Showing posts with label Michael Moore. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Michael Moore. Show all posts
"With just one speech tomorrow night you will turn a multitude of young people who were the backbone of your campaign into disillusioned cynics."
Disillusioned cynics ≈ realistic skeptics. I don't see the problem.
"I was a brilliant math guy on Wall Street and I got out partly because of the 'math abuse'..."
"... I recognized that the mathematical complexity and sophistication of the models was completely wasted because of the stupidity of the underlying assumptions about economic behavior and the unreliability of the input data."
A comment by JoeShipman from yesterday's "Capitalism: A Love Story" post.
Several commenters knocked me for saying: "My favorite thing in the movie was the trashing of young math and science graduates who, instead of applying their talents to the benefit of humanity, went to Wall Street to design the complicated derivative securities that almost destroyed the economy. The closeup on an incomprehensible math equation was, for me, the most shocking image in the movie."
I wish I could get a screen shot of the equation shown in the movie. It's far more complicated that my critics are imagining. (More complicated than this.)
Why were people with such depth of mathematical skill using it this way? I guess the question answers itself. For the money. I agree with Michael Moore's disgust over the misapplication of intellectual work.
Now, Moore operates through cinematic technique not conventional rational argument. He's an entertainer and a polemicist, and complicated math can't be funny for long. It's interesting to see how he presents the stuff about the financial crisis. At one point, we see him sitting on a park bench next to a guy who tries to explain derivatives, and what's funny is the expression on Moore's face — we see in him what nearly all of us are thinking — I can't understand. And that generates a further emotional/political reaction: If I can't understand it, I'm worried that it's an evil scheme. Moore's cinematic "argument" works like that.
A comment by JoeShipman from yesterday's "Capitalism: A Love Story" post.
***
Several commenters knocked me for saying: "My favorite thing in the movie was the trashing of young math and science graduates who, instead of applying their talents to the benefit of humanity, went to Wall Street to design the complicated derivative securities that almost destroyed the economy. The closeup on an incomprehensible math equation was, for me, the most shocking image in the movie."
I wish I could get a screen shot of the equation shown in the movie. It's far more complicated that my critics are imagining. (More complicated than this.)
Why were people with such depth of mathematical skill using it this way? I guess the question answers itself. For the money. I agree with Michael Moore's disgust over the misapplication of intellectual work.
Now, Moore operates through cinematic technique not conventional rational argument. He's an entertainer and a polemicist, and complicated math can't be funny for long. It's interesting to see how he presents the stuff about the financial crisis. At one point, we see him sitting on a park bench next to a guy who tries to explain derivatives, and what's funny is the expression on Moore's face — we see in him what nearly all of us are thinking — I can't understand. And that generates a further emotional/political reaction: If I can't understand it, I'm worried that it's an evil scheme. Moore's cinematic "argument" works like that.
Some thoughts on seeing "Capitalism: A Love Story."
Here's the scene in the lobby at the Sundance Theater as we arrived for the 4:35 showing of Michael Moore's new movie:
"Dump ¢apitali$m/Join the Socialists." And, indeed, the movie was a big promotion of socialism. Capitalism is "evil" — Capitalism is a "sin" — we were told over and over. And if only all the downtrodden masses would see this truth and join together we could have socialism.
Amusingly, Barack Obama is presented — outright — as a socialist. We see a roomful of people exulting over the election night announcement that Obama has won and, in context, we're made to think that it's the downtrodden people celebrating that socialism has arrived. I don't think Obama really wants Michael Moore's help.
My biggest problem with the movie was that it was such an incoherent mishmash, and it wasn't edgy and funny enough to make up for that. There were whole segments that had nothing to do with problems with capitalism and that Moore seemed to use because he had footage with sympathetic talking heads.
There were some teenagers in Wilkes Barre, PA who had suffered a terrible abuse of their due process rights, and the fact that a for-profit detention institution was involved didn't transform what was a criminal scheme into a broader indictment of our economic system.
And there were the life insurance policies that companies take out on their [low level] employees. Maybe these shouldn't be permitted — and calling them "Dead Peasant" policies was kind of outrageous — but if they are wrong, we can make legislation banning them. We have plenty of regulation in this country that keeps us away from a completely free market, and we can procure that legislation if that's what we want. I was disgusted by the camera trained on the face of a boy who cried over the death of his young mother. The real villain there was asthma. It said nothing significant about capitalism, which made it grotesque exploitation to use that boy in the movie.
