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Ryan Eashoo
F L I N T O I D
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Michael Moore has been a ubiquitous presence on talk shows and in YouTube clips this summer, passionately reaffirming the message of his recent documentary, Sicko: America must fix its broken health-care system. It’s hard to remember that for the two years prior, Moore had withdrawn from public life until his re-emergence at last year’s Festival, when he showed the first-ever sneak-preview clips of Sicko. But he was hardly idle in those two years. In addition to Sicko, he was preparing another film – one strategically timed to mobilize voters in anticipation of the 2008 United States presidential election.
Captain Mike Across America takes us back to the 2004 election, when the polling margin between candidates George W. Bush and John Kerry could have tipped either way. Framed like a concert film, it captures Moore’s activities as he set out on a campaign trip almost as rigorous and far-reaching as the candidates’ own. He targeted young people as the demographic that could make the most difference, visiting sixty-two cities in forty-five days, and holding large rallies on college campuses. He dubbed it the Slacker Uprising Tour.
This documentary of his journey is made in the feisty spirit of independent media, budgeted at a tiny fraction of Moore’s recent films. It acts like a time machine, returning us to the weeks prior to the November 2, 2004, election, when campuses across the country were exhilarated by a sense of hope and urgency. Moore masterfully foments this energy, speaking to audiences as large as fifteen thousand. He riles up the crowd with his hilarious improvisation, riffing off the day’s headlines or responding to hecklers. He also brings a star-studded lineup of friends – we see appearances and performances by Roseanne Barr, Eddie Vedder, Viggo Mortensen, Steve Earle and Joan Baez. His political opponents certainly take notice, lobbying schools to ban him from campus, sometimes successfully.
Although the election didn’t go Moore’s way, this film is a cure for the hangover that followed, and a reminder that a new political force emerged on those campuses. Young voters turned out in record numbers in 2004, reversing a trend of decline since 1972 (after the voting age lowered to eighteen). The youth vote increased even more in the following mid-term elections. If you want to understand the future of American politics, Captain Mike Across America is a great place to start.
Thom Powers
Michael Moore was born in Flint, Michigan. At eighteen years of age, he successfully ran for the school board, and went on to edit The Flint Voice. His immensely successful debut feature documentary Roger & Me (89) premiered at the Festival. He has written best-selling books and made such television series as TV Nation and The Awful Truth. His films include the feature Canadian Bacon (95) and the documentaries The Big One (97), Bowling for Columbine (02), Fahrenheit 9/11 (04), which won the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival, Sicko (07) and Captain Mike Across America (07).
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Flint Michigan Resident, Tax Payer, Flint Nutt - Local REALTOR - Activist. www.FlintTown.com |
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Sat Mar 29, 2008 8:29 pm |
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Ryan Eashoo
F L I N T O I D
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Is anyone more excited about this than I am??
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Flint Michigan Resident, Tax Payer, Flint Nutt - Local REALTOR - Activist. www.FlintTown.com |
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Sun Mar 30, 2008 10:57 am |
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Dave Starr
F L I N T O I D
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| I'm so excited I can hardly stay awake. |
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I used to care, but I take a pill for that now.
Pushing buttons sure can be fun.
When a lion wants to go somewhere, he doesn’t worry about how many hyenas are in the way.
Paddle faster, I hear banjos. |
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Sun Mar 30, 2008 11:31 am |
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twotap
F L I N T O I D
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Maybe this guy.
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Sun Mar 30, 2008 12:44 pm |
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