Fahrenheit 11/9

Trump supporters wearing their thoughts on their sleeves.

(2018) Documentary (Briarcliff/Annapurna) Michael Moore, Donald J. Trump, Barack Obama, Nancy Pelosi, Hilary Clinton, Bill Maher, Bernie Sanders, Chris Matthews, George Stephanopoulos, Wendy Williams, Roger Ailes, Megyn Kelly, John Podesta, Roger Stone, Paul Ryan, Joe Scarborough, Larry King, Steve Bannon, Jared Kushner, Ashleigh Banfield, April Cook-Hawkins, Brooke Baldwin. Directed by Michael Moore

 

During the 2016 Presidential election, one of the lone voices on the left predicting that Trump would win was gadfly and documentarian Michael Moore. The favored son of Flint, Michigan takes the time to illustrate just how this came to pass when virtually nobody thought it would – other than Trump and his followers.

This is perhaps Moore’s most serious documentary, with less of the stunts that characterize his other films (although he does attempt to make a citizen’s arrest of Michigan governor Rick Snyder and dares politicians to drink a glass of Flint water) and gives the movie a bit of a bleaker turn than most of his other work.

Moore doesn’t pull punches and he doesn’t always play fair with his facts; some of his commentary is a bit of a stretch and like that guy whose sense of humor isn’t always apparent, you’re never sure if he’s kidding or not.

Moore spends most of the movie illustrating how corporate America has essentially bought our democracy and has turned it into their own private ATM, making sure legislation favors the wealthy and the corporate at the expense of the working class and of course the poor – two classes that are virtually indistinguishable now. He does show glimmers of hope with the Parkland students rising up and leading a massive national march for gun control, and profiling politicians like Rashida Tlaib and Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez who might just make a difference in years to come.

Those who lean to the right in their political thinking are not likely to see this, but then again, this movie isn’t really for them – it’s more of a call to arms for the left which Moore criticizes has become complacent and self-destructive. We must all stand together, he opines – or as the Founding fathers might have added, we will all hang separately.

REASONS TO SEE: Adequately explains what got us to this point. Smart and occasionally mind-blowing.
REASONS TO AVOID: A little bit scattershot and at the end of the day, probably doesn’t accomplish what it set out to.
FAMILY VALUES: There is a fair amount of profanity and some sexual innuendo.
TRIVIAL PURSUIT: While the film made its official world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival, Moore hosted a special premiere in his home town of Flint, Michigan (which figures heavily in the movie) four days later.
BEYOND THE THEATERS: Amazon, AMC On Demand, AppleTV, Fandango Now, Google Play, Redbox, Vudu, YouTube
CRITICAL MASS: As of 1/15/20: Rotten Tomatoes: 82% positive reviews: Metacritic: 69/100.
COMPARISON SHOPPING: Fahrenheit 9/11
FINAL RATING: 7/10
NEXT: Life, Itself

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New Releases for the Week of September 21, 2018

THE HOUSE WITH A CLOCK IN ITS WALLS

(Universal) Jack Black, Cate Blanchett, Owen Vaccaro, Kyle McLaughlin, Colleen Camp, Renée Elise Goldsberry, Sunny Suljic, Lorenza Izzo. Directed by Eli Roth

Horror auteur Roth goes the Spielberg route with this young adult book-adaption.  A young orphan goes to live with his eccentric uncle who lives in a creepy old house in a sleepy old town. When the orphan accidentally wakes the dead, he, his uncle (who turns out to be a warlock) and a kindly neighbor (who is also a witch) race to stop a clock hidden inside the house from counting down to zero which will bring about the end of everything

See the trailer and trailer commentary here
For more on the movie this is the website
Release Formats: Standard, D-Box, Dolby, IMAX, RPX, XD
Genre: Young Adult Fantasy
Now Playing: Wide Release
Rating: PG (for thematic elements including sorcery, some action, scary images, rude humor and language)

Assassination Nation

(Neon) Suki Waterhouse, Anika Noni Rose, Joel McHale, Bill Skarsgård. A quartet of high school girls and BFFs in a small town live like most girls their age do – through social media, texts, selfies and gossip. When an anonymous hacker starts posting intimate details of the lives of people in their town, things start to go more than a little crazy and soon there’s a 50-50 chance the girls will live through the night but what nobody gets is these aren’t girls you want to mess with.

