I enjoy moore's stuff, he's a ham but all showmen are. He usually offers good entertainment and a few clever indictments of our society.

But this "controversy" about fahrenheit 9/11 is the biggest non-issue since janet jackson shared a nipple with the world. Does ANYONE honestly think this movie won't get released? I think moore made a mistake by over doing this, I think disney is a bunch of conservative nazi's like every other liberal but this attempt to make it look like they're squashing the truth or aren't distributing it to protect their tax breaks in Florida is just stupid. I will bet my car against a paperclip that moore had 10 distributors lined up to release this before the "story" even broke.

I respect publicity stunts but I think the ridiculous nature of his claims are alienating potential viewers like myself not enticing them. If you hate moore this won't change that but if you like him this just makes him look like a jackass.

I think this backfired on him. Any thoughts?

I think it's hilarious that people are buying the Disney line. "He knew this was coming."

Okay, okay. So this is Michael Moore. If he says anything about it when he finds out about the distribution problem, he'll be characterized as flying off the handle without having tried to reconcile the issue first. So instead he deals with the situation for a year and finds no recourse, so he talks to his fans about it. And now he's "exploiting" old news?

See ... the weird thing is that the Disney move costs everybody but Moore money. Mirimax loses, Disney loses. The film will be released to be sure, but Disney well may be in breach of contract. Which is why none of this makes sense whatsoever.

The contract issue must be resolved before anything can be said about a "backfiring" stunt.

Additionally, Moore has a history of being censored. His publisher tried to block Stupid White Men until American librarians nationwide threatened to boycott the publisher.

This is about more than publicity for one movie. This is about the fact that the only freedom in the country seems to be the freedom to play along with the Big Lies.

If Moore is so irresponsible and inaccurate, and if the film is going to make bank, then release it, watch the receipts roll in, watch Moore's credibility plummet, and get on with life.

Except it wouldn't happen that way, and everybody knows it. Moore may be bombastic, but you'll notice he hasn't been wiped out for libel or slander yet.

Isn't there a pretty big difference between being "censored" and "not being published"? Isn't it the publisher's "free speech" to tell him to piss off? Isn't in the librarian's "free speech" they'll boycott if they publish his crap?

Why the double standard?

I don't see a double-standard if the contract issue resolves that Disney is in breach. And I do think it will. If you're Moore, this isn't the sort of prank you pull for the hell of it unless you're prepared to pay out the nose for all manner of libel and slander.

If Disney is resolved to be in breach of contract, then there will be no apparent double-standard. In both cases, a company will have reneged on its contractual agreements for political reasons.

A general note:

Regarding Disney's place as a "family" company that shouldn't be involved in politics:Disney spokesmen and Eisner have countered that they didn't want to be involved in a political project during an election year. Eisner told CNBC: "We're such a nonpartisan company," he said; people "do not look for us to take sides."

He seems to have forgotten that ABC Radio syndicates Rush Limbaugh and Fox News' very own Sean Hannity — two pretty politically opinionated fellows! And last Friday, ABC's "Nightline" consisted of a controversial roll-call of American soldiers who have died in Iraq — considered to be anti-Bush administration by many. (FOX News (http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,119253,00.html))I understand Disney foisting the image of a family company against the ridiculous assaults of the Rev. Wildmon crowd, but ... it doesn't work this time out. Fairness and Accuracy In Reporting (FAIR} has undertaken this discussion - click here (http://www.fair.org/activism/disney-moore-update.html).

To me, everything in this comes back to whether or not Disney is in breach of contract. Right now, the impression is that they are, but this is only secondary, because the discussion tends to avoid that issue.

"We informed both the agency that represented the film and all of our companies that we just didn't want to be in the middle of a politically-oriented film during an election year."

(Disney CEO Michael Eisner)

_____________________

• FAIR. "Eisner's Fantasyland Excuse for Censorship." May 7, 2004. See http://www.fair.org/activism/disney-moore-update.html
• FOX News. "Gibson Pal 'Signed Deal' to Finance Moore Movie." May 7, 2004. See http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,119253,00.html

I think it's hilarious that people are buying the Disney line. "He knew this was coming."

buying the line? moore admitted it on CNN for christs sake.

Quote by Moore from an interview on CNN: "Almost a year ago, after we'd started making the film, the chairman of Disney, Michael Eisner, told my agent he was upset Miramax had made the film and he will not distribute it."

See ... the weird thing is that the Disney move costs everybody but Moore money. Mirimax loses, Disney loses. The film will be released to be sure, but Disney well may be in breach of contract. Which is why none of this makes sense whatsoever.

I agree disney is nuts but I think they feel it's less risky to stay where their bread is buttered. Much safer to stick with bland, conservative tripe and avoid alienating the only people that still consume their products.


Like I said, I like moore, I'm a card carrying lefty for the most part. It's this "poor me, the evil right-wing is trying to hide the truth" nonsense that bugs me. At this point in his career it's IMPOSSIBLE that something he wants to release would be shelved (not to mention that with the internet true censorship is a near impossibility). In a few months 'the movie "they" never wanted you to see!' will come out and make a fortune.

