Fahrenheit 9/11

Fahrenheit 9/11
June 25, 2004
Dog Eat Dog
Documentary
DVD
B-

Although this movie starts out very well, with a look at the 2000 Presidential Election and some of the events leading up to September 11, 2001, I don't think it sustains that promising beginning.  Too often this Michael Moore movie gets sidetracked into minutiae, like exactly what the ties of money and friendship were between the Bush family and the Bin Laden family.  (Both Presidents Bush, as well as Clinton, appear here, as they did in Bowling for Columbine.)  I also felt that it could've done more with the subject handled in Columbine of how the government and the news media play on Americans' fears for their own profit.  The movie is nonetheless worth a look, revisiting that time that we're still dealing with the consequences of, a dozen years or more later.  And I will say that Moore's ego seems less out of control than in the previous film; he's better able to step back and let others tell their stories.

Bowling for Columbine

Bowling for Columbine
November 15, 2002
United Artists etc.
Documentary
DVD
B

Written, directed, and starring Michael Moore, this documentary is not what it seems.  Like the book Stiffed: The Betrayal of the American Man by Susan Faludi, it is as much about the literal and figurative journey to find answers to a complex question as it about the answers and the question.  Here the question begins with, "Why did the Columbine tragedy happen?" and then expands to raise questions about violence, fear, and racism, obviously overlapping categories.  The movie is often assumed to be anti-gun, but Moore is an NRA member and he points out that Canada is just as "gun-loving" as the US, but with much lower murder rates.

The movie is interesting and entertaining, if sometimes painful to watch.  It captures the way the late '90s led to the very early oughts.  My main complaint is that, while I recognize that this is propaganda, and doesn't really pretend not to be, the cards are very clearly stacked.  And not just with the issues.  Everyone that Moore dislikes, like Charlton Heston (coming off as even blinder than he did in Celluloid Closet, which is saying something), seems like an insensitive clod.  But everyone he likes is painted glowingly, himself most of all.  It is self-serving to show himself as either comforting the suffering or zinging the callous.  I understand that the persona of "Michael Moore" is a big part of his movies, but it is distracting.  I will probably revisit this issue when we look at Fahrenheit 9/11.  For now, I'll note that in a way that movie is a sequel to this one, in that the portions of this documentary set after September 11, 2001 obviously show where violence, fear, and racism can lead.

Chris Rock does a funny routine about bullets, showing how he could've been used more effectively in Dogma, making points without the heavy-handedness of that script.

Peter's Friends

Peter's Friends
November 13, 1992
BBC
Comedy, Drama
VHS
B+

This is sort of an autobiographical film, in that the cowriters Rita Rudner (who plays Carol) and Martin Bergman are married and he's British and she sometimes felt out of place with his friends from university.  And much of the cast, including director Kenneth Branagh (who plays Andrew, Carol's husband), met at Cambridge and remain friends to this day.  Branagh was then married to Emma Thompson (who plays Maggie), and Thompson's mother plays housekeeper Vera.  Hugh Laurie (Roger) and Stephen Fry (Peter) were such good friends that they would often team up on television shows together at the time.  Even Tony Slattery, who's appearing as outsider Brian, was at Cambridge.  Oh, and there are lots of Harry Potter and/or Jane Austen points on this one, but I'll get to all that in later reviews, except to say that Laurie and Imelda Staunton (here as Mary) would again play a married couple.

This discussion of the "incestuous" background is not out of place.  The movie is about bonding and quarreling and flirting in a tight-knit group, and how (not) to deal with outsiders.  It is a witty if sometimes crude movie, very quotable (especially Andrew's lines).  The drama sometimes works and sometimes doesn't, but the film never ceases to be watchable, which is saying a lot for something that is almost solely dialogue.  The cast works well together (with Thompson probably the stand-out), although I will say that Slattery fan though I was and am (it was a pretty big thrill to see him be both goofy and naked), his later scenes don't really work.  Also, the script is a bit cliched and Peter's big reveal (at midnight on New Year's) doesn't pack the wallop it did twenty some years ago.

But there is an added poignancy, seeing the cast when they were relatively young (mostly mid 30s).  When I first saw the movie at 24, I couldn't relate to the feeling of not having accomplished all you'd imagined in your youth.  And I laughed my head off at the opening credits, seeing all those faces of '82 to '92 (yes, including Salman Rushdie), while now it's a time capsule, no longer a look at the recent past.  Similarly, the soundtrack was then filled with the hits of a few years before, and now (while still as good as ever) it is more definitely golden oldies.  In short, the movie doesn't mean what it did before, but then nostalgia never does.

Remembering