You Owe It To Yourself To Watch This Movie

Now hold on just a second. Before you jump out of your seat and call me a raging right wing nut-job, hear me out. I am not quite a nut-job and would never call myself a Republican. This movie has very little to do with politics or political lines and deals mostly in the realm of film making ethics and respect for your audience; it examines the shady movie making processes that Michael Moore has used to try and manipulate the American people as well as what motivates him to take such liberties in constructing the "truth."

The movie is fascinating on a number of different levels and exposes many of Moore's tactics through interviews with some of the people he has featured in his films.

One of the more shocking "alterations" of the truth came in a very poignant scene from Bowling For Columbine -- the part where he encounters a bank offering "a free firearm to anyone who opens an account."

The truth of the matter was that the bank's policy for the free firearm program required an extensive background check before the gun would be given away and, at least, a seven to ten day waiting period before the gun would be mailed to the account opener.

Moore told the bank that he was doing a documentary on "interesting small-business marketing techniques." He had contacted them weeks before with his personal information so his background check could clear. Now, usually the bank would mail the weapon to the person but Moore told the staff it would make the scene much more interesting if they would have it delivered to that branch so he could pick it up from the bank personally. They foolishly allowed that to happen.

The way the scene is shown in the movie misleads the viewer to think the bank's policy was to just hand guns out, on the spot, to anyone who walked in and opened an account. This couldn't be further from the truth but, of course, that wouldn't be nearly as poignant as Moore, literally, walking out of a bank with a gun in his hands, as if they were giving them out like candy.

Other transgressions include splicing multiple speeches of Charleston Heston's to lead you to believe that the NRA had planned to go to Columbine for a rally after the shootings rather than the truth that the rally had been planned for years, lying about the nature of his project before filming scenes and his ambush interview tactics, amongst others.

It brings to light the fact that as much as Michael Moore likes to call Flint, Mich. his hometown -- I'm sure he feels it gives him more credibility to say he comes from a down-and-out town -- he is from a very quaint and fairly wealthy town about 30 miles away from Flint.


The movie points out how perverse it is for Moore to travel across the country, wailing on about how terrible America and its corporations are and how far superior other countries governments and cultures are to our own, yet he lives in a Manhattan penthouse and is filthy rich from the very system he seems to hate so much.

Now I know some will say that they don't care if the "truth is stretched" because they agree with what Moore's general points are. Hell, I even agree with some of his ideas.

The problem is that when you start to think that you are so right, and so much smarter than everyone else, that it is OK for you to manipulate the facts to get people to agree with you, you are dealing with propaganda. And, as an American it is scary to see the powers that be, in Hollywood, allow this to happen.

Michael Moore and his movies offer up, time after time, an extremely pessimistic, derogatory view of our country. Now, I'll agree it's far from perfect and we need lots of reform but the way to help isn't making movies that bend and twist the facts to make everyone believe the sky is falling. We can only make the situation better through honest discourse -- not rabble rousing and underhanded manipulations that serve to pull the wool over our eyes and tear us further way from moderation, sensibility and resolutions.