Sicko
I'm not the biggest Michael Moore fan out there, but I decided to give his latest movie Sicko a shot. For the first 30 minutes Moore manages to actually make a pretty good documentary. He does this by focusing mainly on peoples individual horror stories with their HMO's as well as showing Insurance company insiders explaining how things work.
It isn't until he begins to ask the question "Who invented this system?" that the movie moves from strict documentary into the realm of the Michael Moore documentary with it's half truths, misdirection and selective facts.
Even without doing some independent research to expose his 'mistruthes', Moore's editing tricks are quite easy to see for those who are looking. For instance, any part way observant person will notice that when Moore and his boatload of 9/11 rescue workers face off against the guard towers at Gitmo it only shows his face when he is calling out (quite softly for an attempt to talk to a tower several hundred yards away) to the towers to let in the workers for medical attention. When he picks up his bullhorn and yells out the more challenging statements about them only wanting the same care as the US is giving the 'evil doers' you will notice the camera quickly pans to someone else on the boat, never actually showing him say those things. The odd way the camera avoids Moore only when he is supposedly making these more inflammatory statements very strongly implies to those of us who have read up on Moore's previous antics, that the audio you hear is more the result of some post production sound editing than any live recording.
I'm just amazed how someone can make a documentary on a topic like health care in the US, a system most people will admit is highly problematic, and actually make someone come out with sympathy for the HMO's, but Moore does. If he had kept up with the flow of the original 30 minutes he could have made a very powerful movie that with all the exposure normally afforded him, could have had the potential to foster actual change, but instead he resorts back to his old tricks and creates enough holes in his arguments that any defenders of the current American system could drive a semi through sideways.
I guess like most Moore documentaries this ones gets a 4 for looks but a 1 for substance.
If you want to see it for yourself, for the time being Say Anything Blog has the movie, in it's entirety, in this post.
It isn't until he begins to ask the question "Who invented this system?" that the movie moves from strict documentary into the realm of the Michael Moore documentary with it's half truths, misdirection and selective facts.
Even without doing some independent research to expose his 'mistruthes', Moore's editing tricks are quite easy to see for those who are looking. For instance, any part way observant person will notice that when Moore and his boatload of 9/11 rescue workers face off against the guard towers at Gitmo it only shows his face when he is calling out (quite softly for an attempt to talk to a tower several hundred yards away) to the towers to let in the workers for medical attention. When he picks up his bullhorn and yells out the more challenging statements about them only wanting the same care as the US is giving the 'evil doers' you will notice the camera quickly pans to someone else on the boat, never actually showing him say those things. The odd way the camera avoids Moore only when he is supposedly making these more inflammatory statements very strongly implies to those of us who have read up on Moore's previous antics, that the audio you hear is more the result of some post production sound editing than any live recording.
I'm just amazed how someone can make a documentary on a topic like health care in the US, a system most people will admit is highly problematic, and actually make someone come out with sympathy for the HMO's, but Moore does. If he had kept up with the flow of the original 30 minutes he could have made a very powerful movie that with all the exposure normally afforded him, could have had the potential to foster actual change, but instead he resorts back to his old tricks and creates enough holes in his arguments that any defenders of the current American system could drive a semi through sideways.
I guess like most Moore documentaries this ones gets a 4 for looks but a 1 for substance.
If you want to see it for yourself, for the time being Say Anything Blog has the movie, in it's entirety, in this post.
Labels: Entertainment, Movie Reviews, The Left
posted by Bic at 7:16 a.m.
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