Fahrenheit 11/9

I love a good Michael Moore documentary. Bowling for Columbine, Sicko, Where to Invade Next, and of course, Fahrenheit 9/11. When I first heard about this and how soon it was coming out I was very interested. As an American of course I heavily was invested in the political scene all throughout 2017-2018 and the madness prior and after the election. After seeing this film, I feel like it remained eye-opening, even with a lot of the information being common knowledge. I highly recommend this for everyone except maybe people who lean towards the right.

The film explores the election of Donald Trump as President of the United States. It also shows a brief glimpse of his history and what got him to that point. The film also goes to Flint, Michigan and their clean water crisis. The film also touches on gun violence and the recent Stoneman Douglas School shooting. Of course, this was expected as Michael Moore is an avid spokesperson against gun violence. There is a lot covered in this documentary and I think it breezed through because it engulfs, captivates, and even horrifies you from beginning to end.

What I really liked about this film besides the deserved criticism of Trump is the fact that it also goes in and pokes at Bill Clinton and yes, even Barack Obama. It shows things that they did that make you scratch your head and think about the system we live in and how similar the parties really are. I found the portions about what Flint, Michigan was going through to be insane and enraging. Michael Moore is a master at jerking a reaction from the viewers and he does a darn good job of getting one here. The crowd in my theater broke into comments of rage and applause here and there.

it was hard not to get some chills at some point. This is an important film all around, it just is. The countries climate is explained fairly well here and it still is a country divided. Its message of focusing the energy and fixing the issue is important, but where to start? I think this film somehow managed to exceed its expectations. Its worth a watch for everyone, I change what I said earlier everyone in the country should see it and form an opinion. The low reviews on IMDB already make me know people aren't watching it and bashing it prior to seeing it and giving it a chance.

9/10

I've never posted a review before. I saw this film a couple hours ago. It's a typical Moore effort, minus the humor. He really blows up the BS in our modern society. His "feel good" bits trying to give us hope for a better future fall short. Pretty bleak. If you're looking for a rallying cry to action, it's not here. It's almost a eulogy for what might have been.

It's interesting that the reviews are either all 10's for people that saw the movie or all ones for people that didn't. Obviously it wasn't made for Trump supporters. It is based on factual information that they can't relate to. Real people talking about real issues and many of them not white I guess is too much to handle for some. It's depressing information about what is going on in our country and makes you want to get off your duff so that we can change the direction we are headed. It's delivered in the usual Michael Moore style but the topic hits so close to home it can be a little unsettling. Go see it.

For better or worse, this feels like the final thesis statement for everything Moore has been trying to say for the past 15 years...though it certainly won't be. A provocateur that rides the line between downright entertaining & annoyingly self-righteous, this is maybe his best movie since Bowling for Columbine. Not because of the Trump stuff, which we're all well aware of, but the smaller, more bipartisan stuff like the Flint water crisis & the tongue-in-cheek Hitler segment.

More striking to me than the the film itself is its incredibly bi-modal retribution reveiwer scores, ALMOST ALL.NEARLY 1 or 2 OR 10 or 9. This not only strikingly illustrates the ideological/political character of user responses, but the limitations of mean scores as statistical summaries of viewer favor or disfavor. In this case no use, except as a benchmark for the polarized responses.

As for the film itself, think 11/9 is probably the best film of one of our most skilled cinemantic essayist. It's free of Moore's occasional gaffes (e.g. the cruel interrogation of Charlton Heston in Moore's critique of US gun use, the 9/11 shot of joyous Iraqies in Baghdad cafes just prior to Bush-II's military intervention into Iraq). It's polemical but conscientious, if not unselective, in its use of facts. It's a powerful piece of rhetoric, like say the Gettysburg Address or Reagan's "tear down that wall" speech.