Congrats to Michael Moore for winning the Palme d'Or at Cannes this weekend for Farenheit 911. Please hold for sarcasm. Sarcasm on. I really hope this helps the movie get distributed in America -- because those Weinsten brothers don't hold any sway in that regard at all. Score one for the little guys. Sarcasm off.
There's probably a lot of great stuff in the film, and I look forward to seeing it, rather than reading about it from people who have -- or more often, hearing praise and criticism already from people who haven't. Lots of my fellow liberals seem to think it's going to be this huge eye-opening moment for the American public and that its recent publicity and success further cement that fact. I don't think winning a French award on a jury helmed by Quentin Tarantino will help the film's status in the eyes of John Q. Patriot, but whatever.
I believe Shack at BitchPanic put it best when he wrote:
I don't care that I'm just as politically liberal as Michael Moore. There's a point in the movie [Bowling for Columbine] where he harangues a police officer in Los Angeles about the smog and keeps asking him why he doesn't arrest whoever is responsible. I was watching this, thinking to myself, "I'm sorry, does that van you guys have been driving around in operate on your smug sense of superiority?"
Though you can't separate the two, I respect Moore as Filmmaker but find Moore as Political Entity dangerous to the Cause. What cause? Any cause he gets behind. Hell, he even made the rude practice of the orchestra cutting you off at the Academy Awards seem palatable.
