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I just watched Fahrenheit 911 (pg. 9)
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| osuracnaes |
I don't understand why people are almost exclusively focusing on this one little thing. So what? He didn't do anything in a room full of kids. Sure, he should have maybe calmly excused himself - it doesn't look good if the president's response to an attack on his country is to pick up a children's book. But it's one small thing, nothing could have changed what happened.
Moore spent a little too much time on it, IMO. But is it really worth arguing over? It didn't play a very big part in F911 anyway. |
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| St_Andrew |
| quote: | Originally posted by MisterOpus1
http://www.whitehouse.gov/ask/20030416.html
Secretary Card: ""A second plane hit the second tower. America is under attack!"
Where've you been? What Secretary Card said to Bush at that moment has been well known for some time now. |
"I walked into the room, trying not to be disruptive to the young students and whispered in the President's right ear, "A second plane hit the second tower. America is under attack!" I then stepped back so as not to invite a discussion. The President waited for an appropriate moment to excuse himself from the room. We then gathered in an adjoining room to learn more about the situation. It was an unbelievable day."
:haha: he waited 7 minutes for an appropiate moment?
he really looks clueless in that part. i looked at it again now. if someone is interested i might cut that part out for you to see :) |
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| Shakka |
| quote: | Originally posted by St_Andrew
"I walked into the room, trying not to be disruptive to the young students and whispered in the President's right ear, "A second plane hit the second tower. America is under attack!" I then stepped back so as not to invite a discussion. The President waited for an appropriate moment to excuse himself from the room. We then gathered in an adjoining room to learn more about the situation. It was an unbelievable day."
:haha: he waited 7 minutes for an appropiate moment?
he really looks clueless in that part. i looked at it again now. if someone is interested i might cut that part out for you to see :) |
7 minutes...I can't even rub one out in 7 minutes.:tongue3 |
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| MisterOpus1 |
Probably one of the best reviews from a liberal writer:
| quote: | Dog eat dog
Ellen Goodman - Washington Post Writers Group
06.30.04 - BOSTON -- Maybe it was because the man on my left was doing a play-by-play when any member of the Bush team came on the screen. Maybe it was because the movie theater was within pitching range of Fenway Park.
But halfway through "Fahrenheit 9/11," I realized this wasn't an audience, it was a fan club. They weren't watching the movie, they were rooting for it.
I saw this movie in a sold-out theater on a Monday night surrounded by people in their 20s. You go Michael. If "Fahrenheit 9/11" preaches to the choir, you could find me in the alto section.
More to the point -- or Moore to the point -- I agreed with the filmmaker that Bush didn't exactly win the 2000 election, that we were misled into Iraq, and that the White House has used the terrorism alerts as a political toy. So add my review to the marquee: I laughed! I cried!
But at some point, I also began to feel just a touch out of harmony. Not even this alto believes that the Iraq War was brought to us courtesy of the Bush-Saudi oil-money connection. Not even the rosiest pair of my retro-spectacles sees prewar Iraq as a happy valley where little children flew kites.
There were a few too many cheap shots among the direct hits, conspiracy theories among the solid facts, and tidbits of propaganda in the documentary. Going for the jugular, he sometimes went over the top.
The simple fact that George Bush the First called Moore a "slimeball" makes me itch to call him a "genius." But that's the problem. If the right is after him, does the choir have to sing the filmmaker's praises as our own cuddly and amusing pit bull?
Michael Moore has been called the left-wing answer to Rush Limbaugh. Rush without the OxyContin. But is it heresy to ask whether the left actually wants its own Rush?
More than a decade ago, talk radio became talk right. Then Fox News took out a trademark on "fair and balanced." The right wing tried to take possession of "patriotism" the way they took over "family."
After years as a punching bag, is it any wonder that the left wants its own punching machines? But the end result is that we've hardened further into "us and them."
Politics isn't polarized between ideas as much as it is divided between teams in an endless color war. The famous geopolitical map of 2000 painted the states red and blue. Now we have added red and blue talkmeisters, red and blue books, red and blue movies.
If the reds have Bill O'Reilly, the blues now have Al Franken. If red people read "Treason," blue people read "Thieves in High Places." Log onto Amazon.com and one click takes you to the literary red team, another to the blue team.
There was even an unseemly competition when political sportscasters pitted the TV ratings for the funeral of Ronald (the Red) Reagan versus the literary resurrection of Bill (the Blue) Clinton.
Now we are getting our own space in the cineplex. When "Fahrenheit 9/11" hit $23.9 million the first weekend, box office receipts were read like political tea leaves. Moore was also cast as the left's Mel Gibson. Whose "passion" was more powerful?
One letter writer in The New York Times described the "fun" of watching "conservatives throw up their hands in horror and dismay as the one-man liberal attack machine scores points against them." He called it a "taste of their own medicine."
