“Filmmaker Michael Moore’s brilliant and uplifting new documentary, “Sicko,” deals with the failings of the U.S. healthcare system, both real and perceived. But this time around, the controversial documentarian seems to be letting the subject matter do the talking, and in the process shows a new maturity.”
I have had, an evolution, on my stance about Michael Moore. I’ve never seen “Bowling For Columbine”, and I was dissuaded when it first came out to ever watch it by most of my friends at the time. I was in High School when Columbine happened, I remember the “weird kids” at my school going to the the principal and counselor’s offices, I remember my school hiring a security guard.
I did not go to a violent school. Just a normal urban high school in a smaller to midsized Heartland city in Southern Indiana. We’re known for basketball, not domestic violence, instabilities or great poverty. We were just as average as any school. When Columbine happened, a wave of “It can happen here” spread across the administrations and parents of the country that dealt with schools just like ours. The student body was split. Half thought Columbine was isolated and measures taken in our own school were extreme. The other half felt the random and violent actions of Columbine validated upped security in their own school and classrooms.
In the middle of all this was “Bowling For Columbine”. I never saw it because it was discovered that Michael Moore had orchestrated scenes in the movie, and manipulated edits to convey very specific viewpoints. I was a film geek then. Still am. It was abhorrent to me that a filmmaker would claim to make a documentary only to manipulate the footage. That was not “fair and balanced”.
I saw Fahrenheit 9/11 in theaters when it came out. I considered that movie a great failure. If one wanted to bring focus on the failures of the 2000 election, presidential actions taken on September 11th, and the instigation of war in Iraq you don’t have to look very far, and you don’t need to deal with the Saudi Royal family to do it either. Fahrenheit 9/11 missed the point. And so did Michael Moore, he had fallen into punditry and blind attacks on the conservative right. He had become a liberal Sean Hannity. Fuck him for that.
Much later I saw Rodger and Me. Then I got it. This was good in your face documentary work where the story spoke for itself, and Michael Moore had a brilliant ability to hang onto the right people like a god damned steel trap. Rodger and Me is great. I can only hope that “Sicko” does the same and brings Mr. Moore back into the realm of credible and valuable documentary work. He has been absent from it for quite a while, and it would be nice if he wasn’t such a liberal embarrassment.
I have not seen “Sicko” but if Fox News will give it a positive review, well, I’m willing to admit that I’ll give the man another chance. Even De Niro has made bad movies, and I still love his acting in the good ones. It will be good for all if Mr. Moore comes back into rationality and avoids blind punditry in attacking opposing views.
~C
 Michael Moore As A Young Man |  The Transformation of Michael Jackson | Dead & Gray, Mr. Ken Lay (And Dick Cheney’s America) |  Michael Savage Knows About My Neo-Marxist-Leninist Agenda |
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