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Originally Posted by GAsux
To pick out things like the bin Laden connection, soldiers behavior, and Bush's personal actions really belittles the argument. bin Laden's family has about 3,000 people in it. Letting his family leave, who a vast majority of Usama bin Laden experts agree have virtually no influence and little contact with him is really not a big deal. That's like letting O.J.'s mom go home after he killed Nicole.
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No, it's in fact absolutely nothing like that at all. 3,000 Americans had just been murdered. The United States of America had been attacked. Like Moore says in the film, I don't care if we have to inconvenience a few members of the Bin Laden family, you fucking do it. This is not a tiny point, I think it's in fact one of the strongest arguments he makes in the film.
However, he neglected to mention, even though he had the ability to edit it in, that Richard Clarke takes the credit for giving the green light on this. He actually went on record with The Hill as saying that it went no higher than him, and that he'd do it again. Sloppy, Michael.
I saw the film Friday night, and I'm pretty "eh" about the whole thing. I think the film is less controversial than
Bowling for Columbine was in the claims that it makes. I guess that was part of the problem, the film sort of jumps all over the place, and in the end it sounds like he's advocating something between "I don't know" and global socialist revolution. Other than that, I walked away with the impression that Michael Moore apparently dislikes President Bush. Gasp!
I had a few problems with it, which I think have already been enumerated in this thread. The douche bag troops with their killing soundtrack, etc., was very unfair. He probably interviewed dozens and dozens of soldiers, and we'll never know how many gave relatively tame responses.
The images of children playing and "life as normal" in Iraq got to me at first, but then I heard a relatively solid counter-argument to that. We all understand that Iraq was a bad, miserable place. This has been the general public outlook since the first Gulf War. I think the point Moore was trying to make is that despite what we tend to think of Iraq, there was still life and vibrance in this country we were about to bomb. Again, the whole bit, with the bombs hitting as the girl goes down the slide, was really pushing it, and bugged me.
Anyway, the film certainly didn't "inspire" me, but it also didn't suck. I didn't learn anything from it, and I'm not quite as fired up about it as some are.
The one thing I like however is the public debate this has started. If you told me in 2001 that Moore would release a film demonizing the president, calling him out on his connections, and that it would do well (!), I'd say you were crazy. I went out to dinner last night, and I heard two different tables debating the film. As someone who often doubts this silly little democracy that we have, these sounds are a good thing.
Other people who need to be grateful to Moore are documentarians. If you look at the top 5 grossing documentaries of all time, four of them are from the past 5 years or so. #3 on that list,
Super Size Me, just came out this year. Moore has made it profitable to be in the business of making documentaries, which used to get very, very tiny distribution, but will now probably get spit out in high volumes by the big boys.....
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