F** F*** Brings down the house in Cannes with Bush bash film

Fox News reviewer calls Fahrenheit 9/11 "brilliant."

Irony dies.




Fahrenheit 9/11' Gets Standing Ovations

Tuesday, June 15, 2004
By Roger Friedman

'Fahrenheit 9/11' Gets Standing Ovations

The crowd that gave Michael Moore's controversial "Fahrenheit 9/11" a standing ovation last night at the Ziegfeld Theatre premiere certainly didn't have to be encouraged at all to show their appreciation. From liberal radio host and writer Al Franken to actor/director Tim Robbins, Moore was in his element. But once "F9/11" gets to audiences beyond screenings, it won't be dependent on celebrities for approbation. It turns out to be a really brilliant piece of work, and a film that members of all political parties should see without fail.

As much as some might try to marginalize this film as a screed against President George Bush, "F9/11" — as we saw last night — is a tribute to patriotism, to the American sense of duty, and at the same time a indictment of stupidity and avarice. Readers of this column may recall that I had a lot of problems with Moore's "Bowling for Columbine," particularly where I thought he took gratuitous shots at helpless targets like Charlton Heston. "Columbine" too easily succeeded by shooting fish in a barrel, as they used to say. Not so with "F9/11," which instead relies on lots of film footage and actual interviews to make its case against the war in Iraq and tell the story of the intertwining histories of the Bush and Bin Laden families.

First, I know you want to know who came to the Ziegfeld, so here is just a partial list. Besides Franken and Robbins, Al Sharpton, Mike Myers, Tony Bennett, Glenn Close, Gretchen Mol (newly married over the weekend to director Todd Williams), Lori Singer, Tony Kushner, "Angela's Ashes" author Frank McCourt, Jill Krementz and Kurt Vonnegut, Lauren Bacall (chatting up a fully refurbished Lauren Hutton), Richard Gere, John McEnroe and Patti Smythe, former Carter cabinet member and ambassador Richard Holbrooke, Carson Daly, NBC's Jeff Zucker, a very pregnant Rory Kennedy, playwright Israel Horovitz, Macaulay Culkin, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Kyra Sedgwick, Linda Evangelista, Ed Bradley, Tom and Meredith Brokaw, director Barry Levinson, NBC anchor Brian Williams, Vernon Jordan, Eva Mendez, Sandra Bernhard and the always humorous Joy Behar.

If that's not enough, how about Yoko Ono, accompanied by her son, Sean, who's let his hair grow out and is now sporting a bushy beard that makes him look like his late, beloved father John Lennon?

And then, just to show you how much people wanted to see this film, there was Martha Stewart, looking terrific. I mean, talk about eclectic groups!

Now, unless you've been living under a rock you know that this movie has been the cause of a lot of trouble. Miramax and Disney have gone to war over it, and "The Passion of the Christ" seems like "Mary Poppins" in retrospect. Before anyone's even seen it, there have been partisan debates over which way Moore may have spun this or that to get a desired effect.

But, really, in the end, not seeing "F9/11" would be like allowing your first amendment rights to be abrogated, no matter whether you're a Republican or a Democrat. The film does Bush no favors, that's for sure, but it also finds an unexpectedly poignant and universal groove in the story of Lila Lipscombe, a Flint, Michigan mother who sends her kids into the Army for the opportunities it can provide — just like the commercials say — and lives to regret it. Lipscombe's story is so powerful, and so completely Middle American, that I think it will take Moore's critics by surprise. She will certainly move to tears everyone who encounters her.

"F9/11" isn't perfect, and of course, there are leaps of logic sometimes. One set piece is about African American congressmen and women voting against the war with Iraq and wondering why there are no Senators to support them. Indeed, those absent senators include John Kerry, Hillary Clinton, and Ted Kennedy, among others, which Moore does not elaborate upon. At no point are liberals or Democrats taken to task for not speaking out against the war, and I would have liked to have seen that.

On the other hand, there are more than enough moments that seemed to resonate with the huge Ziegfeld audience. The most indelible is President Bush's reaction to hearing on the morning of September 11, 2001, that the first plane has crashed into the World Trade Center. Bush was reading to a grade school class in Florida at that moment. Instead of jumping up and leaving, he instead sat in front of the class, with an unfortunate look of confusion, for nearly 11 minutes. Moore obtained the footage from a teacher at the school who videotaped the morning program. There Bush sits, with no access to his advisers, while New York is being viciously attacked. I guarantee you that no one who sees this film forgets this episode.

More than even "The Passion of the Christ," "F9/11" is going to be a "see it for yourself" movie when it hits theaters on June 25. It simply cannot be missed, and I predict it will be a huge moneymaker. And that's where Disney's Michael Eisner comes in. Not releasing this film will turn out to be the curse of his career. When Eisner came into Disney years ago, the studio was at a low point. He turned it around with a revived animation department and comedy hits like "Pretty Woman" and "Down and Out in Beverly Hills." But Eisner's short-sightedness on many recent matters has been his undoing. And this last misadventure is one that will follow him right out the doors of the Magic Kingdom.

http://www.foxnews.com/printer_friendly_story/0,3566,122678,00.html

 

Guess what...when you enlist in the military there is an inherent risk of going to war. I just thought I would remind people of this.

