Capitalism: A Love Story (2009)

1/5

Michael Moore's Capitalism: A Love Story is a shocking movie for many reasons. First is the intimate albeit brief look we get into the innumerable families who lost their homes to foreclosure and the depression and anger they experience. Second is the revelation of the revolting practice of employers taking out life insurance policies on their employees (and in so doing making money off of their deaths). Third, and the most shocking to me, is how poor Moore's filmmaking abilities have become. The editing--perhaps the most crucial element in a documentary--is absolutely awful. It was made with simple cuts in what looked like a matter of hours by someone who first discovered Final Cut Pro. It was amateur hour in every sense of the word, and it felt like someone was peeing into my eyes with contempt, disregard, and laziness.

The story shows almost no coherence or progression. Not only does that make the movie confusing, it also makes it long (because we cannot predict when an end is approaching). I know from the title and trailers that its intent is anti-capitalist, but the movie itself fails to get that message across. Instead, Moore seems to have confused greed and cruelty with capitalism. Most people can agree that greedy, cruel men can destroy people's lives by putting them out on the street with little care for their survival, but greed and cruelty can exist in any economic policy. So where does capitalism come in?

Moore has lost his technique, and in so doing has also lost his subtlety and his subversion. We see the sad stories of people who lost their homes, we share in their pain and their occasional triumph, but we do not connect the dots. We are not compelled to get up out of our seats and change the world for the better (even though he verbally asks us to at its conclusion). Why? Because we feel tricked into thinking what Moore wants us to think. While essentially every single filmmaker's goal is to manipulate the audience, they are to do it without being discovered. Here Moore has made it so obvious that he is attempting to tell us how to feel and who to blame that it is hard to believe that he is doing it for our own benefit instead of his.

I normally enjoy Moore's movies and stand behind his provocative points of view, but here I think he has pushed this movie out too quickly with too little research and too little production. This is a film of little entertainment value and little social value. There is very little substance--just a lot of personal hatred and righteous indignation from a man who makes a lot of money through capitalism. The worst part about it is the inclusion of a few silly distractions and gimmicks that might make you laugh until you realize that their futility and worthlessness actually mock and belittle the people whose lives are actually affected by the situation. I'm not gonna stop you from watching this movie if you want to, but I will warn you that it's nowhere near as good as Sicko, Fahrenheit 911, or Bowling for Columbine. Also, I think he got the title wrong. He mentions love nowhere in this story. And it's not about capitalism.

IMDb link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1232207/

Sicko (2007)

4/5

What makes me appreciate Sicko as more than a simple documentary on the American health care system is that its subject matter is in dire need of being discussed--it is both timely and topical. After taking INST 203 last semester and being exposed to all the benefits and deficits that come with our health care system, I've started thinking a lot more on the issue. And the fact of the matter is that we need to make it a national priority. Sicko, as a movie and not merely a springboard for cocktail party conversation, was quite effective. There were funny parts that kept the movie from being overly depressing and very emotional parts as well, which grounded the movie in reality. The first half of the movie I found myself fighting with facts I had learned, but the last thirty minutes or so hit you on an emotional level, where facts don't mitigate these real peoples' problems. Unlike Fahrenheit 9/11, it ended on a serious note and not a funny one--you leave the movie thinking that this is a matter that can be improved on, not something you can just laugh away and ignore. So while this movie is far from perfect, I am glad he made it and recommend it to anyone and everyone.

The movie does have a surplus of problems too. The first is that it is made by Michael Moore. He carries with him a lot of baggage and hate because of his earlier movies, and unfortunately a lot of people are not going to see this movie simply because he made it. Going in, you already know it's going to be a biased, pointed attack and not an exposé showing both sides, facts, and solutions. Which irritated me a lot. It begged for sympathy by first showing the victims of the HMOs and their health coverage denials. It claimed that the US was one of the least healthiest nations in the world, even though it pays the most for health care. It showed the perfect universal health care of Britain and France and their longer-living, healthier patients. But it ignores so much that it's almost insulting to the viewer. I don't think Europe's health rating would be as high if they had to deal with AIDS from African countries and TB in east Asian countries in equal quantities as the typical English and French diseases. And that is what the US health system must deal with every day. Being the heterogeneous melting pot that we are, the number of diseases people need treated are huge compared to the relatively small number in the homogeneous European populations. He ignores the benefits to the US health care system (we are one of the top nations when it comes to preventative medicine), but goes out of his way to show that other nations also do similar things (he always mentions when another nation has preventative health care).

And the movie gets very repetitive; we see the "perfect" Canadian system, then the "perfect" British system, the "perfect" French system, and then even the ridiculously sugar-coated "perfect" Cuban system. We get the point. And I don't think any of us are naive enough to think that their systems are perfect, even though they do have good qualities that our system lacks. The movie even feels repetitive when they have the victims tell their stories; there are just so many that each additional one adds nothing to the table except increase the number. What also bugged me a little was the use of archival footage and sixties-style songs, although they were kind of funny. Despite this movie's problems, I think it is one that must be watched and talked about and brought to the forefront of the political realm, because a change is necessary in the American health care system.

IMDb link: http://imdb.com/title/tt0386032/