My favorite thing in the movie was the trashing of young math and science graduates who, instead of applying their talents to the benefit of humanity, went to Wall Street to design the complicated derivative securities that almost destroyed the economy. The closeup on an incomprehensible math equation was, for me, the most shocking image in the movie.
Moore shamelessly and repeatedly advocated the violent overthrow of the economic system. It was somewhat humorously or moderately presented — such as through the mouth of a cranky old man who was being evicted from his home — but it came across that Moore wants a revolution. He kept advising the workers — and the evictees — of the world to unite and shake off their chains.
The most striking thing in the movie was the religion. I think Moore is seriously motivated by Christianity. He says he is (and has been since he was a boy). And he presented various priests, Biblical quotations, and movie footage from "Jesus of Nazareth" to make the argument that Christianity requires socialism. With this theme, I found it unsettling that in attacking the banking system, Moore presented quite a parade of Jewish names and faces. He never says the word "Jewish," but I think the anti-Semitic theme is there. We receive long lectures about how capitalism is inconsistent with Christianity, followed a heavy-handed array of — it's up to you to see that they are — Jewish villains.
Am I wrong to see Moore as an anti-Semite? I don't know, but the movie worked as anti-Semitic propaganda. I had to struggle to fight off the idea the movie seemed to want to plant in my head.
"Dump ¢apitali$m/Join the Socialists." And, indeed, the movie was a big promotion of socialism. Capitalism is "evil" — Capitalism is a "sin" — we were told over and over. And if only all the downtrodden masses would see this truth and join together we could have socialism.
***
Amusingly, Barack Obama is presented — outright — as a socialist. We see a roomful of people exulting over the election night announcement that Obama has won and, in context, we're made to think that it's the downtrodden people celebrating that socialism has arrived. I don't think Obama really wants Michael Moore's help.
***
My biggest problem with the movie was that it was such an incoherent mishmash, and it wasn't edgy and funny enough to make up for that. There were whole segments that had nothing to do with problems with capitalism and that Moore seemed to use because he had footage with sympathetic talking heads.
There were some teenagers in Wilkes Barre, PA who had suffered a terrible abuse of their due process rights, and the fact that a for-profit detention institution was involved didn't transform what was a criminal scheme into a broader indictment of our economic system.
And there were the life insurance policies that companies take out on their [low level] employees. Maybe these shouldn't be permitted — and calling them "Dead Peasant" policies was kind of outrageous — but if they are wrong, we can make legislation banning them. We have plenty of regulation in this country that keeps us away from a completely free market, and we can procure that legislation if that's what we want. I was disgusted by the camera trained on the face of a boy who cried over the death of his young mother. The real villain there was asthma. It said nothing significant about capitalism, which made it grotesque exploitation to use that boy in the movie.
***
My favorite thing in the movie was the trashing of young math and science graduates who, instead of applying their talents to the benefit of humanity, went to Wall Street to design the complicated derivative securities that almost destroyed the economy. The closeup on an incomprehensible math equation was, for me, the most shocking image in the movie.
***
Moore shamelessly and repeatedly advocated the violent overthrow of the economic system. It was somewhat humorously or moderately presented — such as through the mouth of a cranky old man who was being evicted from his home — but it came across that Moore wants a revolution. He kept advising the workers — and the evictees — of the world to unite and shake off their chains.
***
The most striking thing in the movie was the religion. I think Moore is seriously motivated by Christianity. He says he is (and has been since he was a boy). And he presented various priests, Biblical quotations, and movie footage from "Jesus of Nazareth" to make the argument that Christianity requires socialism. With this theme, I found it unsettling that in attacking the banking system, Moore presented quite a parade of Jewish names and faces. He never says the word "Jewish," but I think the anti-Semitic theme is there. We receive long lectures about how capitalism is inconsistent with Christianity, followed a heavy-handed array of — it's up to you to see that they are — Jewish villains.
Am I wrong to see Moore as an anti-Semite? I don't know, but the movie worked as anti-Semitic propaganda. I had to struggle to fight off the idea the movie seemed to want to plant in my head.
What movie are we seeing?
Hey, I love that poster, but:
....I am looking forward to Capitalism: A Love Story. But I think he’s sort of an idiot positioning the film as anti-capitalist. Capitalism has its problems, but when a title lack that and posters like this, no one but fans are going to take him seriously, and everyone else will immediately dismiss him as an actual communist, which I don’t believe he is.I can deal with the alienation. My big question is: Is it funny? Moore is a funnyman, in my book. The trailer won me over, as I said back here. Come back later for an opinion of the actual movie.
