Davy

I love what MM does and did. I love it. I cheered right through his films. I read his books with delight. I hate the far-right theft of America from its own people just as much as you do. I'm with you all the way. But still, Mr Moore, please don't call your films documentaries, don't market them as a documentaries, don't make people much less clever than you believe that these are documens of truth.

Who's more at fault - Bush and his cronies or the Democrats and theirs? I mean, everybody just bent over didn't they?

Pete

<Added>

Davy

If you're ever down SE London way there are one or two fabulously unreconstructed boozers down here where relentless harangueing still passes as debate, and I'd be glad to buy you a pint. House formula: 1/2 hr max per person per rant per pint

Pete

Thanks mate, really appreciate that!

Sounds like a top pub too. Great house rules.

As it happens I'm off Lahndan at the moment, having spent the last two years there and now retiring in the country. But next time I enter el big smoke, I'll let you know, coz that'd be grand!

Nice one Pete


regards


Dav

Wow, for a minute I thought I'd written a review about Bowling For Columbine.

JB

Sorry folks. My desire for brevity made my comment sound really arsy. Not my intention. My point is this: MM has realised something very important. Modern politicians have gained control of the facts, the flow of information. They have got good at using any system of controlled access, freedom of information in order to so categorise information that they have justification within the system for not releasing it 'in the public interest'. Perfect example this week was the Independent reader who sought to find out under the freedom of information act details of Bliar's contacts with Rupert Murdoch. First he was told that he had asked for too much detail then when he confined it to info for one year he was told that it was not 'in the public interest' that the info be released anyway - because "it is a greater 'public' priority that the Prime Minster should be able to have conversations with people like Murdoch which remain private so that he is given frank and honest info" (oh yeah). Notoriously the same specious bullshit was used to hide the details of the conversations Bliar had with Attorney General Goldsmith about the legality of the Iraq invasion.

So: first they control access to the facts. Then when the shit hits the fan, instead of being judged on what they did they demand that we judge them on what they meant to do. And lawyers all, they know that you cannot prove an intention.

So MM has realised that the normal documentary form with its rigorous attention to provable facts is beaten before it starts - because 1. you can never get all the real facts, they are too well hidden and 2. any facts you do get will always be seen as secondary because the real issue is not what was done but what was meant to be done. MM cuts trhough this bullshit to shake the tree, get people angry and indignant. Refusing to vote and making a big noise. That is what scares the shit out of the politicians. It hits public opinion, gets hostility and opposition rolling down the hill. They then lose tight control and under those circumstances facts start leaking out. Whistle blowers say no.

So MM knows the regular documentary won't change anything - the factual game is rigged against him. So bugger the detailed facts - wind people up with as much fact as you can get and dramatise it the best you can to break up the system of info control. Then things come out of the woodwork. Not pretty, and plays fast and loose with the truth, but that's all we are left with. Dnagerous but effective.


Last thing about MM. The way he chose to deal with the actual 9/11 events in Fahrenheit 9/11 was the mark of guy who really knows movies. He realised with a black screen we would all fill it out with our own memory of the event and the most iconic pictures for decades. The man knows how to make movies. He calls them documentaries by the way because that is their form and he knows he has to 'sell' the contents to us. He is trying to make a moral point in a corrupt system that won't let him be heard unless he appears to be part of it. (Hell part of the financing for F9/11 was corporate).

There now you wish I'd stayed brief don't you?

Thing about threads JB is that they always wander away from the start point. Take heart, making people think and talk about things that matter is a cool result. Better than a crappy film any day.

regards all.

Z

There now you wish I'd stayed brief don't you?

Hell no Zett!!

That is spot on, wish I could have even thought of it like that! I agree, MM is a fine movie maker, he showed that long before F9/11.

Soz Wax, but you gotta admit that was good. The Da vinci code has a use after all...

Great stuff!

I meant it to be lighthearted. I have no real opinion of Michael Moore, as again, I think it's scratching-the-surface stuff, but admit he's opened a lot of stuff to serious debate that may otherwise have been overlooked. Unfortunately, he didn't stop America re-electing the Warlock.

JB

Fingers crossed JB. If the Democrats can win back Congress and the Senate then they have the power to set up an investigation on the lead up to the Iraq invasion. And there is probably enough there to set up an impeachment process on Bush. Now...I wonder where it would leave Bliar if his mate was impeached for the very lies Bliar inflicted on us.

Dear Mr Bush and Bliar - may you live in interesting times - in the Chinese sense.....

Z

Er why not now? The Republicans did it to Clinton with Ken Starr. Whassamatter with them? You have to ask.

And now you're touching upon a conspiracy really worth making a movie about! But I never discuss politics before lunch, as a rule.

JB

And who was standing outside the court day after day, trying to show Starr and his Republican conspirators up for what they were?

MM...that's who!

MM is Marilyn Manson. Everyone knows that!

JB

LOL, good point Wax.

Maybe things would be better if it was Manson waiting, and jumped on Starr with Twiggy Ramirez backing him up, revealing Starr's true identity as a David Icke style Lizard Warrior, in front of the entire world and everyone saw the Neo-Cons for what they are back in 99, and thus their elaborate plan to demolish the unprofitable World Trade Towers whilst kicking off World War 3 (and a chance to get their lizardy hands on all that oil) would never have come to fruition now the world would be a lovely fluffy place. Marilyn would then be promoted as the Democratic candidate, and he would now be the President, with Ramirez as VP.

Then, everything would fall into a buzzy, friendly, we're all good kinda guys, West Wing universe and we'd be...er, pissing ourselves, probably.

Not a popular view that one, but worth thinking about.

No, I'm kidding, I don't think Neo Cons are Lizard men.

Well, not all of them. But check out Wolfowitz, really close, and you can see a badly fitted human mask. I swear.

Sorry, it is Friday tho..

Aaaaanyway, Waxy, Manson is a God (well an Anti-Christ Superstar)- have you read his biography? Great read!

Cholero

Not enough republicans are anti republican bush enough to do it. They didn't mind sticking it to democrat clinton. but you have to hold both houses to initiate it and the dems haven't done that since god was a lad. until......

Z

Not read The Long Hard Road Out of Hell yet, just bits and pieces. I'm looking forward to his new movie based on Alice in Wonderland. I'm a fan, and I just got permission to use some of the lyrics from Disposable Teens, so I'm honoured and working toward my honorary priesthood with the Church of Satan. Manson spoke a lot of sense in Bowling For Columbine actually, and he'd get my vote!

JB

Too right Wax!

Yeah he was brilliant in Columbine. You should read his auto-biography, its top stuff (sorry I said biography before).

That's brilliant you got permission for the lyrics. Nice one!