I just think mike over did the "attack of the evil conservatives" angle. Embellishment was unnecessary and I think it was an error. He gave away a little bit of credibility, not much but a little and for no reason.

I agree with buffy's booby.

Sorry I just wanted to say booby.

*shuns self*

damn straight! if you don't buy my argument know that, as Keats said, "Booby is truth, truth booby."

err... sorry, had to say it.

Quote by Moore from an interview on CNN: "Almost a year ago, after we'd started making the film, the chairman of Disney, Michael Eisner, told my agent he was upset Miramax had made the film and he will not distribute it."I would direct you then to the intermediate paragraph of my post you skipped. Perhaps it didn't seem worth responding to at the time:

• "Okay, okay. So this is Michael Moore. If he says anything about it when he finds out about the distribution problem, he'll be characterized as flying off the handle without having tried to reconcile the issue first. So instead he deals with the situation for a year and finds no recourse, so he talks to his fans about it. And now he's "exploiting" old news?"

So should Moore have ripped them last year and not even tried to deal with them at all?

And then the Moore-haters could sit around and say, "Look how unreasonable he's being! He hasn't even tried to negotiate or talk to Disney!"

tiassa

you make fine points but they really don't have much to do with my particular complaints. How many ways can I say it, I'm a mike moore fan! I just think he handled this poorly, thats all. Did disney do better? no, but that wasn't my thread's point, saying disney is run by idiots is like saying the sky is blue.

Moore acted like he was blind sided by disney and he wasn't, it's that simple. thats all I'm saying. He said disney was not distributing the movie to protect their tax status in florida, when he was challenged about it he qualified saying that was actually just his assumption of their motives and no one a disney actually said it.

I just hate when people exaggerate to this degree, whatever political views they hold. This was a non-issue that was inflated just before the movie's release at cannes, again I have no problem with garnering whatever hype you can. I just think, as I said, it backfired if he wants to continue be taken seriously (in a political/social sense).

I think disney is a bunch of conservative nazi's like every other liberal
Um... what?

Um... what?

what, what?

everyone knows disney is secretly incubating the anti-christ and it's board is occupied by clones of Hitler, Stalin, Mussolini, Kim, Caligula and Trent Lott. And, of course, Michael Eisner is an incredibly advanced animatronic puppeteered by Rush Limbaugh, this is all common knowledge.

what don't you understand? The sky is blue, water is wet, disney is evil personified.

Moore acted like he was blind sided by disney and he wasn't, it's that simple. thats all I'm sayingFair 'nuff. I just read it differently.

Michael Eisner is still pushing the line (http://www.iht.com/articles/519205.html) about how Moore knew a year in advance.

I mean, as I look around, the point of accusing Moore of a stunt seems to center around the May, 2003 notice of the film. (Example (http://www.humaneventsonline.com/article.php?id=3856).) I don't see any sense of pretending to be blindsided in Michael Moore's message to his fans (http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/message/index.php?messageDate=2004-05-04). In fact, I would look to the phrase, "Yesterday I was told that Disney, the studio that owns Miramax, has officially decided to prohibit our producer, Miramax, from distributing my new film, 'Fahrenheit 9/11'."

Officially ... as in ... all discussion is off.

See, the thing that disturbs me is that the "blindsided" issue casts Moore as even more slapdash than usual. It implies that he got word from Disney, didn't say anything to them in response, and decided to complain just last week. In fact, his May 7 (http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/message/index.php?messageDate=2004-05-07) message offers one side of the story.

Disney should also remember that whether or not they want to be associated with the film, all Mike has to do in order to have the last word is, regardless of who distributes it, insert a card at the beginning of the film thanking Disney for the $6 million that went into production even though they wrote the checks knowing they didn't want to distribute it.

Michael Eisner is still pushing the line (http://www.iht.com/articles/519205.html) about how Moore knew a year in advance.


yes, yes disney IS pushing the line... but so is mike (and he pushed, in the media at least, first). I expect that from disney but since I'm a fan of mike, his nonsense is worse.

Thus my thread.

I think it's hilarious that people are buying the Disney line. "He knew this was coming."

but he admitted that he knew it was coming.


Okay, okay. So this is Michael Moore. If he says anything about it when he finds out about the distribution problem, he'll be characterized as flying off the handle without having tried to reconcile the issue first. So instead he deals with the situation for a year and finds no recourse, so he talks to his fans about it. And now he's "exploiting" old news?

no, trying to work something out for a year wouldn't be exploiting old news. pretending you didn't know about it and screaming bloody murder about how disney is trying to derail your film a few short weeks prior to its release when you've known they were going to refuse to distribute the movie for a year is.

