Word: agitations
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This year, in a summer full of remakes and comic-book movies, documentaries are getting even more attention. They also have the feel of Hollywood movies: less docu-, more -tainment. And after half a dozen Bush-bashing agit-docs last year, the plexes are suddenly short on political nonfiction. If there's a Fahrenheit 9/12, it might be Adam Curtis' The Power of Nightmares, a thoughtful, corrosive analysis of political and religious fundamentalism that won cheers at last month's Cannes Film Festival--but its U.S. release will probably be deferred until 2006. For now, the emphasis is on personal...
...Moore?s success was not contagious. When the other agit-docs were released in theaters, only ?Control Room? did any business - about $2.6 million. But theatrical release is just the gravy for agit-docs; DVD is the meat. The Friday before the election, on amazon.com?s best-seller list, ?Fahrenheit? was 9th, and ?Control Room,? ?Outfoxed? and ?Uncovered? were all in the top 100. Long before ?Uncovered? played in movie houses, a shorter version of the film sold more than 100,000 units through moveon.org. The website, a prime galvanizer of anti-Bush fulmination and fund-raising, has helped peddle...
...agit-docs trace the Bush team?s hardball style back to tactics employed in earlier campaigns. ?Bush?s Brain,? directed by Joseph Mealey and Michael Shoob, dips into Texas history to clinch its four-part thesis: that the cherub-faced Rove has run some demonic campaigns, that some of his low-road strategies won George Bush the governor?s mansion and the White House, that Rove is a dominant force in the President?s policies (Moore has called Bush ?Karl Rove?s finger puppet?) and that he?s been behind some of the Bush team?s sleazier escapades, like...
...involvement in the Whitewater real estate deal; she is poised relating the charges, all too human recalling the price she paid for them (three years in prison). But all the films make canny use of government professionals, some of whom show up so frequently they amount to an agit-doc rep company. Featured status goes to repentant Republicans: David Brock in ?The Hunting of the President,? former Rove campaign partner Joe Weaver in ?Bush?s Brain,? arms inspector Scott Ritter and Nixon counsel John Dean in ?Uncovered.? All but Weaver have chosen a very contemporary form of penance for their...
...Liberals, who dared to dream before election day, turned grouchy the day after. But they know that the message of ?Fahrenheit 9/11? and its agit-doc brethren didn?t go stale on Nov. 3. With Karl Rove fully validated as the King-maker - he got his man the popular vote this time - ?Bush?s Brain? is more relevant than before. Moore has been planning a documentary on health care, which should be ever more timely as the Administration pushes its privatization angle on Social Security. Of course Moore and his fellow Savonarolas will once again be preaching to the choir...