Like a Freight Train, Farenhiet 9/11 Smashes Box Office

[JoseCuervo]

Hangar,

It "appears" that all sorts of efforts were made to keep 9/11 from seeing the light of day. Disney tried to kill it, (after, allegedly, that Jeb (Dubya's brother) told Eisner tax breaks for Disney property in Florida would be yanked. Disney then made some claim about not wanting to be "political", yet they broadcast Rush on their stations every day.)

As for the Nephew thing, I applaud Moore for not putting that answer in his film. I got completely disgusted one time, at a Q&A with Sen. Larry Craig (R-ID), when Craig would answer every question with an answer that did not address the question, but was whatever Craig wanted to talk about.

The people asking the good Senator were very smart people, asking fair questions, in a friendly setting, and the Senator still couldn't answer the questions. So, Moore not putting some irrelevant answer in his movie is fine by me.

As for changing minds, if the Movie was not that powerful, why are there countless right-wing nuts out there trying to discredit it? Why not ignore it, and just let it go away quietly? Nahhh, I think the right is terribly worried about the effects of the movie.

 

[JoseCuervo]

Hangar,

As I understood that "deceit". Moore asked about children, the Congressman either said "none" or said "nephew". In either case, the answer about children was "none in Iraq". Moore didn't ask about nephews, and chose not to put in nephew-answers. If he did, would he then have to go back to the other Congressmen he was making look foolish, and ask them if they had nephews, in order to be balanced???

 

[Hangar18]

Fair enough on all accounts. That's a reasonable explanation. Not scratching my head Buzz, I just didn't think of it that way. Thanks for the thought. I don't think I have said anything to discredit the film because I haven't seen it, just reasoned why I am not going to see it. My mind is usually pretty open, but not in this case.

There is a silver lining in this. $80 million buys a lot of french fies, great for Idaho's economy.

 

[JoseCuervo]

Hangar,
I think the issue is that the detractors of Moore are arguing 1 Kid vs. 1 Nephew, or "My Pet Goat" vs. "The Pet Goat" and missing out on the real issues. It may be intentional on the anti-Moore crowd to obscure the big picture, who knows. But all of the attacks on the movie have seemed pretty minor, relative to the gravity of the charges levied by Moore.

And then the "liberal media" takes its' shots at Moore's film....

LOS ANGELES -- When it comes to assessing TV news coverage of the situation in Iraq, much of "Fahrenheit 9/11" is Hindsight 20/20, according to NBC's Tom Brokaw.

Of greater concern to him and other top network newspeople, however, is the sense that some moviegoers consider Michael Moore's film more credible than their own reports.

"My complaint was not with the criticism. I don't complain about anything he has said. My concern is that this not be taken as journalism," ABC "Nightline" host Ted Koppel said Monday. "It is journalism in the sense that an editorial in the Chicago Sun-Times is journalism, but that's opinion journalism. It's a different sort of thing.

"I worry that too many people are going to start taking that as gospel when indeed I know for a fact that there are things in that movie that a little bit of careful reporting could have corrected. But I don't think [Moore] was altogether interested in getting it straight down the middle. He was interested in making a political statement, and he did it very well.

"It's a terrific piece of entertainment. There are even some interesting facts in it, but it is to the documentary what [Oliver Stone's] 'JFK' film was to history."

Brokaw seemed particularly peeved by "9/11." When asked about the film by a West Coast TV critic, he asked if the critic thought Moore's movie to be an accurate portrayal. The critic said yes. "Of what?" Brokaw shot back.

"It's really easy to turn back the clock now and say, 'Oh, it was the fault [of the media], especially of the electronic media, that we went to war because they jumped on the bandwagon,' " Brokaw said. "If you do a fair review, we gave a very vigorous accounting of what was known and what was not known at the time. ... The American news networks and the newspapers, for the most part, did as well as they could under the circumstances."

Citizens, however, may be becoming increasingly wary. ABC's George Stephanopoulos, a former adviser to Bill Clinton, tells of meeting last week with undecided Republican and Democratic voters in Ohio, encountering a handful who had seen "Fahrenheit 9/11."

"What was most striking to me is that when I asked them, 'Why did you go to see it?' they said, 'Because we wanted to get the facts,' " Stephanopoulos said. "There wasn't time to get into a big argument with them ... but at least a few of them had the sense that if it's coming from the government [or] if it's coming from established media, they must not be telling us something and we have to go to this alternative venue to get the facts. I think that's a challenge for all of us."

Part of that challenge stems from the fact that, even when dealing with the same information, there is a big difference between traditional journalism and other sources.

" 'Nightline' is not nearly as entertaining as 'Fahrenheit 9/11,' " Koppel said. "We're never going to be as entertaining as '9/11.' We're never going to be as entertaining as the movie 'JFK.' But there is still, I think, a desperate need for down-the-middle news."

Not everyone agrees, though. More and more people, especially young people, are said to be inclined to seek their news from unconventional sources, such as Comedy Central's "The Daily Show With Jon Stewart" or Moore's "Fahrenheit 9/11."