Well, I am happy to write prescriptions for this medicine. After all, those who attack Moore's ad hominem attacks on the president do so with ad hominem attacks on Michael Moore. But it's getting awfully rare to see anyone trying to write or speak across the political color line.
Moore described his movie as an "op-ed piece," not a documentary. Well, I know something about op-ed pieces. Over the long run, you don't get anywhere just whacking your audience upside the head; you try to change the mind within it. You don't just go for the gut. You try, gulp, reason.
I actually agree with P.J. O'Rourke, a conservative who writes in The Atlantic that he tunes out Rush because there's no room for measured debate: "Arguing, in the sense of attempting to convince others, has gone out of fashion with conservatives." But now liberals are trudging purposefully down the same low road.
In the election between Bush and Anybody But Bush, reason and civility are now designated for wimps. But what happens to the country when the left only meets the right at the American jugular?
The name of Moore's production company, you may recall, is Dog Eat Dog.
(c) 2004, Washington Post Writers Group
URL: http://www.workingforchange.com/art...fm?itemid=17209
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| DJMaytag |
| quote: | Originally posted by emander
Why hasn't Kerry come on line and endorsed the movie? Too liberal for him? The Green Party has appealed to Moore to rejoin their ranks. |
Kerry is just as much of a cog in the well oiled political machine (no pun intended). He voted to go to war as well as for the PATRIOT Act, so anytime he criticizes going to war, the Bushies will be glad to remind people of this. |
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| DJMaytag |
| quote: | Originally posted by speedracer_mec
wow the "texan" argument
grow up please.
Both are opinionated and one stands on either side?:rolleyes: :rolleyes: |
Don't knock the Texans now... I wanna see a Texan in office next year, so long as it's not Bush. :D
http://www.badnarik.org/ |
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| DJMaytag |
| quote: | Originally posted by xKaoSx
I actually do believe the points he made were valid-
most of the stuff about him waiting 7 mins to respond to the towers being hit and how dramatic he made it seem- what was he supposed to do jump up and start screaming with his hands to his face. |
What was he supposed to do? ANYTHING! FFS we're under attack, but if you knew this was going to happen, it's not too surprising that there was no reaction...
The interesting thing is that it was public knowledge where Bush was going to be the morning of 9/11, as there was going to be a press conference held at the school. If that's public knowledge, how does the Secret Service not rush in to move him somehwere else to protect him from a possible attack?
At the time Andy Card stepped in to inform him about the attack, it was known that there were more planes in the air. But what happens? Bush goes on the air to deliver a message, when he could very well be a sitting duck as far as anyone knew at that time. |
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| nialsjd |
i just finished watching it. While i am not a supporter of Michael Moore, i think it is important for anyone from any party to sit through it and see their side. before watching it, i felt like walking out if i saw anything that was VERY distorted, but i sat through the whole thing and tried to understand moore's point of view. He does have some good points, but doing reserach on the internet, i have seen many articles dealing with moore's complete distortion and editing of some scenes.
I'm not just going to brush it off tho. some of the scenes were hard for me to watch, especially bodies and the woman who had lost her son and said she went to the white house just to release her rage. I do recommend it to anyone of any political stance because there are several valid points throughout the film which are meant to inform and not debate. |
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| Shakka |
| Hey! It's DJ Slain---in reverse! |
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| igottaknow |
| quote: | Originally posted by nialsjd
i just finished watching it. While i am not a supporter of Michael Moore, i think it is important for anyone from any party to sit through it and see their side. before watching it, i felt like walking out if i saw anything that was VERY distorted, but i sat through the whole thing and tried to understand moore's point of view. He does have some good points, but doing reserach on the internet, i have seen many articles dealing with moore's complete distortion and editing of some scenes.
I'm not just going to brush it off tho. some of the scenes were hard for me to watch, especially bodies and the woman who had lost her son and said she went to the white house just to release her rage. I do recommend it to anyone of any political stance because there are several valid points throughout the film which are meant to inform and not debate. |
I just saw it tonight and I agree. I would be curious what the reaction would be of a Republican if I could strap him down to watch it. There is some really disturbing war footage that should be mandatory for chicken hawks to watch who glorify war and make light of its costs. The rest of the movie didn't shock me because I've seen countless in depth specials detailing the two-faced deception the administration uses. I've seen so many of Bush's lies I've really become desensitized to it. |
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| Yoepus |
| quote: | Originally posted by Shakka
Hey! It's DJ Slain---in reverse! |
enjoy,  you deserve it! |
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| Trancealot |
The best part in the movie or worst part in real life is when Bush just sat there in the classroom when USA was being attacked like a dumb idiot!
I think USA should take more consideration in choosing a pres |
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