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Michael Moore has been
both demonized and deified. He's almost as polarizing as the people
he attacks. Some of this stems from his less than straight forward
way of going after his targets. Conservatives hate to see this overweight
schlub barging his way into the upper echelons. It disturbs their
weird idol worship and balance of power and makes them jealous at
the same time. For every person who has his eyes opened by the ''emperor
has no clothes'' tact, there is another that is pissed off that someone
had the gall and audacity to point it out. Despite being well on the
side of pointing out hypocrisy and dirty dealings in every form, I
too have my issues with Moore. There's no denying the man makes interesting
documentaries, and makes a lot of salient arguments, but he frequently
undermines his own zeal by ignoring important factors by appealing
to purely emotional reactions rather than rational ones. Yes, Roger
Smith is kind of an asshole. He looks like a five-a-day gin drunk,
and tends to tip himself very well, but the man is running a business.
Moore goes after him as though he's Dr. Evil, and has purposely gone
out of his way to destroy Flint, Michigan. As if towns all around
the country that relied on one industry haven't bitten the dust throughout
the history of the US. Take a drive through upstate New York sometime
and see what mill closings have done to that whole area. Ditto industrial
parts of PA and Ohio. The story is really less about GM and Roger
Smith than it is about the death of an American town. City officials,
and their wacky plans to turn Flint into a tourist destination, are
almost as much to blame for the ultimate collapse of Flint as the
auto industry. Smith is just a convenient villain on which Moore can
hang the blame. Are we supposed to be surprised and angry that security
doesn't let Moore up to Smith's office, and that they cut him off
from speaking at a stock holder's meeting that he snuck into? All
this aside, Moore really does put his heart into this thing. You can
feel the disappointment flowing from him about his hometown. He probably
feels a bit like one of those rabbits we get to watch get conked on
the head with a steel pipe and stripped of its flesh. This isn∆t one
of those old film strips we used to watch in third grade, or Nanook
of the North; this was the new documentary whose maker injected
it with all the elements of fiction they could find. Again, this is
the problem, as Moore finds himself reaching at times for these elements
in order to make them fit within his pointûwhatever that point may
be. In the end, this is a fun and interesting exploration into a segment
of blue collar American society, but not a great academic document
about corporate greed and the devil and Mr. Smith. [AMC]
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