Sicko (Michael Moore, 2007)

[tavernier]

amazing New York Post review

This moronic reviewer, Kyle Smith, also gave An Inconvenient Truth one star. He's obviously the Post's go-to guy when they need to trash commie docs.

[David Ehrenstein]

[quote]"In his most shameless stunt, the filmmaker “anonymouslyâ€

[exte]

David, are you liberal?

[Antoine Doinel]

One other thing: why is the title as it appear in all the ads and posters written thusly: SiCKO. Why not Sicko or SiCkO or siCKO or sIcKo or any other seemingly random pattern of capitalization?

Poor graphic design.

It took me a while, but the film is spelled SiCKO because the lower case "i" is supposed to be a symbol of a person (head and torso).

[Handsome Dan]

Here's a review from Toronto's Star. This sums up my reservations about Moore in general, and is kinda funny to boot.

Prescription For Trouble

Like the kid who chops his father's prize roses to give his mother a bouquet, Michael Moore delivers his films with dirty hands.

He sparks valuable debate about such serious issues as gun abuse, politicized terror and corporate chicanery, yet he does so with little regard to factual accuracy or even simple fairness. He is a crusader without conscience.

His latest work, Sicko, a probe into American health care, is occasionally enlightening, frequently amusing and constantly engaging. Viewed strictly as satire, which is how all his films should be seen, it does a good job of mocking a system that's clearly in need of an overhaul.

Sicko is also completely lacking in journalistic rigour, presenting only the negatives of for-profit U.S. health care and only the positives of the government-run Canadian, British, French and Cuban Medicare programs. As always, Moore makes unsupported assertions and uses out-of-context edits. The film is not a documentary, if that term is to mean anything more than unvarnished propaganda.

Moore's many apologists, including journalists who should know better, give him a free pass under the "greater good" argument. Who cares if he's careless about the details or ruthless about his accusations? He's got a good heart! And he's funny!

These same apologists don't extend such courtesies to Moore's chief nemesis President George W. Bush, whom the filmmaker manages to present as both the dumbest man on the planet and a diabolical schemer. When Bush and his cronies fudge on the facts, it can only be due to the vilest of motives.

A hilarious Bush malapropism opens Sicko, but this time the U.S. president isn't the focus of Moore's animus, as he was in the terror satire Fahrenheit 9/11. The millionaire filmmaker is out to expose the "powerful forces" of American health insurers and their political allies, whom he charges exploit pain for profit. (They include Sen. Hillary Clinton, Medicare lion turned HMO tame tabby, one of the few non-Republicans whom Moore skewers.)

As violins wail on the soundtrack and Moore's hushed voice drips sympathy, we gape in horror at travesties of corporate medicine. A bankrupt Denver couple, drained of their life savings by hospital bills, is forced to move into a daughter's home. A car-accident victim, having been knocked unconscious, is refused compensation for an ambulance because she thoughtlessly neglected to get advance approval for the ride. A man with a severed finger chooses to lose the digit rather than pay the $60,000 it would cost to have it sewn back on.

These and many other sad and shocking stories are contrasted with scenes of the enlightened Utopias in other countries, where Medicare is "free" – if you ignore the fact, as Moore does, that high taxes and long wait times pay for that "free" care.

He once again presents Canadians as the cheery hobbits of North America, who live happily in the shire and look with fear upon the dark place below. Moore manages to find Canadians, including members of his extended family, who wait mere minutes for hospital treatments and surgeries, with no costs and few cares.

These would presumably be the same jolly Canucks he presented in Bowling for Columbine who don't lock their front doors because there are no gun nuts north of the 49th parallel.

Moore goes golfing with an affluent Canadian who speaks movingly about Medicare and its founder Tommy Douglas. When a disingenuous Moore asks why wealthier taxpayers should pay for their poorer fellow citizens to be healthy, the golfer replies, "Somebody has to look after them." The man then reveals himself to be a Conservative voter. Uncork the champagne in Ottawa!

Elsewhere on Moore's tour of compassion, he introduces us to a British doctor who can afford a $1 million home and an Audi on his Medicare salary and French patients who are given free vacations and home-helpers thanks to government largesse.

