Say what you want about Michael Moore’s political beliefs, you’ve got to admit that this guy knows how to make films that get people talking… a lot.¬† His next film I’m sure will be no different.¬† Sicko.
Sicko is the title of a documentary film by Michael Moore, scheduled for release in 2007. It will investigate health care with a focus on large American pharmaceutical companies and corruption in the Food and Drug Administration.  Soon after he announced his intention to make the documentary, several pharmaceutical companies sent notices to all employees instructing them not to speak with Moore.
A while ago, Moore put out an open request for people to send in their stories of their personal dealing with the Health Care System.  Apparently he got a lot more letters than he was anticipating:
"I received over 19,000 of them," wrote Moore in a letter to his online mailing list. "It was truly overwhelming as we literally took a month and read them all. To read about the misery people are put through on a daily basis by our profit-based system was both moving and revolting. That’s all I will say right now."
The only thing that troubles me is that you just know that hyper Liberals are going to be hailing this as the next great documentary of our time before ever seeing a single frame of the film, and hyper conservatives are going to be blasting it without seeing a single frame either. These extremists make me sick. Haha… get it… sick? oh shut up.
trying to maximize their take. These medications are not meant for someone so young. WBR LeoP
We can expect moore lies and moore distortion from moore. The moore and louder he yells it is the truth, he knows some will believe him. Such positive reinforcements and moore $$$$ will lead to moore lies and moore distortion.
he gets people talking, John…but not correctly about the true nature of the argument.
Bowling for Columbine was, in my opinion, quite a disrespect to those who believe in the right to own firearms.
HOWEVER…the fact that he’s going after the health care system is good. America needs a kick to the shins about that.
Here in Australia there’s a pretty good system. I’m not even a citizen yet and i’m getting better care than I got as an american. With the taxes Americans pay, there is NO excuse for the shambles that Health Care has been left.
Good on him. and i hope he does a good job on it.
Some of these arguments are spurious. Moore is certainly making a movie that supports a particular point of view. That he doesn’t list or address every counter argument does not make him a liar. So long as you understad that Moore is making an argument, then you can watch his movies in peace. Otherwise, you’ll be yelling at your television that it’s unfair to show Republicans getting their makeup done. His next movie will, surprise, support his point of view about HMO’s and the health industry. It’s really no different than a term paper attacking the health industries, except that it much more entertaining.
Hey Mr. Stay Puft.
I totally 100% agree. But in THIS specific topic (Moore) it’s a Right Wing tactic.
“It’s the typical Right wing grasp at straws argument. They want something stronger they want to call him a liar”
I’m not going to let you slide on this John: Let’s not label this tactic Right wing. The Left is frequently guilty of the same thing. Why don’t we just call it a “non-productive tactic”.
There was another film maker that got people talking, the one who made Triumph of the Will.
Seems appropriate company.
Michael Moore…
Talented? maybe.
Controversial? You bet.
Able to distort the truth in a single documentary? Most definitely.
Hey Don
“People who get their news from “things” like the fat slug in that picture deserve to have a very skewed view of the world.”
Haha… well I’m gald to see you’re objective and don’t have a skewed or biased view at all.
“The problems with the US Health Care system are more complex than Moore will present.”
Exactly.
People who get their news from “things” like the fat slug in that picture deserve to have a very skewed view of the world.
I don’t really see being a right vs. left issue with Moore, but rather a propaganda issue.
One thing’s for sure, we can all look forward to Moore painting himself as the ultimate do-gooder, someone completely pure, the dumb-downing Everyman that the dumb public loves because he talks down to their level. A living Homer Simpson with an attitude for a culture so stupid that they deserve a fat, happily stupid cartoon character as their figurehead.
First year broadcasters and journalists in Canada are taught they have a duty and an obligation to the public to be as unbiased as humanly possible when reporting and presenting the news. The arguement I present here is that it’s not possible to be unbiased ever, no matter how hard you try, but it’s extremely important that you TRY, if only to be professional.
