#7 The Variety review is unintentionally amusing:
How Michael Moore Lost His Audience
The fabled documentary muckraker keeps doing films with his trademark fusion of snark and liberal warning. Maybe it's time for him to mix it up.
“Fahrenheit 11/9,” his scathing riff on the administration of Donald J. Trump, will be lucky to gross one-tenth of what “Fahrenheit 9/11” did. That’s more than just a staggering comedown. It symbolizes a couple of things at once: how different the two eras are, but also how Michael Moore’s audience — there’s no other way to put it — has gradually drifted away. It symbolizes that Moore is no longer defining the dialogue. A Trump-era conservative would probably say, “It’s about time! Michael Moore has lied so much that it’s all finally caught up with him.” A Trump-era liberal would probably say, “I still agree with him, but I’ve seen enough Michael Moore movies. I know his message already.”
There are elements to be heeded in both those statements (even as a Moore believer, I’ve been troubled, on occasion, by his willingness to bend the truth to make a larger point). But the question of why Moore’s films are no longer connecting with the public in a major way has a meaning beyond the standard left/right dialectics. It’s about a problem that Moore may be able to solve, but if so, he’s going to have to rethink what he does. Not the content but the execution. Because as much as I remain a fan of Moore’s (I thought the cumulative effect of “Fahrenheit 11/9” was chilling), what he’s doing now is not, in the fullest sense, working. He needs to decide if he wants to rectify that. |
Cue the picture of Nelson Muntz going 'Ha-Ha!"