nothing but a lot of angry people comes from him doing his job.
Most of the time making people mad was the point.
Is “Fahrenheit 9/11” propaganda? You bet. But lots of rightist propaganda uses tactics just as dirty as Moore’s.
Of course he charges schools to speak at their campuses-he’s not the Dalai Lama. He’s a businessman who charges for his services.
Regardless of how wealthy he already is, he can charge fair market value to speak as Sean Hannity, Morgan Spurlock and Eve Ensler do.
There is intellectual value in listening to Michael Moore give a speech. He is one of the most talked-about men in America with some very interesting, well-delivered ideas.
This is not to say he’s a philosopher or a professor-but once again, he never claimed to be.
This is not to say his ideas are 100 percent correct. But no one’s ever are.
The oddest thing about Moore is not his extreme political stances. The oddest thing is that no one seems to understand who he is. Don’t expect a cat to bark, and don’t expect Michael Moore to be something he’s not