By David Poland poland@moviecitynews.com
Solipsism: A Love Story
The defining moment of Capitalism: A Love Story, for me, so far, came last night, listening to Bill Maher slather Moore’s bullocks with the slimy slick saliva of his tongue for minutes… only to gently explain after the licking was done, why the movie’s conceit really makes no sense. Seriously… Maher has a future doing movie quotes for Rolling Stone.
But the sad part of this exchange was watching Moore’s eyes… I think he knows that his latest film is coming up short. He looked sad, not enraged. He was saying all the words that he must as One Of The Greatest Salesmen On The Planet. But he is sending a movie out into the world that is right out of Animal House, when Belushi’s Bluto gives his “Nothing is over until we decide it is!” speech and no one follows him.
“What the fuck happened to the America I used to know?,” Moore must be wondering. But the question America may be wondering is, “Where is the Michael Moore we used to know?”
The answer is also in that same scene in Animal House. Bluto is pure Id in that film. But after being beaten down, the Deltas won’t follow pure Id anymore. It’s when Otter acts as The Ego, putting Bluto’s unstructured rant into a perspective that his frat brothers can connect to (even if he is still being a bit silly.)
The genius of Moore has been that he is Id and Ego in one as a filmmaker. And this film, like much of Sicko, is all super-ego. We still see that fun, thoughtful maniac in there… glimpses of the Id and Ego. But mostly, he wants to be a moralizing Super-Ego these days. And part of that, I would suggest, is because he is making a movie that is dealing with issues too fresh for him to get perspective on, much less give us perspective on.
Last night, on Maher, he talked about wanting to make a movie that was so outrageously honest that no studio would ever fund another one of his movies. Epic Fail, Mike. There is not a single thing exposed in the body of Capitalism: A Love Story that Jon Stewart, Bill Maher, David Letterman, and even Jay Leno haven’t already mocked… and mocked in a more funny way. No one needed a film to tell us that bailing out banks sucks and that people being thrown out of their houses – that they took insane loans on, of their own greedy accord, btw – at the same time feels like a shot in the gut. America gets it.
You used to convert. Now all you seem to want to do is to preach to the converted.
I truly love your work and believe in your gift, Michael Moore. But you need to get further out ahead of the news cycle or you become just another f-ing talking head for the liberals instead of the idiots of Fox News who do the same crap on the other side.
That next-to-last paragraph is very telling. When the trailer name-checks “F9/11” the public has a right to scream “not again!”
Poland, did you stick with Real Time through the panel, where that otherwise-interesting Harvard economist guy was disgustingly hacking and sneezing into his mike through the rest of the show? I’m trying to listen to John Waters and this dude’s coughing phlegm across the table. Blecch.
Anyway, Maher sort of pwned Moore there, not even in a malicious way, but almost by accident, when he asked what alternative Moore would propose exactly, Communism? From there out, Moore just kind of babbled and stammered and repeated himself… and yes, he made it sound like this is the most radical, crazy-ass doc he’s ever done, but not 10 days ago Moore was on Leno, with Leno espousing how populist and sensical the movie is for Republicans and Dems alike, like it’s some middle-skewing crowd-pleaser.
LEX ON CAPITALISM (actual capitalism, not the movie): CAPITALISM RULES. How else are bad-looking guys gonna get model pussy? If we did some collectivist bullshit that’s all fair and everyone getting the same slice of the pie? The only dudes who’d be banging hot chicks would be the Gael Garcia Bernal-looking sensitive dudes with their acoustic guitars.
Agreed DP, not only is there little that isn’t already common knowledge, but he fails to explain the basic ‘how and why’ to those might theoretically want to learn something from the film (for example, he never takes the 10-30 seconds to explain what a sub-prime mortgage loan is). Hell, the most shocking anecdote, involving the privatized juvenile detention center, was actually a plot line from Law & Order: Special Victims Unit last season.
“If we did some collectivist bullshit that’s all fair and everyone getting the same slice of the pie?”
Then everybody would be provided for?
Okay, christian, so in your collectivisit, bullshit, Portland hippie commune Utopia, you’d be happy with a nice, cushy 40,000 a year — the most you could EVER make or hope to make, while SKID ROW JOE FROM OUTSIDE 7-11 *also* makes 40,000 a year just for being alive, but so does an entrepreneur, athlete, celebrity, successful businessman who ACTUALLY CONTRIBUTES TO SOCIETY AND THE ECONOMY?
You’re just fine and dandy with having your salary capped and a successful businessperson hobbled down to middle-class, all so some poor degenerates can “have their slice”?
REALLY? You wouldn’t scream to the heavens if someone set up a soup kitchen in your front living room? Or how about have some impoverished family come live in your house? How about giving away half your salary just because you’re such a do-gooder?
Face it, YOU DON’T CARE about “the poor,” in any generalized sense, any more than I do, or any more than any loudmouth celebrity does. It’s pious liberal guilt, it’s a P.C. thing to say, but it’s all bullshit. At least I’m honest about it.
Han Fucking Solo, baby: “BETTER HER THAN ME.”
Words of wisdom.
So, christian, what exactly do you do in life, in your film blogging/film biz hanger on capacity, that makes you believe that YOU, Bill Gates, and a homeless piece of shit, should all make THE SAME SALARY?
Also note:
It’s only rich assholes WHO’D NEVER HAVE TO GO HUNGRY who ever pipe up about “everyone having their slice” and Socialism and shit.
Pretty fucking sure millionaire-ass Tom Morello in his stupid CCCP shirt doesn’t exactly want for much, nor does Michael Moore, nor does this christian idiot here.
