Filmmaker Michael Moore is doing something pretty novel: he is releasing his entire next film “Slacker Uprising” on the internet. There will be no theatrical release, and the film isn’t being streamed; it will be available on BlipTV. Everyone can download the entire thing online, and Moore’s not asking for any compensation in return – except for a record voter turnout.
Firebrand filmmaker Michael Moore will release his latest documentary exclusively on the Internet for free on September 23, eschewing a traditional theatrical rollout, he said on Thursday.
“Slacker Uprising” documents Moore’s 62-city tour of key swing states during the 2004 U.S. presidential election, when he tried to convince young non-voters to give voting a shot.
“This is being done entirely as a gift to my fans,” Moore said in a statement. “The only return any of us are hoping for is the largest turnout of young voters ever at the polls in November.”
“Slacker Uprising,” budgeted modestly at over $2 million, was funded by Moore along with movie executives Bob and Harvey Weinstein, who hold international rights, said a spokesman for Moore.
It marks his follow-up to the healthcare expose “Sicko,” which earned just $24.5 million at the North American box office last year, far short of the $119 million haul for his 2004 political blockbuster “Fahrenheit 9/11.”
[From Reuters Canada]
It’s a pretty interesting concept. I’m assuming they’ll be some sort of advertising and someone will make some money somehow, but who knows? Reuters does make an interesting point in that Moore’s last film didn’t make much money at the box office. Maybe he thought he’d have a better chance of getting his message out this way, and that was more important to him. It’s all speculation, but interesting to wonder about. Perhaps this is where more mainstream films are headed as well.
Here’s the trailer for “Slacker Uprising.”
Eric Cartman, in the flesh! 😛
Ouch, gg. That’s going to leave a mark.
I’m sure Michael Moore’s plea for record voter turnout will mirror the record voter turnout he generated in 2004.
Thank you Michael.
Refreshing to see someone get behind the “point” of voting rather then some unregistered *cough Paris Hilton* Saying how “hot” it is to vote when she hasnt the slightest idea.
Keep smirking Micheal, people will think you’re totally a douche otherwise. 🙄
He makes me ill.
I don’t love micheal moore, but I love the idea of a slacker uprising HARD. So I can say this movie appeals in a minor way to a non-American slacker who would to see slackers unite!
Can’t stand this fatass
Thank God the face fur is gone – now we can hopefully see his mouth moving – –don’t understand the hate though
YAY! LOVE this guy! Always makes awesome documentaries
And the trailer looks awesome 🙂
I like this guy, and I like the work he’s done.
Too late Dante, I already think that.
I can’t wait to see An American Carol.
…and a $24 million gross for a documentary about health care is nothing to sniff at.
Moore was on Larry King last night, making some surprisingly good points about the election.
Why release this now? There has already been a movie about this, “So Goes the Nation.” Granted it was Ohio specific, but it really was about the voter turn-out efforts. Maybe if he turned the camera on those he backs, like the 2006 Democratic Congress, people will become better informed.
I really like this guy. Even if I don’t always agree with him, I give him credit for working so hard to make a difference in the world. He has a great sense of humor, too.
If you’ve never seen Roger & Me, you definitely should. I get choked up every time I see that montage of neighborhood after neighborhood of abandoned/foreclosed homes in Detroit while the Beach Boys’ “Wouldn’t it Be Nice” plays on the soundtrack.
Blip.TV is a very cool site. I didn’t know about it until this post, so thanks!
I think he’s great. I wish there were more like him.
His doc’s are informative but never dull, and he’s got a wicked sense of humor and the absurd.
I think he’s as sensationalistic, snarky and pandering as the RNC was.
But it’s a great thing to be able to agree to disagree, no? 😀
Diva, would you agree that he’s sensationalistic, snarky and pandering in aid of getting people informed and off their butts? That unlike the RNC there’s truth and common sense behind the sometimes hyperbole?
After all it is show biz!
They feel their truth as validly as he feels his, or you or I feel ours.
I’m not going to laud one guy for doing the same thing I have disdain for someone else doing, that’s all.
I understand how he annoys people but his stuff is a lot more accurate than not, and he certainly believes in making the world a better place. He has certainly sparked discussions the U.S. needs to have.
So his heart is in the right place, though he does make me cringe sometimes.
Diva feeling that something is just and true doesn’t necessarily make it so. (Apologies to Capt. Picard)
For example: global warming. Many feel it’s so much hoo hah but the ice shelf the size of Manhattan that just broke off from Ellsmere Island begs to differ.
Also, I feel the majority of RNC participants are focused on personal gain and I don’t think that is what motivates Michael Moore.
That said I do respect your opinion and always look forward to reading your posts.
Likewise, Breederina!
I tend to keep myself in check about applying what I consider double standards by my own definition based on my personal preferences. I’m a bit over analytical that way. I learned that from my hippie dad!
Even free, it is way overpriced!
I wouldn’t waste a second of my life watching this disgusting, lying slob’s work.
” his stuff is a lot more accurate than not”
Absolutely not. His stuff is slanted and fabricated to a great extent.
Love him or hate him, Michael Moore genuinely believes in the causes he supports.
In other words, he’s not a fake like most politicians and celebrities.
He’s sincere. He truly believes in the messages he delivers in his films.
And, he typically sides with the working class underdog rather than the corporate pit bulls.
My problem with Mikey is the same problem a lot of people have, and it never gets discussed anymore: he uses the term ‘documentary’ to refer to the films he makes. That’s like calling the op/ed section ‘news’.
