Fahrenheit 9/11 this afternoon?

[Velvet]

Hey all,

I'm thinking of hitting up this film today. It's at the World Exchange Plaza at 1pm. Anybody in?

[meggo]

oh yeah!!!

i wonder if that opens in london today....

[Ms Zimmy]

Velvet, after you should consider hitting a patio for a drink

[Ms.Huxtable]

Oh man I'd love to see this! I don't get off work until 2 though.

[Freeker]

I'm in there like swimwear, let's go!!!

[guigsy]

oh yeah!!!

i wonder if that opens in london today....

sure does! i got a date with the doctor for 10:10pm!

[meggo]

nice... got my ticket for 4:10! i read the globe & mail review.. they only gave it 2.5 stars but i guess mostly b/c the movie is more politically angled than aesthetically, or something like that. anyone interested can read the review at.. aw hell i'll just paste it.

Fahrenheit 9/11 **½

By RICK GROEN

From Friday's Globe and Mail

Fahrenheit 9/11

Directed and written by Michael Moore

Classification: 14A

Rating: * * ½

When the satirist grows as celebrated as his targets, something has to give, and it's usually the art. Director Michael Moore has become a famous fellow with a famously successful talent: Looking every bit the personification of a mid-American Everyman — the paunch, the baseball cap, the sweatshirt, the monosyllables — he pops into the phone booth of his documentaries and emerges as the caped liberal crusader, the populist conscience of his country. Since capes unapologetically stamped with the L-word are in rare supply these days, Moore is a welcome conscience and, all things considered, a good one. Whether he's still a good filmmaker is another matter. Certainly, from Roger & Me through Bowling for Columbine and now Fahrenheit 9/11, those phone booths have changed — they've gotten progressively larger, a lot messier, and less structurally sound, bursting with big themes rattling against glass that's too thin to contain them.

So, amid the flames of controversy already fanned by Fahrenheit 9/11, this much at least is clear: The jury was fibbing. When the film won the Palme d'or at Cannes last month, the festival jurors (headed by Quentin Tarantino) insisted they awarded the prize for purely aesthetic and not political reasons. Nonsense. Aesthetically, this isn't a great documentary, although, during the first half, there are great moments in it. But the latter part is scattered and frenzied, rather like an excited dog tearing off after too many rabbits at once — a thematic hunt that's all chase and scant context.

Still, the Cannes jury may have made the right decision for the wrong reasons, because Moore is surely on a polemical mission here. He's always been admirably keen to do more than preach to the converted; however, this movie is a political act (any artistry is just a means to an end) addressed to the sizable portion of the U.S. electorate whose political understanding has been forged exclusively by White House rhetoric and the compliant media. The rest of us will find little new in these frames, but we aren't his intended audience. Whether that audience will be reached and their hearts and minds changed — that is, whether a political act will have a political result — is how the film demands to be judged. On that question, decided by voters not by critics, the jury remains out.

Yet if aesthetics are a trifle, they're my trifle, so lets get on with them. Nothing wrong with the opening — it's both factually impressive and emotionally engaging. In an extended precredit sequence, Moore makes the firm case that, in fudging the Florida vote, the Bush boys stole the presidency. That's hardly news, but he adds a strong set of visuals seldom seen outside of C-Span, notably the surprisingly large (and largely unreported) demonstration on the streets of Washington during the inauguration — the collective outrage is palpable.

Then, as the credits finally roll, George W. and his major players — Rumsfeld, Rice, Cheney — are seen in silent close-up before the TV cameras, their make-up being applied, their façades polished. Suddenly, the screen goes black and the silence is broken by the sounds of 9/11 — no picture, just the screams, the tragic din. Now comes the kicker. A quick return back to Bush himself on that fateful morning, at a photo-op in an elementary school, sitting on a small chair at the head of the class. An aide arrives to inform him of the strike on the first tower, then on the second, and he simply continues to sit, his face the same blank stare.

The camera watches as the minutes tick by — seven long minutes and still no reaction. The point is made with savage brilliance: Briefly left unattended, with no one to pull his strings, the dummy is inert and vacuous.

From there, tracing the immediate aftermath of 9/11, Moore mounts his own attacks on the government. Again, this is for the benefit of the uninitiated. Nevertheless, they may be intrigued to learn that the bin Laden and Bush clans have their fingers in the same oil-money pot; that the administration furtively airlifted bin Laden family members out of the country without subjecting them to interrogation; that the Afghanistan war was underfought and Homeland Security is underfunded; that Iraq was always the primary target despite no evidence of any al-Qaeda links. Why? The usual — oil, profit, greed. Not a single word is devoted to the neo-cons' ideology, to their geopolitical reasons for the war. Moore doubtless views such reasoning as a mere rationale, and one already given ample voice by the major media — he can blithely ignore it.

