Saw the film last night.
I thought Columbine was pretty good. I thought Roger and Me was very good.
F9/11 leaves everything else he has done (film, television, books) in the dust. It is a great film, really really powerful. And it is absolutely sensitive and tasteful in the was it portrays the events of September 11 (for those suggesting Moore is profiting off the death of innocents, he pretty effectively puts things in perspective re Carlyle Group, Haliburton, United Defense et al.). You never see the Towers on 9-11, the people jumping out of windows, the thousands of deaths that were so sensationalized by every media outlet to the point of dehumanization. You hear the impacts while the screen is dark, then you see the horror of the events in the reactions of the witnesses as they unfold.
That's the way the whole film is. The people in it tell the story, not Moore.
And I didn't really grasp it until I saw it, but the quips about bias and lack of balance are bunk. Not because there is not a particularly Moore-ist anti-Bush/anti-corporate slant, because there most certainly is. The point is that the film does NOT exist in a vaccuum, and the events depicted did not occur in a vaccuum. You cannot help but take in Moores portrayal and be constantly processing them against everything you have already internalized from other media outlets. The film can't reasonably be taken to task for lack of balance because, in fact, it IS THE BALANCE - against the Bizzaro fabricated versions of events we have been fed and continue to be fed. We all have the party line version of things ingrained in us. Moore gives you the pieces that have been carefully, systematically, and insidiously omitted.
And you are left to wonder WHY there is so much stuff here you NEVER SAW BEFORE. We all saw the post 2000 election coverage for 2 months, and I know I saw more of it than most. But I never saw any detailed coverage of the outrage and protest of inauguration day in DC as seen in the first few minutes of teh film, because the networks decided not to show that. Ditto for the widespread disillusionment of the troops as they realize they have been placed in harm's way and assked to kill and die as part of an idealogue agenda. Ditto for the portrayal of the Iraqi citizenry as (*gasp*) feeling, caring, (dying) human beings.
There is no point in debating the merits of the film until everyone has seen it. To this point I have only argued in favor of the right for Moore to make the film but had no ability to discuss the film itself. I thought it would be pretty good, but thought it would fall short of the hype surrounding it (as Columbine did for me). It is so much more and so much better than what I had anticipated.
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