See the trailer and video featurettes here
For more on the movie this is the website
Release Formats: Standard
Genre: Action
Now Playing: Wide Release
Rating: R (for disturbing bloody violence, strong sexual material including menace, pervasive language, and for drug and alcohol abuse – all involving teens)

Bad Reputation

(Magnolia) Joan Jett, Michael J. Fox, Deborah Harry, Kenny Laguna. Ever since founding the Runaways, Joan Jett has been an inspiration for women rockers everywhere. Over the years she has managed to become a feminist icon as well. This is the story of a woman who decided to play by her own rules.

See the trailer here
For more on the movie this is the website
Release Formats: Standard
Genre: Music Documentary
Now Playing: Enzian Theater (Wednesday only)
Rating: R (for language, sexual references, some drug use and brief nudity)

Fahrenheit 11/9

(Briarcliff) Michael Moore, David Hogg, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Donald Trump. Gadfly and agent provocateur Moore is back and once again looking at our society and asking the tough questions. How did we elect someone who plainly is not fit for the job and how do we get out of the situation we’re in?

See the trailer here.
For more on the movie this is the website
Release Formats: Standard
Genre: Documentary
Now Playing: Wide Release
Rating: R (for language and some disturbing material/images)

Life Itself

(Amazon) Oscar Isaac, Olivia Wilde, Annette Bening, Mandy Patinkin. When a young couple get pregnant, the reverberations sent by the happy event go through their extended family and across the country.

See the trailer, video featurettes and a clip here
For more on the movie this is the website
Release Formats: Standard
Genre: Drama
Now Playing: Wide Release
Rating: R (for language including sexual references, some violent images and brief drug use)

Lizzie

(Saban/Roadside Attractions) Chloë Sevigny, Kristen Stewart, Kim Dickens, Jamie Sheridan. This is an unusual take on the Lizzie Borden mystery which more than a century later remains unsolved.

See the trailer, clips, video featurettes and an interview here
For more on the movie this is the website
Release Formats: Standard
Genre: True Life Mystery
Now Playing: AMC Altamonte Mall, AMC Disney Springs, Regal Winter Park Village
Rating: R (for violence and grisly images, nudity, a scene of sexuality and some language)

Love, Gilda

(Magnolia) Gilda Radner, Gene Wilder, Melissa McCarthy, Chevy Chase. Radner was one of the stars of the original Saturday Night Live and her characters continue to live on in popular culture more than 40 years later. She remains a major influence on comics – especially those of the fairer sex – to this day.

See the trailer here
For more on the movie this is the website
Release Formats: Standard
Genre: Biographical Documentary
Now Playing: Enzian Theater
Rating: NR

ALSO OPENING IN ORLANDO/DAYTONA:

American Dresser
Batti Gul Meter Chalu
Beyond the Sky
The Cakemaker
The Children Act
Little Italy
Miss Granny
Nannu Dochukunduvate
Saamy Square

ALSO OPENING IN MIAMI/FT. LAUDERDALE:

Batti Gul Meter Chalu
Bel Canto
Bye Bye Brazil
The Children Act
I Think We’re Alone Now
Mandy
Nannu Dochukunduvate
Pick of the Litter
Saamy Square
The Song of Sway Lake

ALSO OPENING IN TAMPA/ST. PETERSBURG:

American Dresser
The Children Act
Little Italy
Nannu Dochukunduvate
The Pagan King
Saamy Square

ALSO OPENING IN JACKSONVILLE/ST. AUGUSTINE:

Custody
Miss Granny
Nannu Dochukunduvate
Saamy Square

SCHEDULED FOR REVIEW:

American Dresser
Assassination Nation
Bad Reputation
Bel Canto
The Cakemaker
Fahrenheit 11/9
The House With a Clock In Its Walls
Life Itself
Love, Gilda

New Releases for the Week of October 28, 2016

INFERNO

(Columbia) Tom Hanks, Felicity Jones, Omar Sy, Irrfan Khan, Sidse Babett Knudsen, Ben Foster, Ana Ularu, Ida Darvish, Paolo Antonio Simioni. Directed by Ron Howard

Cryptologist Robert Langdon, one of the most brilliant minds on the planet, wakes up in a hospital with amnesia. As he and his doctor try to piece together what has happened to him they discover a monstrous plot bent on reducing the population of the world to a manageable number – by releasing a virus that may kill half the world’s population. Their only hope is to follow the clues left behind concerning Dante, the Italian writer who created the modern conception of Hell. This is the third film to be based on the Dan Brown series of novels.

