Friday, October 03, 2008

Michael Moore's New Wankfest 'Slacker Uprising'

Wow. I've been a Mike fan for almost 15 years, starting back in the Roger & Me and T.V. Nation Days. I even went to the taping of the pilot fo The Awful Truth, in New York city. That was pretty cool.

But one thing always rankled. The Cult of Mike undercurrent that played out in a lot of his work. Now with 'Captain Mike Across America' aka 'Slacker Uprising', Moore has dispensed with any pretense of this being anything but him.

A film about his failed 2004 campaign to get young people to register to vote show whistle stops on his 60-city tour to small-and-big-town America. Actually what it shows is a lot of Michael Moore walking onto a number of stages to loud cheers, sometimes sycophantically introduced by a rockstar or other luminary of some sort.

Moore has done a great job of calling bullshit on what is wrong in American society for years, but this is unwatchable. Moore lumbers onto stages, the only differentiating factor being his occasional change of baseball cap, and exhorts young slackers to register to vote in exchange for gifts of free underwear and Ramen noodles. One thing I also got from the bit of the film I was able to stomach is 'George Bush is bad' Check. Got that, thanks.

I couldn't get more than 35 minutes into this self-congratulatory clap-trap before losing all interest - perhaps you can last longer, if so, it is a free* download off've iTunes for the next couple of weeks.

I'm sure there are those on "Downsize This" the Moore fanboy board who will be find this wankfest laudible, but bottom line I think he's gone over the edge; his laudible work from Columbine and days prior is long gone, all we are left with is Moore big-upping himself. Yawn.

* Free, that is, for Americans and Canadians, don't try sharing this with anyone who isn't incontinent (sic), he'll sue your ass.

No comments: