We're not talking about Assange

I can't think of many political or social documentaries that don't have some sort of veiled agenda. I mean if you want things to change, you need to get people to see why *insert issue* is so fucked up. Those people who try to criticize Moore have an even more obvious agenda than Moore himself.
 
[quote name='mykevermin']Two films - part presentation of real life, part fabrication.

You're getting hung up on genre as a means of being dismissive.[/QUOTE]

dude, c'mon. Next you're going to tell me to watch Pixar's Cars to learn about steel belted radial tires... There are differences between fiction and non-fiction, even if they're both presented on pages in books. How can I be more clear?

I understand that political and social documentaries have an agenda, but more often than not they present their case in an obvious fashion with factual information. I think it was called Pretty Little Things or something like that, doc about pre-teen girls getting suckered into prostitution in the ghetto. It's hard to make a pointed case about how that's a good thing in any way shape or form. The film presents information and that's reall all it does.

What you don't seem to understand is that Michael Moore presents distorted information in a manner that would lead one to believe that it is actually fact. That's completely different, even if they have the same agenda. Is it all lies? No, but that's part of the problem. Enough of it is poigniant and real that the BS goes by undetected.

What I truly don't understand is that it's the same people who say that MM is the bastion of truth, are found to be saying that Fox News is 100% false. It's most likely that both are mostly 50/50 at best.
 
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The film caught people as they are, without any sort of inhibition they would have if they knew what was really going on, how is that different than catching some politician or businessman on tape saying or doing something they probably shouldn't? Myke is right, you're hung up on the fact that Borat wasn't technically a documentary, despite the fact that it did document some people.
 
I'll do my best to make this easy:

The frat boys were being frat boys. This is essentially true as frat boys will often times be frat boys.

The people at the bank were done over by Moore by making it appear that you could walk into a bank, open an account and walk out with a gun. This is absolutely false as you cannot do that.

Do you see the difference?
 
I don't buy genre or intent as the difference - Borat's (and his other films) are pretty postmodern in that he's 'acting' in a real setting. I know you see it as obvious, but it's more complex (far more), I'd argue. Part of the humor in Cohen's films is seeing how 'real people' participate in creating humor by being themselves. You recognize that when you say 'frat boys are being frat boys'.

The words you used to describe the bank scene are these:

you could walk into a bank, open an account and walk out with a gun.
Click to expand...

You say that's false. I say you're wrong, that's true.

It's true that you can do all of the things described in your quote as described in your quote. What you can not do is open an account and walk out in the same day with the gun. But you didn't say that, so that's what I'm going to cling to to make my argument. As described, what you say is absolutely true. See how a small detail, omitted, is not the most compelling thing to hinge on in making the argument that Moore deliberately lied. Since, technically, you've done the same thing, just incidentally.
 
Yours is a distorted reality sir.

Since you have said these words on the board: "I, Dislike, Black, People, And, Think, They, Smell, Funny" it can then be construed that you dislike black people and think they smell funny. Now, I wouldn't do that to you because it's wrong and taking things completely out of context and painting a picture that is blatantly false, EVEN THOUGH you've "said the same thing, just incidentally". You apparently can't apply the same basic logic to what happened in that one particular scene of the movie.
 
I don't know any documentary that doesn't gloss over details to make a point.

It would be the most boring goddamn movie in the world if Michael Moore had to describe in detail all the miscellanea about the process of opening bank accounts, the amount of deposit, when you get your gun, etc etc

You can decide to discount him wholesale based on insignificant nits, but that just makes you a partisan hack no better then the wingnut far-right peanut gallery that posts here from time to time.
 
The point of that scene in Bowling For Columbine was to show how ridiculous the idea of getting a free gun with a bank account is. I mean what, they couldn't find enough toasters to give out? Now the ironic thing would be for a bank to give out free guns with accounts, then have someone rob them with said gun later on.
 
The offshore bank account details of 2,000 "high net worth individuals" and corporations – detailing massive potential tax evasion – will be handed over to the WikiLeaks organisation in London tomorrow by the most important and boldest whistleblower in Swiss banking history, Rudolf Elmer, two days before he goes on trial in his native Switzerland.

British and American individuals and companies are among the offshore clients whose details will be contained on CDs presented to WikiLeaks at the Frontline Club in London. Those involved include, Elmer tells the Observer, "approximately 40 politicians".

Elmer, who after his press conference will return to Switzerland from exile in Mauritius to face trial, is a former chief operating officer in the Cayman Islands and employee of the powerful Julius Baer bank, which accuses him of stealing the information.
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http://m.guardian.co.uk/media/2011/...wer-rudolf-elmer-banks?cat=media&type=article

Cyberterrorism?
 
