• Quick note - the problem with Youtube videos not embedding on the forum appears to have been fixed, thanks to ZiprHead. If you do still see problems let me know.

In this corner..M. Moore and in the other..Hannity!

cisco said:
Ummm, I'd like to see where you got that figure. It is extremely dubious. F9/11 was a studio picture.
Click to expand...

My fault, it was purportedly "21 million!" That's a lot of cheese steaks for Mikey! Fun ironic little non sequitur - Moore made more off the war (indirectly of course) than Haliburton's CEO.


http://www.slate.com/id/2117923/

Fahrenheit 9/11, now an event, took in more than $228 million in ticket sales worldwide, a record for a documentary, and sold 3 million DVDs, which brought in another $30 million in royalties. After the theaters took their share of the movie’s gross (roughly 50 percent) and distributors deducted the marketing expenses (including prints, advertising, dubbing, and custom clearance) and took their own cut, the net receipts returned to Disney were $78 million.

Disney now had to pay Michael Moore’s profit participation. Under normal circumstances, documentaries rarely, if ever, make profits (especially if distributors charge the usual 33 percent fee). So, when Miramax made the deal for Fahrenheit 9/11, it allowed Moore a generous profit participation—which turned out to be 27 percent of the film’s net receipts. Disney, in honoring this deal, paid Moore a stunning $21 million. Moore never disclosed the amount of his profit participation. When asked about it, the proletarian Moore joked to reporters on a conference call, “I don’t read the contracts.”

What of Disney? After repaying itself $11 million for acquisition costs, it booked a $46 million net profit, which Eisner split between two subsidiaries, the Disney Foundation and Miramax. While it was far less than Disney made on children’s fare such as Finding Nemo, it was not a bad outcome. The Weinstein brothers also made a multimillion-dollar profit. They had a deal with Disney that contractually entitled them to a bonus of between 30 percent and 40 percent of the net profits on any film that they produced—in this case, that came out to about $8 million per brother. (The Weinsteins are now in the process of leaving Miramax.) But Michael Moore had perhaps the happiest ending of all. Not only had he made $21 million, he already had a sequel in preproduction—Fahrenheit 9/11 ½.
 
Sporanox said:
Might this make him a hypocrite? It's kind of obvious that the free-market, capitalist system allowed him to make this much money!
Click to expand...

In so far as he has a million targets to ridicule and mock like Roger Smith and GM, the health care industry and the banking industry, I suppose that Moore does have capitalism to thank.
 
Ryokan said:
You've obviously never heard of Bit Torrent filesharing, which accounts for around 50% of all internet traffic in the world.

No long searching needed, no chance it gets pulled, no need for plugins, no need to use a browser beyond finding the file.

Everyone uses browser plugins that stop redirects and popups, anyway, don't they?

Welcome to the Internet.
Click to expand...

I've been downloading torrents for over 5 years. I have over 200 gigs worth of music on my HD. Movies take 2 days to download. Streaming movies get pulled constantly except classics which I watch online every now and then (Watching "In a Lonely Place" as we speak). Movie box office isn't effected by torrent sharing because it looks like crap, sounds like crap, and vid's get pulled constantly plus most people don't have the money to buy a 50 inch monitor and speakers to make it actually worth viewing (unless you like watching blockbusters on 13' macbooks with a single mono speaker). The record industry is dead though because music is fast, simple, quality enough and reliable. And yea dude, pop-up blockers, never heard of em. Lots of sites I use I have to turn off my pop up blocker (level 2 stock quotes for example). You're so technically advanced though dude. Dial-up rules.


It's also obvious that a lot of people doesn't know what capitalism really means. It doesn't mean 'amass wealth, lol'. In fact, in the beginning, one of the main ideas of capitalism was that it would spread the wealth around better than the old systems. Go read Wealth of Nations. Capitalism rests mainly on two legs, the right to own property and the right to sell your goods.
Click to expand...

Not sure who this was directed towards but if it was to me, then strawman. If not, carry on.
 
oldhat said:
In so far as he has a million targets to ridicule and mock like Roger Smith and GM, the health care industry and the banking industry, I suppose that Moore does have capitalism to thank.
Click to expand...

