Just forget the words and sing along

Sunday, December 18, 2005

OK, just another lazy Sunday afternoon. I should sit down and write an article for the website. Yes, I do have one written already, but I need to write one anyway, if I want to maintain my "three weeks ahead" scheme.

Problem is, I'm so uninspired right now. I've got no good ideas for articles. Maybe I can write one based on what just happened to me....

I was flipping around, and on one of the many cable channels I get, I noticed that The Big One was on. The Big One is Michael Moore's third film, his second documentary, and, probably my favoruite film of his. It was filmed mostly in 1996, as he was on his book tour to promote his first book, Downsize This! It shows him doing book readings and crashing the heads of big corporations that just happen to be in the cities he's passing through. It all culminates in Portland, when he actually gets to go hang out with Nike founder and CEO Phil Knight.

In essence, it's a movie version of Downsize This!, as he follows up on a lot of the points he makes in the book. It also serves as a final episode to his mid-90s TV show TV Nation, simply because it looks and feels like unaired TV Nation segments compiled into a film.

As I watched it, I couldn't help but smile. THIS was the Michael Moore I had fallen in love with. This was back at a time when he still used humour to make his points, and he didn't beat you over the head with his message. Don't get me wrong, I also enjoy Bowling for Columbine and Farenheight 9/11 had its good points, but in those films, Moore's humour was gone. His wit seems to have been replaced with bitterness and sarcasm.

Maybe, in the end then, Michael Moore only works best in 10 minute segments, produced in one week, like on TV Nation. In that timeframe, he doesn't have the time to do his trademark suggestive editing or research dubious statistics to back him up. That's when he comes across like me, and when his "regular Joe" imagine is genuine. In those cases, he's just a normal guy asking the simple questions that we can't seem to get an answer to. And when he doesn't get an answer, he falls back on the joke.

That's the Michael Moore I love.

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