Manufacturing Dissent (2007)

Redundant and unnecessary.

Plenty to Like, Plenty to Dislike

Absolutely brilliant

This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.

This movie tries to deconstruct Michael Moore. I saw it twice to give it a fair chance to get its point across to me, and it actually made me understand and like Michael Moore better.At this point I should tell you my stance towards MM: I consider his first movie Roger & Me a work of genius, but I disliked (sometimes intensely) his later docu-props. For example, I thought that the interview of Charlton Heston in Bowling For Columbine was atrocious, with Moore acting as a leftwing Jerry Springer. So I'm by no means an unabashed acolyte of Moore.The makers of "Manufacturing Dissent" (an allusion to another, but great, Canadian documentary, "Manufacturing Consent") have taken more than a page from Michael Moore's book. The documentary is stylistically an eerie clone of Moore's movies, which begs the question whether imitation isn't the most honest form of flattery. It constantly brings in new points (without ever solving the old ones) and fresh scenes, which makes the movie interesting to watch but difficult to follow. Like Moore, it uses the tactic of "the more mud you throw, the more will stick".On balance, the movie recycles some criticisms of Moore, and fires a barrage of new, but untenable (and often ludicrous) ones. That's simply not good enough.To give one salient example: we see a college thespian claiming that Moore fabricated a scene from Roger & Me, where a satellite van gets stolen by an unemployed auto worker before a live Ted Koppel broadcast from Flint. So how come no-one, for example someone from Nightline, noticed until now? In all likeliness the claim of the fabrication was itself fabricated. The documentary should have investigated this, instead it takes the claim at face value and moves on to fresh accusations. That's propaganda, not journalism.So what's the message? Michael Moore's everyman image is a carefully constructed role -- true to some extent, but really nothing new. He has a number of detractors, who are often pretty unpleasant themselves (such as the snooty film critic who proudly states that he instantly disliked Michael Moore from the moment he walked into the studio until he "waddled on out" -- what an incredibly biased and shallow statement from a professional critic). The makers of the movie purport to have started this movie as fans -- so why do they rely so heavily on the material of his rightwing critics? I got the impression that Moore sees himself as being on a crusade not just against the political right, but also against ivory-tower leftwing intellectuals. He wants to reinstall a street credibility to the political left. With detractors such as Debbie Melnyk of Manufacturing Dissent, I choose to praise Moore rather than to bury him.

Manufacturing Dissent (2007) *** 1/2 (out of 4) This documentary has director Debbie Melnyk following around Michael Moore as he promotes Fahrenheit 9/11 and calls him on various lies he's told throughout his career. I've said this countless times that I find Michael Moore to be a very talent filmmaker and I think he makes very entertaining films but there's no denying that he's a hypocrite and lies just as much as the people he goes after. This documentary tells Moore's story from his high school days all the way up to the release of his controversial film and the funny thing is that when this documentary is released, there's even more lies out in the open. Moore's use of fear is something that he often tries to go for yet he uses this against people claiming they use fear to push their points. In 2004 Moore was saying the draft was coming yet here we are four years later and this appears to have been a use of fear to try and sell your point. Another thing that I'm glad got cleared up was the heated debate over the Charlton Heston sequence in Bowling for Columbine. I've always felt Moore crossed the line in this segment and we get to see that the original speech from Heston was not made days after a little kid was killed but four months before it. There's a lot of debate on whether Moore really believes in freedom of speech but I'll let the clips in the movie speak for themselves. I'm not sure if this movie was made to make one hate Michael Moore but it really didn't change my mind of the mind. I still think he's a great talent but as far as calling him a documentary filmmaker is a joke. There are three legendary documentary makers interviewed here and their comments are priceless.

Im not a blind Michael Moore fan by any stretch, in fact I think "The Big One" is probably one of the worst films of all time, and I think that he is an annoying blowhard. Being a proud independent, I can see the idiots on both sides.But as Im watching this, I noticed a glaringly ridiculous scene (mentioned briefly by someone else in an earlier review). They showed a group of Flint High School girls doing some sort of irritatingly silly amateur schoolie play that mocks "Roger and Me" (the kind that only the mostly blindly adoring of right wing parents would be able to endure in their pompous little brats), and then the teenage girl "writer" of this play is interviewed, and she claims that Moore "fabricated" a news report that shows a female reporter stating that a Nightline report was cancelled because their news van was stolen, even as the scene from the film with her report is being shown over the girl's claims. It is from all visual inspection a real news report. Is she truly trying to say that Moore literally created the report in the film himself, hiring an actress to pose as a reporter and putting a fake station logo on the screen? If so, its funny because I cant seem to find any mention of it anywhere else but on this site, about this film. Did this little girl just make it up and these idiot filmmakers put it in at face value? Doesn't that make them complete hypocrites (like most people who do these kinds of amateurish no-budget "gotcha" documentaries).The female narrator (I assume its a woman named "Debbie Melnyck", who is listed as one of the "writers" and "directors") tries for a parody of Moore's sardonic style, but her lispy, effete elementary school teacher housewifey monotone would be more apt for Romper Room or selling jewelry on QVC. (Maybe the girl who put on the play is her daughter or something.) Sure, Michael Moore is a jerk, but what comes out much more glaringly in this film is the vapidness of young people in the majority of the spineless post-baby boom generations. We're doomed, folks. Face it now and save yourselves the Christmas shock. There's no hope. This documentary is depressingly effective at showing how our nauseatingly effete youth are going to sissy their way into the end times. We're all going out with a whimper, followed by a bang. This film is a good argument in favor of everyone deserving it. Both sides are chock full of fooles. The difference between the swishing grade Z Canadian twits who created this and Michael Moore is, Moore has talent for making films, and they don't. Stay home, Debbie dear, you aren't worthy to speak to Moore for a reason. It's not because he's avoiding you. It's because you are insignificant.This wretched film is showing on Sundance Channel this month, so watch it for FREE by all means, if you must at all (please don't pay people like this to make more films like this). Or better yet, watch a good documentary instead (like "Grey Gardens", which is also playing this month on Sundance).

Best of luck to all! Good to see someone lashing back at "spin".Back in 2000, while on a lecture circuit in Boston's North Shore area, I was telling audiences about a few concepts I had: "Mandatory Mininmum Health Insurance" and "Merit-Rated Health Insurance Premiums" based on lifestyle and other factors. I was laughed at! Now the Mandatory Minimum Health Insurance is law in Massachusetts, and, some corporations have recently started charging employees more for heath insurance for being unhealthy and obese, like Mr. Moore, who ironically denigrates the health care system for being "unhealthy"! Not so shocking when you think about it. The majority of people like Mr. Moore, value, have the time, money and desire for, the new styles, new vehicle, movies, sports games, entertainment, new furniture, manicures, hair styles, new gadgets, vacations, lottery tickets, casinos, lunches and diners out all week, and on and on. But when it comes to valuing, spending time, effort and money on regular exercise, proper nutrition, nutritional supplements, relaxation and meditation time, preventive health practices, and maintaining healthy lifestyles, the only things people always seem to have are excuses for why they 'can't' or 'don't'. Namaste, Dr Dave