Carry on, sir. :)
 
DropGems said:
I've been downloading torrents for over 5 years. I have over 200 gigs worth of music on my HD. Movies take 2 days to download. Streaming movies get pulled constantly except classics which I watch online every now and then (Watching "In a Lonely Place" as we speak). Movie box office isn't effected by torrent sharing because it looks like crap, sounds like crap, and vid's get pulled constantly plus most people don't have the money to buy a 50 inch monitor and speakers to make it actually worth viewing (unless you like watching blockbusters on 13' macbooks with a single mono speaker). The record industry is dead though because music is fast, simple, quality enough and reliable. And yea dude, pop-up blockers, never heard of em. Lots of sites I use I have to turn off my pop up blocker (level 2 stock quotes for example). You're so technically advanced though dude. Dial-up rules.
Click to expand...

LMAO, you steal movies and music like a 14 year old shoplifting thief, depriving their creators the fair market price for what you owe them, and YOU have the gall to call other people hypocrites about capitalism? That's the richest thing I've seen on this forum in a long time!

Nominated.
 
Last edited:
oldhat said:
LMAO, you steal movies and music like a 14 year old shoplifting thief, depriving their creators the fair market price for what you owe them, and YOU have the gall to call other people hypocrites about capitalism? That's the richest thing I've seen on this forum in a long time!

Nominated.
Click to expand...
2nd!
 
oldhat said:
It would be hypocritical if Michael Moore owned a union-free factory that exploited workers or owned a bank that made a fortune ripping people off and then made movies denouncing capitalism. Was Mohammed Ali a capitalist? He earned millions as an athlete. But he wasn't a capitalist. Same with Moore.

Being from a working class family in Flint, MI and becoming successful filmmaker doesn't make him a hypocrite.

He didn't go into filmmaking to as a business, he went into it to express his political and artistic point of view.

You seem to have trouble distinguishing "being successful and earning money" with "being a capitalist."

The idea that he's living in the US and paying taxes and "propping up the system he critcizes" by paying taxes and that makes him a hypocrite is idiotic.
Click to expand...

Let me make this clear. I said before in this thread that it's a stupid position to criticize Moore alone on hypocrisy since his work is so flawed that you can make a much stronger, valid case to attack said pig on the pseudo facts from his films.

But...

You can probably still build a hypocrisy case against him. And Moore himself helps propagate this case by his actions not speaking louder than his words. There are more efficient ways to "express his political and artistic views". He wanted an uprising (according to Bill Maher) but he's deliberately deterring his message by following the typical capitalist route of releasing movies to maximize profit (and minimizing the non-paying eyeballs). Now if Moore donates the proceeds to some reform party or does something to further his movement and start an uprising, then that's great. He'd avoid all the hypocrisy shots and actually get to the crux of what he wants to talk about without being sidetracked with hypocrisy claims he should've seen coming a mile away. But instead he's gonna slowly release his film, in limited theaters, during a time when people are strapped for cash. He knows he's not gonna get the proletariat to rise but he doesn't really care because he's gonna probably net 6 million.

But let's get real here for a second. Moore isn't Karl Marx, he's not Von Mises. He's not publishing peer reviewed papers on any various schools of economics. I think you guys are holding him and his motives to higher standards than they warrant. This is a guy who takes a hot topic of the year (columbine, 9/11, healthcare) dissects them, adds an over abundance of deceitful tactics like appeals to emotion, confirmation bias, special pleading, etc... (probably every logical fallacy has been committed in a Moore flick, lol), offers little in constructive criticism, no valid solutions, and then runs off with the cash. Just watch a 60 mins piece instead. Less bias, no crappy music and flashy editing, and more substance.

Who cares if he's "really" a hypocrite or if he just gives off the illusion of being a hypocrite (ie: eats Cheesesteaks and weighs 300lbs but talks about preventative healthcare, yells capitalism is evil with a net worth north of 30 million, etc). He does the issues he reports on enough disservice that it apparently warrants the hypocrisy claim (kinda like Al Gore's 50 trillion watt mansion, lol). In the end he's guilty of something much worse than hypocrisy anyways, he's a charlatan. His films have been debunked for eons. How is he still relevant and why is JREF a Moore fanboy hub when it should be the diametrical opposite?
 