See the trailer and a featurette here.
For more on the movie this is the website.
Release Formats: Standard, IMAX
Genre: Adventure
Now Playing: Wide Release
Rating: PG-13 (for sequences of action and violence, disturbing images, some language, thematic elements and brief sensuality)

Ae Dil Hai Mushkil

(Fox STAR) Ranbir Kapoor, Anushka Sharma, Aishwarya Rai Bachchan, Fawad Khan. A beautiful young woman, reeling from the break-up of a long-term relationship, starts to fall for a young man who loves to sing. The film has come under fire for the casting of a Pakistani actor; tensions have been high between Pakistan and India of late following a terrorist attack on an Army base near Uri in the Kashmir region.

See the trailer here.
For more on the movie this is the website.
Release Formats: Standard
Genre: Bollywood
Now Playing: AMC West Oaks, Cinemark Artegon Marketplace, Touchstar Southchase
Rating: NR

Michael Moore in Trumpland

(Dog Eat Dog) Michael Moore, Donald Trump, Hilary Clinton. This surprise Moore film is hitting theaters only days after being filmed. This is essentially a one-man show that Moore did in Ohio, deep in the heart of Trump territory, discussing the 2016 Presidential election rather than a documentary on Trump himself, as some have surmised.

For more on the movie this is the website.
Release Formats: Standard
Genre: Documentary
Now Playing: Enzian Theater
Rating: NR

Where to Invade Next

These chiefs could use a joint.

(2016) Documentary (Alamo Drafthouse) Michael Moore, Tim Walker, Krista Kiuru. Directed by Michael Moore

Michael Moore is one of those polarizing documentarians who has an agenda that occasionally plays fast and loose with facts and often takes things out of context. He infuriates the conservative electorate, many of whom characterize him as public enemy number one. For liberals while he is not necessarily a beloved figure, he is at least respected to a certain degree. With Moore’s films, you get pretty much what you expect.

His latest takes a look not so much at America but how improvements could be made, all of which are doable. Predictably, conservative film reviewers have ripped the movie a new one while those critics who already lean towards the left have sung the praises of the movie. Being of the latter persuasion, I find it hard not to add my voice to the liberal choir but I’m trying to be as objective as I can be.

Moore makes a valid point that we as Americans tend to accept without question that we live in the greatest nation on Earth, the best place to be. We are the land of the free, the home of the brave and we are the where the American Dream makes its residence – the philosophy, not the wrestler. In any case, we sometimes look at other countries ideas of doing things with a healthy dose of disdain.

That’s not always a wise thing. We don’t have a monopoly on good ideas here, although many expressed in the film originated here in the States and have since been abandoned or ignored from the get-go. The conceit of the film is that we have fought a string of wars with almost nothing to show for it other than debt, dead soldiers and obscene profits for military suppliers.

So the Joint Chiefs of Staff have sent American gadfly Moore out to invade other countries, steal their best ideas, and bring them here to the United States to implement. The ideas vary from five weeks mandatory paid vacation in Italy (with an additional two weeks of government holidays) and five months of paid maternity leave, also mandatory (the United States and Papua New Guinea are the only countries on the planet that don’t have mandatory paid maternity leaves, although most companies offer roughly six weeks of paid maternity leave to their employees here). France has a one hour lunch for schoolchildren and serves lunches that are nutritionist-approved from fresh ingredients – on plates and in glasses – to students who learn to serve each other and conduct themselves with proper table manners. They also do it for less than American schools pay for their slop.

And the ideas keep on coming, from reduced school hours, virtually no homework and no standardized tests that have taken Finland from educational standing right about where the United States is to the top ranking of national education systems to Slovenia offering free college to any student who wants to attend there – including non-Slovenians (so many American students have flocked over there that some universities are offering as many as 150 different courses in English). Norway has a prison system in which violent offenders stay in compounds in which they are treated with dignity and given more or less free access anywhere inside the compound – although not out of it. The campus is beautiful and gives them amenities that you’d find at home – just not freedom. The recidivism rate is about 20% there, opposite our own 80%.