"I do worry about young people going and seeing that film and seeing it as the gospel," said Brokaw, who is scheduled to step down as anchor of "NBC Nightly News" later this year. "You've all read the various accounts that have been done, by us and by Newsweek and by others, about what was factually incorrect or the liberties that [Moore] took with the facts as he arranged them.

"It is very skillfully done. He's a master at getting his point of view on the big screen. I mean, look, the right has Rush [Limbaugh] and the left has Michael Moore and they are very good at presenting their points of view, saying this is factual. Truth is a little more elusive, and it's the arrangement of those facts."

As for the notion that the film is packed with previously unreported information, ABC "World News Tonight" anchor Peter Jennings said he actually was "surprised by how much of the ground we'd already covered."

"But," Koppel said, "we didn't do those stories as political polemics. And I am concerned on both sides of the political spectrum that if what Americans feel they have to get is news with an attitude, what they're going to end up losing is some of the objectivity that traditionally people in our business have tried at least -- we don't always succeed, but we have tried -- to bring to these stories."

What might irk Brokaw most is that he personally spent time reporting in Iraq before the war to better understand the situation there.

"I had a lot of people come up to me and, quietly, at some risk, say: 'When are the Americans coming? We can't continue to live like this,' " Brokaw said. "And the only scenes we saw in Michael Moore's film ... were children sliding down playground ramps and so on.

"That was not an accurate portrayal. This was one of the most repressive regimes in history. Was it an appropriate excuse to go to war? That's a whole other debate. ... [But] the idea of using Michael Moore's very artful, very strong point of view as some kind of gold standard, I think, is just wholly inappropriate. I really do."

 

[Muledeer4me]

["As for changing minds, if the Movie was not that powerful, why are there countless right-wing nuts out there trying to discredit it? Why not ignore it, and just let it go away quietly? Nahhh, I think the right is terribly worried about the effects of the movie."]


OR --As for changing minds,if Pres. Bush was not that powerful,why are there countless LEFT -WING NUTS out there trying to discredit him????
Why not ignore him and let him go away quietly ?
I think because the LEFT is terribly worried about the effects the right-wing republicans have on the libreal left wingers ideas of whats right and wrong and in what direction they are trying to take this country.

 

[cjcj]

The "Whole Truth" is a concept lost in Mike Moore`s Movie, mislabeled a [Documentery].

 

[Nemont]

Did anyone catch Molly Ivins on Bill O'Reilly and what she thought of the movie? I quote, "I think two thirds of it were crap". If the great Bush hater Molly Ivins think it's mostly crap, and she knows crap when she sees it, then what does any thinking person believe the movie to be.

I am going to it just to see what all the flap is about. I also think most thinking Americans will figure out that Mr. Moore isn't anything other then a hate filled, rabble rouser who happens to have a talent at editing film. He has a right to make and distribute his brand of political B.S. just like anyone else does. It doesn't mean that he is any more right then anyone else.

"But," Koppel said, "we didn't do those stories as political polemics. And I am concerned on both sides of the political spectrum that if what Americans feel they have to get is news with an attitude, what they're going to end up losing is some of the objectivity that traditionally people in our business have tried at least -- we don't always succeed, but we have tried -- to bring to these stories."

That quote from Ted Koppel pretty much sum up a lot of what I feel. If the American public has to go to a movie theater to get their "news" from an openly liberal, biased, left wing nut (Or from a right wing nut also) then god help us.

Nemont

 

[Calif. Hunter]

Quote: As for changing minds, if the Movie was not that powerful, why are there countless right-wing nuts out there trying to discredit it? Why not ignore it, and just let it go away quietly?


Because there are enough idiots out there who believe it just because some other idiot put it on the screen or in the newspaper, and there are enough people locked into the juvenile, junior high school mentality that makes mocking authority or making faces behind the teacher's (or President's) back such a thrill that they feel they are getting away with something. It's like they are trying to re-capture the 60's since they missed out on it - let me tell you, they weren't that great...although I was barely a teenager when they ended.

It is not that the movie is "so powerful" - it's that so many minds are weak.

 

[JoseCuervo]

Cali,
I agree with you. Remember when you posted the nonsense on the Ketchup company? And the weak mind from Montana agreed with you.

 

[Calif. Hunter]

Well, Michael Moore's film sure worked its wonders on your weak mind. I've never seen such a rabid fan, except maybe those nutcases demonstrating in favor of Michael Jackson. Wait a minute! Was that you on TV the other night up in Santa Barbara?

 

[JoseCuervo]

Nahhh... That was the guy that Jimmy Kimmel has hired as his correspondent....

Have I ever said I agree with all of Michael Moore's claims??? I have just encouraged you to go see the movie, so you can comment based on knowledge and observation.


I disagree with parts of the movies or his allegations, but overall, I liked the Movie for the discussion it has started in this nation. Why you would not support that is beyond me....