so i just watched that moore-movie

[wu_trax]

seriously, how could this win any prices at all?
im not a big fan of bush either, but this was more of an anti-bush-propagada-movie than a real documentation.
i guess it would not have been that difficult to package the same message in some real facts, but no, if some of moores theories dont work out he just leaves away facts until they do.
in other words: how can he use the same misinformation methods bush uses and then complain about bush?
on the other hand it was pretty much entertaining, but as a documentation, i dont see any value in it.

[Nodrog]

Did you notice that he was fat?

[Zar]

Originally Posted by wu_trax

seriously, how could this win any prices at all?
im not a big fan of bush either, but this was more of an anti-bush-propagada-movie than a real documentation.
i guess it would not have been that difficult to package the same message in some real facts, but no, if some of moores theories dont work out he just leaves away facts until they do.
in other words: how can he use the same misinformation methods bush uses and then complain about bush?
on the other hand it was pretty much entertaining, but as a documentation, i dont see any value in it.

why dont you guys understand that the movie was designed to be anti-bush

it wasnt designed to be diplomatic or neutral. it was designed to be BIASED- stop commenting on it as if it shouldnt have been!

[JonnyBGood]

Originally Posted by Zar

why dont you guys understand that the movie was designed to be anti-bush

it wasnt designed to be diplomatic or neutral. it was designed to be BIASED- stop commenting on it as if it shouldnt have been!

I hardly think acknowledging the fact that you've made a shit movie really excuses you from the fact you've made a shit movie.

[Dace]

michael moore eats babies

[Sandsnake]

I do believe the universe has just imploded.

[wu_trax]

Originally Posted by Zar

why dont you guys understand that the movie was designed to be anti-bush

it wasnt designed to be diplomatic or neutral. it was designed to be BIASED- stop commenting on it as if it shouldnt have been!

if you try to sell something as a documentation it must not be biased, at least not like that. bush certainly made enough mistakes in the last 4 years to produce 20 of these movies, but you dont present information in this way, or you are not any better than bush and his goverment.
for example: the bin ladens are one of the most important and rich families in saudi arabia. you hardly can do any buiness in that country without getting invloved with them, but in that movie it was presented like a proove that bush is controlled by the saudis or something like that. after that it gets even better: he uses the fact that some of the rest of the bin laden family went to a wedding of one of osamas sons as a proove that there still is a strong connection between osama and the rest of his family.
5 minutes after moore 'prooves' that bush is controlled by the evil saudis he then says that he started that war in afganistan to build some stupid pipeline, which obviously violates saudi intrests. that doesnt make much sence, does it?

this has nothing to do with biased, its just all bullshit. if moor wanted to make a commercial for the democrats, then fine, he just should not have made me pay 6€ to watch it.

[meglamaniac]

So lets get this straight.
You've got Micheal Moore right, known for his anti-bush, anti-war, anti-republican views.
This guy Moore writes books about his views, which are clearly very biased against Bush and the "War on Terror" (*)
And you've got this movie made by Micheal Moore, which is basicly the movie of the books.

AND YOU WENT INTO IT EXPECTING IT TO BE OBJECTIVE AND IMPARTIAL? ARE YOU RETARDED?

Of COURSE it's biased!
Of COURSE he's going to put spin on the facts!
Thats what the guy DOES for a living!

As a documentary it works so long as you don't expect a BBC style we-do-not-hold-views documentary.
Where the BBC might have said "Bush has had business relations with the Bin Laden family, we'll leave you to drawn your own conclusions on how much if at all that has influenced him.", Moore puts his personal opinion on how that might have influenced him across in the film. Well whats wrong with that? He never claimed to be impartial did he?
Have you actually READ any of his books?



(*)
Required further reading: Stupid White Men, and Dude Where's My Country?

[Dante Hicks]

All documentaries are biased.

The BBC is incredibly biased, and rightly so. Making a documentary which was not biased in anyway would probably resort to some sort of post-modernist exercise in gibberish generating.