Portugal has eliminated drug use prison sentences and treats drug use as a health care issue rather than as a criminal law issue, lowering their drug use rate. Germany has begun teaching their children about the Holocaust and taking ownership rather than ignoring it and hiding it. Tunisia shows how women took to the streets following their 2011 revolution and told the Islamist government that they refused to allow their rights to be unprotected by their new constitution. The uprising was so massive that the government voluntarily stepped down.

Finally in Iceland, the only financial company that escaped the country’s massive 2007 financial meltdown was one founded and run by women. The financial recovery was largely spearheaded by the addition of women to corporate boards throughout the country. And unlike the United States, their equivalent of the Department of Justice investigated, prosecuted and convicted a number of financial executives for wrongdoing and fraud, basing their investigations largely on American policies during the savings and loan crisis.

I will admit that Moore has a tendency to present facts as he sees him and not necessarily as they are. Employee benefits in Italy, for example, are tremendous but unemployment is twice the rate it is here. However, unlike the conservative reviewer who blames unemployment on those benefits somewhat speciously at best (she seems to think that the high taxes in Italy pay for those benefits which they do not – the companies do), I can see that Moore makes several points that are worth considering. We should be concerned not just with profits but for the quality of life of all people. We have become a society so narrowly focused on the bottom line we’ve lost sight of what is even more important – living. And in a country where our own government has taken a scorched earth policy against the middle class, we should not be pooh-poohing new ideas and refusing to consider them because we think they won’t work here. Why wouldn’t having more women in the board room work in this country? Why wouldn’t giving our kids better nutrition at lunch work here? Why wouldn’t shorter class hours and no standardized tests work here?

Moore’s point is that we are mired in this box of thinking that everything we do is the only way to do things and if it doesn’t work, it can’t be fixed. This is a film that attempts to prove that this isn’t the case at all and I think largely Moore succeeds in making his point. While I think that two hours is a bit long for this kind of film, at least he keeps it interesting with his sense of humor and his ability to tell a story in an entertaining way.

I don’t doubt that those who consider Moore to be an irresponsible socialist lefty with an axe to grind are going to hate this and reject the message out of hand simply because it’s Michael Moore delivering it. There are also those who are going to accept everything out of hand in this documentary simply because it’s Michael Moore saying it. It behooves us to do our own research and reach our own conclusions which most of us refuse to do because it’s too much trouble. And if you wonder why the world is so messed up, there’s your reason right there.

Nevertheless, Moore raises some valid points, poses some crucial questions and makes a film that is perhaps more optimistic than any he’s ever made, and one made out of – get this – patriotism. I’m not sure who said this, but whoever it was in my book was a very wise person – a true patriot is one who loves his country enough to want to change it for the better. You can read into that whatever you like.

REASONS TO GO: Much food for thought. Moore is a wonderful raconteur. Plenty of humor.
REASONS TO STAY: May be a little bit too long.
FAMILY VALUES: Plenty of foul language, some graphic nudity, disturbing photos and some drug use.
TRIVIAL PURSUIT: Moore with the cooperation of the distributors are screening the film for free from February 19 for two weeks in his hometown of Flint, Michigan owing to the water crisis there.
CRITICAL MASS: As of 2/19/16: Rotten Tomatoes: 76% positive reviews. Metacritic: 63/100.
COMPARISON SHOPPING: Sicko
FINAL RATING: 8/10
NEXT: Pride and Prejudice and Zombies

New Releases for the Week of February 12, 2016

DEADPOOL

(20^th Century Fox) Ryan Reynolds, Morena Baccarin, T.J. Miller, Gina Carano, Ed Skrein, Lesley Uggams, Greg LaSalle, Taylor Hickson. Directed by Tim Miller

This is not your daddy’s superhero movie – although it might just end up being your daddy. Wade Wilson is a mercenary with a particular set of skills…oh, not that tired old movie again. But Wade has a big problem – it’s cancer and it’s everywhere in his body. Things don’t look good for our good ol’ buddy Wade – until a mysterious man recruiting for a mysterious agency makes a proposal that Wade might not be able to turn down. One of the hotly anticipated movies of the year.

