Michael Moore is the closest cinema has to a blockbuster documentary director. His films are loud, ballsy, instantly palatable and designed for the masses, says Luke Buckmaster at Cinetology. “More than that they are event movies, pics that loom large on the cultural horizon and attempt to set or influence political agendas,” he says.
But if you’re looking for even handed and maturely nuanced debate, if you’re looking for objectivity, multifaceted perspectives and intelligent arguments unencumbered by sentiment and emotion, then steer clear of the films of this veteran rabble-rouser, whose penchant for fire and brimstone documentary journalism burns ever-undulled in Capitalism: A Love Story.
But if you’re looking for provocative and compelling non-fiction oozing with take-the-power-back polemic and fiery anti-establishmentarism look no further than the flabby cap-donning working man’s hero from Flint, Michigan. Buckmaster goes onto to say:
The argument that Moore’s career is built on preaching to the converted is untrue, his audience well and truly large enough to encapsulate plenty of sceptics and naysayers (probably a decent selection of babies and barn animals too). Bowling for Columbine is still Moore’s pièce de résistance; it ties the staple properties together so smoothly: a powerful emotional crux, alarming facts, compelling case studies, a clear-cut argument. Capitalism: A Love Story is nevertheless a solid addition to his body of work, a vintage Michael Moore exposé that fits his battlin’-for-the-small-guys shtick like a glove.
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