Toronto: 'Captain Mike Across America'

A portion of this Michael Moore picture, then called Slacker Uprising Tour, was screened at Cannes as a work-in-progess on the same bill as Sicko. It is not apt to supplant Sicko, or anything else, in Moore's filmo. As an intertitle early in the picture admits, the movie is about Moore's "failed attempt" to save John Kerry from himself after Kerry's too-little, too-late response to his Swift-boating. For those who remain highly agitated by the results of the 2004 election, this picture, its upbeat "we gotta keep fighting" coda notwithstanding, might play as a particularly unpleasant bout of scab-picking (hey, there's an alternate title for ya). In the final weeks before the election, Moore toured multiple cities in multiple swing states, trying to get out the vote. And this film is, well, a lot of footage from that tour, mostly of Moore addressing mostly adoring audiences. (Advertisement for Myself is another potential alternate title.) The narrative, such as it is, gains interest as loudmouthed Bush-Cheney supporters infiltrate Moore's shows (although the laughs generated by some of these folks' dopey soundbites might have been heartier had the movie not kicked off with one Moore supporter calling Bush "the first non-elected president since the 19th century"—have our young people so soon forgotten Gerald Ford?) and various Republican interests are seen trying to shut Moore down. Until then, you can uncomfortably reflect on how a helluva lot of Moore's celebrity "special guests" are about ten years behind the zeitgeist if not more—Joan Baez shows up in the last third, telling us we need Moore because "there's no Dylan," which news might come as some surprise to the former Mr. Zimmerman, who I believe still does breath. Also featuring Eddie Vedder covering a Cat Stevens song. Not, alas, "Matthew and Son."

Comments

[WP]

I sometimes wonder what Michael Moore would be able to accomplish if only he weren't crippled by this low self-esteem.