The time has arrived for, as Time magazine
called it, my "magnum opus." I only had a
year of Latin when I was in high school, so
I'm not quite sure what that means, but I
think it's good.
I've spent nearly two years on this new
movie, "Capitalism: A Love Story," and have
poured my heart and soul into this project.
Many early critics and viewers have called
it my "best film yet." That's a hard call
for me to make as I'm proud of all of my
films -- but I will tell you this: What you
are about to see in "Capitalism" is going to
stun you. It's going to make some of you
angry and I believe it's going to give most
of you a new sense of hope that we are going
to turn the sick and twisted mess made by
the last president around. Oh, and you're
going to have a good laugh at the expense of
all the banking and corporate criminals
who've made out like bandits in the past
year.
I'm gonna show you the stuff the nightly
news will rarely show you. Ever meet a pilot
for American Airlines on food stamps because
his pay's been cut so low? Ever meet a judge
who gets kickbacks for sending innocent kids
to a private prison? Ever meet someone from
the Wall Street Journal who bluntly states
on camera that he doesn't much care for
democracy and that capitalism should be our
only ruling concern?
You'll meet all these guys in
"Capitalism." You'll also meet a
whistleblower who, with documents in hand,
tells us about the million-dollar-plus
sweetheart loans he approved for the head of
Senate Banking Committee -- the very
committee that was supposed to be regulating
his lending institution! You'll hear from a
bank regulator why Timothy Geithner has no
business being our Treasury Secretary. And
you'll learn, from the woman who heads up
the congressional commission charged with
keeping an eye on the bailout money, how
Alan Greenspan & Co. schemed and connived
the public into putting up their inflated
valued homes as collateral -- thus causing
the biggest foreclosure epidemic in our
history.
There is now a foreclosure filed in the
U.S. once every seven-and-half SECONDS.
None of this is an accident, and I name
the names others seem to be afraid to name,
the men who have ransacked the pensions of
working people and plundered the future of
our kids and grandkids. Somehow they thought
they were going to get away with this, that
we'd believe their Big Lie that this crash
was caused by a bunch of low-income people
who took out loans they couldn't afford.
Much of the mainstream media bought this
storyline. No wonder Wall Street thought
they could pull this off.
Jeez, I guess they forgot about me and my
crew. You'd think we would've made a better
impression on these wealthy thieves by now.
Guess not.
So here we come! It's all there, up on
the silver screen, two hours of a
tragicomedy crime story starring a bunch of
vampires who just weren't satisfied with
simply destroying Flint, Michigan -- they
had to try and see if they could take down
the whole damn country. So come see this
cops and robbers movie! The robbers this
time wear suits and ties, and the cops --
well, if you're willing to accept a guy in a
ballcap with a high school education as a
stand-in until the real deal shows up to
haul 'em away, then I humbly request your
presence at your local cinema this weekend
in New York and Los Angeles (and next
Friday, October 2nd, all across America).
In the meantime, you can catch us on some
of the TV shows that have been brave enough
to let me on in the past week or so:
- Nightline (as we take a stroll down
Wall Street to Goldman Sachs)
- Good Morning America (where they let me
talk about Disney employees who don't get
medical benefits)
- The View (where the Republican co-host
told everyone to go see it! Whoa!)
- The Colbert Report (this guy is a
genius, seriously)
- Larry King (where a spokesperson for
the Senator who got the sweetheart loans
responds for the first time)
- Keith Olberman (where we both wonder
just how long these media corps are going to
let us get away with what we do)
- Wolf Blitzer (yes, he's back for more
abuse - and lovin' it)
... And the amazing Jay Leno. This man
called me after seeing the movie and asked
me to be his only in-studio guest on the
second night of his new prime-time show. I
said, "Jay, shouldn't you be thinking of
your ratings in the first week of the show?
Are you sure you didn't misdial Tom Hanks'
number (the area code where I live is 231;
213 is LA)?" He told me he was profoundly
moved by this film. So I was the guest on
his second show, and he told all of America
it was my "best film" and to please go see
"Capitalism: A Love Story." That was Jay
Leno saying that, not Noam Chomsky or Jane
Fonda (both of whom I love dearly). The
audience responded enthusiastically and,
after 20 years of filmmaking, it was a
moment where I crossed over deep into the
mainstream of middle America. Jay's bosses
at General Electric musta been... well,
let's just say I hope they didn't place a
reprimand in his permanent record. He's one
helluva guy (and following the example he
set with his free concerts for the
unemployed in Michigan and Ohio last spring,
I've gotten permission from the studio to do
the same with my film in ten of the
hardest-hit cities in the U.S. next week).
