Posted: Thu Jun 28, 2007 3:15 am
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.patrick wrote: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.patrick wrote:amazing New York Post review
Poor graphic design.Handsome Dan wrote: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?
There ya go.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.
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?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.
God, you don't take Peter Howell seriously, do you?Handsome Dan wrote:Here's a review from Toronto's Star. This sums up my reservations about Moore in general, and is kinda funny to boot.
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.Handsome Dan wrote:Here's a review from Toronto's Star. This sums up my reservations about Moore in general, and is kinda funny to boot.
There ya go.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.
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.exte wrote: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...
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.denti alligator wrote: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.
It seems to be a necessary requirement in order to work at The New Yorker these days....Oedipax wrote:That particular kind of attitude I find extremely irritating and tiresome.
Well, you must live in Texas or Florida.domino harvey wrote: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
that theory is not too farfetched...The Fanciful Norwegian wrote: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.The Fanciful Norwegian wrote: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.