Documentary Group to Give Michael Moore a Career Achievement Award

Michael Moore is nothing more than a Hollywood hack who makes up stories and tries to pass them off as so called Documentaries.

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Thank you, Michael, for that riveting and original insight.

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That was so stupid Michael.

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The pundits above would like to ignore Michael Moore's achievements, and are just sick(o) because Michael Moore has managed to garner so much attention with the FACTS about our deplorable health care system.

You may call him a hack, but facts are facts, the general public knows the truth or it wouldn't be such an issue in the forthcoming election.

Nay saying at this point just demonstrates your sour grape attitude, as well as your ostrich proclivities of sticking your head in the sand. It's pretty childish.

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I have to disagree that Sicko was Moore at his sloppiest. I was amazed by how much it was based in fact, and not invective or innuendo. The facts presented were carefully cut from their context at times, but of all of Moore's films, Sicko was the most factually reliable.

I was amazed by how unfunny it is. it is more purely polemical than anything else Moore has ever done. It grips onto its subject and wavers only a little into pop-culture tangents or snark.

However, I was disappointed in the film. Moore had more opportunity to presnt the hisstory of specific health Care companies, or to closely examine the history of private care in the US and the rest of the world. Either he didn't have the ability to do it or he didn't think his audience would have the ability to understand it. I think it was the latter.

In most of Sicko, I felt talked-down-to. In addition to near-total humorlessness, Sicko was far too quick to assert, and in 60% or more of its claims, it failed to prove its point.

More is a great filmmaker, and has done important work. However, he runs the risk of hackery, and Sicko is anything but a devastating clinical look at a corrupt profession. It's a side show that's meant to spark some questions in its audience. but even at this, it doesn't succeed. watching Sicko, all I wanted to do was move to France.

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You have to give Michael credit. He's really blazed the trail in documentaries that really have some kind of meaning.

http://www.mymoviefriend.com/yellowbrickroad.html

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Maybe a Democrat will win the Presidency in 2008 and he'll disappear for 4 years and give us a break from his alarmist and cavalier style, which frequently flies in the face of well-known facts, i.e. Bowling For Columbine and Fahrenheit 911. This guy only has something to say when he senses a general displeasure amongst the populous in regards to the President and his policies. I'd love to see what he has to say when so many of the asses he's been kissing are in charge.

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Philip-

If you think Moore's approaches can be alarmist, you might be right -- but perhaps it's appropriate. Consider what's really on the line in his films: Life (Fahrenheit, Bowling for Columbine); Livelihood (The Big One, Roger and Me); Health (Sicko). If you can't feel alarmist when any of those elements are in jeopardy, then you're head's in the sand.

Yes, he has political leanings that make his reporting gonzo. But I'd rather have a gonzo voice opening eyes and ears than the same old repetitive "buy my BS" rhetoric -- from both sides of the aisle.

Perhaps it's too early for a lifetime achievement award of some sort, but the guy has elevated the visibility of the documentary, and that's something.

For those of you that did enjoy Sicko, or are interested in seeing it, we're giving away a copy this week: http://meetinthelobby.com/free-dvd-giveaway-michael-moores-sicko-special-edition.html

Come on by if you like.

Best,
Norm

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Hi,
I tend to shy away from discussion about Michael Moore because they seem to do little other than cause more attention be directed his way, but perhaps someone here can help me get a better understanding.
I was always a big fan of Michael Moore's work from Roger and Me all the way up to Bowling for Columbine. i rember leaving Bowling for Columbine feeling very moved! I remember feeling that there were serious issues that we as Americans needed to examine in ourselves if we, for example, would readily give a gun to someone opening an account at a bank, that day.
Later it was revealed that many of the "events" Moore was describing were either presented out of sequence, pieced together to create semblance of a new event, or outright fabrications, as in the example of the gun above.
I had always believed that a documentarian tried, to the best of his abilities, to catch on film, those events as they actually occur. (I knew that all those animal documentaries that showed a tiger catching a gazelle might possibly be staged as to catch it on film, but it DID present facts already in our understading. In fact that was usually the disclaimer at the end of the documentary.)
It bothered me, and still does, that events in Bowling for Columbine were "manufactured" to tell a story and support a thesis! Isn't this outside the realm of the Documentary form? Even the role of Moore himself in his films as the schlub on the street always able to catch the elite and "wrong-doer's" in their most pretentious and unguarded moments. I find it hard to believe that this is the real Michael Moore either. I felt Michael Moore fooled me very severly in this film and, frankly, I don't feel I can trust anything he has to say in any of his films, subsequently. (But that's just my opinion.)
I guess my question to those of you, having more experience with the documentary form than me, is, where is the line drawn? i have no problem with Michael Moore if these were acknowledged as "films" by Michael Moore and not necessarity "Documentaries" by Michael Moore. Even the chacter of "Michael Moore" as played in his films, is played wonderfully my Michael Moore. I think it is a wonderful acting performance.
I appreciate any of your thoughts or comments!


Russ

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