Wednesday
14May2008
Michael Moore Goes Back for Seconds
Wednesday, May 14, 2008 at 1:21AM 
There was a time when
Michael Moore was the only
notable filmmaker speaking his mind about the War on Terror.
Fahrenheit 9/11,
which is a far inferior film to Moore's previous
Bowling for Columbine, is a
shrill, unfocused, unapologetically subjective documentary. For as entertaining as it is,
and even for as well-researched as some of it is, it is not really what they'd
teach you in a class about nonfiction films.
But at the time, Fahrenheit 9/11 absolutely
served a purpose. Public opinion on the war was changing, and Moore, already a
critic and target of the right wing, seemed somehow preordained to make the
film. And now he's making a sequel.
The as-yet unfinished project will be shopped
around the Cannes Film Festival beginning today,
according to Variety. Overture
Films and Paramount Vantage, who are producing and financing the movie, are
hoping to attract international buyers for one of the few documentary sequels
we're likely to ever see.
Moore has a proud history at Cannes; his last
three films have all played the Festival, with Fahrenheit 9/11 winning the Palme
d'Or in 2004.
Here's my only problem with all of this: Since
2004, while Michael Moore has become increasingly about putting himself in front
of the camera, more stirring, better made, more factual and more relevant
documentaries have been made covering many of the areas Moore will likely tread
into. Can Moore present a more compelling film on prisoner abuse than
Taxi to
the Dark Side? Doubtful. Can he rip to shreds the foreign policy of the Bush
administration with the intelligence and even temper of Charles Ferguson's
No
End in Sight? I can't see it happening.
Can Moore, in fact, do anything at this point
that won't come off like a smug "I told you so"? Highly improbable. And the reason
for that, most likely, is Moore's keen interest in smugly proclaiming that he told us so.
Look, when Fox News and the presumptive
Republican nominee declare very matter-of-factly that this war has been mishandled
and misguided, with McCain going so far as point out the office of Donald Rumsfeld was exceedingly below the task at hand, what is there left for Michael
Moore to say?
I felt that
SiCKO might have been Moore's best
work. He had more or less returned to sticking with one subject, seeing it
through, raising unique questions, and providing his own answers. But there's
nothing unique about an War on Terror documentary anymore. Just ask
Morgan
Spurlock.
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