Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

I think that for a first attempt at film making, Michael Wilson does a creditable job. Documentaries are not expected to display cinematic art to the degree of other genres. Documentaries are to film what informational books are to writing: it is the validity of the content that is of primary importance. Wilson uses Moore's own story line from "Roger and Me", vainly following the title character around the country in search of an interview, and does it quite well. The movie is quite interesting and sometimes funny (especially his interview of Penn Jillette). Now, let's tackle the provocative title, "Michael Moore Hates America." I believe Michael Wilson used it in order to get his movie noticed. It is clear that he is uncomfortable with it: This is shown when, at the end of his interview with the extremely ethical documentarian, Albert Maysles, he sheepishly reveals the title, apparently expecting to be rebuked. To his surprise Maysles simply responds, "Maybe he does." The film is really about ethics in the making of documentary films. Scenes from Moore's "Bowling for Columbine" and to a lesser extent "Roger and Me" (both of which I have seen) supply the basis he and others such as Penn Jillette, Albert Maysles, and David Horowitz (as well as people whom Moore chose to interview in making "Bowling for Columbine") use as a basis for their comments pro and con. Some reviewers have stated that all movies shade the truth or worse. That may be literally true; however, it is clearly unethical to manipulate scenes in a documentary in such a way as to create "facts" or connections (particularly to create the appearance of cause and effect or guilt by association) that are false or misleading. There is general agreement that Moore was repeatedly guilty of that in "Bowling for Columbine" and "Roger and Me". I have not seen "Fahrenheit 9/11", but most movie reviewers, even those who appear to agree with Moore's cause, seem to agree that he does the same in that movie. Telling lies in historical movies is not new, and I would say it creates no major ethical problem when it simply fills in material that is unknown or is of no major importance. Of all the movies I have seen, Oliver Stone's movie, "JFK", is almost certainly the prime example of unethical movie-making because it is untrue in every important statement it makes. Although it is not a documentary, millions of people believe it portrays the JFK assassination accurately, which could not be further from the truth. A major point of Wilson's movie is that it is so easy to allow one's self to bend the truth for expediency's sake that he found it very difficult to avoid doing so in making his movie. This, however, is not an excuse that applies to the films of Stone and Moore. The problem I have with Michael Moore is that his movies have gotten so much attention and praise that he has set the ethical bar for documentaries far lower than it has been in the past. This will mean that documentaries will no longer serve as credible sources of information. Since that is the primary reason documentaries exist at all, it is a serious problem. More and more people are reluctantly coming to realize that newspapers and TV news have lost most of their credibility, so it shouldn't be too surprising that the trend would spread to other sources of information. Still, it sure is a pain in the [...] to be forced to expend time doing major research on every significant issue in order to have a reasonably accurate view of the world.