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

it's never cows. it's always Smarty.

btw...i hit two freaking exactas on Saturday night. so maybe it's high time you give me my proper respect, kind sir. and of course...it's long overdue for you to give props to the illustrious Smarty Jones.

 

You are kidding me! You go to the horse tracks? Now we will have to get a beer... at a track!

 

went Saturday night...with my son and the youth pastor from my church, who is among my best friends. nothing like key members of the youth ministry of the church out playing $2 bets on horses, huh?? particularly with my 4 year old son...who loves horses, by the way.

man, i'd love to catch a beer with you out at one of the amazing tracks in CA someday! i wanna see where Seabiscuit raced!

 

You took your son to a sporting event?

b*stard.

 

i know..i'm so insensitive to the needs of the fragile who attend sporting events with me.

that cracks me up...that and the idea that we're always making "logical" arguments here. like i need a logical argument to validate my decision to take my son to a game with me!!!

 

i'd been looking forward to seeing bowling for columbine, and when i finally did i was so disappointed at having wasted my time at such a shallow, disjointed, manipulative (and not particularly effective) virtually devoid of insight film.

Couldn't believe anyone had taken this thing seriously. So I probably won't see his newest flick.

But I have to agree with Tex:

That poster is awesome.

 

A rave review from....wait.....you're not going to believe it.......

FOX NEWS!

http://www.foxnews.com/printer_friendly_story/0,3566,122680,00.html

'Fahrenheit 9/11' Gets Standing Ovation

Tuesday, June 15, 2004

By Roger Friedman


The crowd that gave Michael Moore's controversial "Fahrenheit 9/11" documentary a standing ovation last night at the Ziegfeld Theater premiere certainly didn't have to be encouraged to show their appreciation. From liberal radio host/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 such as 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 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 U.N. 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 Mendes, 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 an eclectic group!

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, Mich., 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 presenting petitions on the Florida recount, 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 supporting these elected officials, 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 Bush's reaction to hearing on the morning of Sept. 11, 2001, that the first plane had 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 such as "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.

 

Greenvegan already posted that review on the previous page

 

The gossip columnist who wrote the article is a pimp for Miramax??? That is kind of odd knowing that Fahrenheit 9/11 just so happens to be a Miramax venture...

http://www.goldderby.com/Articles/RogerFriedman.asp

Columnist Roger Friedman Denies Oscar Shilling for Miramax


(News alert from GoldDerby.com)


"I am not lobbying for Miramax!" insists Foxnews.com columnist Roger Friedman, who is under fire for writing a suspiciously upbeat article about "Gangs of New York" that reads like a movie review, which he admits he's not qualified to write. That's significant since the article blatantly bolsters a film studio that distributes a documentary Friedman made.

Friedman insists that he did NOT break an embargo on the film, which had been charged while the movie was being shown to a select few at exclusive, early screenings. "Contrary to rumor, I did NOT attend one of the screenings of 'Gangs' that took place in New York last week," he told GoldDerby.com. "I was in Los Angeles where there have been no screenings yet. I WILL admit that I've seen the movie, but I am not at liberty to say how."

Friedman calls his Friday column "just good gossip digging ... I had a scoop and I got it out there."

Responding to charges that he's a flack for Miramax, Friedman said: "Believe me, Harvey Weinstein treats me like he treats everyone else. The Miramax people are not happy to say the least about my continued panning of Jerry Seinfeld's 'Comedian,' which I really hated. Miramax has had plenty of other turkeys too." To prove his point that he does not get special treatment from Miramax, Friedman reports he was shut out of the studio's last post-Oscar party.

But Friedman gave no explanation for why his article read like a review. "I am not a movie reviewer, I'm a gossip columnist," he admitted several times while talking with GoldDerby.com. "Yes, my piece is full of opinion, I'm aware of that." In the article, Friedman wrote: "Some movies are good and some are great. A few transcend the medium and the culture and make an indelible impression. In so many ways 'Gangs' does that."

He calls the production "a success through and through" while noting that it contains "a treasure chest of riches."

