Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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33 of 37 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
"We were duped", September 23, 2004
There are many memorable images in Farenheit 9/11, Bush reading "my pet goat" after the second plane hit, the wailing Iraqi mother who lost her family, Gore and Deniro partying after the Democrats short lived win - but the one that really sticks in my mind and manages to sums it all up succinctly is the elderly woman at the bingo hall who saw through the tainted slant of the media and the ever shifting reasons for invading Iraq and exclaims with toal contempt "we were duped"! Its an epiphany many of us are waking up to now, thanks to a fat white guy who currently happens to be more dispised by the religious right then Marylyn Manson or Anton Levay.
To hear it from the naysayers, Michael Moore stands in front of a camera for 2 hours launching vicious slander against righteous George. The truth of the matter is we almost never see Moore, Bush himself is the "star" of Fanrenheit 9/11 and whatever opinion the audience ends up drawing, it is based on Bush's own words and actions. The religious right has us so transfixed we find ourselves saying things like "even if the movie is only 90% true..." Well i went through the exhaustive reference material available on www.michaelmoore.com and every assertion, every statement has been published somewhere before in the mainstream media based on traceable data. Unfortunately with just 5 guys controlling this information an article about the White house flying the Bin Laden family back to Saudi Arabia where 15 of the hijackers originated came from quickly dissapears from print and funnily enough is NOT the lead story on FOX news, I wonder why.
Moore plays his cards just right, I have watched this film with several groups of republican voters and fundamentalist Christians who would typically vote for George the anti-choice pro descrimination conservative. When Lila Liscombe reads the final letter from her son before he died serving in Iraq she breaks down in the point of his letter "Thank you for the Bible". It suddenly begins to dawn on these conservatives that Bush and his republican cohorts have behaved in a decidedly Un-Christian way in sending thousands of innocent men and women to unnecessary deaths, while Osama Bin Forgotton. I have watched every single Christian conservative melt like an ice cube thorugh this section of the film, indeed anyone without a heart of stone could not help but be touched by the Liscombe family. My female friends weep and the men sit in stunned silence "Im flaberghasted" is all one could manage at the conclusion.
This is as heavy handed as the film will get, the documentary itself is incredible not just from the content but in that we almost have a new doco genre here "tragi-comedy". What we witness in Farenheit 9/11 makes you angry enough to jump out of your seat and enrole to vote (even when you live on the other side of the world like me), it makes you want to weep at the injustice, all while you cannot help but laugh a hysterical laugh at the complete absurdity and stupidity we ourselves remain responsible for. I can not imagine a more important film being released this decade.
Ps If you think Michael is in it for the money he is losing millions in DVD sales to rush the release and attempt to have the film shown free on TV. He withdrew his nomination for best documentary Oscar on the chance a network will screen the film before the Election. I have a new American hero
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49 of 57 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A film that brings out the best and worst in reviewers., October 7, 2004
Firstly, I am not from the US. It seems to have become a hobby of Americans to wear their politics rather vocally on their sleeves. Looking up info about his film, if you're any kind of regular net-surfer, you will likely have seen verbal volleys directed back and forth between democratic supporters and republican supporters. What ends up happening is the equivalent of an elementary school name-calling contest rather than any discussion of the film as is. Yes, there are parts of this movie presented out of context. One example: When the Taliban visit Texas in this film, they were there by invitation from the Clinton administration, even though Bush is Texas governor. However, what works in this film is seeing a result of one presidential administration's decisions (and indecisions in one almost tragically comical scene) and its effects on people in two countries. The interspersal of Lila Lipscomb's patriotism to outrage to utter sadness are the most moving parts of this film. Seeing the effects of the war on those who were on the front lines and discovering what is never mentioned on US newscasts is a powerful series of images. The interviews with shell-shocked, amputee soldiers in rehab are frightening to behold, knowing that there are what is nearing 10,000 of these men returning to the USA, and to what kind of reception? Seeing Moore on the streets of DC telling members of congress to sign their adult children up for military service is hilarious to watch, especially seeing the reactions of the congressmen.
For me, all of these changes in mood, from disbelief, to horror, to unbounded laughter are what make this a 4 star film. Taking it in context of just a theater goer, and not a potential voter, make me agree with why this film won the Palm d'Or at the Cannes Festival. There are powerful messages here, despite personal politics and should be seen by anyone who is a citizen of this planet, not just the US.
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56 of 66 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Definitely A Must-See Movie For The Summer!, July 16, 2004
This film is a brilliantly-contrived and choreographed emotional roller coaster ride that incites a quite palpable resulting attitude of disgust, dismay, and disdain on the of the viewer. Mr. Moore manipulates the images, voice-overs and antics to both amuse and outrage us all at once, in an obviously outrageously satirical (and sometimes hysterical) look at the war in Iraq and the people who engineered us into invading that country, at terrible cost to ordinary American men and women. In essence that is the simple message of this pseudo-documentary; that simple, trusting and basically honorable young and patriotic Americans are being badly abused and misled by an administration and a government out of control, a government which, in Mr. Moore's view of the world, serves its people up to slaughter without worry and care. After all, it is not, as he so comically and memorably demonstrates, the sons and daughters of the governing elite who serve and die in God-forsaken places like Iraq and Afghanistan. Thus, in one chaotic series of vignettes, Moore corners unsuspecting Congressmen and makes a pitch to have them volunteer their kids as potential cannon-fodder for Iraq. Needless to say, the point is well taken, as only one current member of Congress has a son stationed in harm's way in Iraq. He counter-poses such banal images with those of battle casualties and struggling working class mothers crying over their lost sons after the fact. One must hasten to acknowledge that in fact, Michael Moore makes no pretense in the film of attempting to be balanced or fair; on the contrary, he is puzzled by the suggestion that he do so. After all, as he says, the opinions coming from the environs of the Oval Office have hardly been balanced or fair. And while one may argue that he has sometimes played fast and loose with the sequences of events, or the connections between various elements tied together in the movie, there are few outright falsehoods one can point to as an example of downright misrepresentation. He also quite cleverly puts the lie to the idea that protest or argument is somehow unpatriotic. This places an enormous burden on those who would argue one must remain silent in solidarity with the troops as a show of respect for their sacrifice. Yet it is hard to argue with Moore's logic that anyone who really cares about the welfare of the troops would take care not to misuse them or continue to place them needlessly or carelessly in harms' way. As James Bovard contends in his new book, suggesting, as Mr. Bush does continually, that by fighting the terrorists in Iraq we will avoid fighting them here, is at best an almost criminally naïve notion, and at worst, a cynical and murderous misrepresentation of what is going down in Iraq. We are not becessarily there to preserve their freedom or ours, argues Mr. Moore, and any suggestion that such is the case will have a hard time explaining events that now transpire on an almost daily basis. Moore's intent was to ratchet up debate on the policies and practices and rationale of the neo-conservative regime current in power, and to suggest that perhaps Americans begin to question it and its motives much more closely. Thus, despite it dramatic excesses or its willingness to sometimes take liberties in connecting things which may or may not indeed be so tied, I believe in creating public controversy and stirring public debate the movie will be a stunning success, and that it may well lead to having some measurable resulting political impact on the election in the fall. Enjoy!
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