We have yet to write our review of Micheal Moore’s entertaining, yet lazy and sometimes rousing, “Capitalism: A Love Story,” and we’re feeling very uninspired of late so maybe this is all of a review you’ll get. Ironic too considering just how inspiring the last 20 minutes of “Capitalism” is.
But at 120 minutes, it’s also just far too long. We also have some mixed feelings on the film as we generally love Moore as a galvanizer and muckraker, but we didn’t wholeheartedly love this recent edition of agit-prop. As usual, Moore paints with a very wide brush and yet his thoughts — when not comically dismissing Capitalism as just pure evil — are very on point. The problem is Moore is a romantic and sees the world in way that just can’t work today (he’s essentially championing brotherhood, equality-of-man Marxism throughout). It’s a film you should see and yet it’s more of the same tricks, conceits and tactics — some which work and provide laughs, some that inspire deeply and some that make you roll your eyes. If you hated him before, this won’t change. If you loved his filmmaking before, you’ll still probably enjoy this one (gee, that’s deep, huh?), but we’d be remiss if we didn’t say his reductive, simplistic tendencies tend to get the better of him in parts.
Anywhoo, that’s a longwinded way of saying, Moore is inviting the jobless and homeless (and people who like free movies) offering free screenings of ‘Capitalism’ across the country and some of them are benefits as well. Capitalism opened in New York and L.A. last weekend and according to Moore, it “set the box office record for the highest per screen average of ANY movie released so far this year.”
FREE SCREENINGS: are taking place in 15 different cities around the country including, San Francisco, Chicago, Las Vegas, Fresno, California, Raleigh/Durham, North Carolina, Cleveland, Ohio and more. [details at MichaelMoore.com]