Oh, and he made me sing! Prepare
yourself!
Thanks everyone -- and see you at the
movies!
http://bestsyndication.com/?q=20090929_michael_moore_capitalism.htm
By Michael Moore
Film Review
By
Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat
Capitalism:
A Love Story
Directed by Michael Moore
Overture Films 09/09 Documentary
R - some language
Since the 1950s, the media,
government spokespersons, and
businesses have all proclaimed
capitalism to be a wonderful and
good thing for the United
States, something which should
be supported by all truly
patriotic Americans. But in
recent years, the truth has
emerged: Capitalism is a
wonderful and good thing for the
richest one percent of Americans
who use their incredible wealth
and power to keep things going
their way. The rest of us feel
the raw edges of the profit
motive which turns out to be
very painful indeed. And it's
getting worse by the day. Is a
rebellion brewing between the
people who have nothing and the
people who have it all?
In his latest prophetic
documentary about the country he
loves, Michael Moore charts the
heavy toll on middle-class and
poverty-stricken citizens
resulting from the adventures
and exploits of corporate
dominance in the land of the
free and the home of the brave.
For many of those depicted in
this hard-hitting documentary,
the American dream has been
shattered. Thousands of
ordinary, hard-working people
are facing staggering debt,
foreclosures on their homes,
crushing health care costs, and
the loss of their jobs and
savings.
Moore begins with a
definition of capitalism as "a
system of giving and taking —
mostly taking." He surveys the
rise of the middle class after
World War II left our
competition in Europe and Japan
in rubble. Then in the 1980s and
90s, unchecked capitalism made
possible by deregulation during
the Reagan and two Bush
administrations created many
winners today. There's the real
estate broker who proudly calls
himself a "Condo Vulture"
because he's feeding off
foreclosed properties. And the
corporations who take out "dead
peasant" insurance policies on
their employees so that they
often get a bigger payout when
someone dies than do the
surviving family members. And
the judge who was bribed to
increase his sentences of
juvenile offenders charged with
minor crimes so they'd spend
more time in a privately owned
detention center in
Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania.
The filmmaker tells the
moving stories of commercial
airline pilots who earn so
little money that they are
forced to live on food stamps;
of a couple whose farm is in
foreclosure and who are hired by
the bank kicking them out to
clean the place and burn many of
their possessions; and of the
tearful workers in Chicago whose
factory has been shut down
without the pay they thought was
guaranteed in their contract.
There is an up-close and
personal vignette where Moore
and his father visit the vacant
lot where the Ace Spark Plugs
factory used to be; the senior
Moore worked there for 34 years,
considering his fellow employees
family. Many of these businesses
will never come back and have
disappeared forever in the
economic meltdown brought on the
by greedy games of Wall Street
wheeler-dealers.
One of the most surprising
elements of Capitalism: A
Love Story is the time given
to an affirmation of Catholic
priests who have condemned the
excesses and rapaciousness of
contemporary capitalism as
immoral. Growing up in Michigan,
Moore attended parochial school
and as a boy wanted to become a
priest. He was inspired by the
passion of priests and nuns for
social justice; he saw the
Berrigan brothers as heroic
figures. In this film, several
priests are interviewed who
point out how Jesus had harsh
words for those whose lives are
organized around selfish greed
and pursuit of wealth.
Moore salutes cooperatively
owned businesses where workers
share decisions and spread the
wealth equally. He supports the
activism of Chicago workers who
occupied the plant where they
worked in an attempt to get Bank
of America to pay them what they
were owned. On the other hand,
this documentary lambastes
Congressional Republicans and
Democrats for going along with
the Bush administration's $700
billion economic bailout of the
banks. Moore decides to visit
those institutions to get some
of the taxpayers' money back.
Moore yearns for the idealism
of President Franklin D.
Roosevelt who proposed a "Second
Bill of Rights" during his State
of the Union Address in 1944. He
wanted to guarantee Americans of
a job with a decent wage, a
home, medical care, education,
and even a vacation. After
Roosevelt's death, his dream
never came to pass in the U.S.,
but Europeans and the Japanese
have put these rights into their
social contract.
Moore provides a broad
historical survey of the history
of capitalism with clever
visuals in this documentary. He
introduces us to people whose
stories we don't hear and voices
in the U.S. Congress, such as
Rep. Marcy Kaptur, Democrat from
Ohio, who don't get a lot of
airtime. But perhaps the
symbolic makes the point best.
Moore is shown unraveling a long
"crime scene" yellow tape around
Wall Street buildings. It's an
image we won't soon forget.
http://www.spiritualityandpractice.com/films/films.php?id=19343
|
