Guardian: Hezbollah offers to 'help' Farenheit 9/11

[Plekhanov]

The one that really annoys me is that he altered the text on a campaign advertisement.

That's really where he crossed the line between pretending to be a journalist and admitting he's and idiot.

Hasn’t Moore always been pretty honest about having an agenda? I don’t recall him ever claiming to be unbiased just that he can back up everything in his films, which he can to the satisfaction of the courts anyway.

[Master of Ossus]

Hasn’t Moore always been pretty honest about having an agenda? I don’t recall him ever claiming to be unbiased just that he can back up everything in his films, which he can to the satisfaction of the courts anyway.

The only way he managed to get away with that little edit (actually editing a commercial to include an erroneous statement it never actually included) was that he changed it for the DVD release, even though the VHS copy had already hit shelves and of course the film had been through its silver-screen debut. That's not journalism. That's not documentarianism. That's an out-and-out deception.

[Plekhanov]

Are we talking bfc here? It’s quite a while since I’ve seen it so you’ll have to remind me of the ad in question, what did he include in the cinema release that he left out of the DVD?

[Glocksman]

Here's a link about the ad.

Personally I think this bit of deception pales in comparison with his other shenanigans.

Anyway, back to F9/11.

In an interesting turn of events, the leftist commentator and journalist Cristopher Hitchens has posted a scathing column on Slate titled 'The lies of Michael Moore'.

In a long and paranoid (and tedious) section at the opening of the film, he makes heavy innuendoes about the flights that took members of the Bin Laden family out of the country after Sept. 11. I banged on about this myself at the time and wrote a Nation column drawing attention to the groveling Larry King interview with the insufferable Prince Bandar, which Moore excerpts. However, recent developments have not been kind to our Mike. In the interval between Moore's triumph at Cannes and the release of the film in the United States, the 9/11 commission has found nothing to complain of in the timing or arrangement of the flights. And Richard Clarke, Bush's former chief of counterterrorism, has come forward to say that he, and he alone, took the responsibility for authorizing those Saudi departures.

We are introduced to Iraq, "a sovereign nation." (In fact, Iraq's "sovereignty" was heavily qualified by international sanctions, however questionable, which reflected its noncompliance with important U.N. resolutions.) In this peaceable kingdom, according to Moore's flabbergasting choice of film shots, children are flying little kites, shoppers are smiling in the sunshine, and the gentle rhythms of life are undisturbed. Then—wham! From the night sky come the terror weapons of American imperialism. Watching the clips Moore uses, and recalling them well, I can recognize various Saddam palaces and military and police centers getting the treatment. But these sites are not identified as such. In fact, I don't think Al Jazeera would, on a bad day, have transmitted anything so utterly propagandistic.

Moore has announced that he won't even appear on TV shows where he might face hostile questioning. I notice from the New York Times of June 20 that he has pompously established a rapid response team, and a fact-checking staff, and some tough lawyers, to bulwark himself against attack. He'll sue, Moore says, if anyone insults him or his pet. Some right-wing hack groups, I gather, are planning to bring pressure on their local movie theaters to drop the film. How dumb or thuggish do you have to be in order to counter one form of stupidity and cowardice with another? By all means go and see this terrible film, and take your friends, and if the fools in the audience strike up one cry, in favor of surrender or defeat, feel free to join in the conversation

Ouch!

However, I think we can agree that the film is so flat-out phony that "fact-checking" is beside the point. And as for the scary lawyers—get a life, or maybe see me in court. But I offer this, to Moore and to his rapid response rabble. Any time, Michael my boy. Let's redo Telluride. Any show. Any place. Any platform. Let's see what you're made of

Now that would be a show worth watching.

[BlkbrryTheGreat]

Apparently Micheal Moore has taken extra steps to insure the factual validity of his movie

[RogueIce]

Since BFC got mentioned, there is one thing I don't think I've seen anyone go over around here.

Basically, the Flint, Michigan rally. The one Moore very clearly said was a pro-gun rally when it was for "Get Out the Vote" instead. And then there were the various cuts to the crowd, which had the NRA banners...but from the intro wide pan into zoom shot I saw at the beginning of it, there were no NRA banners, just the Get Out the Vote ones. At least none I could see. This, to me, is a hell of an "edit" to make in the movie, and I've not seen anyone explain it (nor calling a rally to get people to vote a "pro-gun" event, or the implication I got that it was in response to the shooting of that girl; I haven't seen BFC in awhile though so I'm not sure if he implicitly said it or not).

Since I have only seen it once, I have no way to go back and see in that wide shot of the crowd if there were any NRA banners there; anyone who has a copy, can you enlighten me? And just how did Moore introduce it? I know he said "pro-gun" (at least in whatever version Cinemax happened to be showing) but did he say it just happened three days (IIRC) after the shooting in Flint, or did he say that it was basically "him coming to town in response" to the shooting?

Any comments on this one, which like I said before, I have seen pointed out against the movie but I have never seen defended?

[salm]

The one that really annoys me is that he altered the text on a campaign advertisement.

That's really where he crossed the line between pretending to be a journalist and admitting he's and idiot.

do you think he deliberately did that? i´m not sure, perhaps he did, but then it´s also very likely that it was just a mistake considering the sheer amount of footage that´s shown in the entire movie.

i mean what´s the big difference anyway? he did not murder when he was out on his furlough but he raped. what´s the big difference considering the point? i mean rape is still better than murder but it´s definately down there in the same league.

[Symmetry]

The one that really annoys me is that he altered the text on a campaign advertisement.

That's really where he crossed the line between pretending to be a journalist and admitting he's and idiot.

Hasn’t Moore always been pretty honest about having an agenda? I don’t recall him ever claiming to be unbiased just that he can back up everything in his films, which he can to the satisfaction of the courts anyway.

Nobody expects a documentary to be unbiased, and in fact I'd say that a documentary without a message is a poor one. Its just that we expect documentaries to meet certain standards of accuracy and fairness that neither BfC nor F:9/11 do.

Someone's tried to put together a fairly comprehensive list of what they see as dishonesty in BfC here, though I think some of those charges are overblown.

[Glocksman]

Speaking of Moore's 'War Room' and legal threats against those who 'malign' his movie, Jack Shafer (editor of Slate) is literally inviting Moore to file a suit

Moore isn't likely to find a more severe appraisal of his film and his work than this Slate piece by Christopher Hitchens. Read it, Mr. Moore. We invite your suit.

Think Moore'll step up?