Great review of "Fahrenheit 9/11"

From: http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,12271,1219237,00.html

The Bushes and the Bin Ladens: passionate anti-war film is a tale of two families

Peter Bradshaw on Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11

Tuesday May 18, 2004
The Guardian

(snip)

t does not have a big "showdown" moment, like Moore's encounter with Charlton Heston, although the director shouts out questions to the president he derisively calls Governor Bush and is rewarded by him with a snarling suggestion that he should get a real job, which takes some effrontery coming from the slacker fratboy head of state who makes Ronald Reagan's workload look Stakhanovite.
Fahrenheit 9/11 cheekily begins with "feed" footage of the major players - Bush, Dick Cheney, Condoleezza Rice and Paul Wolfowitz - smirking, and preening themselves as they prepare to go on TV. Wolfowitz even has a habit of licking his comb before running it through his hair, which got a deafening "eeeuuuuuwwwww" from the audience.

(snip)

(And this reminds me a bit of the idea behind of TBTM's "requiem") :

(snip)
Moore has a terrifying and funny sequence when he shows the rabbit-in-car-headlights expression on the president's face when he is told about the second plane hitting the towers while at a children's literacy event. A stopwatch appears in the corner of the screen, as the minutes tick by and the president keeps reading My Pet Goat, not knowing what to do without his advisers to tell him.

(snip)

and passing them out around town the day this movie opens.

we got to get the word out about this movie...

I am waiting for it. And I'm not alone.

"Wolfowitz even has a habit of licking his comb before running it through his hair, which got a deafening "eeeuuuuuwwwww" from the audience."

"eeeuuuuuwwwww" !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

At its 4 p.m. screening In Competition at the Palais, the movie occasioned an enthusiastic standing ovation -- onlookers placed it at 15-20 minutes -- punctuated by cries of "bravo!"

The crowd included a phalanx of Endeavor agents, led by Ari Emmanuel, along with Mick Jagger, Daryl Hannah and a smattering of French stars and industry insiders.

"It was the longest standing ovation I've seen in over 25 years,".


http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/thr/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1000512340

Something, something so "American", I'm sure, will come up to prevent this, or try to prevent this film from being shown. There will be that effort, I am sure, beyond what we have already seen.

I don't know how they'll do it, but if they have any avenue open to them that would prevent this movie from hitting theaters here, or, God forbid, something so shaking that it would obscure this movie, I have to believe they'll try it.

I hope I'm wrong, but I think the masks have for all intents and purposes been dropped, and anyone that has paid attention knows what America is up against. And that's what has me doubting that this movie will, indeed, be shown nationwide - before the elections, anyway.

in full force, no doubt. And that may actually be a good thing for the film!

Farenheit 9/11 deal made

Written by: Heather Monley

Disney and Miramax agree over Michael Moore’s film

As Michael Moore’s new film, “Fahrenheit 9/11,” hits the screens at the Cannes Film Festival in France, Disney and Miramax are finally coming to an agreement that will allow the controversial documentary to be seen by U.S. audiences. Miramax will purchase the film, but they will find a third party company to distribute it.

Miramax founders Bob and Harvey Weinstein have a notoriously sticky relationship with Michael Eisner, Chief Executive of their parent company, Disney. Eisner has stated that Disney did not want its Miramax division to release the film because Disney consumers “do not look for us to take sides,” especially during a presidential campaign.

Moore’s controversial film attacks Bush’s reaction to the September 11 terrorist attacks and creates links between the Bushes and Osama Bin Laden’s family.

http://thecelebritycafe.com/features/1396.html

A Scorching Broadside

But back to Mr. Moore, whose new film, "Fahrenheit 9/11," a scorching broadside against the presidency of George W. Bush, has received so little attention. On Monday it was at last screened for the press and the public. The audience at the afternoon gala screening responded with a 20-minute standing ovation that the festival's artistic director, Thierry Frémaux, said was the longest he had ever witnessed in Cannes.

Meanwhile the Mediterranean air has been thick with rumors about how, and when, the film will reach American audiences. The most persistent is that the heads of Miramax films, Harvey and Bob Weinstein, are trying to organize a consortium of American companies to ensure its wide and timely release. (Disney, which owns Miramax, refused to allow the company to release it, but later agreed to sell it back to the Weinsteins, though they are not allowed to release it as a Miramax film.)

Mr. Moore may be a frequent sight in Cannes, but one of the most striking things about "Fahrenheit 9/11" is how little he appears in it. One complaint about some of his early films — my main complaint about "Bowling for Columbine," at any rate — was that he sometimes gets in the way of his own arguments by making his films too much about himself. Perhaps because of the extreme gravity of the subject, his on-camera appearances this time are limited to a sparse handful of the good-humored man-on-the-street stunts that have been his trademark since "Roger and Me." (In one scene he approaches members of Congress and tries to persuade them to enlist their own children in the armed forces.)

The content of "Fahrenheit 9/11," which begins on election night in 2000 and was completed only 10 days before arriving in Cannes, is not entirely unfamiliar. Its bill of particulars against Mr. Bush can be found in a number of recently published books, and it is unapologetically polemical. It is also the best film Mr. Moore has made so far, a powerful and passionate expression of outraged patriotism, leavened with humor and freighted with sorrow. Yes, I said patriotism, though there will inevitably be those, pointing to the film's enthusiastic reception in France, who will insist that it is the opposite. They should (unlike Disney's board of directors) see it first.

I will not summarize or quarrel with the movie's points here; there will be time for that when it arrives in the United States. I will say what surprised me most about it. We all know Mr. Moore as a polemicist and a muckraker, and according to our views and tastes we revile, lionize or equivocate about him as such. (For my part I've mostly been among the equivocators).

"Fahrenheit 9/11," his most disciplined and powerful movie to date, suggests that he is also, arguably, a great filmmaker. Using interviews and archival video clips (including a tape made by the staff at the Florida elementary school Mr. Bush was visiting on the morning of Sept. 11, 2001), he has assembled a moving and invigorating documentary. Is it partisan? Of course. But there are not many important films that haven't been.