{"id":238,"date":"2004-05-08T11:46:07","date_gmt":"2004-05-08T15:46:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vmalt\/?p=238"},"modified":"2005-12-31T16:01:54","modified_gmt":"2005-12-31T21:01:54","slug":"you-want-moore","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/you-want-moore","title":{"rendered":"You Want Moore?"},"content":{"rendered":"

It seems pretty clear by now that there\u00c3\u00af\u00c2\u00bf\u00c2\u00bds a sizeable audience for the books and movies of Michael Moore. I haven\u00c3\u00af\u00c2\u00bf\u00c2\u00bdt read or watched any of these, so I\u00c3\u00af\u00c2\u00bf\u00c2\u00bdm not gong to cast any aspersions on them or their audience. I\u00c3\u00af\u00c2\u00bf\u00c2\u00bdm simply stating that a lot of people are interested in Moore\u00c3\u00af\u00c2\u00bf\u00c2\u00bds work.<\/p>\n

That said, it seems like there\u00c3\u00af\u00c2\u00bf\u00c2\u00bds a logic short-circuit in the recent criticisms of Disney\u00c3\u00af\u00c2\u00bf\u00c2\u00bds refusal to distribute Moore\u00c3\u00af\u00c2\u00bf\u00c2\u00bds latest flick, which explores the relationship between the Bush family and Saudi Arabian oil interests.<\/p>\n

Miramax, a subsidiary of Disney, has already paid millions to finance the film, after the company that produced The Passion of The Christ<\/em> withdrew funding. As part of its buy-in, Miramax had an option to distribute the film, but chose to pass on the option. This doesn’t mean that the movie will be kept in a locked vault for no one to see; it simply means that another distributor will have to buy the rights, promote the movie (in conjunction with Mr. Moore’s publicity efforts<\/a>), and get theaters to carry it. <\/p>\n

Moore, on his website, has contended that Disney made this decision because it didn’t want to jeopardize tax breaks that the state of Florida (the governor of which, of course, is the brother of President Bush) provides for Disney’s theme parks.<\/p>\n

Now, this gets back to my initial sentence: There’s a sizeable audience for Mr. Moore’s work.<\/em> In a highly-polarized election year, that audience will probably turn out in huge numbers to see this movie. However, Disney has elected to forego the large box-office return it would receive from this movie (one report puts production costs at $6 million, which means profit margins could be pretty impressive).<\/p>\n

The NYTimes op-ed page, however, eschews this logic, contending, “[I]t is clear that Disney loves its bottom line more than the freedom of political discourse.” Are movie studios being ridiculed for turning down The Passion of The Christ<\/em>, after that flick made more than $400 million at the box office? No. Despite the massive profits to be made, the media regards them as having principles for not helping produce it, because it was “controversial.”<\/p>\n

However, now that a studio in dire need of some hits passes on a no-brainer money-maker, it’s vilified as “repressive.”<\/p>\n

Because global capitalism is all about the mindless pursuit of money, except when it isn’t.<\/p>\n

Damn. I gotta get back to writing about wacky cultural issues and the arts sometime. Maybe there’s something good on VH1 Classic.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It seems pretty clear by now that there\u00c3\u00af\u00c2\u00bf\u00c2\u00bds a sizeable audience for the books and movies of Michael Moore. I haven\u00c3\u00af\u00c2\u00bf\u00c2\u00bdt read or watched any of these, so I\u00c3\u00af\u00c2\u00bf\u00c2\u00bdm not gong to cast any aspersions on them or their audience. I\u00c3\u00af\u00c2\u00bf\u00c2\u00bdm simply stating that a lot of people are interested in Moore\u00c3\u00af\u00c2\u00bf\u00c2\u00bds work. That said, … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “You Want Moore?”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-238","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4C7K-3Q","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":2591,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/the-price-of-popcorn-pimp-hats","url_meta":{"origin":238,"position":0},"title":"The Price of popcorn pimp hats","author":"Gil","date":"October 1, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"In my previous post, I mentioned how little of a crap I give for contemporary literature. There are very few works of fiction published this decade that particularly impressed me. Two of those books were Lush Life and The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao. In what seems to be\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "literature"","block_context":{"text":"literature","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/literature"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"http:\/\/www.assoc-amazon.com\/e\/ir?t=virtualmemories-20&l=as2&o=1&a=B00139XS1U","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":4426,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/hell-is-for-trolls","url_meta":{"origin":238,"position":1},"title":"Hell is for trolls?","author":"Gil","date":"August 30, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"I was enjoying this A.V. Club Patton Oswalt interview about his new movie, Big Fan, enough from the outset, but he won my heart with this riff about internet commenters: AVC: You yourself are not a sports fan. Is that right? PO: No. But nowadays\u00e2\u20ac\u201dand I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t want to make\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Patton Oswalt\"","block_context":{"text":"Patton Oswalt","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/tag\/patton-oswalt"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2070,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/unrequired-reading-may-30-2008","url_meta":{"origin":238,"position":2},"title":"Unrequired Reading: May 30, 2008","author":"Gil","date":"May 30, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"If elected, I promise to deliver links every Friday morning! \"There\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s fashion mistakes \u00e2\u20ac\u201d the wrong fit, the accidentally see-through top, etc. \u00e2\u20ac\u201d and then there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s wearing a bikini and fishnets to a charity event.\" * * * The media thought it was a big deal when the Yankees and\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Architecture"","block_context":{"text":"Architecture","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/architecture"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3404,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/missed-by-thatmuch","url_meta":{"origin":238,"position":3},"title":"Missed by . . . thatmuch","author":"Gil","date":"February 9, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"I actually meant \"there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s no goddamn way the building next to the CCTV building is going to stand up.\" Of course I'm hoping there are no fatalities from the fire, but I still believe that kooky main CCTV building is going to tip over in a stiff wind.","rel":"","context":"In "Architecture"","block_context":{"text":"Architecture","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/architecture"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-content\/uploads\/koolhaas_beijing_tvcc_fire.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":2701,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/quote-of-the-day-2","url_meta":{"origin":238,"position":4},"title":"Quote of the day","author":"Gil","date":"October 15, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"From the biotech interview that I'm transcribing: We can never say that there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll be sufficient analytics to declare that one biotech product is equivalent to the other. That\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s why they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re called biosimilars and not biogenerics. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s the stuff you can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t measure that can kill you. Sometimes.","rel":"","context":"In "Pharmaceuticals"","block_context":{"text":"Pharmaceuticals","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/big-business\/pharmaceuticals"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":933,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/its-good-to-be-the-shah","url_meta":{"origin":238,"position":5},"title":"It’s good to be the Shah?","author":"Gil","date":"May 1, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"Human Events runs a long and implausibly candid interview with Reza Pahlavi, son of the Shah of Iran, who seems to be campaigning for U.S. backing for a 'peaceful' overthrow of the mullahs. Highlights include: I\u00c3\u00a2\u00e2\u201a\u00ac\u00e2\u201e\u00a2m against developing any weapons of mass destruction. I work to see the world develop\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Politics (explicit)"","block_context":{"text":"Politics (explicit)","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/politics-explicit"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/238","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=238"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/238\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=238"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=238"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=238"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}