See ... the weird thing is that the Disney move costs everybody but Moore money. Mirimax loses, Disney loses. The film will be released to be sure, but Disney well may be in breach of contract. Which is why none of this makes sense whatsoever.

yes and no. moore's deal was with miramax and only with disney by virtue that disney owns miramax. this has been rather contentious in the past, as disney is a "family" company and miramax is not (reservoir dogs, dogma and kill bill aren't quite intended for the same audience as bambi). specifically, releasing movies which are politically partisan or which challenge moral institutions (as dogma did) are not very popular with disney's primary audience, so it is not in their interests to be associated with them.

The contract issue must be resolved before anything can be said about a "backfiring" stunt.

who said anything about it backfiring? it's been pulled off particularly well, i think.

Additionally, Moore has a history of being censored. His publisher tried to block Stupid White Men until American librarians nationwide threatened to boycott the publisher.

This is about more than publicity for one movie. This is about the fact that the only freedom in the country seems to be the freedom to play along with the Big Lies.

:rolleyes:

If Moore is so irresponsible and inaccurate, and if the film is going to make bank, then release it, watch the receipts roll in, watch Moore's credibility plummet, and get on with life.

Except it wouldn't happen that way, and everybody knows it. Moore may be bombastic, but you'll notice he hasn't been wiped out for libel or slander yet.
congratulations on buying moore's propaganda line. as moore puts it, "there is a reason that i have never been sued over anything in my three books -- that's because everything in them is true." yeah. right.

Angie• but he admitted that he knew it was coming.
• no, trying to work something out for a year wouldn't be exploiting old news. pretending you didn't know about it and screaming bloody murder about how disney is trying to derail your film a few short weeks prior to its release when you've known they were going to refuse to distribute the movie for a year is .So ... I guess he's also a horrible person for taking the millions that Disney continued to feed him over that year in order to get the movie made. That stake is now up for sale, apparently (http://www.forbes.com/newswire/2004/05/12/rtr1369687.html).

Geez ... Disney's sending money, the parties were still talking in the distribution dispute ... why in the world would Moore light up Disney until they committed?
yes and no. moore's deal was with miramax and only with disney by virtue that disney owns miramax Disney's arrangement with Miramax allows them to pull films rated NC-17 and above, and to pull films that are running over-budget. Neither of these issues have been demonstrated. This is apparently a contentious issue, as well.this has been rather contentious in the past, as disney is a "family" company and miramax is not ( reservoir dogs, dogma and kill bill aren't quite intended for the same audience as bambi ). specifically, releasing movies which are politically partisan or which challenge moral institutions (as dogma did) are not very popular with disney's primary audience, so it is not in their interests to be associated with them. This is actually one of the most offensively deceptive things about the Disney excuse. A "family" company? This isn't quite the controversy over the fantasy-world of a Disney prostitute. But at the same time, Disney has investments in broadcasting such apparently-nonpolitical programming as radio shows by Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh, Laura Ingraham, and Matt Drudge. Disney carries the 700 Club on its cable-tv operations

I'm only invoking the Saudi connection here to say that it's not yet part of the discussion for me; I haven't enough detail. I reiterate a link from Fairness and Accuracy In Reporting (http://www.fair.org/activism/disney-moore-update.html), which organization has invoked the Saudi connection.

I'll make an obvious political analogy here:

• Even on those occasions when the Bush administration delivers something positive, it is like pulling teeth. To wit, apologizing was the last thing the president wanted to do, for whatever reasons, vis a vis Abu Ghraib. So he gave an interview, didn't apologize; held a "press availability" and said, "I apologized to the king of another country." This latter, incidentally, is said to have come only because the Jordanian delegation apparently told the President in polite language that without something to take to the Arab people regarding Abu Ghraib, Jordan was not in a position to talk about anything. And, well, the press didn't really buy it and the people started to get sick of it. Bush apparently apologized directly in a print interview with an Egyptian journal, but nobody--not the Egyptians, not the American press, and certainly not the White House--are working to put the apology in front of the world. Now, the comparative point is that getting a simple apology or a simple reason (I scripted it out for the President in a relevant topic) why no apology is given ... it just doesn't look genuine that way.

Similarly, the way Disney is dancing around this issue is like pulling teeth:

• The movie will be distributed, even if through alternate routes; it hasn't been "blocked" or "censored." (Funny, that used to be called censorship when it was America's "enemies" who forced their authors and creators to find alternative distribution. The only censored writers, then, of the Soviet era are the ones we never heard about, and the ones we have are dishonest sensationalists begging for publicity.)

• Disney has the right to refuse distribution. (Show that the film is NC-17 or over-budget, or else show how that part of the relationship with Miramax has been misconstrued, Mr. Eisner.)

• Disney is a family company, not political. (See prior considerations.)

