Tim Blair

'Should this be happening in a free and open society where the monied interests essentially call the shots regarding the information that the public is allowed to see?'

You mean like you and your tepid liberal friends in the media do, Mikey?

Moore took their money; in exchange the film is as much (or more!) theirs than his. If he wanted total control, he should have turned down their cash.

No one really believes this is for real, do they?

Disney's been releasing bomb after bomb, and now they're holding back on releasing a low-cost, surefire hit movie?

Total publicity stunt to raise "controversy" and pique the interest of people who otherwise have never heard of Michael Moore in to seeing the movie.

Moore Said: "Should this be happening in a free and open society where the monied interests essentially call the shots regarding the information that the public is allowed to see?"

But hang on a second Mike, arent' you a "monied interest"? And aren't you trying to "call the shots" about what the public sees?

Maybe if your film was any good, Mike, you might have risked your own money on it, instead of doing the "Iraqi prisoner" for those Disney nazis. Then you could have shown the boring piece of shit in any ashram too stoned to stop you.

It's guys like Mike that give rich self-absorbed assholes with big fucking mouths a bad name.

Moore should simply be given the opportunity to buy his own film and distribute it by finding his own distributer.

After all, Mel Gibson did this.

Disney is already in deep doodoo from Christians and conservatives for their many anti religious films from Miramax and because of "gay days" at Disneyworld where open sex in front of the children (of both gays and non gay families) is ignored.

I stopped supporting Disney long ago, because of two reasons: It's crash commercialism, and because it is openly racist (one of my kids in a movie saw a black character, and commented: he'll either die or end up the bad guy...he did both. And then there was the film where a 4 year old adopted Chinese kid was a karate expert. So Orientals brought up by whites have karate in their genes?...etc.)

I think Ian McFadyen put it so well back in 1995:

He is the personification of the personality denoted by the Australian phrase "wanker". A person who is transparently concerned with appearances, pretentious to such a thorough degree that he has quite fooled himself - a modern Malvolio.

The way in which Mike Moore works as a sitcom character illustrates the fine line in sitcom construction. The character must be someone we can laugh at while at the same time recognising that there is something of ourselves in them. It is a delicate tension between two opposite feelings objectification "Thank God I’m not like that" and identification "God, I am a bit like that."

We despise Mike Moore because he is so vain, deceitful, cowardly, pompous, ungenerous and lazy. We feel sorry for him for exactly the same reason. His plans never work. His desires to be more than he is never come to fruition. He sees himself as held back by the network, by his superiors, by the machinations of his colleagues and bad luck, but the truth is that he is really held back by his own limitations. We recognise that, and at some level, tragically - and this is where the sitcom works - so does he.

I think there should be attempts to buy ads before the movie pointing out the inaccuracies in Moore's works. And if the movie chains refuse to allow us to buy ads, can we scream corporate censorship?

My low opinion of disney has just gone up five hundred percent !

Getting different shots of Mr. Moore is difficult now that he is a star.

I agree with Moonbat_One. This screams of publicity stunt.

If I'm not mistaken Disney isn't the first studio to pass on this sucker.

Great. Now he's going to go around Europe proclaiming the lack of free speeh in the US. Because of that fat shithead, every time I go to Europe, I have to hear about how I live in a dangerous gun toting corporate run society. Now I'm going to be pitied for not having free speech, over what is essentially an opaque corporate decision. All this while real dissidents are being put to death in wonderfully free regimes like Egypt and Iran. What an asshat.

I agree that it is a publicity stunt, but make no mistake that the primary audience for this movie is in Europe.

Buzz, I'm assuming you go to Europe out of economic necessity, not some deep-seated character flaw. But if they insist on giving you a hard time, just ask them about all the journalists the EU is prosecuting, or why the big German and French investors that bankroll the megabuck American summer flicks didn't want to support the Portly Punk?

*tioedong said:*

>And then there was the film where a 4 year old adopted Chinese kid was a karate expert. So Orientals brought up by whites have karate in their genes?...etc.

1. Chinese (or Japanese, Korean, etc.) people are Asians. Chinese furniture is Oriental. Get it straight.
2. Karate is Japanese. Kung-Fu is Chinese.

"At some point the question has to be asked, 'Should this be happening in a free and open society where the monied interests essentially call the shots regarding the information that the public is allowed to see?'"

I get so tired of the liberals saying crap like this. First of all, Disney is not a government run organization. They work in the private sector and the heavy hitters in that company have the same rights to free speech as anyone else - which includes the right to reject other people's thoughts and ideas. Mr. Moore: Your right to free speech does not supercede someone elses. It is arrogance of the highest order to assume that Disney is required to distribute your movie. If a distributer rejects your film, that's their choice and it is NOT an infringement on anyone's rights. Someone already mentioned this: Moore can distribute his movie on his own like Mel did.

You have the right to say what you want. You do not have the right to be accepted for it.

Maybe someone should tell the fat fuck,it's
not censorship,it's quality control.

Are there any legal implications to what Moore is doing in his latest smear job? Guess he has a battery of attorneys protecting his ample backside, but are there any limits to insinuations and lies put into film about a public figure?

Moore is no dispassionate journalist or bystander- he has professed his undying enmity for Bush and family. At what point does his freedom of expression look like slander b/c of partisan intent?

Could someone do a mockumentary on Moore (god knows a documentary would be plenty damning), with bizarre and difficult to disprove conspiracies and guilt-by-association memes? He is a public figure, too. How about "Roger Me"?

"Disney unleashes savage attack on John Kerry's patriotisim"

"Should this be happening in a free and open society"

Sure. They have every right not to distribute the movie.

FINALLY!! I've been petitioning Disney for months! Screw Moore.

I wouldn't mind if he was just a left wing wacko loon, but he's a LIAR left wing wacko loon and that's not cool with me.

Bowling for TRUTH!!!!!

Well waddya know! More free controversial publicity for a film that will inevitably be released by someone, probably eventually Miramax. For a dirty leftie that Mr Moore knows how to turn a buck. And you blogheads keep keeping his name up in lights.

Just doing our part, Miranda!

By the way -- this guy says that Disney never intended to bankroll the film in the first place; that's it's a tissue of lies. (Link via Richard Bennett.)

Oh, and by the way, Mir, you're banned again.

Personally, I hope that this flick goes straight to DVD. I'll steal a copy (no money for Michael Moor!) and use it for target practice.

The Real JeffS _ Set it up with a projection teevee and you can use it over and over and over, the catharsis that just keeps on giving...

......crippling nausea and cramps.

Pass, Richard!

xxx xxx,

For what it's worth:

I always thought that people were Asian, objects were Oriental. Then one afternoon in my classroom, one of my students, a Vietnamese-American, referred to his friend as Oriental. I said, "I thought...?" and he replied that since Asians also include Siberian Russians, Indo-Pakistanis, etc., that it was common for Asians to describe other Asians as Oriental when refering to facial features.

So, apparently it's not hyper-taboo to use Oriental in describing a person.

Also; Did anyone else see the bit in the NY Post's Page Six gossip column this week (sorry, no link) where porn star Ron Jeremy (yeah, the fat one) was mobbed at a Disney theme park and families were getting their pictures taken with him? Even Jeremy thought it was weird.