Michael Moore, love him or hate him?

Don’t hate anyone. Michael has some good points and like the rest of us, some bad ones!

Used to love him…could do no wrong….

Until he came to the UK to show “how great a system” of health care the NHS was. The same NHS who denied breast cancer medicine to a nurse who had served the NHS for 20 plus years. The same NHS who took out a kidney of a man who didn’t need a kidney taken out. The same NHS who makes you wait for an operation even if it is life-threatening.

Once again, Americans who have not lived in the UK think of themselves as “experts”. I was in an NHS hospital for a week and received the most abysmal treatment. A doctor came to see me only once and I saw an old lady in the same ward, being treated by a“Doogie Howser” doctor (without the brains) wet behind the ears, still….she was dying of cancer and no one was bringing her drugs. This neophyte of a doctor, comes in, takes her pulse, doesn’t even have the courtesy to speak to her…and is busy talking on his cell phone to his girlfriend. And leaves. Not one word of comfort or word of when she will get medication. She was in extreme pain.

Michael Moore has done some brilliant work. But he was way off base on his lauding the NHS. NHS is fine if you have a cold or flu….or need a plaster cast for a broken bone. But don’t get too sick, or you will be up a creek. I ended up getting private medical insurance as I was treated with such utter incompetence. I left still in pain, went home and treated myself. I was that upset with what they were doing in there.

I am not saying there aren’t good doctors in the NHS or good nurses…but I saw enough bad stuff to make me want to never go in one again.

Fahrenheit 9–11….great work. Bowling for Columbine, great work.

@DarlingRhadamanthus I like Michael Moore. I agree with his POINT every time. I do think he likes to spin entirely too much though, and I believe that’s what happened in Sicko. I just don’t think it was necessary… he really didn’t have to make it look so amazing everywhere else to prove how bad it is here. The health care crisis in the US really has enough weight to stand on it’s own two feet without spin. So I definitely see what you’re saying.

I like him well enough. I enjoy his documentaries, though you do have to take them with a grain of salt (sometimes a little more), because they are intended to get a point across, and everyone’s a little heavy handed when they have something to prove.

@DarlingRhadamanthus I see what you’re saying as well. However, with all the problems the NHS has here, it’s still leaps and bounds beyond what we have on this side of the pond.

For example, if I had a broken bone, I don’t know what I’d do. Probably go to the emergency room and ultimately not pay for the bill – because I can’t afford to. If I had cancer, I’d be dying in pain at home, because the hospital wants money. I was discussing with someone else on here the insurance program for “pre-existing conditions” that was set up in Pennsylvania (my husband has asthma and can’t get normal insurance because of it). It costs more money to be on the health insurance plan than my husband made this last year.

I’d gladly take bad service over no service, or a waiting time over knowing it’s never going to happen.

@Seek_Kolinahr having been uninsured/underinsured for the last 7 years… I’d be inclined to agree with you. I just didn’t want to hop on the “grass is always greener” view. I’d definitely take poor service over no service at all. My husband actually did break his foot, badly, about 3 years ago – and he had to sit it out at home because we couldn’t afford to have it taken care of at the time. A lot of people fall into a category like us, where you make too much to qualify for assistance (including from the hospital itself), but really it isn’t nearly enough to cover basic medical costs or private insurance.

I like his films well enough. I think sometimes he has a good point, yet I get upset when anyone makes a blanket statement and declares it ‘The Truth’. Does that make sense? I also feel sometimes he talks down to me and that’s annoying as well. Then again, that happens with so many documentaries- especially ones on social issues. I prefer to be shown facts and be left alone from there.

I think he makes movies about things that are important. I don’t love him and don’t hate him. I don’t know enough about him personally to have a say on that side of his life.

He’s a filmmaker with a good brain and a great ego. I almost always agree with his point of view but he sure does like to grandstand. I don’t particularly enjoy the way he stages his “confrontations” but he has called attention to some worthy issues.

I think of MM the same way I think of Jesus freaks or Rush Limbaugh, he is a fanatic and in it only for the money. The irony is that MM is in a way the same thing that he tries to expose, he is a little bit big business and a little bit dollar for profit minded. I’ve not seen a soapbox so large before!
Fanatics become the stereotypes for things and MM has become the stereotype for the ultra-leftist movement in the USA. He has good things to say from time to time but he’s no genius.

He does some important work, I think, but he probably goes too far in the interest of “sensationalism”. But who’s to say that that’s not what’s necessary to get enough people to pay enough attention? After all, if “you’re not outraged, you’re not paying attention!”

Sometimes you have to showboat to make a point.
Mr. Moore does a good job of it.

Some people do not like to get attention or attention grabbers, insecurity gets the better of them. Missing the point of the exercise.

I think its good he is making films and questioning the people that essentially run our lives (depending how you look at it) Any government and any authority should be accountable for its actions. Big corporations should have a moral obligation and we should all have the freedom of speech.

If for no other reason than he causes people to think… I love him

I dont’ always agree with him, but then again, who does? His grandstanding an exaggerations get people talking about serious issues

I think after Roger and Me, it was about the money. But I will give him credit for being a really good filmmaker. He’s pretty damn talented in that department.

I think he has interesting insight and viewpoints but his method of delivery is polarizing to the point of making his points pointless. Also, he takes very liberal views of countries he compares the USA to, picking and choosing points where it fits his purpose and ignoring points and data where it goes against his aims. Then again, every point-maker does the same thing!

Don’t really hate very many folks. Moore does not qualify as someone I would hate. Don’t love him either. He certainly has found a nice niche among the “hate everything American” crowd and has made quite a success of it. Not the way I see, but oh well.

I dislike him but I don’t hate him.

I admire his commitment and his skill as a storyteller.
Does he always get it right? Who does?
The proudest citizen is the one who loves is country enough to criticize its faults and show his fellow citizens what needs to change.

@Dr_Lawrence ooh, GA, I agree. Well said.

They have many differences, but I still find Michael Moore and Rush Limbaugh opposite sides of the same entertainment coin – astute, but still emotion hawking shock-jocks.

Every Michael Moore film I watch I am stupefied at: A.) how technically mediocre and cheap the movie is (relative to hype), B.) how much stronger his points could should be, if just delivered with less waddling buffoonery, bias, and overstatement, and C.) how insincere and feigning his questions are.

In this sense both men are their own worst enemy to sensible minds. They masticate and over dramatize what might otherwise be great political commentary.

I find early Limbaugh by far the more sagacious mind. I have often agreed with Michael Moore’s point of view, but only rarely sympathetic to his delivery.

Limbaugh’s vaudevillian sarcasm was legend (but he may have wondered off the reservation of reason some time ago.) Michael Moore’s abstracted cine interpretation of Limbaugh’s late 80s act is still weak sauce in my book.

At its worst, Michael Moore is to leftism what the Bevis & Butthead show is to Heavy Metal. At its best it is exhilarating and timely commentary.