• Moore knew last year that Disney did not want to distribute the film. (And? Seriously ... one thing we know for sure about this is that it is Michael Moore we're talking about here. The reactions are predictable. Should Moore have been a "blowhard" and wrecked any salvaging of the situation by taking Disney to the woodshed publicly last year? Should Moore have hung in there and tried to salvage the situation by talking to Disney and continuing to work with them? Has anyone actually read Mike's Message from May 5, 2004 (http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/message/index.php?messageDate=2004-05-04)? The one where he says, "Yesterday, I was told that Disney, the studio that owns Miramax, has officially decided to prohibit our producer, Miramax, from distributing my new film, Farenheit 9/11." What's that? Officially decided? Well ... that also is a source of contention, as Disney's board of directors had a meeting the week before Moore's announcement, and that seems to be where Moore is drawing the line for the end of the process. Of course, what exactly that meeting involved ... There's also a bit in his May 7, 2004 Message (http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/message/index.php?messageDate=2004-05-07): "According to yesterday's New York Times, the issue of whether to release Fahrenheit 9/11 was discussed at Disney's board meeting last week. It was decided that Disney should not distribute our movie." So if we can get real for a moment: Disney is betting on the ignorance and apathy of the public in order to maintain this line. If you can make it a sound-bite, people won't read beyond that and you won't ever have to answer for the real issues. Disney is trying to misrepresent the situation until it blows over. The film will be released, and Disney will be forgotten as the catalyst that caused a U.S. Representative to call for a committee investigation into political censorship in news and entertainment media.)who said anything about it backfiring? it's been pulled off particularly well, i think.Technically, Buffys. See the post immediately preceding the one of mine you responded to. :rolleyes: That was a response, yes indeed it was.congratulations on buying moore's propaganda line. as moore puts it, "there is a reason that i have never been sued over anything in my three books -- that's because everything in them is true." yeah. right. Nobody says he has to be "right." When you write about history, as Moore does in his books, much is left to interpretation. Now ... Disney claims this move is within its authority. Miramax says it isn't. So when Disney proves in court that this move was within its authority, they'll have a ten-mile path to sue the hell out of Moore for libeling and slandering them in this particular issue.

So he doesn't have to be 100% right inasmuch as the "propaganda line" is concerned with his books. And what that line is a reference to is not the issue of what he says about the facts, but that if someone says, "That never happened, I don't know where he gets it," he's prepared to hand them the source. Unlike Disney's "non-political" endeavors like Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity, the Moore "propaganda line" refers to the idea that he doesn't have to invent fictitious circumstances by which to carry on the dispute.

Consider a simple idea: What actually happened at that Disney board meeting? Well, the accusation is that it was at that meeting that the board decided "officially," as in the end of the discussion process, to not allow release of the film. All Disney has to do in order to crush Moore (and the New York Times, apparently, in the process) is to get a couple of sworn affidavits from directors and submit the minutes of the meeting to the court. If Eisner's version of the story bears out, Moore will be discredited and the NYT against the wall. If Moore's version of the story bears out, well ... we shouldn't expect to see those affidavits or hear of those minutes.

Issues Disney may wish to address in order to reinforce its position:

• Show that Disney did not send money to the film after May, 2003.
• Show that Moore is incorrect when he refers to the recent board meeting.
• Show that Disney has the contractual power to block distribution.
• Show that either Michael Eisner or acting chief George Mitchell saw the movie before making the final decision. (Why send anyone to view it? It's irrelevant to Disney in the first place if they're legally refusing to distribute it.)

These four points can easily be addressed if Eisner's explanation of the situation is accurate.

Look ... I know how ridiculous it seems to have this big a deal made out of a freaking movie. But this is America in the twenty-first century, and I believed a number of things the Bush administration told me about Iraq because it was thitherto beyond imagination that one would deliberately attempt such a whopper with little or no safety net.

Bowling for Columbine cost $3m. It made $120m at the box office.

In a country where the executive office transporting possible material witnesses to an act of terror out of the country and out of federal jurisdiction within hours of that atrocious act, neither tax breaks nor an obscure foreign political connection are so unreasonable to imagine. But more significantly--this move by Disney makes no sense whatsoever. Not only will they lose what we can expect to be massive revenues, but their reasons for their actions don't add up.

I know Moore is bombastic. But Disney needs to start making sense before they can effectively undertake such a disagreement with a director of Moore's intelligence, stature, and disposition. (e.g. He's bright, he's immensely popular, and he's of a mind to bite the hand that slaps him; Disney's choice to not distribute seems strange enough in and of itself, but the least they could have done to their own benefit is be ready with something other than barely-coherent vagaries and a weak defense.

are you planning on publishing that novel? i'll skip the point-by-point address, because this is getting ridiculous, as you said. if you feel that i'm not addressing something i should, let me know.

you have some grand misconceptions about libel suits. see ... the united states libel/defamation laws are very lax, because they weigh freedom of speech above the damages of libel. even if they proved moore lied, it would still be next to impossible to force him to pay damages. as he says, his work is vetted by lawyers. and those lawyers know exactly what he can and cannot get away with.

further, moore's fallacies are not ones of historical interpretation. they are deliberate creative editting (splicing together two separate political ads to create something make them say something neither one said and adding a subtitle that was in neither original ad to make sure you get the point across, and then attributing it to the first bush administration's reelection campaign, for instance). moore weaves half-truths into a wholesale lie.

