Film review
Young Bushies, a minority in the crowd, crash a Michael Moore rally of college students in fall 2004 in a still from Moore's latest film, "Slacker Uprising." (Wingnuts almost always feel safe crashing a gathering of liberals, because while liberals have good cause to worry about their physical safety among a crowd of wingnuts, wingnuts rarely have to worry about liberals getting violent with them for unpopular poltical expression.)
Slacker Uprising
A lot of folks (as my boyfriend did...) probably will, at least initially, dismiss Michael Moore's latest film, "Slacker Uprising," as old news; after all, "Slacker" covers the 2004 presidential election.
Moore describes "Slacker Uprising" thusly:
"Slacker Uprising" takes place in the wake of "Fahrenheit 9/11," during the run-up to the 2004 election, as I traveled for 42 days across America, visiting 62 cities in a failed attempt to remove George W. Bush from office. My goal was to help turn out a record number of young voters and others who had never voted before. (That part was a success. Young adults voted in greater numbers than in any election since 18-year-olds were given the right to vote. And the youth vote was the only age group that John Kerry won.)
I hear you: But that was four years ago! (Four whole years ago counts as ancient history here in the United States of Amnesia, as Gore Vidal aptly calls us.)
But "Slacker Uprising" -- while not up to Moore's usual snuff (it's not hard to see why the film wasn't released theatrically, but is available as a free download and as a no- or low-cost DVD) -- is very relevant right about now: Democrat Barack Obama and Repugnican John Fossil Fool McCain have remained at 40-something-percent to 40-something-percent in most polls for several months; relatively rarely has one of them (usually Obama) hit even 50 percent. Obama is ahead in most of the polls now, but only by single digits, with the McCainosaurus still too close behind for comfort.
Right now things are about as they were this time four years ago, with John Kerry and George W. Bush close in the polls.
This time, however, the Repugnicans don't have Terror! Terror! Terror! with which to distract the American electorate, but have an American economic meltdown that appears isn't going to take a back seat to other distractions, such as the fact that same-sex couples now can legally marry in my great home state of California, thanks to a ruling of the Repugnican-dominated California Supreme Court that a ban on same-sex marriage violates the California Constitution. (So the wingnuts decided to try to write discrimination into the state Constitution, but that ballot measure, Proposition 8, is trailing by double digits in the polls.)
And this time around the Repugnicans have a young electorate who were energized in both the 2004 and the 2006 elections -- and the younger you are, the less likely you are to vote Repugnican. (When I volunteered to be a poll worker for the first time in November 2006, I was struck by the remarkable number of young voters, those 18 to in their 20s.)
And this time around the Repugnicans have "Slacker Uprising" -- a film, widely available for free, that is about the last time.
"I hope the release and wide distribution of this new movie will help to bring out millions of young and new voters on November 4th," Moore proclaims on "Slacker's" website. Not that he had to tell us that; his intent of releasing "Slacker Uprising" -- for free -- six weeks before the November 2008 presidential election is pretty obvious.
Moore fans -- and if you know who he is you pretty much love him or you hate him, don't you? -- will eat up "Slacker Uprising," as I did, but the apolitical probably won't appreciate it much. And it's unfortunate that because "Slacker" is available for free, "Slacker" will, I surmise, be the first, and perhaps the only, Michael Moore film that many will ever see; it's unfortunate because "Slacker" certainly isn't Moore at his best.
Appearances by Eddie Vedder, Roseanne Barr, R.E.M., Viggo Mortensen and others are peppered throughout "Slacker" -- Barr's too-short stand-up performance is my favorite -- but I like the pure, raw politics of "Slacker," such as
- how Moore, directly or indirectly accused by smug members of the corporately controlled mainstream media at press conferences of being a "propagandist," turns the table and gives the corporate toady-whores a tongue-lashing for having served as cheerleaders rather than as journalists during the run-up to and the beginning of the unelected Bush regime's bogus Vietraq War;
- how Repugnicans ludicrously accuse Moore of bribery (or vote fraud or something like that) for giving out free packets of ramen noodles and underwear to "slackers" if they promise to vote (Moore never tells them for whom to vote and he doesn't give the freebies away on Election Day, from what I can tell) -- while Repugnicans actually try to bribe colleges and universities to cancel Moore's scheduled appearances, because Repugnicans are champions of free speech (speech with which they agree, that is);
- and how Moore wittily handles the wingnuts who crash his rallies.
And there is the wingnut or two (or three?) who bashes Moore's most successful film, "Fahrenheit 9/11" -- but, when pressed, admits that he or she never even saw the film.
If I could say just one thing about "Slacker Uprising," it's that the subject matter captured in the film is just as relevant today as it was four years ago; with incredibly close presidential elections in 2000, 2004 and 2008 (as 2008 has been shaping up to be) in a nation bitterly divided, "Slacker" isn't old news, but is the timeliest film that Moore has released.
Watch it. And then vote on November 4. (Sorry, I have no freebies to offer; just this blog, which no Repugnican has yet offered me a large sum of money to take down.)
My grade:
If you're a Michael Moore fan (as I am): B
If you're one of those God-awful "swing" voters or if you are fairly apolitical: C
If you're a Michael Moore hater: F- (and, of course, you don't even have to bother to see the film to give it that rating)
7:57:13 PM 
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