Sunday, October 25, 2009

Capitalism: A Love Story

Capitalism: A Love Story is, in my opinion, filmmaker Michael Moore's best work. The documentary addresses how capitalism and the free enterprise system has caused the destruction of the middle class in the United States.

In typical Moore fashion, Capitalism shows the effect of his subject matter on real human beings. Americans are shown being forced from their homes, and experts explain how financial deregulation effected the credit of us who are not wealthy, and our ability to save. Interviewees discuss how the politics of economics seems to have been at play in most major decisions of the last 50 years. It's Moore's most personal film yet, and less satire and humor is used by Moore than in any of his previous films to illustrate points.

As a result, Capitalism is intimate, emotional and compelling.

Of particular interest to me was the expose Moore did on Corporate America's Dead Peasant insurance policy making. It was a topic of which I knew nothing, and I found the practice particularly greedy and evil.

I saw the film in Arlington, Virginia in a mall theater. It was packed, two weeks or more after the film was released. At the end of the flick, the audience applauded. Including me.

Michael Moore is a hero.

3 comments:

cat said...

I saw it at Hollywood in Morgantown the week it opened with only about 6 people total in the theater. The projector dude annoyingly turned it off before the credits ended. I loved the film, but I still think Bowling for Columbine is his best work.

JD Byrne said...

I was a little disappointed, honestly. I don't think he did a good enough job supporting what I think he really meant - that capitalism's built in features naturally lead to the unethical and illegal stuff he cataloged.

Take the bit about the private kiddie prison in PA. I have huge issues with that kind of thing - if there's one thing the state ought to do and pay for, it's locking people up, right? But he pretty much whizzes right past that issue and dives into the bribery stuff. Do private prisons inevitably lead to bribes and payoffs? I don't know. There are plenty of other problems with them, tho'.

Oh, and for demographic purposes, the girlfriend and I saw it in Nitro with about a half dozen other people.

Unknown said...

The movie is leftist drivel and the people who like it are brain dead progressives who are probably on the government dole.