See the trailer, clips, interviews and promos here.
For more on the movie this is the website.
Release Formats: Standard (3D, IMAX 3D)
Genre: Superhero
Now Playing: Wide Release
Rating: R (for strong violence and language throughout, sexual content and graphic nudity)

Fitoor

(UTV) Katrina Kaif, Tabu, Aditya Roy Kapoor, Aditi Rao Hydari. A Bollywood take on the Charles Dickens classic Great Expectations. A young street boy in Kashmir falls in love with an upper class girl but the girl’s mother conspires to keep the young lovebirds apart.

See the trailer here.
For more on the movie this is the website.
Release Formats: Standard
Genre: Romance
Now Playing: AMC Loew’s Universal Cineplex, AMC West Oaks, Touchstar Southchase
Rating: PG-13 (for sexual content and some thematic issues)

How to Be Single

(New Line/MGM) Dakota Johnson, Rebel Wilson, Damon Wayans Jr., Leslie Mann. A group of young unmarrieds in the Big Apple cope with the vagaries of the dating scene in a digital world as well as the sometimes confusing rules of behavior between the sexes.

See the trailer, clips, interviews and B-roll video here.
For more on the movie this is the website.
Release Formats: Standard
Genre: Comedy
Now Playing: Wide Release
Rating: R (for sexual content and strong language throughout)

The Lady in the Van

(TriStar) Maggie Smith, Alex Jennings, Jim Broadbent, Roger Allam. Playwright and television presenter Alan Bennett is annoyed to discover an elderly woman living in her van in his driveway. Grudgingly, he allows her to stay, a decision that will change both their lives.

See the trailer and clips here.
For more on the movie this is the website.
Release Formats: Standard, 3D, IMAX 3D
Genre: True Life Drama
Now Playing: Regal Winter Park Village
Rating: PG-13 (for a brief unsettling image)

Tumbledown

(Starz Digital Media) Jason Sudeikis, Rebecca Hall, Dianna Agron, Blythe Danner. The widow of an iconic folksinger finds it hard to move on and retreats to the woods of Maine. When a brash New York writer approaches her with the proposal of writing his biography, she is at first cool to the idea but the more she allows him to write his story, the more she heals.

See the trailer here.
For more on the movie this is the website.
Release Formats: Standard
Genre: Romantic Comedy
Now Playing: AMC Loew’s Universal Cineplex
Rating: R (for a sex scene)

Where to Invade Next

(Drafthouse) Michael Moore, Tim Walker, Kirsta Kiuru. Professional gadfly and documentarian Moore turns his eye to the American dream and how it seems to be alive and well – and living in other places around the globe. He comes up with ways that dream is being pursued, and how the ideas that other countries have used can work here.

See the trailer here.
For more on the movie this is the website.
Release Formats: Standard
Genre: Documentary
Now Playing: Enzian Theater
Rating: R (for language, some violent images, drug use and brief graphic nudity)

Zoolander 2

(Paramount) Ben Stiller, Owen Wilson, Penelope Cruz, Will Ferrell. Down on his heels and irrelevant, supermodel Derek Zoolander gets back in the game in more way than one when a mysterious Interpol agent discloses that the world’s most beautiful celebrities are turning up dead – with Zoolander’s famous “blue steel” look on their faces. Lucky bastards

See the trailer and a clip here.
For more on the movie this is the website.
Release Formats: Standard
Genre: Comedy
Now Playing: Wide Release
Rating: PG-13 (for crude and sexual content, a scene of exaggerated violence, and brief strong language)

Sicko

Everything is golden in France.

(2007) Documentary (Lionsgate) Michael Moore, Tucker Albrizzi, Tony Benn, Reggie Cervantes, Richard M. Nixon, George W. Bush, Bill Clinton, Hillary Rodham Clinton, Billy Crystal, John Graham, Linda Peeno, Aleida Guevara, William Maher, Patrick Pedraja . Directed by Michael Moore

There is no doubt that America’s health care system is a national disgrace. It was true when Michael Moore made this documentary in 2006 and it is even more so today. While politicians bicker and posture, and lobbyists work their magic (in 2007 there were four health care lobbyists for every politician in Washington), people suffer and die.

Rather than point the camera at the 50 million Americans without any health care (a number that has increased since this film was made), Moore instead focuses on the 150 million that do (a number that has decreased since the film was made). He does it in a way reminiscent of an old joke; all Americans who think they are covered by their health care plans step forward – not so fast, you there.

