Live from TIFF: Captain Mike Across America
Captain Mike Across America *1/2
Directed by Michael Moore
102 Minutes
I was honestly looking forward to writing this during the movie-the awful and completely self-absorbed "Captain Mike Across America." Now we've already had a Michael Moore movie this year-the very good "Sicko"-and instead of waiting a few years to give us his next film, Moore already had something on the shelves. And he introduced the movie at the festival for about five minutes-most directors, and the best introductions, are short and sweet, the best of them was only about thirty seconds long. Brevity is better than overstaying your welcome.
Moore takes us back to 2004, right before the elections between Bush and Kerry. Weeks before the election was too take place, Moore went around the country to over sixty college campuses to convince young adults to vote-and to obviously not vote for Bush. Dubbed the Slacker Uprising Tour, Moore offered free Ramen Noodles and fresh pairs of underwear-as a joke, clearly-to get these students to want to vote. And he has all of his rallies with musical introductions-one by R.E.M. And there are comedy act introductions-one very funny one by Roseanne Barr. And there are the Bush fans that are completely against anything Moore has to say, and he is always ready to bash them right back. And the election comes closer and closer, and Moore becomes convinced that his work is actually making a difference.
There are some neat things in the beginning about how the election numbers changed. When Kerry starts to rise in the polls and actually have a higher percentage than Bush, Bush came back with TV ads by Vietnam veterans saying bad things about Kerry, and then when Kerry did not speak out against these ads early enough , his numbers went down. And then he made things worse by voting for the war, and saying that to the public. Moore never glorified Kerry at all, but clearly finds Kerry as a better option than Bush.
I'm not saying anything against Moore's tactics, but I'm here to review his movie and this movie is just-not-needed. This is Michael Moore's little love letter to himself. He depicts himself as a hero, standing up on the stage and having us watch him rally these people. And Moore seems to get off having himself large on the screen-even though in his intro he told us how sorry he was for us to be looking at him on a giant screen as he isn't easy on the eye. Moore seemed to only want to make this to show us how popular he is and how controversial and how he is leading a revolt.Maybe if somebody else made the movie about the tour instead of Moore forcing his vast inspiration on us, I may feel differently. But its still a pointless effort. I like Moore's films, except "Fahrenheit 9/11, really", but with "Captain Mike Across America" he is at the peak of his self-indulgent and narcissistic ways. Did he really need to make an entire film about the 2004 elections again? Was there any need for this at all? Maybe if he took he footage and cut a twenty minute short on a future DVD of "Fahrenheit 9/11"-which I have a feeling may come out either when "Sicko" comes out on DVD, or right before the 2008 elections.
After the film Moore did a Q&A for the packed audience. Oh I'm sorry, did I say Q&A? What I really should have said was people standing up and saying how much they admire Moore and how his films will change the world without asking anything question, while Moore looked bashful on the stage. No questions. . . no answers. . . nothing. Just a waste of my time. And when the cameraman and editor of the film came on stage, the moderator did ask (because its his job) what the originally intention for this film was. The editor said "When I shot this, we never thought we would make a movie, Michael just wanted to get the tour on film. And then we had this footage and we were wondering what we should do with it." What I heard as "Fahrenheit 9/11 made over 100 million dollars at the box office, and we have this footage that could probably also make that much money." "Captain Mike Across America" is really just a self-indulgent little film that is just not needed to see on the big screen. Maybe on TV. . . maybe. Even though the festival screening was like I was at a political rally-and I heard a few anti-American comments by some of the forever Canadian residents, which Moore never really seemed to deny-I sense that Moore fans will see that this is a pointless work. If he wanted to make another documentary so soon he should go in the field instead of releasing dead footage for something that is not needed to see. Come on, the elections are coming up in a year. Do we really need to go back in the past?
Directed by Michael Moore
102 Minutes
I was honestly looking forward to writing this during the movie-the awful and completely self-absorbed "Captain Mike Across America." Now we've already had a Michael Moore movie this year-the very good "Sicko"-and instead of waiting a few years to give us his next film, Moore already had something on the shelves. And he introduced the movie at the festival for about five minutes-most directors, and the best introductions, are short and sweet, the best of them was only about thirty seconds long. Brevity is better than overstaying your welcome.
Moore takes us back to 2004, right before the elections between Bush and Kerry. Weeks before the election was too take place, Moore went around the country to over sixty college campuses to convince young adults to vote-and to obviously not vote for Bush. Dubbed the Slacker Uprising Tour, Moore offered free Ramen Noodles and fresh pairs of underwear-as a joke, clearly-to get these students to want to vote. And he has all of his rallies with musical introductions-one by R.E.M. And there are comedy act introductions-one very funny one by Roseanne Barr. And there are the Bush fans that are completely against anything Moore has to say, and he is always ready to bash them right back. And the election comes closer and closer, and Moore becomes convinced that his work is actually making a difference.
There are some neat things in the beginning about how the election numbers changed. When Kerry starts to rise in the polls and actually have a higher percentage than Bush, Bush came back with TV ads by Vietnam veterans saying bad things about Kerry, and then when Kerry did not speak out against these ads early enough , his numbers went down. And then he made things worse by voting for the war, and saying that to the public. Moore never glorified Kerry at all, but clearly finds Kerry as a better option than Bush.
I'm not saying anything against Moore's tactics, but I'm here to review his movie and this movie is just-not-needed. This is Michael Moore's little love letter to himself. He depicts himself as a hero, standing up on the stage and having us watch him rally these people. And Moore seems to get off having himself large on the screen-even though in his intro he told us how sorry he was for us to be looking at him on a giant screen as he isn't easy on the eye. Moore seemed to only want to make this to show us how popular he is and how controversial and how he is leading a revolt.Maybe if somebody else made the movie about the tour instead of Moore forcing his vast inspiration on us, I may feel differently. But its still a pointless effort. I like Moore's films, except "Fahrenheit 9/11, really", but with "Captain Mike Across America" he is at the peak of his self-indulgent and narcissistic ways. Did he really need to make an entire film about the 2004 elections again? Was there any need for this at all? Maybe if he took he footage and cut a twenty minute short on a future DVD of "Fahrenheit 9/11"-which I have a feeling may come out either when "Sicko" comes out on DVD, or right before the 2008 elections.
After the film Moore did a Q&A for the packed audience. Oh I'm sorry, did I say Q&A? What I really should have said was people standing up and saying how much they admire Moore and how his films will change the world without asking anything question, while Moore looked bashful on the stage. No questions. . . no answers. . . nothing. Just a waste of my time. And when the cameraman and editor of the film came on stage, the moderator did ask (because its his job) what the originally intention for this film was. The editor said "When I shot this, we never thought we would make a movie, Michael just wanted to get the tour on film. And then we had this footage and we were wondering what we should do with it." What I heard as "Fahrenheit 9/11 made over 100 million dollars at the box office, and we have this footage that could probably also make that much money." "Captain Mike Across America" is really just a self-indulgent little film that is just not needed to see on the big screen. Maybe on TV. . . maybe. Even though the festival screening was like I was at a political rally-and I heard a few anti-American comments by some of the forever Canadian residents, which Moore never really seemed to deny-I sense that Moore fans will see that this is a pointless work. If he wanted to make another documentary so soon he should go in the field instead of releasing dead footage for something that is not needed to see. Come on, the elections are coming up in a year. Do we really need to go back in the past?
posted by Eric at
2:06 PM
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