Fahrenheit 11 de Setembro

I saw Fahrenheit 9/11 at Phipps Mall in the affluent Buckhead neighborhood of Atlanta, GA, and I will say for the record:

1. Fahrenheit 9/11 attracted the most racially integrated audience I've ever seen at an Atlanta movie theater, as well as the most age-diverse audience.

2. The audience was completely in tune with what Michael Moore was trying to do. When he wanted you to be mad, people were mad. When he wanted you to be upset, people were upset, and when he wanted you laugh, people laughed. And boy, did they laugh.

3. The audience cheered (loudly) upon the film's conclusion.

Truly a satisfying moment, to feel part of a community of people, if only for two hours, who recognized that the emperor indeed has no clothes.

Is Michael Moore manipulative? Of course- he's an editorial documentarian. Does he sometimes assume too much from too little information? Of course- he's a human being. That's what human beings do. Now, you may say, yes, it may be human nature to infer too much from too little information, but as a responsible artist, Michael Moore should get his ducks firmly in a row before trying to manipulate his audience. That being said, we have libel in slander laws in this country. If Michael Moore is so far off base, where are the lawsuits and defamation of character charges? Why won't Bush or his camp respond to any of the specific allegations of Fahrenheit 9/11? Why is that, in fact, they state an unwillingness even to see the film, and yet feel qualified to have a valid opinion of it? Now who's inferring too much from too little?

What is absolutely undeniable is that a) war is horrible, b) the United States of America went to war with Iraq for spurious reasons, c) we have been conspicuously unsuccessful in capturing Osama bin Laden, in part because bin Laden has no relationship whatsoever with Iraq, d) there have been many people who have benefited financially from the war, and those people have a long and in many cases sordid relationship with the Bush family, and e) Bush has used the 9/11 attacks as a way to advance an agenda that is completely unrelated to the attacks themselves, and to infringe on our civil rights. Any attempt to dissect Michael Moore's arguments fall flat when these basic facts are irrefutable.

Fahrenheit 9/11 is ultimately a highly entertaining and justifiably scathing review of the Presidency of George W. Bush, embarrassment to himself, our great nation, and, for that matter, to the entire human race. Please help vote this buffoon out of office before he can discredit our country further.

... and thus so is this review about a film focusing on what were seen as the effects of the second Iraq war. Let's face it. Chances are you either loved or hated this film before you even saw it. Personally, I liked it a great deal. I liked the fact that Michael Moore uses the politicians' own videotaped words to indict them, but I also disliked the insinuation in the film that American soldiers were jar-heads who enjoyed or were callous about the killing and suffering of ordinary Iraqis as a result of the war. His final thought in the film is an important one - after all the lies told about why we went to Iraq, why would anybody ever trust us again? This lack of trust was important in the context of the 2008 Presidential election cycle. It caused an unusually high level of participation of young people and saw voters of all ages largely rejecting potential nominees perceived as Washington insiders, and besides Sarah Palin, helped elect Barak Obama to the presidency. Much of this can be traced back to the level of cynicism Moore displays in this film.

Also, and somewhat off-topic, I have to wonder how it is that Michael Moore was able to see the damage that such quotable quotes from conservative politicians could do, and yet then-presidential candidate John Kerry could not in 2004? If I had been running Mr. Kerry's campaign I would have been constantly rewinding and replaying the moment when President Bush is speaking at a fundraiser talking about "his base - also known as the haves and the have mores". What could have done more damage to the President's faux image as some average Joe who enjoys clearing brush on his ranch in Texas? At any rate, I think that although it is very dated at this point, it is still an important film and is worth viewing as a moment frozen in time. Just realize that this IS Michael Moore we are talking about and that he does like to go over the top quite a bit.

Yes, Michael Moore has an agenda. However, every documentary does. Believe it or not folks, but a documentary does not just show reality, it also interprets it. Remember the experts that Ken Burns shows in all of his documentaries? He used them to interpret the facts of the Civil War, Jazz, and Baseball, among others. The Ken Burn's agenda just wasn't as controversial as Michael Moore's.

The point of a documentary is for those who see it to start making their own judgments. If you don't agree with Michael Moore's interpretation of the why's of the Iraq war, what is the right interpretation? Can you use the facts or find more facts to come up with a different interpretation? I would call that highly unlikely, but I would like to see the interpretation.

This documentary set out to answer the question "Why is the US in Iraq?" I can tell you I have asked that question a lot and I found no good reason. Michael Moore has done the same thing, just to a larger audience. While you might disagree with his assessment that it was strictly for money, it is hard to support a different view after seeing this movie. You would be hard pressed to find any evidence linking Iraq and Al-Qaeda. Why? Because it doesn't exist. No matter how much Bush railed for a link, even he had to admit it wasn't there.