i don't want to defend disney. i don't like them. especially not eisner. but after reading the criticisms of moore's work, i take anything he says now with a very large grain of salt, and perhaps i was a little too doubtful of moore at first. his response to eisner's response (http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/message/index.php) seems almost reasonable. in any case, disney may, in fact, be in violation of its miramax contract by refusing the film. i don't know what the contract says.

however, disney did, in fact, tell moore's agent they would not distribute the movie a year ago. moore and his agent admit that this is true. but he claims miramax told him they would and that there was no problem. as i understand it, it appears that disney is unhappy with the free reign they have given miramax, as this is not their first disagreement. if disney is, in fact, in violation of its contract, moore can sue for breach of contract much easier than disney could sue for libel, and he would be entitled to any damages created by their breach. i'm guessing that the matter is much more legally cloudy than either of them is admitting.

the entire ordeal was resolved a couple days ago, however:

Disney and Miramax have agreed on how to proceed with the distribution of Michael Moore's controversial documentary, "Fahrenheit 9/11," about the Sept. 2001 attacks against the United States and the Bush White House's response, sources said.

The agreement calls for Disney to sell the Weinsteins the rights to the movie and the Weinsteins to find a new distributor. The deal is similar to one the parties arranged for a previous film, "Dogma."

(http://money.cnn.com/2004/05/12/news/fortune500/disney_miramax.reut/)

one final thing, regarding your "material witnesses": the fbi was given full access to the individuals who were flown home and says it was satisfied that none of them had any knowledge of the plots. the fbi was given the opportunity to delay the flights, and did use that ability.

http://www.snopes.com/rumors/flight.htm

Typical of the man with a race guilt complex and a fear of fire arms.

Angie
Re: Snopes link (http://www.snopes.com/rumors/flight.htm)

That's a pretty interesting link. And not nearly as conclusive as you have presented it.

You wrote: one final thing, regarding your "material witnesses": the fbi was given full access to the individuals who were flown home and says it was satisfied that none of them had any knowledge of the plots. the fbi was given the opportunity to delay the flights, and did use that ability.The Snopes page doesn't really resolve the Moore allegation, which can be found in Dude, Where's My Country?:Private jets, under the supervision of the Saudi government--and with your [Bush's] approval--were allowed to fly around the skies of America and pick up twenty-four members of the bin Laden family and take them first to a "secret assembly point in Texas." They then flew to Washington, D.C., and then on to Boston. Finally, on September 18, they were all flown to Paris, out of the reach of any U.S. officials. They never went through any serious interrogation, other than a few questions that the FBI asked them and a request to check each of their passports before leaving. One FBI agent I spoke to told me that the FBI was "furious" that they were not allowed to keep the bin Ladens in the country to conduct a real investigation--the kind police like to do when they are trying to track down a murderer. Usually, the police like to talk to the family members of the suspect to learn what they know, who they know, how they might help capture the fugitive.

None of the normal procedures were followed.

This is mind-boggling. Here you have two dozen bin Ladens on American soil, Mr. Bush, and you come up with some lame excuse that you were worried about "their safety." Might it have been possible that at least one of the twenty-four bin Ladens would have possibly known something? Or maybe just one of them could have been "convinced" to help track Osama down? (Moore, 20)The Snopes page seems to refute urban-myth exaggerations of what Moore wrote in his book. And it doesn't address the issue of the Saudi royal family, which story Mr. Moore cites according to Kathy Steele's October 5, 2001 story for The Tampa Tribune (http://web.archive.org/web/20011108145853/http:/www.tampatrib.com/MGA3F78EFSC.html). For you to compare, Moore's version reads as follows: As if the bin Ladens Over America ("Air Laden?") wasn't enough, The Tampa Tribune reported that the authorities also found the time to help even more Saudis. Apparently, another Saudi jet, this one a private Lear jet (arranged by a private hanger owned by defense contractor Raytheon, which also happens to be a hefty GOP donor), was allowed to fly from Tampa to Lexington, Kentucky, to drop off some members of the Saudi royal family to be with other Saudi royals who had been in Kentucky looking at horses. Two bodyguards for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers were hired to travel along on the flight and they told their story to the Tribune about how the pilot revealed to them upon returning to Tampa that he still had another run to make to Louisiana. (21)I'm sorry if it seems long and complicated, but this is all what's apparent to me quite simply from reading the superficial reports we're getting. No doubt the issues are cloudy, but either Miramax or Disney is right about what authority Disney has to block distribution. The Weinsteins, it seems, like to avoid breach fights; a FOX News (http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,119253,00.html) link I included earlier notes that Harvey Weinstein helped cover Gibson's Icon Productions from possible breach-of-contract exposure by rescuing Farenheit 9/11 once already.

