LOS ANGELES - Michael Moore and his distributors lost their appeal Tuesday to lower the R rating for "Fahrenheit 9/11," his scathing assault on President Bush's actions before and after the Sept. 11 attacks.
Lions Gate Films and IFC Films, the movie's distributors, said an appeals board for the Motion Picture Association of America rejected their request to reduce the rating to PG-13.
The R rating prohibits those 17 and younger from seeing "Fahrenheit 9/11" without an adult.
Moore urged younger teenagers to go see the film anyway. "I encourage all teenagers to come see my movie, by any means necessary. If you need me to sneak you in, let me know," he said.
"Fahrenheit 9/11," which won the top honor at last month's Cannes Film Festival, depicts the White House as asleep at the wheel before the Sept. 11 attacks. Moore accuses Bush of fanning fears of future terrorism to win public support for the Iraq war.
The movie was rated R for "violent and disturbing images and for language." The images include an Iraqi man tossing a dead baby into a truckload of bodies, Iraqis burned by napalm and a public beheading in Saudi Arabia.
Tom Ortenberg, president of Lions Gate Films, had argued to the appeals board that 15- and 16-year-olds should be free to see the film on their own because they could end up in military service in Iraq in the next few years.
"I hope the R rating doesn't have a large impact on the box office," Ortenberg said. "I've spoken with many parents, including some on the appeals board, who absolutely said they are going to take their children to see the film. We'll just have to hope the teenagers we're encouraging to see this picture find their way in through parents or adult guardians."
"Fahrenheit 9/11" opens in limited release in New York on Wednesday and nationwide in about 850 theaters Friday.
Jonathan Sehring, president of IFC Films, said the R rating could reduce the film's theatrical revenues by 10 to 20 percent.
The distributors had hoped the appeals board "would step back and see the bigger picture and importance of this film, and one of the key audiences that this film should be seen by," Sehring said. "Some of the images are disturbing, but in a year or two, if kids are off to war, they're going to be faced with those disturbing images for real."
Last-minute challenges to movie ratings are not uncommon, said MPAA spokesman Richard Taylor. The timing depends on how soon before theatrical release the movie is presented to the MPAA for initial rating, he said.
Films are rated by a panel of parents or those with parenting experience. If a distributor challenges the rating, it is screened for an appeals board of Hollywood workers, which also hears oral arguments from the distributor.
The ratings squabble came after a row Moore had with Disney, which refused to let subsidiary Miramax distribute "Fahrenheit 9/11," saying the movie was too politically charged.
Miramax bosses Harvey and Bob Weinstein bought back the film from Disney and lined up Lions Gate and IFC to help release it.
Did you know that Michael Moore is also trying to influence Canadian politics? He was advising Canadian citizens not to vote for the Conservative party on Monday, 28 June 2004. But I have never seen a Mike Moore flick so maybe I will go and see what all the fuss is about.
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Michael Moore is a very clever, if slightly obnoxious, person. He has the right idea about politics, and although he doesn't voice his knowledge in the most appropriate way some of the time, he successfully brings the subject to the attention of today's short attention span audience.
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Fahrenheit 9/11: Factual or Saudi-bashing? By Kaveh L Afrasiabi
Fahrenheit 9/11 is the "temperature" at which the presidency of George W Bush burns. While we must delegate to the near future the question of whether or not it will be "the film that unseated President Bush", the controversial documentary by anti-war activist Michael Moore is undoubtedly a potent missile fired at the White House's regime of truth, simultaneously unmasking the conformist American media as well as the capitalist logic of war making. It is a humorous, compassionate, critical and enlightened examination of a rather sad chapter in contemporary American history marked with war, terrorism and overzealous counter-terrorism trampling on citizens' rights, invoking the dark memories of McCarthyism and communist witchhunts.