Considering that just last year the U.S. government was going after tax evaders with swiss bank accounts, I'd think they'd appreciate this.
 
[quote name='camoor']I don't know any documentary that doesn't gloss over details to make a point.

It would be the most boring goddamn movie in the world if Michael Moore had to describe in detail all the miscellanea about the process of opening bank accounts, the amount of deposit, when you get your gun, etc etc

You can decide to discount him wholesale based on insignificant nits, but that just makes you a partisan hack no better then the wingnut far-right peanut gallery that posts here from time to time.[/QUOTE]

Are you kidding me?

Would his point in the movie have been as powerful if he had not orchestrated the gun being at the bank situation?

Absolutely not. In this case his point was not to show how silly it was to get a gun with a bank account, but to show that they were handing them out like candy at the bank, which they most certainly were not. I love how misleading people is ok with you guys as long as it coincides with your point.

I cannot believe my high school forced people to watch bowling for columbine, it was such trash.
 
[quote name='Knoell']
Would his point in the movie have been as powerful if he had not orchestrated the gun being at the bank situation?[/QUOTE]
The point would have been more powerful without the orchestrations because more people that wouldve otherwise been distracted by the machinations would be more receptive to the core argument, which are correct. More information is always better and more compelling. More entertaining? Maybe not. I would definitely prefer a more boring movie. 20-30 minutes max. Maybe a slide show with graphs and charts.

The worst thing about his movies is the last half to 2/3rds which is just tear jerking with people's personal stories, after the argument part is over. Entirely too much boohooing.

That aside, yes - orchestrations around correct points are better than incorrect points, with or without orchestrations. Correct points without are better than both. Do you disagree?
 
Come on now, most people would think a movie like that was boring as hell. You know that to get people to pay attention you have to do soemthing to grab that attention and keep it. Moore knows this, most film makers period know this. It's the reason why channels like History and Discovery now have these stupid reality shows on in place of something educational, because they figured out that dry facts don't sell. It's also why most news programs these days suck. I wish Moore and others like him didn't have to use gimmicks to attract viewers, but they have a message they want to get out and have to do what it takes.
 
[quote name='Dr Mario Kart']
That aside, yes - orchestrations around correct points are better than incorrect points, with or without orchestrations. Correct points without are better than both. Do you disagree?[/QUOTE]

Orchestrating points that are misleading are not correct points. I do agree that without all the orchestrations points can be more powerful though, I was not trying to say that they can't be, just that I disagree with the point moore was trying to make.

It would be like going to a gun store filling out the application for a gun, waiting the established period of time, clearing the background checks, and then only showing on camera that you went and asked for a gun and they gave it to you. Oh wait, that is more or less exactly what he did, well didn't do, but implied that the special treatment he was given was the normality of the process.

That is a terrible and misleading way to make your argument, and it is the way moore operates.
 
This is interesting, is Saudi oil production starting to peak?

http://news.yahoo.com/s/yblog_thelo...helookout/wikileaks-saudis-running-out-of-oil

The cables detail a meeting between a U.S. diplomat and Sadad al-Husseini, a geologist and former head of exploration for Saudi oil monopoly Aramco, in November 2007. Husseini told the American official that the Saudis are unlikely to keep to their target oil output of 12.5 million barrels per day output in order to keep prices stable. Husseini also indicated that Saudi producers are likely to hit "peak oil"--the point at which global output hit its high mark--as early as 2012. That means, in essence, that it will be all downhill from there for the enormous Saudi oil industry.
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reaction of the left: "we need green energy, now!"
reaction of the right: "Drill ANWR"
reaction of reasonable person: "shit, gotta ride my bike to work instead of driving 4 miles..."
 
So... helpful-but-ultimately-minor reactions that only apply to some people in some places are the only ones labeled as "reasonable"?

Because fuck trying to find longer-term solutions. Those are for pussies.
 
I just read an article yesterday that talked about how thanks to fracking, oil locked in shale out west is about to be tapped. Supposedly it would account for a pretty large percentage of our oil use. Of course fracking comes with all sorts of environmental issues too, something that people like T. Boone Pickens (what a name...) aren't too worried about.
 
Namely it threatens the water supply Clak. I'd rather have no oil or natural gas at all then to get it through fracking. Our fresh water is too precious for that.
I can't believe there's not a way to get oil or natural gas without fracking, it's just not as cheap. My opinion is for them to take their fucking hands off our most precious natural resource instead of wasting it.
 
Yeah I was reading about a town in Pennsylvania that has had issue with their water supply being poisoned from nearby fracking operations. Of course the company doing it denies everything, but they are supplying people with bottled drinking water, funny huh?
 
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