Failure for thee, but not for me.

Remember when An American Carol inspired conservatives to shout that its inevitable success would prove that Americans wanted patriotic films that mock liberals more than dour, realistic films about the realities on the ground in Iraq? I certainly do. "[I]t'll change everything," said one of its stars, Kelsey Grammer. Reiterating a prediction she made two weeks earlier, someone named Erin said "An American Carol will be a success at the box office, because the American people are sick of the Damons and Afflecks."

And succeed it did: after a concerted effort by the conservative media to let the market's invisible hand work its magic, An American Carol took it in $3,656,000 in its first weekend, and was declared a success because it barely grossed more than Religulous despite being screened in a mere 1,137 more theaters nationwide.  Using the same standards by which An American Carol was deemed a success, John Nolte gloats that Americans voted with their wallets and declared Michael Moore's new film a failure:

[T]he biggest disappointment of the weekend is Michael Moore’s Capitalism: A Love Story (Overture). After a $57K per theatre average on 4 screens last weekend, the picture broke to a wider 962 locations with terrible results. The "documentary" only sold an estimated $1.3M in tickets to start the weekend, and it will finish at about $3.9M for a PTA of less than $4,000. That soft opening will almost certainly make Capitalism Moore’s weakest-grossing movie since 2002’s Bowling for Columbine ($21.5M domestic gross).

Did I say the same standards?  Because this chart I carved by hand from the finest quality HTML would seem to indicate otherwise:

Title	Gross	Theaters	Avg.
An American Carol	$3.656M	1,639	$2,231
Capitalism: A Love Story	$4.850M	962	$5,042

I suppose numbers also have a liberal bias?

Comments

[G C]

Why do you hate freedom?

[G C]

Also, have you seen the film yet? I saw it opening night and came away lukewarm, though in fairness my friends tell me I was hoping for a better movie than could possibly have been made. I don't think that's it, though; there's a kernel of a truly great film here (likely organized around Moore's discovery of lost FDR footage concerning his proposed Second Bill of Rights). It's just not this film.

[SEK]

Your review's what inspired us to stay in and watch Adventureland instead. As you remember---because I see you commented on it---I'm lukewarm about Moore's method, and annoyed by the perniciously entertaining results. (Same reason I think it's hypocritical to say that the ACORN scandal is somehow meaningful but hate Moore for pulling the exact same sort of stunt.)

[Ahistoricality]

If we didn't have shifting goalposts and hypocrisy, we'd hardly have any politics at all!

Seems to me that the fundamental difference between the ACORN stunts and Moore is that Moore goes for people with actual responsibility. But that's about as far as I'm going to go defending Moore, since I've never seen more than a three-minute clip of any of his works, nor do I have any real desire to. He's never revealed anything that wasn't fairly obvious to the well-informed, and I don't really desire to be entertained by our collective failings.

[P.T. Smith]

I'll go a little further in defending Moore. He's fantastic for high school students. If you're pissed off about any of the subjects his movies cover, and, being the average high school student you aren't well-informed enough, they are a great way to move beyond anger towards something closer to understanding.

When I was in high school, I was fairly liberal, and against the Iraq war on general grounds, the basic issues, i.e., moral problems of preemptive strike, lack of any evidence, general opposition to war. We had a debate in my ethics class about the war, like full on assignment, bring your arguments with evidence. I was the only person against it, much of my research come from Moore's books. I'd disagree with high school me's method, attitude, and lack variety in sources, but dammnit, I'm still glad I had what I had.

[Bob Reed]

You are correct sir! The numbers don't lie; figures don't lie, but liars figure, a cliche we used to say with amusement at my former Navy gig...

While I get the impression that the 1.3 million dollar figure wuoted is rolled into the entire weekend total of 3.9 million, it's really academic, because that figure exceeds American Carol's figure in both total magnitude as well as per-theater average.

Full disclosure, despite being a knuckle-dragger I never bothered to see American Carol. While I always enjoy good movies, especially comedies, from what I saw in the trailers it seemed sophmoric to me. And I'll probably not see Capitalism either, but that is due to Michael Moore's ridiculous statement, "Capitalism did nothing for me...", as much as it is the content of the film.

http://www.eyeblast.tv/public/checker.aspx?v=GdkUqG6UVr

Moore can be as insufferable as some of the far right cranks the difference being the far right cranks are in your face daily, while Moore only on occasion. And I'm skeptical of some of his methods, factual citations, and pronouncements; just as much as I am of Limbaugh or Hannity's...

Me? I preferred watching Dr. Zhivago on TCM Saturday night...

