Michael Moore is sick. Sick of fighting little fights, taking on little portions of a bigger problem.
Capitalism: A Love Story shows the filmmaker taking aim at the people that made our economy a mess, pulling out big money sacks and trying to get all the cash back to the American people. If he can find it, that is.
But is it simply a documentary? Not according to Moore. “It’s a crime story,” he says. “But it’s also a war story about class
warfare. And a vampire movie, with the upper 1 percent feeding off the
rest of us. And, of course, it’s also a love story. Only it’s about an
abusive relationship. It’s not about an individual, like Roger
Smith, or a corporation, or even an issue, like health care. This is
the big enchilada. This is about the thing that dominates all our lives
— the economy. I made this movie as if it was going to be the last
movie I was allowed to make.”
“It’s a comedy.”
Check out the trailer below and love the best use of Paper Planes since Pineapple Express.
Full disclosure- a very close friend of mine worked as an editor for this film, but hasn’t spilled anything to me about it. When this individual gets back home I’ll be sure to fill them with alcohol and pump them for info.
I’m genuinely curious about the film but am a little worried from the trailer that Moore has become too big of a presence once again. Part of the reason I think Sicko is his best work is that he mostly let the subject speak for itself rather than cheapening things with silly stunts that are good for laugh and not much else. He can be a genuinely funny guy and his films are going to have an agenda either way (not that there’s anything wrong with that) but the last time he made things too personal we got Fahrenheit 911, hardly what can be considered a great film.
But he can hardly tackle a bigger or more timely issue than this one, and it will be great to see his take on what went wrong. Capitalism: A Love Story is scheduled to premiere at this year’s Toronto International Film Fest.