Michael Moore stopped trying to be professional after Bowling For Columbine. Once this movie went worldwide and made a name for him, he amplified the same gorilla interviewing tactics he loves to employ and stepped up his sensationalistic editing to back up whatever he wants to say. His opinons mean as much as the air passing my poop when I fart. Really, who cares what he has to say anymore? Do I believe him? Not really. Do I care about the topics he choses to stalk like a madman? You bet. But, do I agree with his angle, tactics or editing? Fuck no.
And that’s why I will never pay to see any of his opinonaries ever again. If he at least tried to present his opinons in an honest and fair and balanced product, I wouldn’t have a problem with him. But, alas… *sigh* he doesn’t not. He doesn’t believe we are smart enough to get what he believes without ramming it down our throats with such force that we are rendered too speechless and too stunned to notice he’s a hack in the process.
Darren, I respect a lot of your opinions.. but that whole statement above is a REAL stretch and generally.
It’s the typical Riht wing (I’m not at all suggesting you’re a right winger) grasp at straws argument. They want to call Moore a liar… and will redefine the term, and grasp at straws for anything they might be able to stretch into calling a “lie”, since none of his “facts” (not the things he purports his on conclusions on mind you) are erroneous.
But it’s not good enough to say “We disagree with his opinions and his conclusions”. They want something stornger… they want to call him a “liar”. But facts are facts.
I hate this. I’m not a big Moore fan at all… but these threads force me to take his side because most people (on the left and the right) just can’t think objectivly (I’m not say YOU can’t… it’s just these “arguments”)
Journalism in America has a pretty crappy history, really. We’ve never really had a very good press. There are standouts here and there, but by and large American journalism has always been a combination of propaganda, advertising and sensationalism.
So Michael Moore makes opinionated documentaries. Fox News took a case to the Florida Supreme Court on the grounds that they have no responsibility to air factual broadcasts and that their newscasts are really just for entertainment value. And that’s an organization calling itself “Fair and Balanced.” I’ve never heard Micheal Moore claim to be fair and balanced. He has an opinion and he presents it. I can’t really see the problem.
John, as a documentarian, is Moore a liar, or just a simple buffoon?
When Moore misleads those he inteviews, is it a lie?
When Moore takes footage and calls it something other that what it was, is it a lie?
When Moore shows Saddam having a peaceful regime in Iraq, is that a lie?
(*note: the US should have shown more intrest in Rwanda or at least those screwballs in North Korea who we got to address now)
When Moore opens F9/11 and implies he was for Gore when he actually supported the Green Party, is that a lie?
When F/911 was being made, Moore interviewed a Republican who had relatives serving in Iraq. This interview did not make the final cut, because it would have backfired on Moore.
Isn’t manipulation based on a lie?
And you don’t think this has anything at all to do with things in his movies? It shows a pattern, John.
Norddeth writes:
“Sigh, Moore doesn’t “outright” lie, thats the problem, if he outright lied (read :Bill O’Rielly)people would just ignore him, but he constantly presents only one side of things, constantly presents opinion as facts, and constantly takes things out of context.
Hes downright annoying, and Im a fairly lefty person. I enojy his work but I need to constantly remind myself there is a side of the story not being told. I prefer my Doc’s to at least show both sides.”
I wholeheartedly agree with you, however as long as Fox News exists I think Moore serves as a necessary counter-balance. Seriously, they should give this dude his own network just for that purpose. They’ll be so busy attacking each other that they won’t even notice the rest of us are ignoring them.
Hey Darren,
Please please please tell me you know what the definition of hearsay is and that you know why it’s NEVER relied upon.
Also, please tell me how that has anything at all to do with things in his movies.
You want an outright lie, John?
You got one.
Just the other day, Staff Sgt. Raymond Plouhar was laid to rest. Who was Plouhar?
****Plouhar was killed on June 26 by a roadside bomb in Anbar province in his second tour of duty in Iraq, weeks before he was to return home. He was assigned to the 3rd Battalion, 5th Marine Regiment, 1st Marine Division, I Marine Expeditionary Force in Camp Pendleton, Calif.
Plouhar’s family says he had no qualms about returning to Iraq and he believed conditions had improved since his first tour in 2005.