Additionally, Ari Emanuel, Moore's agent, has said that Eisner told him that this was about taxes, which statement Eisner denies. Now, maybe life has gotten really, really hollow for Americans, but falsely accusing someone of refusing distribution for fear of losing financial exception used to be rather scurrilous and diminishing. There's a whole lot on the line, and while those who enjoy or otherwise support Moore often recoil at this or that issue he picks, is he really dumb enough to sell it all on this film?

I don't think so. I think people's doubt of Moore is a reaction to the fact that he's a liberal version of what everybody quietly suffers from the conservative side of the spectrum insofar as he's outspoken and very good at it.

It's all about politics: you don't hear the anti-environmental part of the right wing talking up his chapter in Stupid White Men about the folly of recycling. And folks on the left aren't saying a whole lot about it because, well, that's politics. But the right so loathes him that they won't even stop to think of using his issues to their credit unless it's to badmouth him.

And I do think it's all about politics when I pause to think that someone needs to open their post with a stupid line about a novel. I mean, really. All I'm doing is explaining to you what is already out there for public consumption. You're the one making vague points about "material witnesses" and giving links that don't exactly contribute to your position. My whole point with the issue of the possible material witnesses was a comparative. In a time when bizarre things like that happen, bizarre things like tax concerns or political pressure might actually become plausible as we try to figure Disney's bizarre behavior. People seem to be buying the second- and third-hand accounts of what Moore does or says, because reading the press, reading Moore's written messages, looking back through his book as your attempted simplification of the material witness issue, and then reading through this discussion ... it's two separate universes. Out in the real world there are tangled skeins of information to deal with. In here it's starting to sound like Crossfire.

Half-truths into wholesale lie? Look, I remember the first Bush campaign. I have absolutely no problem with that part of Bowling for Columbine. I just went and read a couple of the criticisms to remember why I didn't care about that controversy in the first place and then I remembered, Oh, yeah ... the guy who wrote this watches movies much differently than I or anyone I know. I don't understand how to watch a film like that so exactingly. It's a bit like taking the French to task because no woman will ever be as tall as the Statue of Liberty.

It's also a bit like arguing about Mel Gibson when the anti-Semitic issue one might take is actually with the text of the Bible.
____________________

• Moore, Michael. Dude, Where's My Country? New York: Dutton, 2003.

c'mon tiassa, you're a long time user. Is the GIGANTIC type really necessary to make a point?

Is it really that gigantic? What OS are you using? The fonts only get gigantic, as far as I know, in WinME.

On the other hand, I'm reading the same articles I'm posting and that other people are reading around the web, and since I have a completely different view of things than others regarding what exactly the issues are about--e.g. the strength of the Snopes link to which question?--maybe I ought to consider using larger type in the future to make sure people see certain things. As I don't have a secret well of information unavailable to the public upon which to base my opinions, maybe I ought to try a few different tactics to make sure certain information gets across to peope.

Really, the quotes in my prior post are tagged darkred for the first one and Courier Size 3 darkslategray for the others; I used Times New Roman for the footnote.

These three fonts are all the same size.

On my monitor, the default looks larger than either of the others.

I'm using panther (osx) and on my screen at least, your moore quotes appear about twice the size of the rest of the text. I just have an instant knee jerk rage reaction when people blow up type to make a point (especially blocks of type that are large to begin with), but it doesn't really matter if that wasn't your intent.

Man I need to update. I didn't do the Panther update because I didn't have the cash lying around, and I'm too lazy to steal the software. Lots must have changed. Seriously, I chose those tags specifically because they look reasonably good. Some people have complained that other fonts I use are somehow too small, though I find the default quote text (colored red in the post in question) too small for anything longer than a few lines.

(Never mind. Long cycle of me not thinking in terms of images.)

What browser are you using?

Like this, for instance.

• "White House 'tried to block film' (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/3719261.stm)" (BBC)

The White House tried to halt the making and release of Michael Moore's new film Fahrenheit 9/11, the film-maker alleged in Cannes on Sunday.

The director told a Cannes audience the Bush administration wanted to keep the film off screens in the run-up to November's US election . . . .

. . . . He has given no evidence to substantiate his allegations, but said "someone connected to the White House" and a "top Republican" had put pressure on film companies not to release the film. (Youngs)

This is what's called "putting your neck on the block." Question: Is Moore vulnerable?

Is Moore merely hyping up a FOX News piece that has already been visited in this topic, or will the premiere provide a new bombshell?

I mean ... do we really think Moore can get away with this if he's not reasonably accurate in that description of the situation? How much does one stake in an allegation like this?

In the meantime, the film does apparently promise some relatively-unseen material. (I would say "unseen" except that the film has already screened in the midwest.)

Moore has also revealed that he had three undercover film crews embedded with US troops in Iraq.

"I was able to sneak three different freelance crews into Iraq," he said on Saturday.

The soldiers had "expressed disillusionment that they had been lied to", said Moore.

The film from Iraq was a "very important" part of the documentary, he added. (Youngs)

Admittedly, Moore is out on a limb with his latest remarks. But I still don't understand why he would sell out credibility trying to engineer a scandal that would wreck the credibility of this film.

