Begin forwarded message:

> From: mailinglist@...
> Date: July 4, 2004 7:00:04 PM GMT+08:00
> Subject: My Wild First Week with "Fahrenheit 9/11"... by Michael Moore
>
> July 4th, 2004
>
>  
>
> Friends,
>
> Where do I begin? This past week has knocked me for a loop.
> "Fahrenheit 9/11," the #1 movie in the country, the largest grossing
> documentary ever. My head is spinning. Didn't we just lose our
> distributor 8 weeks ago? Did Karl Rove really fail to stop this? Is
> Bush packing?
>
> Each day this week I was given a new piece of information from the
> press that covers Hollywood, and I barely had time to recover from the
> last tidbit before the next one smacked me upside the head:
>
>  
>
> ** More people saw "Fahrenheit 9/11" in one weekend than all the
> people who saw "Bowling for Columbine" in 9 months.
>
> ** "Fahrenheit 9/11" broke "Rocky III’s" record for the biggest box
> office opening weekend ever for any film that opened in less than a
> thousand theaters.
>
> ** "Fahrenheit 9/11" beat the opening weekend of "Return of the Jedi."
>
> ** "Fahrenheit 9/11" instantly went to #2 on the all-time list for
> largest per-theater average ever for a film that opened in
> wide-release.
>
> How can I ever thank all of you who went to see it? These records are
> mind-blowing. They have sent shock waves through Hollywood – and, more
> importantly, through the White House.
>
> But it didn't just stop there. The response to the movie then went
> into the Twilight Zone. Surfing through the dial I landed on the Fox
> broadcasting network which was airing the NASCAR race live last Sunday
> to an audience of millions of Americans -- and suddenly the announcers
> were talking about how NASCAR champ Dale Earnhardt, Jr. took his crew
> to see “Fahrenheit 9/11” the night before. FOX sportscaster Chris
> Myers delivered Earnhardt’s review straight out of his mouth and into
> the heartland of America: “He said hey, it'll be a good bonding
> experience no matter what your political belief. It's a good thing as
> an American to go see.”  Whoa! NASCAR fans – you can’t go deeper into
> George Bush territory than that! White House moving vans – START YOUR
> ENGINES!
>
>
> Then there was Roger Friedman from the Fox News Channel giving our
> film an absolutely glowing review, calling it “a really brilliant
> piece of work, and a film that members of all political parties should
> see without fail.” Richard Goldstein of the Village Voice surmised
> that Bush is already considered a goner so Rupert Murdoch might be
> starting to curry favor with the new administration. I don't know
> about that, but I’ve never heard a decent word toward me from Fox. So,
> after I was revived, I wondered if a love note to me from Sean Hannity
> was next.
>
>  
>
> How about Letterman’s Top Ten List: “Top Ten George W. Bush Complaints
> About "Fahrenheit 9/11":
>
>  
>
> 10. That actor who played the President was totally unconvincing
>
>  
>
> 9. It oversimplified the way I stole the election
>
>  
>
> 8. Too many of them fancy college-boy words
>
>  
>
> 7. If Michael Moore had waited a few months, he could have included
> the part where I get him deported
>
>  
>
> 6. Didn't have one of them hilarious monkeys who smoke cigarettes and
> gives people the finger
>
>  
>
> 5. Of all Michael Moore's accusations, only 97% are true
>
>  
>
> 4. Not sure - - I passed out after a piece of popcorn lodged in my
> windpipe
>
>  
>
> 3. Where the hell was Spider-man?
>
>  
>
> 2. Couldn't hear most of the movie over Cheney's foul mouth
>
>  
>
> 1. I thought this was supposed to be about dodgeball
>
> But it was the reactions and reports we received from theaters around
> the country that really sent me over the edge. One theatre manager
> after another phoned in to say that the movie was getting standing
> ovations as the credits rolled – in places like Greensboro, NC and
> Oklahoma City -- and that they were having a hard time clearing the
> theater afterwards because people were either too stunned or they
> wanted to sit and talk to their neighbors about what they had just
> seen. In Trumbull, CT, one woman got up on her seat after the movie
> and shouted "Let's go have a meeting!" A man in San Francisco took his
> shoe off and threw it at the screen when Bush appeared at the end.
> Ladies’ church groups in Tulsa were going to see it, and weeping
> afterwards.
>
> It was this last group that gave lie to all the yakking pundits who,
> before the movie opened, declared that only the hard-core "choir"
> would go to see "Fahrenheit 9/11." They couldn't have been more wrong.
> Theaters in the Deep South and the Midwest set house records for any
> film they’d ever shown. Yes, it even sold out in Peoria. And Lubbock,
> Texas. And Anchorage, Alaska!