You ever hear POOR PEOPLE say, “I dream of being lower-middle class and driving a reasonable car”? FUCK NO, they’re some of the biggest capitalists going. BEING RICH IS THE AMERICAN DREAM. WITH MONEY COMES POWER AND PUSSY.
FUCK POOR PEOPLE, FUCK CHRISTIAN, and MOTHERFUCK SOCIALISM.
MAKE IT RAIN BABY. DOLLA BILLZ Y’ALL.
Lex is right. I have a receding hairline, and an odd shaped head. The one thing that makes working 13 hour days tolerable, is that I landed a hotter wife than I biologically deserve. What a system.
Even when Lex is being ‘honest’, he’s not being honest. It’s all part of his disease.
Trouble is, it isn’t real capitalism. Sure the profits are private, but as soon as these massive corporations who have grown “too big to fail” get in trouble, they SOCIALIZE the losses with taxpayer bailouts.
They are Corporate Welfare Bums.
http://www.amazon.com/Louder-Voices-Corporate-Welfare-Bums/dp/0888620314
MDOC FTW. That’s what I’m talking about. EXACTLY. Why can’t everyone else just “get it” in life?
Plus, christian oughta be a fucking millionaire from his dual lucrative careers as professional Geddy Lee and Fisher Stevens impersonators.
“They are Corporate Welfare Bums”
Funny how people who constantly bitch and whine about corprate welfare bums never do the same over artistic wefare bums (NEA) or just welfare bums in general.
I think I could take leftists like Moore and his ilk far more seriously if they weren’t the gross hypocrites that they are.
“That next-to-last paragraph is very telling. When the trailer name-checks “F9/11” the public has a right to scream “not again!””
So, you’re saying if the trailer didn’t mention Michael Moore’s films by name that the quality would suddenly rise and it was instantly make more money? Because I honestly think having Michael Moore front and centre is as much of a giveaway that this was a “michael moore film” than a trailer listing “Fahrenheit 911”. Honestly. You’re insane.
Chucky CANNOT NOT be a gag. He simply cannot. A lame, one-note gag, but somewhere in New Jersey, please tell me there’s a dapper, witty, articulate cineaste sitting back over a martini and chuckling that everyone here is still getting worked up over the name-checking/Oscar-whoring shtick.
You guys saw his SONG a few weeks back, right? And the pistol whip/gunfire takedown of last weekend’s movies, complete with sound effects?
SO CLEARLY a put-on. The tipoff is he never really explains any of it, for such maximum frustration. If I didn’t find the gag so lame and stupid, I’d tip my hat in admiration that someone can actually annoy jeffmcm even more than I can.
lex –it’s all theater in here but you’re actually calling someone out for being a ‘lame, one-note gag’?? really?!?… c’mon, your stuff is often entertaining but ‘variety’ isn’t exactly your strong suit……just a thought….
Not easy being me tonight. Now I feel like a right fucking asshole, even affable scooterzz calling me out.
Sobriety sucks.
aw, fuck…spare me…what a load…..
Nicol – and I think I could take Republicans more seriously if they were half as concerned about corporate welfare as they are about poor people getting small-potatoes checks.
Lex, how ironic that your self-created obstacle to getting laid just happens to be…capitalism.
And of course, the biggest socialist on the Hot Blog remains LexG — begging for everybody to give him something he can’t provide.
Christian FTW 4EVAH.
Anyone else wish David had done this as a video review? He could have gone to Overture’s corporate offices with a bullhorn and yelled the whole thing up to Chris McGurk’s office.
Excellent write-up, Dave. Not as an attack on Moore, but as why the film does nothing new.
What no one is talking about is how many incarnations this film took. This was originally F9/11 pt2, then I Iraq turned a corner and Moore had nowhere to go so he changed scope to Iraq’s larger impact, which he never defined. Then the economy tanked and he scrapped everything to basically make a big screen version of TV Nation.
As for his populist tone…what can be said? Sicko had zero impact and he knows he’s becoming what Dave pointed out. Look at the Blitzer interview from last week – instead of admitting he’s a socialist, he’s claims he’s a Christian, (not the Christian, mind you). Same deal on Real Time as to what system works. I caught his interview on O&A from last week, and he defended the tea parties as non-partisan and not based in racism or conservatism. He knows what he wants to sell is out of vogue so he’s trying to go back to his Roger & Me days. Too late, though.
I see the words Michael and Moore and I’m almost asleep. I have zero interest in seeing Capitalism. Is Moore an expert on the economy? Is he qualified to dissect capitalism and where it’s gone astray? I get the same feeling from him as I do when I see the economy being discussed on Beck or Hannity. When those guys talk the economy with their guests, rather than speak with experts, they have “discussions” with political commentators (Jonah Goldberg, etc). So it’s a back and forth on a complex issue with two people who have no idea what they’re talking about. How is this different? I haven’t seen it, so maybe it is, but I don’t believe that I’m going to get a rational and in depth examination of capitalism from MM.
I would venture to say the experts on capitalism aren’t qualified. And if a millionaire isn’t qualifed to discuss capitalism, who be?
I see your point, and maybe I’m mixing up capitalism with the economy in general. Moore may very well be qualified to discuss capitalism, but I certainly wouldn’t expect an even-handed, complex dissertation on the current state of the economy from him.
In an egalitarian, cashless society, it would actually be easier for young men to get laid since young women would no longer have any reason to chase after older men…unless they have unresolved daddy issues, of course.