I see the shoplifter and the thief has strong opinions about why capitalism is awesome (if you don't have to pay for anything) and why liberals are big dumb stupidheads.

Also, Michael Moore is fat.
 
oldhat said:
LMAO, you steal movies and music like a 14 year old shoplifting thief, depriving their creators the fair market price for what you owe them, and YOU have the gall to call other people hypocrites about capitalism? That's the richest thing I've seen on this forum in a long time!

Nominated.
Click to expand...


Take 3 deep breaths (and your ritalin) and calm down. I never admitted to stealing anything, bogart. And even if I did, I never put myself in a sanctimonious spotlight pontificating against the virtues of what I'm engaging in. So whatever kind of correlation you think you've found between myself and moore (even though it started with an unproven assumption on your part), it's deemed inconclusive. And definitely not "nominated" worthy. If you are, however, being ambiguously sarcastic and trying to make a slighty little point on the silliness of the whole hypocrisy thing, then I won't find you guilty for epic fail of the thread. But I don't think you're that witty. Bogart.
 
godofpie said:
2nd!
Click to expand...


Alright dude, fess up. Please post the PM that "oldhat" sent you where it said, "bro, please 2nd my nomination so I have some credence in this thread". If you don't come clean, I'm alerting the mods on grounds of malicious behavior. Or retract said nomination and admit you're smoking pcp.

And seriously, I already stated several times that I'm basically playing devils advocate on the whole "hypocrisy" issue. Also, I never even claimed to be a capitalist or even support the system! I simply claimed Moore was a capitalist, explained why and said you can make a valid case for moore being a hypocrite. I also never claimed to "steal" anything. I said I've been downloading bit torrents for 5 years and have over 200gbs of music on my hard-drive. I guess that equates to shoplifting after you smoke pcp and jump to a bunch of irrational conclusions. Go ahead, alert the RIAA though, lol. I'd destroy them in court!
 
Focus on the topic and avoid bringing personal issues into it please.
Replying to this modbox in thread will be off topic  Posted By: Cuddles
 
Sporanox said:
Might this make him a hypocrite? It's kind of obvious that the free-market, capitalist system allowed him to make this much money!
Click to expand...

You know, you are right. Moore is being hypocritical which invalidates everything he has ever said. Isn't that your desired goal? To marginalize what he says.
 
Lurker said:
You know, you are right. Moore is being hypocritical which invalidates everything he has ever said. Isn't that your desired goal? To marginalize what he says.
Click to expand...

No need to try and use a logical fallacy to invalidate him - he's used plenty of them himself.
 
SPoranax:

You expend quite some energy trying to expose Moore as a hypocrite regarding capitalism yet you have no idea whatsover what system he advocates. Making a profit off of a movie is not the sole provenance of capitalism. Other systems would also allow for Moore to earn his profit.

Before you condemn him, why don't you work to find out what sort of system he advocates. I have not seen you try and define that here in this thread.

Thanks!
 
Lurker said:
SPoranax:

You expend quite some energy trying to expose Moore as a hypocrite regarding capitalism yet you have no idea whatsover what system he advocates. Making a profit off of a movie is not the sole provenance of capitalism. Other systems would also allow for Moore to earn his profit.

Before you condemn him, why don't you work to find out what sort of system he advocates. I have not seen you try and define that here in this thread.

Thanks!
Click to expand...

The AV Club interview makes it clear - he has no fricking clue.

AVC: So what do you call it? What does it become?

MM: Let’s not worry about that right now. Why don’t we just try to construct something that’s run by democratic principles and has an ethical core to it?
Click to expand...

In any case, that doesn't change a whit of the fact that Michael Moore made all his money in a CAPITALIST system, not his nebulous "21st century economic order." Will you try to muddy the waters once again?
 
Last edited:
Sporanox said:
The AV Club interview makes it clear - he has no fricking clue.
Click to expand...

Outside observer chiming in: nice dodge. You can put in a bit more effort than that!

To assert that Michael Moore has no idea what kind of system he would prefer is pretty ridiculous. That's something most everybody has thought of - even grade 9 students.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Back
Top Bottom