Scott Boyles of USA Today accidentally lets a few nuggets of truth slip into a story about Michael Moore's latest piece-of-crap movie.

Via Jeff Goldstein, who's been a very bad boy and should probably be spanked.

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James is responsible for my most delicious link of the week, to David Brooks, writing in The New York Times about Michael Moore:

In years past, American liberals have had to settle for intellectual and moral leadership from the likes of John Dewey, Reinhold Niebuhr and Martin Luther King Jr. But now, a grander beacon has appeared on the mountaintop, and from sea to shining sea, tens of thousands have joined in the adulation.

So it is worth taking a moment to study the metaphysics of Michael Moore. For Moore is not only a filmmaker; he is a man of ideas, and his work is based on an actual worldview.

Like Hemingway, Moore does his boldest thinking while abroad. For example, it was during an interview with the British paper The Mirror that Moore unfurled what is perhaps the central insight of his oeuvre, that Americans are kind of crappy.

Read the whole thing. Right now. You can thank me later.

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Michael Moore has, apparently, retained some lawyers and threatened to sue anyone who impugns his (cough, cough) good name. Of course, this amounts to freedom of speech for those who have access to Hollywood money—and no one else—but we'll let that go by for now.

In the meantime, I'd like to point out that Team Moore will be very busy if it tries to file suit against every thoughtful blogger out there. I therefore propose an essay question: "Is Moore more stupid, or more evil?"

Hitch appears to be leaning toward stupid, but I'm not so sure myself. I'm thinking evil; I rather suspect this man knows exactly what he's doing, and that he's more the champion of his own bank balance than any working person.

The only way the Academy could possibly redeem itself for the Bowling in Columbine fiasco is to nominate this film in the fiction category—the only appropriate category for any of Moore's work.

UPDATE: Ray Bradbury is pissed. And I'm not sure I blame him, though there's nothing to be done about it.

Michel Moore should be more careful: after all, there are good filmmakers out there, and cleverer writers. The parodies of Bowling for Columbine and Fahrenheit 9/11 may well be exquisite. Of course, some things parody themselves.

Posted by: Attila at 11:18 PM | Comments (6) | Add Comment
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1 In case you missed this, go to: http://slate.msn.com/id/2102723/ Christopher Hitchens takes on Moore. Hitchens is always Hitchens. I was disgusted about some of the things he said about Reagan but he is a brilliant writer and commentator, and has Moore pegged perfectly. This column is over 4,000 words but is worth reading.

Posted by: Jerry Lee at June 22, 2004 01:31 PM (8fKFW)

2 Yup, it's good, and was actually the jumping-off point for my (typically) long-winded post. The word "Hitch" (his blogosphere nickname, presumably from Andrew Sullivan) links that same piece. Thanks for stopping by, Jerry.

Posted by: Attila Girl at June 23, 2004 01:22 AM (LcVoH)

3 I was bored, and have been looking for factual material for an anti-Michael Moore disertation (ok..a long, book sized rant *grins*) and thought of something. So, being a lover of Free Speach, I figured I'd point out that.... ..an anagram of "Michael Moore" is.... ..wait for it.... *grin*... "Liar Come Home" Just something for you to snicker at.

Posted by: Jon at July 04, 2004 06:29 AM (rg8tR)

4 As a liberal, I gotta say, I'm tired of Michael Moore. These days, it seems like you have to be a fan of Moore to have any liberal cred. I don't need Moore to tell me why George Jr. sucks ass. And it gives conservatives such an easy out. Let's all attack Michael Moore, so we don't have to talk about the latest embarassment from the Whitehouse. "Because it says so in the Bible" has been replaced by, "because your a liberal and Michael Moore's a liberal."

Posted by: Adam at July 08, 2004 09:32 PM (tfidl)

5 I've never said that to anyone. In fact, I'd like to see more people denounce him, but the voices are few and far between. Remember all those people who wrote books or made videos about Bill Clinton, during his administration? The looney ones: Bill was a cocaine trafficker. He killled Vince Foster. He killed those black kids by the railroad tracks. No one paid these theories any attention. Yet Michael Moore comes out with some idiotic conspiracies that are just as outrageous, and Hollywood showers him with laurels (by appearing at the premiere of the film, and speaking out in favor of it). He makes the cover of Time magazine. For a liberal to fail to distance himself from Michael Moore is analogous to a Muslim failing to distance himself from al Qaeda: I will take a jaundiced view of anything else they say, because they are buying into the intellectual equivalent of cotton candy.