It was as a recruiter that Plouhar was seen in Moore’s award-winning “Fahrenheit 9/11.” The segment shows Plouhar and another Marine in a mall parking lot in a depressed suburb of Flint*; it suggests the two men were cynically hunting for poor teens to sign up, rather than go to a wealthy suburb where they’d likely be rejected.
Plouhar’s father says his son told him he had been misled and believed he was being filmed for a documentary that would appear on the Discovery Channel. ****
http://movies.yahoo.com/mv/news/ap/20060708/115242168000.html
(Flint, Mi: **Sealer’s general location**)
Opiniomentary…heh…FWIW, when I was in film school they taught us in documentary classes that *all* documentaries are Opiniomentaries. And also, that all films are documentaries. Even Die Hard. It may be documenting people pretending to be other people, but so do a lot of “real” documentaries. ;-)
This film should be entertaining, but what don’t we know about health and all the crap anyway.
Sigh, Moore doesn’t “outright” lie, thats the problem, if he outright lied (read :Bill O’Rielly)people would just ignore him, but he constantly presents only one side of things, constantly presents opinion as facts, and constantly takes things out of context.
Hes downright annoying, and Im a fairly lefty person. I enojy his work but I need to constantly remind myself there is a side of the story not being told. I prefer my Doc’s to at least show both sides.
nord
Hey Frank and Bulyreb.
Ok, I’ve got an honest question for you. Seriously, this isn’t one of those sarcastic questions. Just a pure honest question because you’ve made me interested in knowing.
You’ve both mentioned “Outright lies” in your comments. Can you reference a couple of specific examples where Moore “Outright lied”? (Remember, I’m honestly asking. I’m not trying to be a jackass asing a sarcastic question).
Thanks guys. Cheers!
~John
Y’know…the funny thing is that it sounds like I might actually agree with Michael “Bane of Corn Dogs” Moore on this issue. The funnier thing is that I won’t believe a word of what he says. You tell half truths and overt lies as much as he does and no one belives you anymore. The boy who cried wolf, indeed.
Opiniomentary! Brilliant!
The fact of the matter is, Moore’s opiniomentary’s are just that, opinion. The little fact he does have is totally negated, in my opinion, by the lies, side-stepping, and half-quoting he does.
It’s like the boy who cried wolf. After a few lies and half-quotes, you begin to completely distrust anything he says.
I’ll be skipping this one.
Opiniomentary! (I think you should drop the hyphen). I love it.
M. Moore does his thing (and he is good at what he does) i can’t wait to see his next opinion-mentary (a word I just now coined for a documentary made for a political argument…which is not to say the medium is good or bad)
The problems with the US Health Care system are more complex than Moore will present. He’ll demonize the pharmaceutical companies and FDA without presenting any of the positives. Simple example: drug companies pay for research and development by selling drugs, coming up with new drugs to fight disease. Very few drug breakthoughs have come outside of the corporate structure.
The questions I have:
Will Moore discuss how insurance companies dictate medical care more than doctors or drug companies? Or how drug companies are forced to seek favorable terms with insurance companies so their product is the one covered? If he’s going to pick on big business, the insurance companies are a better place to start.
Will he go on to mention how most of the cost of health care is bureaucracy?
Will he discuss how every attempt to create a national health care system in the US came with a impossible price tag and with many of the same restrictions insurance companies impose? And that it would come with even more bureaucracy (something every government venture is saddled with)? I doubt it.
Finally, will he discuss how astronomical malpratice settlements have hurt physicians? Definitely no on this one. He’ll see these settlements as victim defeating bad doctor. These settlements have seriously hindered physicians ability to practice and stay afloat financially and have driven needed physicians out of certain subspecialities, specifically obstectrics.
Sorry to rant, back to the movie and its director. Moore is the wrong guy with his one-sided thinking to open up a much needed debate on this subject – one that goes beyond “everyone should have health care”.
Things have been very quiet on the Michael Moore front since he suicide bombed the Team America headquarters. It’ll be good to have him back.
mwahahahahhha….that picture = hilarious.
i am sure this movie will be entertaining and thought provoking despite being slanted, just like everything else he has made.