 

Does that mean that parents can't be sad that their children died in combat? Does that mean that parents whose children died in combat of a questionable war have no right to be angry at the government that started the war?

 

Why are you so in love with the works of one Michael Moore, an America-hating socialist? Hate? Sure, I don't like liberal policies, which are so ignorantly wrong as to be hilarious, but that doesn't mean I hate most liberal people, with the exception of Moore. I think Moore is probably the most disgusting pile of excrement that has ever existed on the planet and I think anyone who thinks his films aren't ridiculously just ever-so-slightly-right-of-Lenin/Marx, non-factual propaganda needs to grow a brain. Immediately. So go slobber over your hero Michael Moore and watch me laugh at your intellectual dishonesty as you whine "I'm not a liberal." If you're not a lib, guess the pope is not polish, eh?

 

Why are you such a world-hating reactionary?

 

Sure, they can be sad.

Sure, they can be angry.

I especially liked the "that started the war" you snuck in there. That was cute.

 

Have you seen his movies? Have you read his books?

Then how the hell do you know?

 

I don't have to read his books or watch his movies to know this. I lasted 30 minutes of lies in Bowling for Columbine before I said, "no mas." And RMT, I don't hate the world. I'm just one who puts love of country before love of the "world." We are that one shining city on the hill the rest of the world looks up to. I'm just not fond of those who will destroy our sovereignty to allow the rest of the world to pick the meat from our bones and devour the golden goose.

 

In addition to the tipjar, we could start a collection to get bama into therapy. I have never in my life seen such a consistent stream of vitriol and bile. So now everyone who could possibly find something interesting in a Moore book or film is less intelligent than him?

Let's say, easily, 100 million people world-wide have enjoyed something in one of Moore's works. That's a very low number, less even than half the population of the US. Now, let's be incredibly generous, saying that, on average, bama is more intelligent than 9 out of 10 people. Just for the sake of argument.

Given those generous assumptions, what is the probability that bama just happens to be smarter than all of the people who have found some bit of merit in any bit of Moore's collected work?

Probability: 0.000000001 % ? or less maybe?

Hey bama, I'll invite you over for some poker, okay? House rules are bama needs to get a royal flush, in hearts, to win any hand. That okay by you? ... Excellent!

 

Agreed, Imam. I have a feeling that that Moore is just a clever, insurrectionist in disguise to fool the bleating chorus of lefty whiners such as myself. Perhaps I would better recognize him without his poncho and sunglasses.

 

And you wondered where "Huggy Bear" got his nickname. Foolish humans.

 

I'd like to know what Michael Moore says or does that makes him hate America?

 

I never said I was even anywhere near "in love" with Moore's works. In fact, I have REPEATEDLY stated that I take everything Moore does with a grain of salt the size of a deer lick (as I do with Franken's works as well as those by Huffington, O'Reilly, and Coulter).

As far as I am concerned, you have absolutely ZERO right or place to criticize ANYTHING Moore does because you are not even intellectually honest enough to SEE or read his works. I guess when your beliefs are based on the shifting sands that yours seem to be, they can't stand up to any dissenting view or other opinions. You are easily as bad as T_J these days in that you simply ignore any evidence or information that doesn't support your twisted worldview and go on to claim that said evidence is invalid because of the "liberal" tendencies of the author.

Moore is not a "hero" as you seem to think I see him, but he is not a terrorist or the antichrist (as you seem to believe) either.

The difference between you and me is that my beliefs are strong and well thought out enough to stand up to scrutiny, examination, and evidence, even when that evidence doesn't necessarily agree with my beliefs.

 

So the United States did not start the War in Iraq?

Iraq attacked the US???

I must have missed that bit of news.

Please enlighten me, Mr. Kissinger.

 

Well folks need to get ready for the attacks of the GOP hired PR firms, that will attack Moore's film and then be parroted by usual suspects on this bbs.

Here are a couple of articles about the plans to attack the film.

*********
...The classic case in point: Seemingly within hours of the release of Moore's "Bowling for Columbine" in October 2002, the alleged deceptions of Michael Moore were circulating through the zeitgeist at a markedly stepped-up pitch. They coalesced into a hit list printed in Forbes' December 9, 2002, issue, becoming a trumpet call for right-wing bloggers. Then Moore's dour critics in the groves of liberal academe took up the cudgel, with Dissent publishing "The Perils of Michael Moore" in its Spring 2003 issue, solemnly including the litany of Moore's alleged "Columbine" transgressions.

The classic life-cycle of a manufactured political smear is not difficult to detect as it travels across the public spectrum. The goal is to build up enough critical mass that ordinary folks on the street get wind of the target's alleged mendacity and deceit and simply accept it. Many of those normally astute enough to consider the source when a campaign of vilification is based on obvious political disagreement do not make such allowances when presented with what looks like simple mendacity. Pointing out "errors" and acts of deceit seems value-free. Target isolated, credibility compromised, mission accomplished.