Moore's timely antidote, decried by the right wing media and the garden variety pundits such as Christopher Hitchens, a one time Marxist-turned White House apologist, delves into the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries connections of the Bush dynasty and in no uncertain terms accuses the sitting president and his father, former president George H W Bush, of prioritizing their own interests and the interests of their Saudi partners over national interests. Like so many voices in America - presidential hopeful John Kerry, journalist-cum-author Bob Woodward, and others, Moore attacks Saudi Arabia, a country many Americans love to hate these days given the fact that some 15 of the 19 perpetrators of the September 11 tragedy were Saudis, never mind that the Saudi government itself is targeted by the same al-Qaeda terrorists. Regardless, the post-September 11 Saudi syndrome that has sunk in the substratum of American political psychic is so powerful as to unconsciously serve as a scapegoat, letting others off the hook.
Indeed, one is struck by the peculiar absence of any reference by Moore to the so-called neo-conservatives of Bush's inner circle, almost entirely Jewish, who plotted the invasion of Iraq long before September 11. Moore's bravery stops at the door of Israel, and he does not bother even asking if Israel and its army of influence peddlers in the US capital and its halls of power and decision-making was a key factor triggering the present administration into war with Iraq. At the risk of sounding "anti-Israel", however, the question needs to be asked and seriously scrutinized, notwithstanding the commission of inquiry in Israel now investigating precisely the question of why the Israeli government and its security apparatuses exaggerated the weapons of mass destruction threat of Saddam Hussein.
Sadly, no one in the 9-11 Commission has bothered to raise such a question, perhaps out of fear of instant excommunication by colleagues and the media, just as was the case with Representative James P Moran, who dared to suggest at one point that the American Jewish community was pressing the White House to go to war in Iraq. Another question is, of course, if Moore could realistically afford to antagonize the Jewish population, not to mention the pro-Israel Hollywood executives who berated Mel Gibson openly in the New York Times for his "sin" of depicting a crucified Christ condemned by his Jewish community.
But just as Gibson's Passion of Christ was a sincere attempt to come to terms with the true message of the Messiah, Moore the "president slayer" should have ventured on this tricky ground irrespective of the potential backlash. After all, Fahrenheit 9/11 invokes close comparison with the 1966 classic, Fahrenheit 451, an Orwellian near future science fiction depicting a docile population duped by wall televisions. "We've got to be alike," says one of the villains of the movie to Montag, the book burner turned their admirer rebelling against the status quo. Based on a book by Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451's darkly dystopia can be hardly dismissed in the light of America's largely docile population following what Noam Chomsky has termed as a sophisticated "manufacturing consent".
However, there is no consent "from below" about the Iraq war either, and the "war for oil" discourse of the anti-war movement requires substantial qualification in light of several other intervening variables ranging from the cause sui generis of the American military industrial complex, the long-term requirements of uniploar hegemony, and the dictates of Israel's interests - superseding the foreign policy interests of the US according to a recently-published book by an anonymous Central Intelligence Agency official who has become disillusioned with the Bush's pro-Israel policy sacrificing America's relations with the Arab and Muslim world. In addition to this book, Imperial Hubris, another book written by general Anthony Zinni, called Battle Ready, bravely raises the issue of Israel's interests playing a paramount role on the part of various Jewish policy-makers within the Bush administration; in late May, 2004, Zinni, the former head of Central Command, relayed the same concerns about the Jewish neo-conservatives in an interview on CBS's 60 Minutes program.
To pause on the role of America's "warmongering Jews" for a moment, we must take account of the pro-war "liberal" Jews such as the Washington Post's Bob Woodward, whose book Plan of Attack deftly rationalizes Bush's war plan, and Thomas Friedman, a New York Times columnist, who similarly backed the invasion. Yet another name worth mentioning is Kenneth Polllack, whose book Threatening Storm: The Case for the invasion of Iraq, presented only a fleeting reference to the legality of such an invasion from the point of view of international law. Pollack, a former scholar at the pro-Israel think-tank in Washington DC, the Institute for Near East Studies, is now wearing a critical hat in the light of the post-war developments disproving his prediction of an easy and relatively cost-free war, using Bush as a scapegoat, whom he criticizes for misleading him and others into thinking Saddam possessed weapons of mass destruction. Indeed, how convenient.
