May 20 2007
From Slacker to Slicker
I tend to worry about people who become millionaires overnight. Don’t ask me why; it is a long story. I was particularly worried about Michael Moore. It was really quiet after his last film and the 20 or 30 million dollars he had cashed in on the low budget production Fahrenheit 9/11. No newsletters were sent from his office for a long time.
Was he spending it all on Hamburgers? Let’s face it, the man has a weight problem; he could easily kill himself by expanding his eating habits just a tiny bit further. Few good men can carry the weight of extreme luxury.
Also, there was a deafening silence in the press around his upcoming film ‘Sicko’ to be screened today at The Cannes Film Festival but yesterday, most unexpectedly, an email came in with the subject: “Sicko” Is Completed and We’re Off to Cannes!
Phew! He is alive and kicking! The newsletter was filled with the usual teasers telling us that the film is at risk of being banned or confiscated in the States. We have heard it before with Fahrenheit 9/11 and when all was said and done nothing of the kind actually happened, but the French will love it! I can hear the buzz from here: ‘Zees njew Moore-uh Fhilm had to bee zmuggled from zee uh-United Ztates to France, you know-uh?’
Yes, the marketing is good and if we have to believe Moore ‘Sicko’ will shock us all by how the US health care system really works. I don’t think so, but I haven’t seen the documentary yet. My best guess is that we will all be just as surprised as we were by the last school shoot-outs. The US have really lost the ability to surprise the rest of the world.
Still, I was anxiously refreshing the front page of the Cannes Film Festival site to see the new Moore and boy it was worth the wait… From slacker to slicker… Our beloved truth-seeker is looking good and he is almost sounding like a Republican these days. Just listen to what he had to say to AFP: ‘The film is meant not for Michael Moore to go and do it, but for the American people to go and do it.’
Like his president, Moore has obviously forgotten that most Americans work two jobs to pay the rent.
PS: The photo insert shows ‘the old’ Michael Moore during his so called ‘Slacker Uprising Tour’ of 2004.