When the review appeared at Foxnews.com, it sparked immediate hubbub considering the columnist's close ties with the studio, which distributes "Only the Strong Survive," a documentary Friedman coproduced and narrated. Friedman's enthusiastic review of "Gangs" gave the impression that he was overstepping his journalistic bounds because he wanted to be the first to tell CEO Harvey Weinstein -- while trumpeting his own opinion, no less -- that Miramax had just regained the upper hand in the Best Picture Oscar race, which has been dominated for the past three years by rival Dreamworks.

In the past Friedman's detractors have accused him of using his column at Foxnews.com to gush over Miramax movies' Oscar prospects, a subject close to Harvey's heart. Last week film critic David Poland likened Friedman to being Harvey's call girl -- yes, Poland was specific about gender -- at www.thehotbutton.com.

Friedman has even been accused of gunning for Miramax's Oscar foes. Earlier this year, the L.A. Times noted: "Roger Friedman has repeatedly attacked the credibility of 'A Beautiful Mind' while repeatedly fawning over Miramax's Oscar contenders. The columns have raised eyebrows because the columnist has close ties to Miramax, having edited a pair of Talk magazine Oscar issues and served as a producer of a documentary that is being distributed by Miramax." Even Friedman's last batch of Oscar predictions were considered suspicious: his calls in 5 of the top 6 categories favored Miramax nominees, including longshot Tom Wilkinson ("In the Bedroom"), who most experts said had little chance of winning Best Actor.

Friedman recently gave an upbeat review to another Miramax Oscar contender -- "Chicago" -- after attending an official Miramax screening. But so did syndicated columnist Liz Smith, NY Post's Cindy Adams and E! Online's Anderson Jones. Only Jones is a professional film critic.

In his report on Chicago, Friedman sounds a lot like a movie reviewer when he evaluates the performances with stars such of Catherine Zeta-Jones: "She's good … you feel the little hairs on the backs of necks starting to buzz with interest." Director Rob Marshall "has you in his hand," claims Friedman, adding, "Somehow, he manages to convey the thrill of live theatre with the excitement of seeing Richard Gere not destroy his career (indeed, he seems to be saving it) by tap dancing."

Today, Nov. 18, rival gossipmeitster Liz Smith ran a hosannah review of "The Hours" in her column -- that's a Miramax coventure with Paramount.

"It's common in the industry for studios to give gossip columnists first crack at a movie," says Miramax rep Cynthia Swartz, "but we did not do that for Roger Friedman. He did not attend the screenings of 'Gangs' in New York. Frankly, I don't know how he saw the movie."

Swartz said she has no professional opinion about the now-common industry practice of gossip columnists writing movie reviews. She acknolwedged that there was a journalistic embargo partially in place last week against "Gangs" and "Chicago," but she said it did not apply to Friedman, Smith, Adams or Jones.

When Dreamworks spokesman was asked what she thought of the Friedman/Miramax uproar, she said: "We'd NEVER let a gossip columnist be the first to review one of our movies!"

Contact GoldDerby.com at GoldDerby@aol.com

Here is a link to Roger Friedman's "Gangs" review at Foxnews.com:

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,70453,00.html

 

Oops

 

lighten-up.... all media and entertainment is biased and full of propaganda - people on the right are just mad because Moore is doing the smae thing to them that conservative radio does to the left every day... mainly take sound bites and public quotes out of context.

I personnally wish the 15% on the far right and the 15% on the far left would shut the hell up and let the other 70% of the country (who are, right now, completly disengaged and disenfranchised) figure out what direction we want to go in and start heading there

 

great headline in the onion this week:

Michael Moore Kicking Self For Not Filming Last 600 Trips To McDonald's

 

Does anybody know the song in the trailer and the commercials? Not the one Ashcroft is warbling, the rock song that comes on near the end.

 

I love it when conservatives turn on their own for committing thoughtcrime.

 

I have never even heard of Friedman actually before I read these two articles. I appreciate Fox News for providing non-liberal news but I don't claim them as my own. The facts are the facts, this Friedman gossip columnist is just a pimp for Miramax when it comes to his "movie reviews".

 

I thought they were "fair and balanced?"