Moore saves the biggest revelation for last. Rounding up several 9/11 rescue workers who claim to have been abandoned by their American health-care providers, he attempts to gatecrash the U.S. detention facility at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba. Moore reasons that if the terrorist suspects imprisoned there can get free medical care, then so should the heroic warriors of 9/11.

When they are turned away – although we never actually see that – they throw themselves upon the mercy of Cuban authorities, who are only too happy to provide the 9/11 workers with "free" health care, courtesy of the comrades. Moore interviews the pediatrician daughter of late Cuban revolutionary Che Guevara, who tells us that communism is better than capitalism.

Gosh, who could argue with such impartial counsel? Maybe the many Cubans who each year try to flee the island to become American citizens? Such things, as usual, don't trouble Moore. Nor does it seem to occur to him that if Guantanamo were to deny health care to its prisoners, the U.S. would be in violation of international law and basic human rights.

And yet for all that, Sicko is still worth seeing – as long as the big grain of salt needed for it is put on more than just the popcorn.

Moore doesn't have anything good to say about American health care, and too much good to say about other systems, but he's once again poking a necessary stick into a rotting beehive. Just keep him away from your rose bushes.

There ya go.

[tryavna]

Nor does it seem to occur to him that if Guantanamo were to deny health care to its prisoners, the U.S. would be in violation of international law and basic human rights.

Am I the only one who did a double-take upon reading that line? Since when has a concern for "international law" or "basic human rights" been a guiding factor at Guantanamo?

[tavernier]

Here's a review from Toronto's Star. This sums up my reservations about Moore in general, and is kinda funny to boot.

God, you don't take Peter Howell seriously, do you?

[jesus the mexican boi]

Here's a review from Toronto's Star. This sums up my reservations about Moore in general, and is kinda funny to boot.

He sparks valuable debate about such serious issues as gun abuse, politicized terror and corporate chicanery, yet he does so with little regard to factual accuracy or even simple fairness. He is a crusader without conscience.

There ya go.

What horseshit. Factual accuracy? Are you kidding me? That woman's husband didn't die of kidney cancer. That woman's daughter wasn't refused care at the ER and didn't die a horrible death. That old woman wasn't dumped on skid row in a thin hospital gown, disoriented and still needing care. And unfair, too. Cuba doesn't really have inhalers for a nickel that Americans pay $120 for. Lies, lies, lies. "Simple fairness," indeed.

He has no conscience. Puhleeze.

This is a hitpiece disguised as a review. I wouldn't wipe my ass with The Toronto Star.

[jbeall]

Is anybody here actually shocked that the right-wing media hit machine would be gearing up to smear Moore in advance??? Liberal media, my ass.

After reading those hack-job reviews, I'm off to see Sicko in theaters.

[Antoine Doinel]

Saw this tonight and...this is as good as provocative filmmaking gets and this is exactly the kind of the film America needs right now.

Does Michael Moore spell out all the little problems that accompany social healthcare in Canada, Britain, France and elsewhere? No. But the as a Canadian - as someone who has had multiple serious surgeries - I can't fathom dealing with the HMO nightmare in the United States. The bottom line is that the healthcare in the United States simply doesn't work. And if it means Moore has to be cheeky, glaze over minor details, then so be it. Yeah, we have some waiting lists for some kinds of surgery but no one is being dropped off in skid row by hospital staff and babies with fevers aren't shuttled from hospital to hospital like numbers in an accounting ledger.

But by God, your heart is made of stone if the Cuba sequence doesn't move you. Watching Americans cry in disbelief at the prices, quality and attention of the free healthcare they received was remarkable.

This film is going to get the HMOs running scared and politicians changing their tune. Also, Democrats, you now have new ammunition to take Hilary Clinton down with.

See this. Now. Not the best of film of the year, but one of the most important.

[Oedipax]

I caught most of Moore's appearance on Larry King tonight, overall a pretty candid interview from Moore and very enjoyable to watch. One thing I'm curious about is King alluded to early reports of sell-out crowds all over the country for opening night tonight, has anyone heard/seen the same thing? That's great news if so.

