Fahrenheit 11/9 (2018)

[Steph J]

Anyone else see this?  I was reluctant, because I'm pretty "Trumped out" in general, but it turned out that, despite the heavy Trump focus of the film's advertising, it's not really a movie about Trump.  I thought it was pretty good, heavy handed in certain places but that's to be expected from Michael Moore.  Overall I kind of wish that he'd just made the entire film about the Flint water crisis because I thought that those sections were the strongest ones in the film, but the sections dealing with the West Virginia teachers strike and the Parkland kids were really good, too.

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3 hours ago, Steph J said:

Anyone else see this?  I was reluctant, because I'm pretty "Trumped out" in general, but it turned out that, despite the heavy Trump focus of the film's advertising, it's not really a movie about Trump.  I thought it was pretty good, heavy handed in certain places but that's to be expected from Michael Moore.  Overall I kind of wish that he'd just made the entire film about the Flint water crisis because I thought that those sections were the strongest ones in the film, but the sections dealing with the West Virginia teachers strike and the Parkland kids were really good, too.

I'm considering whether to see it. I think the reason why it didn't do that well is because people are tired of hearing about politics.

[Miss Slay]

I saw it too. I agree - the film did a disservice to itself by marking itself as about Trump. It's not - it's more about the current state of America- and it does a good job critiquing the democratic party and showing why people became disillusioned by it and didn't turn out to vote in 2016.

That said - I completely agree. I would have loved to see a full movie on the Flint water crisis. That was so powerful and I found myself thinking about the portion of the movie hours after I saw it.

[Nidratime]

Quote

I think the reason why it didn't do that well is because people are tired of hearing about politics.

The problem is, politics is not some alien thing that the average person could ignore. It never really was.

[partofme]

Part of the reason I was reluctant to see it is because I'm not interested in anything that tries to make Trump voters sympathetic and I'm worried this  movie may do that.

Edited September 25, 2018 by partofme

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17 hours ago, Miss Slay said:

That said - I completely agree. I would have loved to see a full movie on the Flint water crisis. That was so powerful and I found myself thinking about the portion of the movie hours after I saw it.

I recommend Flint Town on Netflix. It's mostly about the Flint Police Department's efforts to reduce crime, and the community distrust of the police, but there is some stuff about the water crisis and general issues too. It's just amazing to think that this level of poverty exists in America. In one of the first scenes the police come to a house that was robbed and the homeowner called the police 24 hours earlier, but because the entire Flint PD is only 100 officers for 100,000 people, it took them a whole day to respond.

17 hours ago, Nidratime said:

The problem is, politics is not some alien thing that the average person could ignore. It never really was.

It's not but there's a limit to how much people can worry about problems that are largely out of their control, and try to take action when it never gets anywhere.

Edited September 24, 2018 by BuyMoreAndSave

[Steph J]

8 hours ago, partofme said:

Part of the reason I was reluctant to see it is because I'm not interested in anything that tries to make Trump votes sympathetic and I'm worried this  movie may do that.

I don't think it makes votes for Trump look sympathetic.  It's deeply, deeply critical of the Democratic party, but it leaves no doubt that Moore thinks Trump is a fascist who capitalized on racism, misogyny, greed, and hate.  It's sympathetic to people who didn't vote at all, but it's not sympathetic to Trump's platform or the people who embraced it.

If anything, I think that Moore's intended audience is people who see both parties as corrupt and the system as rigged and as a result don't think there's any point to voting, because what he does throughout the film is make the point that grassroots organizing by people who are outside the system can work.  I think his intention is to convince non-voters that the system can be changed if people organize and fight for change and vote for those grassroots politicians who haven't become compromised by special interest groups.

[partofme]

If it encourages people to vote, that's great.   But I'm not here for both siderism, the parties are not the same, one maybe flawed but is well meaning where the other one is pure evil.

It's a shame because I really like some of his old movies, Sicko really opened my eyes to how bad and disgraceful the US healthcare system is compared to the rest of the world.

Edited September 26, 2018 by partofme