[GCFL-discuss] Promising Beginnings

[gcfl-discuss at gcfl.net]

Michael Moore first became famous (and acquired the wealth to finance
future movies) with a very well done, low-budget movie called "Roger and
Me" about the devastation that hit Flint Michigan when GM closed down
most of its plants in the area. It was pure documentary, interviewing
people whose daily lives would never have come to anyone's attention
otherwise. "Roger" was GM President Roger Smith, whom Moore persistently
tried to talk to, and eventually caught up with at a GM Christmas Party.
There was a short sequel called "Pets or Meat" which took its title from
the young woman laid off from the assembly line who tried to make a
living raising and selling rabbits in her backyard, which could be bought
for pets or for meat, with one being bought by the owner of a pet boa
constrictor to serve as pet food. The young lady was eventually shut down
by the health inspectors, and got a job at K-Mart, with her paycheck
garnished in full by a bankruptcy court.

I haven't paid a lot of attention to his subsequent productions. When it
came to "Farenheit 9-11" I figured at best it would be preaching to the
converted. (Which is about as effective as the cabarets in Berlin in the
1920s, where political parody played such a profound role in stopping the
rise of Adolf Hitler and preventing World War II). I was a bit impressed
later to hear about the scene where Dubya addresses a high-paying crowd
as "the haves and the have-mores... some call you the elite, I call you
my base." But that isn't enought to get me to sit through an entire
movie.

Siarlys