His numbers aren’t always accurate, but I will give him credit for getting it right most of the time. But I think we can all agree that the premise of a documentary should be striving for the truth, regardless of your personal belief.
For Michael Moore, his personal belief seems to be his starting place, and he moves on from there to try and prove it. When people or facts disagree with that point of view, they’re either glossed over or ignored completely.
That’s not a documentary, or news, or even necessarily true. It’s a video blog – and it should be understood as such.
Yeah… like Borat!
Some of you need to take a doc film class. Please name one decent documentary that didn’t have a POV behind it. I agree the medium lends itself extremely well to showcasing the makers agenda but Michael Moore is hardly Leni Riefenstahl. All media and art contain both conscious and unconscious bias. I imagine this was true when Mongo was painting his hunt on the cave wall and I know it’s true now.Scott F. your ideal of striving for truth w/o regard for personal belief while noble is impossible. Belief makes for passion and passion fuels the very best work.Okay, also some of the worst, (cough Mel Gibson cough ), but if you believe in what you’re doing, even if you fail, you’ve stayed true.
Fortunately for Michael Moore a lot of people share his vision and he’s very entertaining in conveying it.
Breederina – We’re talking about two entirely different things. It’s my firm belief that ANY conscious bias on the part of the filmmaker negates a film’s status as a documentary.
A true documentary is like a true scientific investigation – a thorough examination of the facts with an impartial and dispassionate eye, in order to find the truth. What you believe at the start of that search shouldn’t effect the outcome.
Especially when your views cause you to be so blinded to the issue that you present an incomplete and inherently skewed viewpoint. Instead of enrolling myself in a doc film class, maybe you should repeat high school Speech. Did they not cover the difference between an informative speech and a persuasive speech? That’s the difference here.
He’s not strictly informing you of the facts – he’s giving you ONLY the facts that support his position and trying to convince you he’s right. Putting on those kind of blinders is what leads a man to trumpet Cuba’s health care system while completely ignoring the moral and societal costs the Cuban people have paid for it.
I love documentaries – I believe that widespread consumption of things like the History Channel, Discovery Channel, Animal Planet, ect. is doing as much for global education as the internet. We just need to draw distinctions between opinion and hard fact.
Scott if you honestly believe that History Channel, Discovery Channel, and Animal Planet don’t have an agenda and are serving up “hard fact” you my boy are in for some big surprises. I’m not saying their programming is not informative, educational and at times delightful, it certainly is. I am saying that there is no such thing as unbiased documentary.
As for high school speech, sorry to disappoint but it wasn’t offered at my high school. High school however was a long time ago and I’ve learned since then that the most persuasive speeches are the ones with the most verifiable information.
Michael Moore earns a B+ to date. John McCain and that horrible woman a D.
May I humbly suggest you Scott F. grab your camera and go out and make a 3 minute doc on anything . The moment you pick a topic your bias has begun, but what the heck keep going.
See you on utube.
One last thing : it has been established that even on the sub atomic level, the act of observation alters the thing observed. Repeat as a mantra Scotty. Happy filming.
Again, you’re entirely missing the point. It’s a question of degrees, not absolutes. Your entire argument boils down to your assumption that because ANY bias exists, an excessive amount is just as tolerable as a small amount.
I’m saying that when bias exceeds a certain level, it’s disingenuous to keep calling it a documentary. For instance; while the History Channel might be slightly biased towards an American point of view on history, they are willing to showcase both sides of an issue like the Vietnam War or World War II. You regularly see interviews with Japanese or German soldiers, as well as North Vietnamese. You get both sides of the story. While atrocities like firebombing and American internment camps aren’t exactly front and center, they are acknowledged and spoken about freely.
Now look at a country like China or Cuba. They’re only offered a point of view that paints the State in a positive light, and you won’t see anything from the ‘other side’s’ point of view. That’s what makes one history, and the other propaganda. Again, it’s a question of degree.
When you set out from the very beginning to prove a specific point of view (guns are bad, govt. health care is good, ect.) then you’ve gone beyond the realm of documenting something, and stepped into the realm of influencing it. I have NO problem with any person engaging in their God-given right to free speech, I just believe he needs to label it properly.
Agree 100% with breederina at 4:28. Don’t see in the least how it matters since most viewers are capable of understanding that his films are his view and will use their own rationale to separate the wood from the trees when it comes to ‘bias’. What counts, in Moore’s doc-making terms, is that they have enough ‘reality’ in them to correctly and unsparingly identify corruption in high places. He may be very polarising with his agenda-based approach, but that doesn’t change the reality of the contentious issues he shines a light on.
His best work IMO remains Roger & Me. Do find him too ready to over-egg the pudding when it comes to making a point though – he did this in spades in Fahrenheit 9/11 and made it a lesser film because of it. And he is prone to sentimentality which also irritates and distracts at times. But, his take-no-prisoners approach is always interesting, have seen everything else he’s done, admired a lot of it, and will certainly look out for this.
Scott we must agree to disagree. In the future please stop telling anyone who doesn’t share your POV that they’re missing the point. I’m not missing your point.I firmly believe all documentaries are hugely influenced by the makers,(or the sponsors), agendas. Whether the viewer catches the degree of bias or not it’s still there. As geronimo stated most people who watch Moore’s work get where he’s coming from. He’s certainly not hiding it.
There is no such thing as an unbiased documentary just as there are no amounts of bias so small so as to be negligible. I won’t even visit the whole China/ Cuba comparison because though Mr. Moore enjoys popularity and a large stature he’s hardly a country.
You’ll need among all those “share all” buttons so folks can re-post your blog posts to whatever service they need to.