"How stupid do we think Moore is?" certainly does not settle the issue, but it is a consideration.
____________________

• Youngs, Ian. "White House 'tried to block film'." BBC News. May 16, 2004. See http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/3719261.stm

A time magazine article on the movie/doc/comedy:
http://www.time.com/time/arts/article/0,8599,638819,00.html

Admittedly, Moore is out on a limb with his latest remarks. But I still don't understand why he would sell out credibility trying to engineer a scandal that would wreck the credibility of this film.

Maybe he's not trying to "engineer" a scandal and instead is simply telling the truth. It certainly wouldn't be beneath Rove considering some of his other recent actions.

What browser are you using?

Safari, I forgot to mention that.

I fail to see what the argument is [was] all about. The film is being released in Europe and eventually will of course end up on this side of the pond (legitimately or not :-)).
By the by: disney is evil personified. ; while there is no doubt that Disney sits high atop the great chain of evil it still falls short of the epitome of evil that is Oprah.

I fail to see what the argument is [was] all about.The argument centered around the idea of whether Disney breached its contractual obligations in order to improperly refuse distribution of a film in response to political pressure while lying to the public at the same time.

The argument centered around the idea of whether Disney breached its contractual obligations in order to improperly refuse distribution of a film in response to political pressure while lying to the public at the same time.

actually my argument (why I started the thread) surrounded moores choices since the start of this "controversy". As I pointed out earlier, I'm less concerned about dineys actions because my expectations of them is much lower.

actually my argument (why I started the thread) surrounded moores choices since the start of this "controversy".

That's a fair consideration. However:

As I pointed out earlier, I'm less concerned about dineys actions because my expectations of them is much lower.But you're going about it per Disney's argument.

That's the thing I don't get. I disagree with a couple of your notions about the nature of Moore's actions largely because those notions (e.g. "buying the line? moore admitted it on CNN for christs sake.")

That point rests in accepting Disney's point of view, that their decision in May, 2003 was absolutely final. And yet Disney continued to send money, and apparently continued to talk because Disney executives apparently discussed the film only weeks ago, which discussion and decisions deriving therefrom seem to be the catalyst upon which Moore is basing his claim.

Additionally, the bit about tax status apparently comes from Moore's agent, Ari Emanuel, who says Eisner himself said it.

Some also have gone so far as to point out that there's no chance that the film won't be distributed eventually, and thus the idea of censorship is somehow hyperbole. This issue will be settled when Disney demonstrates that the film did in fact meet its contractual criteria for refusing distribution. But in the meantime, if, as Weinstein maintains, Disney can only block for NC-17 or budgetary concerns, then Disney has breached its contract in order to refuse distribution of the film. How this would fail to qualify as censorship I don't understand.

Moore knows this is the American public he's appealing to; he's aware of how cynical Americans can be. He knew exactly what he was getting into when he drove his stake in the ground. It would seem, however, that Disney did not know exactly what it was getting into when it tried to play studio politics with Michael Moore.

Even if we account for Moore's bombast and say, "It's a question of how far over the line," I still pull back and say, "But he hasn't crossed it yet."

http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/nm/20040522/film_nm/arts_cannes_palme_dc

'Fahrenheit 9/11' Wins Palme D'Or Award at Cannes

CANNES, France (Reuters) - Michael Moore's controversial anti-Bush documentary "Fahrenheit 9/11" won the Palme d'Or best film award at the Cannes film festival on Saturday.

I like Michael Moore, always have done, back to his tv Nation days and I'm glad someone's got the balls to do something like this, although he is a bit too much of a crusader sometimes. Michael Moore saves the world.....he'll probably end up dying 'in a car accident' if he doesn't stop pissing off the Bush administration.

http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/004/127ujhuf.asp

Michael Moore and Me
From the May 31, 2004 issue: An encounter with the Cannes man.
by Fred Barnes
05/31/2004, Volume 009, Issue 36

A FEW YEARS AGO Michael Moore, who's now promoting an anti-President Bush movie entitled Fahrenheit 9/11, announced he'd gotten the goods on me, indeed hung me out to dry on my own words. It was in his first bestselling book, Stupid White Men. Moore wrote he'd once been "forced" to listen to my comments on a TV chat show, The McLaughlin Group. I had whined "on and on about the sorry state of American education," Moore said, and wound up by bellowing: "These kids don't even know what The Iliad and The Odyssey are!"

Moore's interest was piqued, so the next day he said he called me. "Fred," he quoted himself as saying, "tell me what The Iliad and The Odyssey are." I started "hemming and hawing," Moore wrote. And then I said, according to Moore: "Well, they're . . . uh . . . you know . . . uh . . . okay, fine, you got me--I don't know what they're about. Happy now?" He'd smoked me out as a fraud, or maybe worse.