He does this anecdotally, looking at individual cases that are heartbreaking and horrific. Mothers whose daughters were in need of critical attention at an Emergency Room being told their health care plan didn’t cover care at that hospital, and having the daughter die en route to a different hospital. A woman knocked unconscious in an auto accident being carted to the hospital by ambulance only to be charged for her ride because she didn’t pre-approve the ambulance, something she could have done if she were conscious.

Bureaucrats who are paid bonuses to deny coverage, to the point where legitimate claims are being denied because of an undisclosed yeast infection years ago. Volunteers at Ground Zero, breathing in toxic fumes in order to help recover bodies, develop respiratory ailments and are denied coverage because they were volunteers. It’s enough to make your blood boil.

Moore makes a case for socialized medicine and on the surface it’s a pretty compelling one. In France, doctors make house calls and maternity leaves are a full year. In England, doctors in their socialized medical system continue to live among the upper strata of society, putting paid the fear that doctors here would become underpaid and eventually the best and brightest wouldn’t want to be in the medical profession here.

Moore looks at the bureaucracies at HMOs, pharmaceutical companies and health insurance companies, noting the obscene profits they make and debunking the popular excuse that these companies put their profits into research and development, which is patently not true.

Moore pretty much leaves no room for doubt as to where he stands – that’s pretty much true of all his films – and while you have to admire his conviction and loyalty to his opinions, there is no discussion of any other options, as if we’re either stuck with the system we have or go with socialized medicine. There is no middle ground, or even different options. However on a personal note, I happen to agree with Moore in this instance.

In the four years since this documentary was made, a new President has been elected, one who attempted to institute reform to our health care system and has been fought tooth and nail on every front. We wound up with a watered-down version of what he originally wanted, one which Republicans vow will be overturned.

As I said to begin with, the state of health care in the United States is a national disgrace. It doesn’t have to do with the doctors and nurses and technicians who provide extraordinary care to their patients but with the bureaucrats and politicians who undermine the ability of those health care professionals to provide that care to all who need it.

Let me put this in another way. Let’s say the CEO of Goldman Sachs gets a rare form of cancer. At the same time, an unemployed factory worker gets the same exact disease. Both need an expensive and rare treatment. The CEO, with the best health care money can buy, will in all likelihood not be denied by the health insurance he carries and even if he is, he can afford to pay for it himself. The factory worker, unable to afford the treatment, must hope he gets better on his own. My question to you is this; why is the life of the CEO of Goldman Sachs worth more than that of the unemployed factory worker? And why is some functionary at a health insurance company allowed to make that call?

WHY RENT THIS: A scathing look at a problem which continues to plague us to this day.

WHY RENT SOMETHING ELSE: As is typical for Moore, he tends to be overly slanted towards his own beliefs; other solutions tend to be ridiculed or not given coverage at all.

FAMILY VALUES: Some of the language is a little rough and the concepts might fly over the head of younger people.

TRIVIAL PURSUIT: Insurance companies banned their employees from speaking to Moore under any circumstance for this documentary.

NOTABLE DVD EXTRAS: There’s a music video, a featurette on Norway’s policies which outdo those of France, a look at an attempt to introduce a national health insurance plan pre-Obamacare and a look at community fundraisers to aid those who can’t afford their medical bills.

BOX OFFICE PERFORMANCE: $36.1M on a $9M production budget; the movie was a modest hit.

FINAL RATING: 8/10

TOMORROW: Make Believe

Capitalism: A Love Story

Michael Moore is sounding a call to arms but is anybody listening?

Overture) Michael Moore, Wallace Shawn, William Black, Marcy Kaptur, Elizabeth Warren, Baron Hill, Elijah Cummings, George W. Bush, Barack Obama, Ronald Reagan, Robert Powell, Sarah Palin, John McCain. Directed by Michael Moore

Shortly before the Presidential elections of 2008, the economy of America went through a meltdown. Greedy banks, whose regulatory agencies were hamstrung and de-clawed, had written mortgages that almost guaranteed that the homeowners would default. Even though the FBI had warned of an epidemic of fraudulent loans, nobody paid heed until it was far too late.

