F 9/11 in coastal Alabama...

[misanthrope]

The theater was mostly full. However, considering all the hype, and the fact that it was a 6:30pm showing on a Friday night, it certainly wasn’t encouraging. Nor surprising.

I was amazed there were no protesters outside. In light of the fact that “Saved!” and “Passion of the Christ” are also at the same cineplex, I thought for sure the snake-handlers and their brethren would be in abundance. I figured they would be worked up into a mouth-foaming, palm-bleeding frenzy, that we might get to hear someone go off the deep end and start shouting in tongues. Oh well, you can’t have everything.

Well, I don’t think the movie is revelatory to anyone who has kept themselves moderately abreast of matters. It was pretty much old hat for me and I’m willing to bet that most of the folks in attendance could say the same. If not, they’re just not paying attention.

In a way, I find it hard to judge very objectively because so much of this “earth-shattering” film is old hat. I was actually disappointed by some of the stuff he left out. Sibel Edmonds’ inclusion would have been sweet, as well as notice of the way the Bush administration slipped out of town shortly before the attacks and managed lengthy vacations with nary a warning flag being raised.

He didn’t call notice to the military response and discrepancies between policy, history and what occured on that Tuesday morning.

He didn’t point out the inarguably empirical evidence from a debris field in rural Pennsylvania and the official report. The concrete proof of yet another lie in a growing collection.

In all fairness, Michael Moore’s ego is indeed all over this film. The comments he makes during some of the interviews, and the way he left them in there, was a bit much I felt. I just feel the film would have better served without the audible sense of his coaching answers or stoking flames. It needs to sound as if he is on the same journey of discovery as the most naive of his viewers. Just my opinion.

I wish Mr. Moore had taken his time and given us the entirety of the lyrics to Neil Young’s “Rockin’ In the Free World” that played over the end credits. After all, its as much a part of Bush family legacy as anything else.

Though there was no standing, the ovation around us at the end felt out-of-place. I’m all for giving an artist their due, but that’s if they’re in the room. After all, if no one who worked on the film was in the house, then who are they clapping for? The worker in the projection booth?

In the end, the only really good thing that will come out of these first few days of release is the hoopla. The real impact of this project won’t be made until it hits the shelves as a DVD.

A lot of average folks will want to stay away from any public scene, will desire to remain firmly in the status quo.

However, if the porn business taught us anything, it was that a lot of people who wouldn’t have been caught dead going to a theater would certainly partake of rentals within the privacy of their homes.

The same will apply with this film. Curiosity will indeed kill the middle class cat. If Moore can get this on shelves in the first week of October, it will sink Shrub’s canoe…not accounting for other tricks in the Bush bag.

[Skittles]

1. there is only so much he could put in the film

and I disagree with the OLD HAT stuff - sure, we all knew all about it but SEEING it, on BIG SCREEN, is PRICELESS. And the reason we stood and clapped is because after YEARS OF CORPORATE BRAINWASHING WE WERE FINALLY SEEING THE TRUTH. AND WE WERE GRATEFUL WE COULD STILL SEE THE TRUTH IN AMERICA.

Clearly, you do NOT get it.

[physioex]

2. Right I agree....

He has two hours to cover about four years of history, this is no easy task. I knew a lot of the stuff he talked about (Carlye Group, Bin Laden & Bush, Saudi connection), but the average person might not. No such thing as a perfect movie, but overall I was happy....

[cal04]

3. the average person

or children like mine and their friends who do not know a lot of these things were very surprised to hear a lot of this. I went with one of my sons,his friend, and my son's girlfriend. They didn't know a lot of what was in the movie.
Everyone laughed and applauded throughout the movie. I was very emotional, not usually me, when Mrs. Lipscomb was reading the letter from her son and later went to Washington. I was angry when Mr. Moore asked members of congress about signing up their sons for Iraq. They don't think twice about taking our children but refuse to even talk about sending their own.

The people of the United States, when the twin towers were hit and 3,000 people died, cried and got very angry. I can't imagine what our soldiers and the Iraqi people, go through day after day getting bombed and shot at.