The only problem is none of this is true. It never happened. Moore is a liar. He made it up. It's a fabrication on two levels. One, I've never met Moore or even talked to him on the phone. And, two, I read both The Iliad and The Odyssey in my first year at the University of Virginia. Just for the record, I'd learned what they were about even before college. Like everyone else my age, I
got my classical education from the big screen. I saw the Iliad movie called Helen of Troy and while I forget the name of the Odyssey film, I think it starred Kirk Douglas as Odysseus.

So why didn't I scream bloody murder when the book came out in 2001? I didn't learn about the phony anecdote until it was brought to my attention by Alan Wolfe, who was reviewing Moore's book for the New Republic. He asked, by email, if the story were true. I said no, not a word of it, and Wolfe quoted me as saying that. That was enough, I thought. After all, who would take a shrill, lying lefty like Moore seriously?

More people than I thought. Moore's new movie attacking Bush was given a 20-minute standing ovation at the Cannes Film Festival. Moore has described the movie as breaking new ground and revealing new facts, but the accounts by reviewers suggest it merely provides the standard left-wing, conspiratorial critique of the president. Reviewer Lou Lumenick of the New York Post, who gave Moore's previous movie Bowling for Columbine four stars, said the anti-Bush film would be news only "if you spent the last three years hiding in a cave in Afghanistan." Still, I suppose it's not surprising they loved it in France.

In publicizing the movie, Moore has been up to his old dishonest tricks. Just before the screening at Cannes, he charged that Disney had told him "officially" the day before that it would not distribute Fahrenheit 9/11. Moore said this was an attempt to kill the film. He indicated a newspaper article had the correct explanation of Disney's decision: "According to today's New York Times, it might 'endanger' millions of dollars of tax breaks Disney receives from the state of Florida because the film will 'anger' the governor of Florida, Jeb Bush."

Later, in a CNN interview, Moore admitted he'd learned nearly a year ago that Disney would not distribute the movie. By pretending he'd just gotten word of this, Moore was involved in a cheap publicity stunt. And it wasn't the New York Times that said, on its own, that Disney feared losing tax breaks. It was Moore's agent who was quoted as saying that in the Times. Disney denied its president Michael Eisner had told the agent of any such fear. "We informed both the agency that represented the film and all of our companies that we just didn't want to be in the middle of a politically oriented film during an election year," Eisner told ABC News.

Where does this leave us? I think it's time for Moore to be held accountable. In Stupid White Men, he has 18 pages of "Notes and Sources," but he offers no evidence for the sham interview with me--no date, no transcript. How could he, since the interview never happened?

I have just the person to look into Moore's lies and distortions. Al Franken has taken special interest in public liars, writing a bestseller called Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them. Al, the Moore case is now in your court.

Fred Barnes is executive editor of The Weekly Standard.

The sky is blue, water is wet, disney is evil personified.

...someone had a traumatizing childhood... :p

http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/004/127ujhuf.asp

Michael Moore and Me
From the May 31, 2004 issue: An encounter with the Cannes man.
by Fred Barnes
05/31/2004, Volume 009, Issue 36



Weekly Standard -- uhhm yeah that's "REAL" unbiased news. William Kristol (also the chairman of PNAC (http://www.newamericancentury.org/) ) is another unbiased editor in this great magazine. :rolleyes:

Just some updates:

• Hoberman, J. "Michael Moore Wins Palme d'Or." Village Voice. May 24, 2004. See http://www.villagevoice.com/issues/0421/hoberman2.php
• Waxman, Sharon. "Moore Film Is Held Up by Questions About Rights." New York Times. May 25, 2004. See http://www.nytimes.com/2004/05/25/movies/25MOOR.html?ex=1086062400&en=5252c20d0e2c2762&ei=5062&partner=GOOGLE

eh... awards, really tiassa? since when does that mean anything (again I say this as a fan)? we have to hear what his documentary says and draw a conclusion. I started this thread and have yet to see the movie.

The whole reason of my thread was moore's reaction to the press... we've passed that now.

Either, he's over-the-top or he's right.

It sucks but I guess we'll see.

Read the articles. The bit about Tarantino seems a bit relevant.

And did you notice that Eisner has his own contentious claim now?

[font=times new roman]Last week in New York Mr. Eisner told friends that Harvey Weinstein had made the movie despite his objections a year ago and had hidden the $6 million budget in loan financing documentation.

That was why, Mr. Eisner told friends, that when Harvey Weinstein asked in recent weeks to see the film to consider its distribution by Miramax, the Disney chairman was angry to learn that the film had been made.

A Miramax executive did not dispute that Disney opposed the film's distribution by Miramax, but the executive pointed out that Disney was fully aware that Miramax had provided a bridge loan to Mr. Moore to make the film, because distribution of the money required Disney's approval. The Miramax executive denied that anything had been hidden from Disney.[/font (New York Times (http://www.nytimes.com/2004/05/25/movies/25MOOR.html?ex=1086062400&en=5252c20d0e2c2762&ei=5062&partner=GOOGLE))

I suppose there are legal ways to "hide" something like a six-million dollar loan, but still ... that's a pretty rude claim if it's not true. Just like the bit about taxes.