Moore's obliviousness to the question of Israel notwithstanding, another flaw of Fahrenheit 911 has to do with Moore playing loose and fast with facts throughout the documentary. Case in point, the narrator, Moore, states at one point that the regime of Saddam had "never killed a single American". This is factually incorrect, since in 1987 some 37 US sailors were killed by an Iraqi missile fired from one of Saddam's jet fighters, ostensibly to draw the US superpower into the Iran-Iraq war.
None of the above criticisms should detract us, however, from the cortical vacuum that is filled by Fahrenheit 9/11, the vacuum of critical reflection based on in-depth connecting facts bespeaking of American power run amok.
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The point of the movie is not whether its valid or not. No not at all. It drives its point home in the clearest sense and with vengeful point. Everyone knows its biased, could see there are massive holes in his arguement.
Who cares?
It's the impression that matters. Michael Moor is achieving his purpose merely by having us discussing it in this forum. He will make a dent in Bush no matter what, bring out the dirty secrets of the Bush family to the surface. It doesn't matter if its even true or not. The very fact that he'd managed this will hurt Bush, a lot. This may very well cause Bush his election, and by that he'll have achieved his purpose.
Oh yeah, the money and name he's making for himself is strictly a side-effect.
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chargemoore.com: Filmmaker urged Canadians not to vote for Harper
Martin Patriquin
National Post
July 10, 2004
An Ontario-based conservative group is petitioning Parliament to charge Michael Moore with attempting to influence last month's federal election, after the left-wing U.S. filmmaker urged Canadians not to vote for Stephen Harper.
At a Toronto screening of his film Fahrenheit 9/11, an indictment of the administration of U.S. President George W. Bush, Mr. Moore said Mr. Harper "has a big pair of scissors in his hands and wants to snip away at the social safety net that distinguishes [Canada] from [the United States]."
He suggested a Conservative victory in the June 28 election would "be such a blow to those of us trying to get rid of Bush."
As far as Kasra Nejatian, a 21-year-old Queen's University student, is concerned, Mr. Moore broke the law. Specifically, the Canada Elections Act, which states "[no] person who does not reside in Canada shall, during an election period, in any way induce electors to vote or refrain from voting or vote or refrain from voting for a particular candidate" unless the person is a Canadian citizen or a permanent resident.
Mr. Nejatian has set up a Web site, chargemoore.com and is asking Canadians to sign his petition -- which he wants to present to Elections Canada, along with a formal complaint. Should Elections Canada pursue the complaint against Mr. Moore, it would be the first time a non-Canadian would be charged under the Elections Act.
"I was tired of this guy going around and telling Canadians about a topic which he knows nothing about," Mr. Nejatian said yesterday. "This guy's propaganda is bad enough in the U.S., but at least there he's not breaking the law. He broke the law here."
Individuals cannot pursue alleged infractions of the Act; only Elections Canada can. However, Mr. Nejatian said he will challenge Elections Canada in court should it not take up his complaint. Mr. Nejatian further noted he was interested only in Canadian signatures -- if only to avoid having Mr. Moore start a "Republican conspiracy" in Canada.
Mr. Nejatian's lawyer, Calgary-based Jonathan Denis, would not comment on the case's merits, but said the law's "clear intent is to prevent foreign interference in federal elections in Canada." This particular section became law in 2000, when Parliament last modified the Elections Act.
The law says anyone who "wilfully contravenes" the Act regulating foreign influence is guilty of an offence -- an important distinction, Mr. Denis said.
"The person's intent is key here. To me, Mr. Moore's comments directly intend to influence voters."
Should Mr. Moore be found guilty of violating the Act, he could face a $2,000 fine and/or six months in jail, although Mr. Denis doubts Mr. Moore would do any jail time.
Reached for comment yesterday, Chief Elections Officer Jean-Pierre Kingsley would not comment on the specific merits of the such a complaint.
"Anyone who wants to bring forth a complaint does so in writing to the commissioner of Canada Elections," Mr. Kingley said through a spokesperson.
Mr. Nejatian, president of Ontario's Campus Conservatives, has been politically active for several years. He ran against and lost to former Liberal Cabinet minister David Collenette in the 2000 election.
"This is the first time I've tried to sue a foreign national, but I think he deserves it," Mr. Nejatian said.
Mr. Moore could not be reached for comment.
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