Where I have a problem with Moore is intellectual honesty. Editing clips so people appear to be saying things they're not, putting things out of context, resulting to cheap insults - they're not necessary. However, I feel the attacks on Moore are slightly hypocritical since they generally eminate from the American conservative-right (which has appalling standards of intellectual integrity) or from the mainstream media - which isn't much better. Yes, even your precious BBC.

[Sunday8pm]

Titanic Won Umpteen Oscars

I Think That Discredited Any Notions Of Awards Meaning Anything Back Then

Therefore Complaining About This Movie Getting Any Awards Is Like Pissing Into The Wind.

[wu_trax]

ofc everything is biased in some way, everyone has an opinion. you can never eliminate that completly, but you can at least TRY.
if some of his assuptions didnt work out, the least he could do is cut it out. the best would be to tell me anyway. but what he shouldnt do is leave out information so that his assupmtions appear to be true.

i really dont want to defend bush. i never did, but look at that scene directly after 9/11 with bush in that school. is there any way bush could have reacted that moore could and would not have used against him in the movie?

oh, and yes, i read about 20 pages of stupid white man, i didnt like that one either.

edit: and one more thing: i would somewhat understand it if bush would be any good as a president, so that its not possible to attack him in any other way. but its bush, ffs. i dont think he made any right decision at all, so why all the bullshit?

[JonnyBGood]

Originally Posted by Dante Hicks

All documentaries are biased.

I bet if chomksy made a documentary you wouldn't say that.

Making a documentary which was not biased in anyway would probably resort to some sort of post-modernist exercise in gibberish generating.

<3

[Ste]

Look the republican nutjobs have there insane people ranting bullshit hyperbole.
Why can't the democrats?

[JonnyBGood]

Originally Posted by Ste

Look the republican nutjobs have there insane people ranting bullshit hyperbole.
Why can't the democrats?

If the republicans jumped off a bridge would you follow them?

[LHC]

Fighting bumsex with bumsex.

[Ste]

thats not the point.
If a load of americans jumped off a bridge would you say the democrats were idiots?

[JonnyBGood]

Originally Posted by Ste

thats not the point.
If a load of americans jumped off a bridge would you say the democrats were idiots?

It's precisely the point. The fact one group of people are doing something morally reprehensible is no justification for another group to commit the same morally reprehensible actions.


PS I didn't actually understand your post one iota so I just responded to what I imagined it meant. Can you explain what you mean by your "if a load of americans jumped off a bridge would you say the democrats were idiots?" comment please?

[Ste]

What is there not to get with the jumping off a cliff analogy?
lot of people jump off cliff. You pick one person out and call him an idiot.
lot of people spout bullshit. You pick one person out and call him biased.

Or am i just too tired to make proper sense? **** it, i'm going to bed.

[JonnyBGood]

No I'm categorically against all forms of lying and prevarication. However mentioning every single intellectually dishonest article every time a complaint is voiced about one specific article would be self-defeating due to the amount of time consumed. We should not be prevented from criticising something we find wrong due to the fact there are many others that we find wrong*. We acknowledge that many "right-wing" american elements manipulate the facts, however this does not excuse anyone else from doing so. Two wrongs do not make a right, to formulate it very basically.




*This is one of the main disagreements I have with people who criticise the US invasion of Iraq on the grounds they don't remove every other dictator everywhere else in the world.

[Kurashima]

Originally Posted by Ste

thats not the point.
If a load of americans jumped off a bridge would you say the democrats were idiots?

Id say the Democrats were idiots anyway. Theyre politicians.
Id also say the Republicans were idiots. TBH , America needs a good old fashioned Liberal , or a semi-nutjob independent.

JESSE THE BODY VENTURA FOR PRESIDENT!