>
> Newspaper after newspaper wrote stories in tones of breathless
> disbelief about people who called themselves “Independents” and
> “Republicans” walking out of the movie theater shaken and in tears,
> proclaiming that they could not, in good conscience, vote for George
> W. Bush. The New York Times wrote of a conservative Republican woman
> in her 20s in Pensacola, Florida who cried through the film, and told
> the reporter: “It really makes me question what I feel about the
> president... it makes me question his motives…”
>
>  
>
> Newsday reported on a self-described “ardent Bush/Cheney supporter”
> who went to see the film on Long Island, and his quiet reaction
> afterwards. He said, "It's really given me pause to think about what's
> really going on. There was just too much - too much to discount." The
> man then bought three more tickets for another showing of the film.
>
>  
>
> The Los Angeles Times found a mother who had “supported [Bush]
> fiercely” at a theater in Des Peres, Missouri: “Emerging from Michael
> Moore's ‘Fahrenheit 9/11,’ her eyes wet, Leslie Hanser said she at
> last understood…. ‘My emotions are just....’ She trailed off, waving
> her hands to show confusion. ‘I feel like we haven't seen the whole
> truth before.’"
>
> All of this had to be the absolute worst news for the White House to
> wake up to on Monday morning. I guess they were in such a stupor, they
> "gave" Iraq back to, um, Iraq two days early!
>
> News editors told us that they were being "bombarded" with e-mails and
> calls from the White House (read: Karl Rove), trying to spin their way
> out of this mess by attacking it and attacking me. Bush spokesman Dan
> Bartlett had told the White House press corps that the movie was
> "outrageously false" -- even though he said he hadn't seen the movie.
> He later told CNN that "This is a film that doesn't require us to
> actually view it to know that it's filled with factual inaccuracies."
> At least they're consistent. They never needed to see a single weapon
> of mass destruction before sending our kids off to die.
>
> Many news shows were more than eager to buy the White House spin. 
> After all, that is a big part of what "Fahrenheit" is about -- how the
> lazy, compliant media bought all the lies from the Bush administration
> about the need to invade Iraq. They took the Kool-Aid offered by the
> White House and rarely, if ever, did our media ask the hard questions
> that needed to be asked before the war started.
>
> Because the movie "outs" the mainstream media for their failures and
> their complicity with the Bush administration -- who can ever forget
> their incessant, embarrassing cheerleading as the troops went off to
> war, as though it was all just a game -- the media was not about to
> let me get away with anything now resembling a cultural phenomenon. On
> show after show, they went after me with the kind of viciousness you
> would have hoped they had had for those who were lying about the
> necessity for invading a sovereign nation that was no threat to us. I
> don't blame our well-paid celebrity journalists -- they look like a
> bunch of ass-kissing dopes in my movie, and I guess I'd be pretty mad
> at me, too. After all, once the NASCAR fans see "Fahrenheit 9/11,"
> will they ever believe a single thing they see on ABC/NBC/CBS news
> again?
>
> In the next week or so, I will recount my adventures through the media
> this past month (I will also be posting a full FAQ on my website soon
> so that you can have all the necessary backup and evidence from the
> film when you find yourself in heated debate with your conservative
> brother-in-law!). For now, please know the following: Every single
> fact I state in "Fahrenheit 9/11" is the absolute and irrefutable
> truth. This movie is perhaps the most thoroughly researched and vetted
> documentary of our time. No fewer than a dozen people, including three
> teams of lawyers and the venerable one-time fact-checkers from The New
> Yorker went through this movie with a fine-tooth comb so that we can
> make this guarantee to you. Do not let anyone say this or that isn't
> true. If they say that, they are lying. Let them know that the
> OPINIONS in the film are mine, and anyone certainly has a right to
> disagree with them. And the questions I pose in the movie, based on
> these irrefutable facts, are also mine. And I have a right to ask
> them. And I will continue to ask them until they are answered.
>
> In closing, let me say that the most heartening response to the film
> has come from our soldiers and their families. Theaters in military
> towns across the country reported packed houses. Our troops know the
> truth. They have seen it first-hand. And many of them could not
> believe that here was a movie that was TRULY on their side -- the side
> of bringing them home alive and never sending them into harms way
> again unless it's the absolute last resort. Please take a moment to
> read this wonderful story from the daily paper in Fayetteville, NC,
> where Fort Bragg is located. It broke my heart to read this, the
> reactions of military families and the comments of an infantryman’s
> wife publicly backing my movie -- and it gave me the resolve to make
> sure as many Americans as possible see this film in the coming weeks.
>
> Thank you again, all of you, for your support. Together we did
> something for the history books. My apologies to "Return of the Jedi."
> We'll make it up by producing "Return of the Texan to Crawford" in
> November.
>
> May the farce be with you, but not for long,
>
> Michael Moore
> www.michaelmoore.com
> mmflint@...
>
>  
>
> P.S. You can read letters from people around the country recounting
> their own experiences at the theater, and their reactions to the film
> by going here.
>
>  
>
> P.P.S. Also, I’m going to start blogging! Tonight! Come on over and
> check it out.
>
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