Michael Moore’s new satirical documentary about the economic crisis, titled, “Capitalism: A Love Story” screened at the Venice Film Festival yesterday and reports are trickling in.
Variety as usual, is first out of the gate and they give the film a positive thumbs up, calling it one of Moore’s best pictures. But as usual, they also caution about b0x-office prospects and right-wingers potentially being annoyed by the picture. They do note that the film was met with “ecstatic applause” in Venice, but then they suggest that’s simply because the rest of the world are friggin’ commies (or practically anyhow, sheesh).
“By returning to his roots, professional gadfly Michael Moore turns in one of his best films with ‘Capitalism: A Love Story.’ Pic’s target is less capitalism qua capitalism than the banking industry, which Moore skewers ruthlessly, explaining last year’s economic meltdown in terms a sixth-grader could understand. That said, there’s still plenty here to annoy right-wingers, as well as those who, however much they agree with Moore’s politics, just can’t stomach his oversimplification, on-the-nose sentimentality and goofball japery. Whether “Capitalism” matches ‘Fahrenheit 9/11’ or underperforms like ‘Sicko’ will depend on how much workers of the world are ready to unite behind the message.”
Variety spends the rest of the review preoccupied with whether audiences want to keep their head in the sand or actually get a picture — oversimplified or not, though this is kind of the point, frankly — of what happened last fall or will they rage against the machine.
ScreenDaily says the picture is more of the same from Moore, but compelling and entertaining nonetheless. “Michael Moore’s latest is another rallying cry for the working man, reworking the same themes of all his films from Roger & Me onwards, namely the hypocrisies and injustices of the corporate and political superstructure in the US. The formula is the same as before – dips into history, a series of illustrative cases, the big stunt – only this time showman Moore wears his bleeding heart idealism on his sleeve more happily than before as he clearly hopes for a new golden era under Obama.”
Many are noting that the film is Frank Capra-esque, a sentiment also echoed by InContention, who write, “ ‘Capitalism: A Love Story’ – an artlessly effective slice of rah-rah rhetoric more sincerely idealistic than anything the director has yet put his name to – represents Moore’s ‘It’s a Wonderful Life.’ ”
All three reviews are positive, but all of them warn how the American right will loathe it (uhh, a given), how the box-office might not light up (uhh, when has a Moore doc really done that aside from “Fahrenheit 9/11”? And when you think about it, that’s sort of a special case) and how the film uses sledgehammer subtlety, sentimentality and propaganda-like tactics. We just wish for once, someone would tell us what they thought instead of wondering how everyone else will feel. Sure we do that too sometimes, it can be important, but Variety’s reviews in particular lately have been incredibly annoying in that sense.
The AFP review just gets down to it and says the film, “pulls no punches,” but with “large doses of biting humor and a few dollops of inspiration.” We can’t wait to see it and frankly, the apathetic people of this country could stand to get angry about something, so a little rousing cinema with rage-against-the-machine rallying cries is never a bad thing in our opinion. We’ll obviously have to see it before we pass judgement and hopefully its not too hamfisted, but it does infuriate somewhat how Moore — who at the end of the day is trying to do some basic good — is always summarily dismissed by many average people simply regurgitating the notion that he’s a godless, commie manipulator. One can easily argue, that Moore is no Kevin Smith, he’s actively and purposefully making agit-prop. It’s not always subtle, but it can be effective. What we’re saying is: give Moore a chance. You joe jobbers who generally ignore him, might want to get they layman’s take on the great swindle of last year. We know, we were hit really fucking hard too and if we had to throw the personal number out there, most of our readers would choke.