Unencumbered, he's free to sharpen his own rhetoric, no more pointedly than in the film's most potent sequence. At about the midway stage, we're led back to the beginning, to all that preening before the TV cameras, and discover that Bush is preparing for his March 19, 2003, announcement of the Iraq invasion. As he delivers it, Moore splices in shots of the Baghdad streets, where the city folk smile and innocent children frolic in a neighbourhood playground. No mention is made of Saddam's repressive regime, and Moore's implied argument is evident: Whatever the relative mindset of Iraqis on the 19th, they were a hell of a lot happier than on the 20th. Cut to the bombs bursting, and to an appalling sight — weeping civilians loading a child's tiny body atop the other corpses in the gruesome bed of a pickup truck. Then back to the TV cameras, and to another made-up face — Donald Rumsfeld — waxing lyrical about "the care, the humanity, that goes into our conduct of this war." The juxtaposition is gripping, and we hear his smug words for what they are — obscenities.

Nothing else matches that intensity. Instead, for the remaining hour, the focus gets blurred. To this point, although Moore has put himself on camera less frequently than is his custom, and although his attempts at humour are more leaden than usual, he has still managed to sustain a thesis: Bush dishonest, Bush greedy, Bush callous, Bush bad. But now the dog of his anger starts bounding wildly about. He's off to his hometown in Flint, Mich., proving that the U.S. troops are just as victimized as the Iraqi people — they too are fodder, recruited from the ranks of the poor and the unemployed. He's back to Baghdad again, following an American patrol as it terrorizes a local household, and arguing that "immoral behaviour breeds immoral behaviour." (That there's no footage of the infamous torture in the prisons will make the film seem, depending on your generosity, either dated or prophetic.) Then he's stateside once more, in a Veteran's hospital among the dismembered casualties of war. And later on to Washington, ambushing congressmen and asking them to enlist their own kids in the military cause they so bravely espouse.

Yet all this barking, valid as it might be, lacks any real bite. Even the pivotal scene is oddly unaffecting. Moore trains his lens on an American mother whose son died in Iraq. Sobbing, she reads from his last letter, including the lines, "What in the world's wrong with Bush, trying to be like his dad? ..... I really hope they do not re-elect that guy." It's no criticism to say this is manipulative — all films are, and should be. The problem is that the attempt at manipulation is way too transparent, and thus fails. Here, Moore's obvious agenda works to deflect our sympathy from where it should be — on the mother's obvious grief.

Over all, we're left with a strange irony. As an exercise in filmmaking, this picture bears a curious resemblance to the very debacle under review — ultimately, it too is a mess of well-documented wrongs in search of a graceful exit strategy. Aesthetically, the movie is a bit of a quagmire. However, since Moore has apparently graduated from mere satirist to citizen politician, artsy deficiencies are no longer his concern. The box office may still be his consolation, but the ballot box is now his crucible. And that awaits him. June sees the opening of Fahrenheit 9/11, but only November can take its true temperature.

[Diggzz]

Caught this flick last night and I was blown away, it puts a lot things in a whole different light, if you follow the news it also puts some major news stories into better context. Very well done, everyone should go check this movie out.

Cheers

[meggo]

holy holy holy. holy. that was crazy.

[NewRider]

you can say fu©k now... (it gets censored)

[Velvet]

I left the movie pretty angry. I couldn't pinpoint my anger for a while but I ultimately realised that I was angry that this movie had to be made.

Support this film, and encourage people to see it.

[guigsy]

velvet, im with ya, i left feeling the same way, and i pretty much came to the same conclusion.. how bout that, eh?

i think i experienced a good 80-85% of all possible experienceable emotions during this film...

i really hope as many people see it as possible... it is a necessary film.. and yes, that necessity does really suck.

however, after giving it much thought and deliberation this afternoon... i really tried not to process too much right after it last nite.. anyways, i made a small decision regarding my feelings on it, and humans in general: in recent years, i'd say i've become somewhat more cynical as far as my feelings on humans doing the right things are concerned.. but, this film, i really feel, has restored some faith in that... i believe that humans, after seeing this, will do the right thing, and we wont be seeing another 4 years of mr. bush. however, if im wrong, i think all hope is lost..

edit to add: and if i am right, the whole world owes a big thank you to mr. moore.

[MamaRed]

I saw it on Friday .....WOW!!! Go see it

[AdamH]

I left feeling mad and sad.

The movie itself is the finest form of propaganda, and safely so because it's counter-propaganda to what we've been receiving since Bush's election in 2000. It was more serious than Moore's other movies, and leans much more towards Op.Ed than Documentary, which isn't a criticism asd much as an observation. It certianly is better supported factually than some of his other movies, and best of all it willl strengthen bush-haters resolve to both boot him out and encourage their fenceposted friends to do the same. I heard someone say this morning though that the number of "undecided" voters in the States is now in the single digits...I wish I knew what that really meant in terms of electoral results

Violent clips aside, the most shocking part of that movie was the ignorant woman in front of the white house...claiming it was all a set-up and that the mother of a dead soldier should "blame al-qaeda". That kind of ignorance is so rampant that I'm not totally convinced that Bush will really get ousted. An early handover of Iraq means that much more time for Americans to slowly forget about the situation come November...unless of course American soldiers, contractors and other civilians continue to die. I wouldn't wiush death on anyone but if more people are beheaded and more mothers receive phone calls about dead sons and daugheters it will pretty much seal the coffin on G.W.