Michael Moore’s new movie, Fahrenheit 9/11, will be premiering at the Cannes Film Festival tomorrow. However, it’s not yet clear when the film will get a U.S. release, because Disney have blocked its subsidiary Miramax from releasing it.
According to a BBC article (I couldn’t find any mention of the film on either the Disney or Miramax sites), Moore alleges that a top Republican has been pressuring movie companies to block the film’s release, and of course Disney wants to stay friendly with Jeb Bush because of the tax breaks they want in the State of Florida.
Anyway I eventually found myself on Michael Moore’s website, where there are some pretty interesting things to read and look at, which are usually a combination of amusing and appalling:
Letters from Soldiers in Iraq
As the name suggests, letters written to Michael Moore from U.S. soldiers based in Iraq. It seems they are much more aware of, and much unhappier about what is going on than the media would have us believe.
Faces of the Fallen
A link to an interactive presentation by the Washington Post showing the names and dates of U.S. personnel that have died in Iraq. It also describes how they died, which gives some idea of the chaos there: Amongst all the deaths from enemy fire and home-made bombs are more unlikely or surreal demises, such as being run over by a dumptruck after the driver was shot running a checkpoint, or being electrocuted in a swimming pool.
Now Are You Ready to Join Al Qaeda?
Poignant cartoon from the Seattle Post-Intelligencer (and isn’t that a bizarre name for a newspaper?).
Ashcroft Sings
Now this one is just plain weird; a link to a videoclip of John Ashcroft ending a speech in North Carolina with a tuneless rendition of a song he penned himself called “Let the Eagle Soar.” This man is the U.S. Attorney General!
So anyway, big kudos to Michael Moore; his analysis isn’t always totally thorough and he can be kind of irritating at times, but he gets regular people fired up about bad politics in a way no-one else has been able to, and it just might be enough to tip the balance come the Presidential Elections in November — I sure hope so. Nice one geezer!