Just returned from the midnight showing of Michael Moore’s Fahrenheit 9/11, one of three sold out (or nearly sold out) the night beforeits official opening. I just wanted to ensure this movie had as big an opening weekend as possible, and in a capitalist society, that means buying a ticket. With gay pride all weekend, it seemed the best time to go.

There are numerous online debates about the movie already and, if anything, it just shows the bifurcation of American thought. You just don’t see many middle of the road reviews of this movie. It is either brilliance or a two-hour lie.

This movie lacks a talking point, such as the Marilyn Manson or Charlton heston interviews in Bowling for Columbine, or the woman skinning rabbits in Roger & Me. I’m not sure what I will say to people about this movie. It paints Bush as an inept person who stole the election, spent most of his pre-9/11 days on vacations, used fear to manipulate the country into war… but we knew all that going into the movie. If anything, there are just additional details to back up all of these things.

I guess the one thing is how bad Bush looks… when he is the one being quoted. People say he is being quoted out of context, but I wonder what context would make his responses seem appropriate. That said, I don’t want to say Bush is stupid or evil, because I think that is too easy. I think he truly believes he is right and doing good things, which is even scarier.

Unlike The Corporation, which I caught a few weeks back, this movie really holds together well. And although Moore is often criticized for mixing important political messages with humor, I think that is why he is so popular. We see dead babies and American soldiers who are now amputees, but we still laugh when Moore is unable to get any member of Congress to consider signing their kids up for military service. Is it a stunt? Of course. Did he expect any to take him seriously? Of course not. But does it play up a serious point of how the world works? Yes.

I live in San Francisco, so I live in a daily existence where no one can understand how Bush got in once, and everyone wants to see him follow his father’s legacy and be a one-term president. So, I am in no way capable of relating how this movie will play in the fly-over states. I mean, what good is it if only people who already hate Bush and want him out go to see it? I was there tonight, and I certainly need no convincing.

Much like the famous race John Ashcroft lost before being named Attorney General… if John Kerry died in October, I would vote for his corpse over Bush.

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