Filmmaker Michael Moore is often described as a gadfly, but here he is a crusader, going after the very heart of American wealth – the capitalist system. He skewers it mercilessly on the lance of logic and fact, showing indisputably how the system was set up to maximize the ability of the rich to increase their share of the wealth, and how those who should have been protecting the interests of average Americans were profiting by assisting those fat cats in pillaging our country.

20 years after Roger and Me, Moore again takes on the captains of industry but he has widened his scope. No longer confined to the misery of Flint, Michigan, he shows how the elite of our banking and political institutions have conspired to turn the entire country into Flint. He shows hardworking families being forced to leave their homes because they can no longer afford to pay mortgages at the outrageous interest rates the banks were charging in their Adjustable Rate Mortgage (ARM).

He shows blue chip companies taking out life insurance policies on their workers so that they might profit should they die unexpectedly – without the knowledge of the families of those workers. He talks to congressmen who were bullied and railroaded into passing the bailout of the banks three weeks before they were up for re-election without giving them time to study the ramifications of these bailouts – and without knowing that the Treasury Secretary had inserted a clause that protected those banks from any sort of oversight or court challenge. That’s your tax dollars at work – paying the bonuses of executives at A.I.G. and Bank of America, and buying luxury private planes for Goldman-Sachs.

He shows how Goldman-Sachs essentially staged a coup d’état after their executives were appointed to key positions in the White House, and then sent out hundreds of billions of tax dollars to preferred corporate recipients.

It’s enough to make you want to pick up a pitchfork and a torch and lead an angry mob to a corporate headquarters. However, Moore also shows instances of people standing up united and defying injustice masquerading as government authority. He shows the Republic Glass and Window Company’s workers refusing to leave the building after being massively laid off and not paid the money due them. They staged a sit-in there in late 2008 and refused to leave until they got the money they were owed. Although some media coverage is shown, quite frankly I don’t remember the story at all.

A few people come off as heroes; Congresswoman Marcy Kaptur from Ohio, who from the House of Representatives floor urged people not to leave their homes if evicted and demand that the evictors show them a copy of their mortgage which they would be unlikely to have. Whistle-blower Bill Black, who helped bring the Charles Keating S&L scandal to light 20 years ago, weighs in on the current crisis as well.

Moore’s sympathies are certainly with the working class, and he tends to focus in on how the crisis is affecting them. He does spend some time with a few middle class folk, but largely it is those who work blue collar jobs that get his attention. Also, as Moore is prone to doing, he grandstands an awful lot, going to various financial institutions trying to make citizens arrests of their CEO’s for fraud, placing crime scene tape around the stock exchange and so on.

Moore has a wicked sense of humor and it comes through in unexpected places. I was laughing out loud at some of his cracks, as well as the judicious editing that juxtaposes ancient Rome with modern America.

This is a serious subject that has rippled through the lives of virtually every American. Some of the material here will make you want to go and string up a few of these arrogant pricks by their genitals. It should be required viewing for every high school senior and college student in order to understand how economics work…or don’t work, to be more to the point.

Moore definitely has an agenda and a political stance, and he makes no bones about it. Right-wingers are going to absolutely hate this movie, especially since he characterizes capitalism as evil and urges that we drop it as an economic system. Capitalism is a sacred cow that we have been brought up to revere as the centerpiece of our American freedoms, and it isn’t lightly that we would consider such an act, but given the abuses that we have seen with our own eyes and are portrayed here, that kind of consideration may just be warranted.

REASONS TO GO: A marvelous indictment of the modern political and economic system in America. Well-reasoned, it explains exactly how we got into this mess and also illustrates very clearly how we can get out of it.

REASONS TO STAY: Those who disagree with Moore’s politics aren’t going to like this at all. While he doesn’t say it overtly, he tacitly advocates socialism over capitalism which might not go over well with the Christian right.

FAMILY VALUES: Some language issues and some difficult adult subjects. Should be required viewing for all high school seniors and college students.

TRIVIAL PURSUIT: The Detroit premiere of the movie was in a theater located in the same building that houses the World Headquarters of General Motors. Moore was initially denied entrance to his own premiere until he came in without cameras or press hours later.

HOME OR THEATER: This has no epic scope other than that it is all about the issues that face every one of us. Conceptually, it should be seen on the big screen but from a sheer viewing standpoint, home video is fine.

FINAL RATING: 10/10

TOMORROW: Miss Pettigrew Lives For a Day