Capitalism: A Love Story

Michael Moore's latest feature, Capitalism: A Love Story, has everything I could want from one of his films: a hotly debated and relevant issue, information, personal accounts, funny clips, and great music. I enjoy seeing his films not so much to be informed, which I feel he does quite well, but to be entertained. That is something rare with a documentary. I don't think you can say the same about An Inconvenient Truth.

Love him or hate him, Moore makes a fantastic film. This time he takes one the recent economic turmoil this country has been facing for the past year or so. Moore traces it's roots back to the Reagan administration on up. He presents a lot of facts, memos, and documents some companies and banks would not like us to see, but he does it because the people have a right to know.

I can't say much about what went on because Moore presents a lot of data, but to the best of my ability I can say that there is an awful lot of shady activity going on behind closed doors. We look at the bail out plan proposed to congress. We see how companies like Goldman Sachs infiltrates the government and starts doing their own bidding. We see companies spend their money frivolously while workers and homeowners are losing their jobs and livelihood. Some of these banks and groups do terrible things that force people into uncomfortable and downright oppressive situations.

One thing I expected to see from this film was Moore perspective and nothing else. I don't know what information he is withholding and what truths he is stretching, but I am impressed with how convincing some of his arguments and testimonials are. He plays on our heartstrings like a trained musician, hitting home with issues involving blue collar Americans struggling to keep their jobs, their homes, and their families together.

Aside from the content of the film, the actual film itself is very well put together. He makes excellent use of stock footage from the 50s and 60s, weaving them perfectly to fit the film's flow. One thing Moore does better than most is his use of music to drive home a point or a feeling. Be it classical, rock, or country, Moore blends it all together quite nicely.

This film makes you think. It makes you angry. It makes you want to do something, and that's okay. That is what a film is supposed to do. It is designed to evoke some sort of emotion and help spring it forth. That's not to say you should go out and do something drastic, but it will at least make for excellent conversation amongst friends and coworkers.

I saw the movie last night at a free screening. The theater was packed and after the movie started you could not hear a sound from the audience for the rest of the two hours besides two or three times when applause errupted.

You could feel that everybody in the audience really got the message.

I only hope that Michael's parting words will come true and everybody will join his fight. As long as we are being led like pigs to the slaughter nothing will change. We have to stand up against the insurance companies, the exploiting employers, the greedy merchants, the predatory lenders. If we all say no, things will change.

I will not be punished again for pre-existent conditions, car accidents caused by somebody else, retributions because somebody stole my wallet and I was punished. I will not fall buy trash anymore which breaks in a short time and cannot be repaired. I will not be talked into buying useless gimmicks which change every few months. etc.etc.

Thank you Michael Moore, without you, I would have lost hope a long time ago.

Economics. Who in their right mind would try and make a feature length film about that subject? Michael Moore's previous work that included subjects about guns, General Motors, and George W. Bush, to the audience these were clear points for us to identify with, or in most cases, against.

In his new film, Capitalism: A Love Story, Moore attempts demystify what economics and capitalism really mean to the vast majority of Americans. This is no easy feat. I must admit the first quarter of the film had me doubting if he would secede. I am not going to sit by and say that people who took out adjustable rate mortgages and then were foreclosed are not at all to blame. They bear a good share of personal responsibility. But so do the lenders who were drooling to make a profit via the art of deception.

Soon afterwards we are presented with an example of capitalism gone awry. A judge in a US town was locking up juvenile offenders, for "crimes" such as throwing meat or criticizing a vice-principal online. The prison was a privately run corporation that was sending financial kickbacks to the very judge who was locking these kids up on absurd charges. Granted this was just one example, but a shocking one that could make you question just what are American values. This is where the film really started to get interesting. Are capitalism and Christianity compatible? What becomes of capitalism when you strip out regulation? Who actually controls the government of The United States of America, the top 1% or the bottom 95%? When the markets crashed last fall and the banks cried uncle, where was the oversight by our elected officials regarding the bailout funds?

These are questions, and some answers, that make Moore's documentary effective and engaging. While he is reflecting upon the past he is also asking us, what are we going to do about it in the future?