I guess I would like to see a Republican version of events. I just can't imagine what it would use as evidence. How can you refute the 7 minutes of inactivity of Mr. Bush in the Florida classroom on 9/11? How can you refute the fact that planes were loaded up with Bin Laden relatives on 9/13? How can you call the "coalition of the willing" a coalition if it includes countries that send no troops? These are the facts folks. Michael Moore interpreted them to slam the Bush administration. I was saying the same thing before this movie. However, I reach a small audience since I don't make movies. Thanks to Michael Moore for making this film. Maybe some of the clueless, like Britney Spears, will wake up and start questioning what is going on out there. Because, Ms. Spears, in America, we are allowed to question the president. He isn't God, he is a human being.

So, pro-Iraq war people, give me your interpretation. Why? Why are we there? Why don't we have Osama Bin Laden? Why?

Before I begin let me say that I am a big Michael Moore fan, ever since the days of The Awful Truth. But not in any nutso, radical activist kind of way. I love my country. I couldn't imagine living anywhere else. But I, like Michael and many others, can't just bow our heads and be good little robots of society. We seek change. Not in a bad, violent revolutionary way, but done democratically through the people. Through all the criticism and backlash this film has recieved, one simple idea was grossly overlooked. What Moore put in his film is exactly the kind of stuff we SHOULD HAVE SEEN on the evening news. All the haters out there are accusing his film of being overly one-sided, well guess what folks, in case you didn't notice those precious television news reports we sit through every night while we munch away at our dinners is INSANELY one-sided and biased in every way, shape and form.

With that said, FAHRENHEIT 9/11 is the most important film in the history of cinema. There has never been a film, documentary or not, that has directly attacked our active President. Michael Moore is not some cook radical spewing unsubstantiated accusations through a Hitler-esque propaganda film (as its been called). If Moore's agenda had simply been to "dethrone Bush at all costs", then he could have left out a good fifty percent of the film and focused primarily on the man everyone is convinced he loves to hate. He is very simply offering us a "second opinion" if you will, on all the news media that has bombarded us since September 11th. He is simply exercising his freedom of speech to the tenth degree and THAT is what I love about this country. If this film was made in any other country about their leader, they would be jailed, beaten, and maybe even killed.

And he has tapped into a very important thing about our society. That MOVIES have power. And guess what, lower and middle-class people go to the movies the most. People who don't normally vote go to the movies. People who have no idea who Michael Moore is will go see this movie. And the YOUTH will go see this movie, and they'll bring lots and lots of friends. You remember the youth of our country right? The apathetic, non-political group of 18 to 20 year-olds that were always ignored by politicians? Not that this film has turned them all into a bunch of Bush-haters, but it HAS gotten them involved. What no person or institution has been able to do for the longest time has been accomplished by one little documentary.

As I sat there in the movie theater, with the end credits coming on screen and the house lights shining brightly down. I saw something that I have never seen in my life. I looked around the packed theater (on a Monday night) and witnessed all different kinds of people, old and young, Black and White, applauding and cheering out of their seats. The hair stood up on the back of my head and a tear came to my eye. I was totally blown away by what I was seeing. As I made my way for the exit, I softly whispered to myself, "Now that is what I call CINEMA".

Please, you owe it to yourself to see this movie with an open-mind and a thirst for not the truth, but a "second opinion". It is guaranteed to make you laugh and cry, it will shock and anger you, and you will DEFINITELY never forget it.

Fahrenheit 451 was a book about a society that burned books in order to censor them from the people. Fahrenheit 9/11 is a film about a society that refuses to show certain newsworthy material in order to censor it from the people and instead substitutes its own, self-promoting news in order to manipulate the people. You be the judge.

Moore's film strips away the pseudo patriotic facade of the Bush administration with humor and tragedy to create a very compelling but flawed message: Bush used false pretenses to go to war while enriching his friends and letting the common people suffer the fallout. The film moves between powerfully tragic scenes( like the sound of planes flying into the Towers as the screen is blacked out to interviewing a dead soldier's mom) to parody( Bush and Cheney dressed like cowboys in a scene with Bonanza music in the background. Moore raises several provocative questions such as why did Bush sit for seven minutes in an elementary classroom without reacting? Moore suggests answers which imply Bush didn't know what to do. Moore raises questions and suggests answers which right wing critics find abhorrent. His film techniques of showing a triumphant, strutting Bush proclaiming major military operations are over and quickly cutting to a roadside bomb in Iraq exploding, showing Bush as either ignorant, stupid, or mendacious were very powerful. Moore's weakness was in trying to give his audience too many messages in a single film but he comes very close to succeeding. His success was apparent to many right wing radio hosts, who immediately declared him both a liar and antiamerican(or America hating).