One of the more baffling call-in questions (originating, I believe, from North Carolina) was from two uninsured married people in their 60s. For some reason they felt like Moore should spend less time talking about America's weaknesses and more talking about its strengths. "I want someone of his prominence to say we're the best country in the world," or something to that effect. The weird thing is the overall tone wasn't angry, it felt like it came from an honest place of simply not understanding Moore's position, or (even worse) how one could at the same time honor what a country stands for precisely by criticizing its shortfalls and in doing so begging the question, why can't we do better?

[exte]

The film is awesome in its ideas. Why aren't more films like this being shown every day? As far as I'm concerned, his reputation is cemented with this film. He can die tomorrow, and he will be a great filmmaker in my book...

[abuckley89]

The film is awesome in its ideas. Why aren't more films like this being shown every day? As far as I'm concerned, his reputation is cemented with this film. He can die tomorrow, and he will be a great filmmaker in my book...

I saw it today and felt the same way. The film is excellent and really upset me. Moore is a very funny and talented filmmaker.

I feel as if in 100 years they discuss important people from our time Michael Moore would be regarded as a type of Mark Twain like figure.

[tavernier]

Lots of bad grades on Yahoo Movies: looks like the right-wing hit machine is out in force.

[denti alligator]

Weak review in The New Yorker seemed to be a fair, mostly disinterested, takeon the film's shortcomings. Haven't seen the film yet, though.

[tavernier]

Weak review in The New Yorker seemed to be a fair, mostly disinterested, takeon the film's shortcomings. Haven't seen the film yet, though.

After reading that review, I don't think that Denby (another moron) saw the movie either: he writes mostly around the movie, zeroing in only on a couple specifics.

[Nothing]

a film that presents "only the negatives of for-profit health care" - heaven forbid...

[Oedipax]

Denby's attitude seemed to be one of 'What's the big deal, everyone knows there are problems, and fixes to the system are on the way anyway, so...'

Of course the film's impact already on the discourse around this problem gives the lie to Denby's worthless jadedness. That particular kind of attitude I find extremely irritating and tiresome.

[tryavna]

That particular kind of attitude I find extremely irritating and tiresome.

It seems to be a necessary requirement in order to work at The New Yorker these days....

[domino harvey]

is this not in wide release? I was all ready to see this when to my shock I discovered it's not playing anywhere in my state

[tavernier]

is this not in wide release? I was all ready to see this when to my shock I discovered it's not playing anywhere in my state

Well, you must live in Texas or Florida.

[The Fanciful Norwegian]

It's in limited release (441 screens). Lionsgate and the Weinsteins decided at the last minute to do a staged release, supposedly because of the success An Inconvenient Truth had with that approach, although the pre-release leak obviously threw a wrench into the works and probably played a role. And then of course there's the conspiracy theory explanation.

[Cinesimilitude]

It's in limited release (441 screens). Lionsgate and the Weinsteins decided at the last minute to do a staged release, supposedly because of the success An Inconvenient Truth had with that approach, although the pre-release leak obviously threw a wrench into the works and probably played a role. And then of course there's the conspiracy theory explanation.

that theory is not too farfetched...

[The Fanciful Norwegian]

A minority shareholder gets a film's release trimmed to 441 screens with less than a week's advance notice (meaning far more than 441 prints have probably already been struck) and without Moore or the people who financed the film (the Weinsteins, who are also co-distributing) having anything to say about it? That stretches credulity, yeah. Not to mention that they're already planning to add 200 screens on Tuesday.

[Antoine Doinel]

It's in limited release (441 screens). Lionsgate and the Weinsteins decided at the last minute to do a staged release, supposedly because of the success An Inconvenient Truth had with that approach, although the pre-release leak obviously threw a wrench into the works and probably played a role. And then of course there's the conspiracy theory explanation.

It's an interesting theory if the doctor and partnerships in question had no interest in making money. Sicko is going to make a heap of cash for both Lionsgate and the Weinsteins, and I'm sure the other 56% of shareholders in Lionsgate aren't interested in bowing to the minority half to presumably salvage their reputation.