He took on our nation's obsession with guns in BOWLING FOR COLUMBINE. He took on the politics of Bush/Cheney fear mongering in FAHRENHEIT 9/11. He even took on the health care insurance industry in SICKO. And once more, the tenacious rabble-rouser from Flint, Michigan, Michael Moore, takes on the powers-that-be in a cinematic broadside that needs to be seen--CAPITALISM: A LOVE STORY.

In this new opus from the man who has always gotten under the skin of the nattering nabobs of negativity on the Far Right, Moore posits some very chilling questions about our system of Capitalism: Is it really intrinsically evil? Should it be abolished? And he does so with the kind of simmering populist outrage that has been his stock-in-trade since his 1989 breakthrough ROGER AND ME (which is in fact part of the archival footage he uses here). In it, he details how America's financial system got overheated by deregulation and predatory loan practices that struck at the heart of the poor and middle class, the ones who actually make up the heart and soul of America and who are always the most vulnerable, leaving the rich to walk away with billions in taxpayer bailout money. It also shows us how corporate greed, far from enriching our lives, has actually corroded them, and subsequently corroded our political system so that the villains of this whole scheme are the same ones that buy off our elected representatives to sit there and save their sorry behinds.

But for each horror story he tells us (and there are many, make no mistake), there are stirring examples of common people standing up against the faceless corporate bullies and exercising their democratic rights (what a novel concept!): homeowners in Miami who refuse to budge from a foreclosed home; union workers in Chicago who refuse to leave their place of employment, a manufacturer of doors and windows, even after Bank of America has foreclosed; people in Congress who have finally had enough and scream "BULLS**T!" to the corporate interests.

All of this may seem like Moore is going to his usual excessive lengths to make his point, particularly when it comes to the idea of abolishing the capitalist framework altogether--a pipe dream, if ever there was one. But when doing a satirical documentary like this, a little excess can go a long way to expose some hidden truths about our country; and the fact that Moore exposes truths that we either disagree with or don't want to know about inevitably makes him a target for blind followers of the Far Right and the Palin/McCain/Joe The Plumber sect, whom Moore once again is able to skewer with their own words. And he doesn't go so easy on Bill Clinton's administration either, as several members of that administration themselves were involved in setting up the self-fulfilling prophecy that led to the near-complete collapse of the American economy in 2008.

It was Michael Douglas' character Gordon Gekko who, in Oliver Stone's hard-hitting 1987 film WALL STREET, said to the audience at a stockholders' meeting: "Greed, for lack of a better word, is good. Greed works!" Well, as CAPITALISM: A LOVE STORY shows, just the opposite is true. It is unrestrained greed and unrestrained fear that pushed America to the brink of total economic meltdown. And it is those same elements that have led Moore to the conclusion that Capitalism is evil. If he is wrong in his conclusion, then it is unfortunately not by much. And that is why CAPITALISM: A LOVE STORY should be seen. We may not be able to abolish the capitalist system that has kept America a world power, but unless we do fundamental things now to place regulations on those that profit from greed, fear, and predatory behavior, then America may one day in the future go over the edge into the abyss with no hope to recover its lost greatness.

Reading some of the other reviews of Capitalism: A Love Story, it soon becomes clear that those leaving low scores either haven't seen the film or have a particular agenda to smear the movie - one reviewer seems to think Angela Merkel's Germany (a centre right politician!) is 'Socialist'! It is this deliberate dumbing down in America of issues surrounding what capitalism is and does (as opposed to socialism) that enabled the conditions for the banks to exploit the worst off in American society and force the taxpayers to foot the bill by bailing them out - and why Americans are still without a universal free healthcare system. Moore takes great pains, and succeeds, in highlighting how this culture of demonising anything that criticises rampant and unregulated free market economics has been firmly established in US society. He has clearly undertaken a measure of research in the production - numerous sources/interviews and facts are used in the narrative - but the best thing for me was that he still manages to keep the more complicated aspects of banking and loans extremely accessible (I'm hopeless at maths!).

Comments that Moore is a socialist are extremely juvenile - Moore is a socialist in the same way that Ghandi was a terrorist or Jesus was a trouble maker.

All in all a very informative and inspiring documentary that dares to mention the elephant taking a big dump in the room.