But manufactured charges tend to fall apart on examination. Chief among the "Columbine" charges was the "free gun" scene in the bank that gives away guns to new customers.

Here's how it went in Forbes' authoritative-looking bullet points:

"BANK: Moore says North Country Bank & Trust in Traverse City, Mich., offered a deal where, 'if you opened an account, the bank would give you a gun.' He walks into a branch and walks out with a gun. ACTUALLY: Moore didn't just walk in off the street and get a gun. The transaction was staged for cameras. You have to buy a long-term CD, then go to a gun shop to pick up the weapon after a background check."

Compare this to Moore's account of what happened, as posted on the "Bowling for Columbine" website:

"North Country Bank (with branches throughout Northern Michigan) offers you a wide choice of guns when you open up a certificate of deposit account.... The bank is also an authorized federal arms dealer so they can do the quick background check right there at the bank. I put $1,000 in a long-term account, they did the background check, and, within an hour, walked out with my new Weatherby-just as you see it in the film. (I did have a choice of getting a pair of golf clubs or a grandfather clock, but they didn't have either of those hanging on the wall like they did those three rifles)."

Tellingly, the differences in these opposing accounts are not a matter of blunt contradiction but of details omitted and included, respectively. The omissions necessary to trump up the "Moore staged it" story become visible in the light cast by the details included in his personal account:

link

So desperate are Bush Republicans to kill Michael Moore's latest film, Fahrenheit 9/11, they have hired a public relations firm to set up a web site attacking Moore. The site, MoveAmericaForward.com, claims to be "non-partisan," but a glance at the "About" page of the site reveals the director and staff of Move America Forward are all diehard Republicans, anti-tax activists, and former legislative staffers. The PR firm is Russo Marsh & Rogers.

Russo Marsh & Rogers is a GOP consultation firm. In 2002, Ron Rogers teamed up with Reagan heavyweight Lyn Nofziger and Ed Rollins to work on the gubernatorial campaign of Bill Simon (see Campaign movements -- People & Organizations.)

Thanks to the detective work of WhatReallyHappened.com, it was revealed that Move America Forward's web site was registered in the name of Russo Marsh & Rogers. In other words, Move America Forward is about as partisan as it gets without putting the GOP seal of approval on the web site. In short, Move America Forward's campaign is a Republican dirty trick designed to smear Moore and pressure move theater owners not to run his film.

"Time is short," the Move America Forward web site declares, "we must act now to have our voices heard in time to make a difference. Help us get messages from millions of Americans sent to these film industry executives."

Certainly, time is short for the Republicans -- millions of Americans are about to learn how George Bush had a business relationship with the Bin Laden family -- and they will learn it right before the election. Russo and the "non-partisan" Republicans want to make sure you never see Moore's film. They don't want you to know the truth about Bush and his buddy-buddy dealings with the Saudis.

Incidentally, after a WHOIS check -- WHOIS is a searchable database maintained by registries and registrars that contains information about domain name registrations on the internet -- was run on MoveAmericaForward.com and it was discovered that the site was registered in the name of Russo Marsh & Rogers. Soon after this information was posted on the web, the registrant name was modified to omit Russo Marsh & Rogers.

Not only do the Republicans not want you to go see Moore's film, they also don't want you to know they are behind the campaign to smear Moore and pressure theater owners into not running the film. It's just like the Republicans to do this sort of thing behind your back. Of course, it is rather lazy and stupid of the Republicans to not think about WHOIS. But then nearly everything about the Republicans lately -- from the lies behind the invasion of Iraq to clumsily attempting to cover up the TortureGate scandal -- has been lazy and stupid.

Don't be fooled. The Bush Republicans are behind this now transparent effort to silence Michael Moore. If you care about the First Amendment and don't like the idea of Republicans dictating to theaters what movies you can see, write Russo Marsh & Rogers and tell them what you think. The contact person is Douglas Lorenz and his email address is: dlorenz@rmrwest.com.
link

 

Wow. Now that I think about it I guess we did start the war. So I apologize for typing out of turn. We started a war that I support and find just.

Look, the unstoppable force cannot budge the immovable object, nor can it be stopped. I feel the war is just. I feel the war is imperative. A lot of my friends here at the BBS don’t. I’m cool with that.

 

Good post. I also liked your post in the Bush/Clinton lovefest thread yesterday. Are your songs starting to incorporate tambourine and flute now? Just curious.

 

Glynch...

Go to the About us on the site. They state very plainly who they are and hide nothing. Every one of the bios illustrates their conservative leaning. Russo is on their by name. I don't see a big effort to conceal origins.

Is it just me?

 

he needs more pan flute. and, of course...more cowbell.

 

oh, so it's cows this week, is it? Weirdo. At least you're more likely to see them on a train car.