[Zar]

Originally Posted by wu_trax

i really dont want to defend bush. i never did, but look at that scene directly after 9/11 with bush in that school. is there any way bush could have reacted that moore could and would not have used against him in the movie?

you have to understand that moore uses a fair bit of comedy and satire to get his points across. When he focused on bush, he expected to arouse humour in his audience. Certainly the audience in my screening found it quite funny (looking at that chimpanzee face all confused). When making a movie you have to set a scene, an atmosphere to set the tone for the rest of the showing. This was a good way of doing it

Moore doesnt aim to convince people who already know of bushes underhand and dirty deals, or those more enlightened among the american/world population that war (especially this war) was/is a bad thing. I suspect he is trying to convert/enlighten/open eye right wing/conservative nutjobs. I'm sure if he even managed to convince one person that would be satisfactory. The more people the better, almost a bonus.

If i managed to get a person to stop following a religion (especially christianity) it would make my day. I'm sure moore would feel the same away about bush loving rednecks.

To be honest, we live in such a contrived world. It is hard to find any sources of unbiased information, yet we find it hard to dismiss reports from the media and the government. Moore might have pushed certain points which had little relevance, but living in a country where Tony Blair has spinned the media so far round his ass, lies about pretty much everything and anything these days, and appoints dodgy people to do his dirty work (hutton & butler) i don't see how a fresh face like moore can be worse.

Moore isnt doing this for power - on the contrary by making a documentry like this he alienates himself from much of the corporate power and governmental power (as they are linked) in the usa. He creates an enemy out of almost half the country who can't stand him (bush lovers) and he is already loaded out of his arse (he even stated that he didnt care if people pirated the movie)

[Dante Hicks]

Originally Posted by wu_trax

ofc everything is biased in some way, everyone has an opinion. you can never eliminate that completly, but you can at least TRY.

I don't believe you can eliminate your opinion from a documentary and neither should you try. Your opinion should be as obvious as possible. Trying to pretend you don't have an opinion while going round making effectively a propaganda piece is totally dishonest. Let's just be up front with our bias so people can at least prepare themselves.

i really dont want to defend bush. i never did, but look at that scene directly after 9/11 with bush in that school. is there any way bush could have reacted that moore could and would not have used against him in the movie?

I quite agree, the bit in the school was awful.

Originally Posted by JBG

I bet if chomksy made a documentary you wouldn't say that.

I realise you are joking but Chomsky is openly biased, so there wouldn't be any point in doing so. He is openly in favour of freedom, against unnecessary concentration of power, in favour of workers participation, etc. All his writings rightly reflect this.

In terms of the "if everyone else jumped off a cliff" analogy - I think this is slighlty different. In Moore's defence, because of the standards of journalism/media generally people are exposed to it is very hard to have an effect without adopting similar tactics.

It's like hearing a scientist talk if you have been exposed to nothing but fundamentalism. The scientist will carefully prefix everything he says with "As far as we can tell" or "The evidence seems to suggest that" where the fundamentalist will just say "This is right". Sometimes to appeal to fundamentalists, you need to speak with as much certainty as them. Similarly, I think if Moore had been more exacting in his standards I doubt his documentaries would have been as successful.

Does this make it right? I'd say no. But I'm sympathetic, because it's tempting to dumb your argument down so people can get it.

[Sunday8pm]

Tbh if the left starts doing propoganda better than the right, then maybe the right will be resigned to taking the higher ground and being more honourable.... lolololololololololololol.

I think what really was wanted to happen was to make people be interested in politics again, average joe's, Michael Moore went into making this movie knowing a few things, he knew he wasn't going to change anyone who was smart enough to investigate his claims opinions on politics, they'll either stay left or stay right, but his hope was that those who aren't smart enough to investigate and believe everything they here and end up voting right etc will end up voting left... if you came into this movie expecting some weapon to argue with some asshole conservative republicans then you were sorely mistaken.

If you came into the movie wanting to hear about this whole big weapon from the left and shocked at how pitiful it was (if you are a right sided person) then welcome to a taste of your own medicine.

This movie serves to please more than it'll upset and it's doing it. It'll easily walk away with oscars seeing as most of hollywood is very left (cept charles heston who'll shoot you).

If you really do want something to take from this movie, take this, at least when some guy now walks up to someone with money in the movie business and says
"Hey I got this great idea for a documentary"
He won't get flicked off.

Let this be the gateway movie for the documentary writers to finally break the market and deliver some stuff that will make us think...