Posted by: Attila Girl at July 09, 2004 11:19 PM (LcVoH)

6 Yes...good old Michael Moore... advertisements for his movie after July 30th might fall under Campaign Reform Laws and might be pulled from airing..What does good old Mikey do? Whine that this infr5inges on his freedom of speach...and in related news, Michael Moore has publicly stated that anyone who criticizes (flames) him will get sued. Say wha? Why for some odd reason am I reminded of "Animal Farm" when I see a picture of Michael Moore?

Posted by: Jon at July 16, 2004 05:56 AM (rj7w+)

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Attila the Hub and I saw the latest Harry Potter film today. We enjoyed it, but the Azkaban story was the first book that spun out of control (depending on your point of view) in terms of length, so the amount of material that had to come out of the book in order to bring the movie in at under five hours was noticeable. I will have this problem with the next two films, for sure--and probably all of them in the future: there's no way they will be able to include all the sub-plots. This is what Rowling gets for writing the Nineteenth-Century Russian Novels of Children's literature.

A lot has been written about the "dark, gritty" quality of the movie. It's true: both literally and figuratively this installment is darker than the first two. It was like watching a child's first horror movie at moments, it was so gothic in feel (yet modern-scary, too, with a lot of fast cuts meant to startle the audience; thank you, M. Night Shymalan). And striking this dark note might be a good warning for parents: after all, Movie Number Four (Goblet of Fire) will begin the Significant Present-Day Casualties. It could be that the filmmakers were letting us know: "The party's over. Don't take your youngest kids to these films any more."

Still. Why do that before you have to? So much charm, wit and humor was stripped out of the story that it made it hard to indulge the director in a lot of the "extras" that made it in. ("You cut out my favorite parts, but want me to hang with a long ride over a lake on a Hippogrif? I'll have to think about that one." I didn't think long, because that is one of the best visual scenes in the movie, and foreshadowed the importance of the lake in the coming plot twists. But, still.)

Some things were done right. Showing the kids in contemporary street clothes was absolutely correct: this story is set in present-day Britain, though Hogwarts is as old as a lot of European castles and contains ancient wizard traditions within its walls. I was also okay with the kids getting visibly older. After all, so do the characters: by a year or so per story [/snarkiness]. (Though I didn't have any of the same "ohmigod I'm a pedophile" moments that I experienced with the Chamber of Secrets. The camera didn't linger on Daniel Radcliffe's face in the same way, so one only noted in passing that he's developing into a fine-looking young man, as opposed to being struck over and over that This Kid Will Be a Serious Heartbreaker in About Five Years.)

And then there is the genuinely lovely symbolism: We continually see Harry and his friends against the backdrop of a building-sized clock, with a pendulum that sweeps along the main hall, hovering just over their heads in a swing that encompasses thirty feet or so. This is (obviously) a hint that time will be one of the adversaries in this story. And as the movie opens we see only darkness until we zoom in on Harry, reading by the light of his wand, which he's using as a flashlight, muttering the spell that makes it emit light over and over: the framing of the scene shows Harry's importance as a leader in (and savior of) the wizard world—and the lumos spell foreshadows the importance of his Patronus to the plot.

Still, I'd be happier if more of the charm and humor of the original had been left in. For instance, The Knight Bus was a lovely chapter in the first book, but becomes ugly and frightening in the movie.

Also, some elements were downplayed that will only have to be addressed in the next book, most notably the tension between Dumbledore and the Ministry of Magic.

And then there are my smaller quibbles: we are cheated out of a second view of the white stag, and its significance is never explained. And most fans are pretty unhappy that we never learn the origin of the Marauder's Map. I'm not sure Cuaron and Columbus would have done better by giving us more historical background, though: as it was there was some "talky" explanation that bogged things down a bit, as my husband remarked. No easy answers, here.

I think it's about time for me to re-read all the existing ones, and check on the release date for book Number Six.

I liked this the least of the existing three movies, but I recognize that at this point I'm always going to have an argument with the plot-trimming that will simply have to be done.

Nostalgia ain't, as they say, what it used to be.

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For those who want to see stills from the next Harry Potter movie, have at it.

I'll probably wait to see the movie until the crowds die down, unless the husband and I can grab a matinee this week, while many munchkins are still in Azkaban school.

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