Fan Fare

For Michael Moore and Ken Loach revolution begins at film festival

By Jeffrey Hodgson

No one can accuse left-wing filmmakers Michael Moore and Ken Loach of abandoning their ideals as they joined the glitz and glamour of the Toronto International Film Festival, where Loach was promoting his Iraq war drama “Route Irish”.

Moore was briefly in town to interview Loach before an audience of fans. But even before the interview started,  the “Fahrenheit 9/11″ director  lamented the amount of corporate sponsorship at the festival. His event, sponsored by BlackBerry, took place in the festival’s snazzy new headquarters, which is sponsored by Canadian phone company Bell.

He said Loach asked him beforehand: ”Is there anything left that hasn’t been branded?”

The conversation quickly turned to war and the two directors backed the idea of Canada offering asylum to U.S. soldiers who have fled there to avoid service in Iraq or Afghanistan. They compared today’s situation with the Vietnam war, when thousands of draft dodgers fled to Canada.

“This country was so generous to those of my generation who did not want to kill Vietnamese,” Moore said. “It is absolutely shameful how Canada has behaved toward those who have resisted this war. It’s not the Canada that we used to know.”

Michael Moore’s “Capitalism” wins fans in week No. 1

After a month-long publicity blitz, director Michael Moore’s new documentary, “Capitalism: A Love Story” finally opened in a few theaters in major U.S. cities this past weekend. The movie, in which Moore looks at last year’s financial market collapse and the economic fallout that ensued, will broaden its release to theaters around the United States this coming Friday.

The movie performed well at box offices this past weekend, taking in about $240,000 from 4 locations or roughly $60,000 per location. By contrast, No. 1 movie “Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs” took in around $7,900 per location in more than 3,100 theaters. You can read our box office report here.

The comparison is not direct because “Capitalism” is a documentary, and those films generally do not do as well as feature films like “Cloudy” at box offices. Still, Moore’s movies (“Fahrenheit 9/11,” “SiCKO” and “Bowling for Columbine” to name a few), have always done very well and in some sense played more like feature films than documentaries.

Moore is, in fact, in a league all his own when it comes to his firebrand style of documentary film. Our blog items and stories about “Capitalism” have elicited a lot of responses. Our story from the Venice film festival is here, and this is a Hollywood Reporter review. And if that’s not enough background, you can read our “Capitalism” Fan Fare blog item from the Toronto film festival here.

So, given the fact that we’ve done all this work on “Capitalism,” we went to theaters over the weekend in Los Angeles and asked people what they thought of the movie. Perhaps predictably — given it was the film’s first weekend in theaters so Moore’s loyal fans turned out — “Capitalism” was well-received. But not all the people were giving Moore the thumbs up. Click below for a look.

(video by Marc Price)

If not capitalism, then what? Michael Moore’s not too sure.

(writing and reporting by Cameron French)

Does Michael Moore really advocate abandoning capitalism? Welllllll, not exactly.

In his new documentary film, “Capitalism: A Love Story,” which debuted at the Toronto International Film Festival Sunday night, the filmmaker behind anti-war documentary “Fahrenheit 9/11″ and anti-gun Oscar winner “Bowling for Columbine” argues that capitalism has ruined the United States and should be eliminated, likening it to a Ponzi scheme that only benefits those at the top.

You can read what Moore said about his movie at last week’s Venice film festival here, or read The Hollywood Reporter’s review here.

But with what would he replace it? At a news conference in Toronto, Moore admitted he was not in favor of embracing communism as an economic system, and hinted he may have overstated his argument to make a point with the audience.

“I think it’s an artistic choice,” he said when asked about his reasons for framing his argument so definitively.

“When I say that capitalism should be eliminated, I’m not talking about eliminating somebody wanting to open up a business and sell shoes or somebody working hard to earn money…to do better for themselves. What would I replace it with? I’m not an economist, so I have no plan to lay out here.”

Michael Moore sends up the bailout

Filmmaker Michael Moore (“Fahrenheit 9/11,” “SiCKO”) is no fan of corporate chieftains. He showed it in 1989 movie “Roger & Me” when he skewered Roger Smith, then chief executive of General Motors, and in 1997 film “The Big One,” in which he did the same to Nike co-founder Phil Knight.

Guess what Moore’s reaction would be to the federal bailout of the financial sector and to bonuses for executives with companies such as insurance giant AIG? The answer: Moore is serving up an extra helping of snark.

On Friday, at theaters in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago and Washington, D.C., Moore appeared in a trailer (he has a new, untitled movie set for theaters in October) that asked audiences to pitch in to help CEOs. The documentary filmmaker with a flair for satire started with an appeal that sounded as if he wanted to help those hurt by the recession — as in unemployed Americans — but the message quickly whiplashed against company executives.

“Ushers will be coming down the aisles to collect your donations for Citibank, Bank of America, AIG, Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan, and a host of other needy banks and corporations,” Moore said in the address.” “Won’t you please give generously? Now, I know what you’re thinking, ‘I already gave at the bailout,’ and I know you did. But even if you’ve given in the past, give some more, it’ll make you feel … good.”

With that, workers with Moore’s fake organization “Save Our CEOs” went around the theater collecting money in buckets. Judging from video of how the stunt went, some audience members actually pitched in a few bucks.