CAPITALISM: A LOVE STORY

“CAPITALISM: A LOVE STORY” (By Michael Moore)

I find it hard not to like Michael Moore – He makes documentaries where he basically stands up for the ‘little guy’ in America; to say to the heartless big shots that run this country, “Hey, we matter too!”
I find it hard to understand why so many of the ‘common’ people dislike him. None of my friends are rich; I don’t hang out with the so-called ‘upper class’; so I have no idea how they feel about Moore’s work – I would imagine that they hate it because it paints them in such a bad light.
One person said they didn’t like him because he’s a hypocrite (“The only reason he made this movie was to make money”) Well, if Michael Moore is making tons of money off his filmmaking ventures, you wouldn’t know it to look at him – the guy still wears the same frumpy jeans, windbreaker & baseball cap that he wore in his first documentary (‘Roger & Me’ – revisited here) Also, who makes movies to NOT earn money from them?
We went to see “Capitalism” after it had been out for 2 weeks so we could use the free passes we received from purchasing tickets to other films. I couldn’t resist. I even reiterated the point to the girl at the ticket booth, “That’s right I’m using my free pass so I can see ‘Capitalism’ for nothing!” . . . She either didn’t see the irony, or just didn’t give a sh--. (I believe the latter is probably the correct answer)
The small auditorium wasn’t exactly packed; in fact, if I had bothered to take an actual head count, I doubt that I would have needed to use all of the digits on my two hands.
So if Michael Moore is a millionaire who’s biting the hand that feeds him, he deserves an Oscar nomination for his acting ability!
Okay, on to the film itself, which I will go on record right now as saying it is his weakest effort since his debut. Although I found myself nodding my head in agreement quite a few times, I was also shaking my head in disagreement when Moore would go down the wrong path & make his point look ridiculous. I refer to his questionable decision to interview priests to make disparaging remarks toward Capitalism; “It’s EVIL!”
Then a gay priest appears to show support for some displaced workers in Chicago that were not only let go from their jobs but not given benefits they were promised. When the dispute is finally resolved I almost expected Moore’s narration to end with ‘Jesus Saves!’
About 3/4ths of the way thru, he brings in a shining ray of hope by making Barrack Obama’s election as president appear to be the ‘second coming’ of you-know-who.
It kind of splats against the wall when you look at what Obama has actually done so far...
Another annoyance was his rallying cry that the poor people of America can change things with a single vote because their vote counts the same as a filthy rich snob’s vote. That’s being ignorant & naive. No, they don’t. Never have, never will.
But there were ‘fun’ moments too. Even though I saw the exact same interview with Elizabeth Warren, the woman who was put in charge of the billions of taxpayer dollars that was given to bail out the American banking and auto industries on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, it was still a head shaker when she admitted that she had no idea where the money was or what it was used for.
The clip of FDR calling for a ‘2nd Bill Of Rights’ gave me new respect for his extended stint as president, but then again, did he just throw that out there because he knew he was dying? And then the question arises, why didn’t Truman implement this plan during his reign?
Speaking of presidents; Moore shows the difference between a good president who got a bad rap and a bad president who received mostly good publicity with two clips from Jimmy Carter & Ronald Reagan. Carter, sitting alone at his desk in the oval office spells out the truth to the American people; & as anyone in politics knows that is no place to be seen speaking the truth! Then Reagan, with the CEO of Merrill Lynch at his side is seen babbling on about how good things are in this great country of ours. We then discover who really WAS running the country at that point and because of that we knew that the good times weren’t going to last.
Congresswoman Marcy Kaptur rips her constituents a new one with a fiery, passionate speech that clearly showed she actually ‘represented’ the people who voted for her.
If all politicians cared about this country as much as Ms. Kaptur we wouldn’t be in the mess we currently find ourselves.
So there are some new revelations & a lot of old ground covered with Moore’s slant & sense of humor involved but it is still worth seeing. If for no other reason than to discover that there’s a thin line between the CEO’s that run America’s biggest corporations & the so-called ‘terrorists’ of the Middle East. If Salman Rushdie ever views this film I’m sure he’ll cock an eyebrow at the memo that ended with the words, ‘Kill Him Dead!’