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Story by: Jack Foley
MICHAEL Moore’s one-man mission to rid Americans of the
Bush administration shows so signs of letting up, especially given
the success of the Fahrenheit 9/11 documentary.
The film has now become the first documentary to make over $100
million ($54.5m) at the North American Box Office, making a mockery
of previous attempts to have its release blocked.
And it has earned the radical film-maker such a reputation, that
rival Democrats reportedly queued for up to five hours to see
Moore, when he appeared at a convention earlier this week (commencing
July 26, 2004).
His subsequent address at the Boston convention drew up to 2,000
people and was typically controversial as the US elections draw
closer.
Warning that Democratic candidate, John Kerry, would not become
US president by being ‘weak-kneed and wimpy’, he went
on to predict that ‘the unelected side who occupy the White
House are not going to go peacefully’.
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Moore has never made any secret his
contempt for George Bush’s administration and his film begins
with a damning round-up of the events which led to the election
of the President, in 2000.
It goes on to pour scorn on the administration’s reaction
to the September 11, 2001 atrocities, and the subsequent invasion
of Iraq, while alleging business links between the Bush family
and prominent Saudi businessmen, including members of the bin
Laden family.
And he had a word of warning for the Democrats, insisting that
‘they [the Republicans] are better fighters than we are.
They are up at six in the morning trying to figure out which minority
they are going to screw today’.
He also lambasted the US press for acting as ‘cheerleaders’
for the war, in Iraq, stating that: "You haven't just been
embedded - you've been in bed with the wrong people."
Earlier in the week, Moore further fuelled his row with Bush
by inviting him to attend a special screening of the documentary
at a football stadium parking lot, in the President's hometown
of Crawford, in Texas.
Needless to say, no statement from the White House has been
forthcoming!
But commenting on the film’s Box Office success, a delighted
Moore said: "If you had told me when we were going through
all the pre-distribution problems with Disney that this film would
gross more than any other Disney film this year, I don't even
know how to respond to that," he said. |