Yes, it gives the film a nice visual style with the “propaganda theme,” but I think it could have been better handled and less alienating.
I throw some movie-related red meat to the lefties, and then to the righties.
I've got to tell you, I laughed like mad at the trailer for the new Michael Moore movie "Capitalism: A Love Story":
I will definitely see this movie. Annoying as I've found Michael Moore at times in the past, I love the light but stinging touch. Quite charming, if the trailer is accurate.
Okay, see? Sometimes I throw out red meat for the liberals.
Now, here's red meat for you righties. In the trailer at 1:40, we hear and then see George W. Bush and — even though I was in a theater in the lefty hotbed of Madison, Wisconsin — I leaned over to my seatmate (the estimable Meade) and said (loud enough to be heard): "I miss that guy."
The movie we were seeing was — as the previous post hints — "Inglourious Basterds." In "Chapter 2" of that film, when Brad Pitt first appeared, Meade now says — if he hadn't needed to maintain Hoosierly etiquette — he wanted to lean over to me and whisper "George W."
And it's true. Brad Pitt is kind of doing a George Bush impersonation. (Meade points to 0:30 in this trailer, when the character says "killin' Nazis.") Now, it's an awful accent, really. And I don't think it's a Tennessee accent, which is what we're told it is. Oddly, later in the movie, there's a whole thing about speaking Italian with a bad accent, and Pitt's is the worst of the bad accents, so maybe there — and throughout the movie — Quentin Tarantino intended to treat us to layer upon layer of joking.
I will definitely see this movie. Annoying as I've found Michael Moore at times in the past, I love the light but stinging touch. Quite charming, if the trailer is accurate.
Okay, see? Sometimes I throw out red meat for the liberals.
Now, here's red meat for you righties. In the trailer at 1:40, we hear and then see George W. Bush and — even though I was in a theater in the lefty hotbed of Madison, Wisconsin — I leaned over to my seatmate (the estimable Meade) and said (loud enough to be heard): "I miss that guy."
***
The movie we were seeing was — as the previous post hints — "Inglourious Basterds." In "Chapter 2" of that film, when Brad Pitt first appeared, Meade now says — if he hadn't needed to maintain Hoosierly etiquette — he wanted to lean over to me and whisper "George W."
And it's true. Brad Pitt is kind of doing a George Bush impersonation. (Meade points to 0:30 in this trailer, when the character says "killin' Nazis.") Now, it's an awful accent, really. And I don't think it's a Tennessee accent, which is what we're told it is. Oddly, later in the movie, there's a whole thing about speaking Italian with a bad accent, and Pitt's is the worst of the bad accents, so maybe there — and throughout the movie — Quentin Tarantino intended to treat us to layer upon layer of joking.
Oh, no! It's time to pay attention to Michael Moore again.
Gateway Pundit is all over the insane hypocrisy of his Capitalism-is-evil movie. He passes on this info on Moore's lavish life style:
ADDED: Yes, I see the $647,200 too. It's also quite modest for a man of Moore's success. It sounds like a relatively nice middle class home.
For reference, Torch Lake is among the two or three most desirable places to live in Northern Michigan. Normally Moore says that Traverse City is his adopted hometown, or lies and says that he lives in Bellaire, like he has some kind of log cabin in the woods.So he lives on a lake in Michigan in a place with a taxable value $390,976? I don't get it. How is that by any stretch of the imagination rich? For that to be all a successful movie director claims for himself? It's downright humble.
Nope, his home is an expensive house on 150 ft of lake frontage.
Owner Name(s):MOORE MICHAEL & GLYNN KATHLEEN
Property Address:
*** * **** ***** **** **
CENTRAL LAKE, MI 49622
Property Information
Current Taxable Value:$390,976
School District:Bellaire
Current Assessment:$647,200
Current Homestead:100%
Current Property Class:40 - Residential
Last Year's Assessment:$647,200
Last Year's Homestead:100%
Last Year's Property Class:40 - Residential
Lake Frontage:Torch Lake
Waterfront Footage:150.48 ft. "17
ADDED: Yes, I see the $647,200 too. It's also quite modest for a man of Moore's success. It sounds like a relatively nice middle class home.
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