[t h o r]

I'm skeptical that your skeptical of Limbaugh and Hannity. Your posts typically read as if you regularly hand-job both, Bob.

I wonder what Pasternak would think of chuckle-headed Americans who've never risked a dangerous word but who bob and cluck over a Hollywood interpretation of Zhivago. "Such a noose," indeed. I bet he'd opt for the Russian rope.

[clay]

I think it's hypocritical to say that the ACORN scandal is somehow meaningful but hate Moore for pulling the exact same sort of stunt.

It could be bias on my part, but I honestly don't see a comparison between the ACORN pimp and Moore. As the previous commenter said, there's a vast difference in their respective targets (poorly trained employees vs. CEOs). However, I think their methods are different as well.

Sure, Moore does stunts, but they are performed with him, as himself, with cameras and microphones in plain view. He's not 'undercover;' he's not really trying to pull a fast one on anyone; he's basically a satirist trying to embarrass people, but those people can see him coming.

The ACORN pimp, on the other hand, went in disguised, with hidden camera, and lied to people whose only crime was... actually, I don't even know. Helping poor people?

[SEK]

Ahistoricality:

Seems to me that the fundamental difference between the ACORN stunts and Moore is that Moore goes for people with actual responsibility.

A stunt is still a stunt, though, and while there may be so utility to pulling stunts, I think we're all big enough to admit that they appeal to our baser natures. By which I mean, yes, I enjoy watching political opponents get their comeuppance, but I'm not sure what good that does. (Plus, I can't help but think about Pigasus, which, honestly, I rather wouldn't.)

There is, however, one crucial difference between Moore's stunts and what happened at ACORN: it's not just that Moore goes after the culpable, but that the enjoyment his audience gets from his work doesn't have the hinky racial undertones that the ACORN videos do. While by no means representative of all conservatives, the confirmation-of-racist-stereotypes aspect of those videos is in full effect in the comments at Youtube and elsewhere. (Reminds me of the South Park episode "The Passion of the Jew," in which Gibson's film vindicates Cartman's anti-semitism.)

P.T. Smith:

If you're pissed off about any of the subjects his movies cover, and, being the average high school student you aren't well-informed enough, they are a great way to move beyond anger towards something closer to understanding.

As a gateway drug for unfocused anger, I see his value---but that's a threshold that, for most people, isn't crossed. That said, I think you make an important distinction here:

I was the only person against it, much of my research come from Moore's books.

His books are as polemical as his films, but they're not stunt-driven. You can follow the citations, if you're so inclined.

Bob:

And I'm skeptical of some of his methods, factual citations, and pronouncements; just as much as I am of Limbaugh or Hannity's...

And well you should be, on all counts. As I wrote about Sicko:

It has long been known that foreigners paying in hard currencies receive preferential treatment in Cuban hospitals. Despite the benefits brought about the emphasis on preventative medicine, one of the highest doctor-to-patient ratios in the world, and the availability of cheap generic drugs, Moore neglects to mention that he was taking advantage of the system, that the people with him only received the treatment they did because they weren't Cuban. Just as I was furious when I learned that he had met Roger while filming Roger & Me, I'm pre-incensed at his future revelation that he knew all about Cuba's medical tourism industry. In both films, he overreaches, providing his detractors with ammunition against him. He undermines the valid points he raises about the outsourcing of American jobs and the crisis in American health-care for what can only be seen as narrative goals. He wants the perfect ending, the perfect finish, the perfect irony. He doesn't need it. When I taught literary journalism, I convinced my students, and myself, that the most human story is human by virtue of its imperfections, by the way its mundane realities defy the simplistic narrative conventions of the Hollywood hack. Would that Moore could learn this.

While there is a tactical advantage to knowing exactly what will come back and bite you on the ass---as a debater, I know the value of having a prepared defense against an assine argument thrown out there like chum---I don't think that's Moore, Limbaugh, Coulter, etc. are up to. They're playing checkers, not chess, prefering to shout "KING ME!" than actually defend a king.

Thor:

Your posts typically read as if you regularly hand-job both, Bob.

First, keep it civil; second, I had a dream last night that there was an Anonymous Coming Out Day---likely because of a feature on Anonymous I read in Wired while nodding off---in which you figured as one of the only people who refused to participate. I have no idea why you wouldn't, though I suspect it might be fear of some of the more unhinged elements you've taken crowbars to.

Clay:

The ACORN pimp, on the other hand, went in disguised, with hidden camera, and lied to people whose only crime was... actually, I don't even know. Helping poor people?

I agree---ACORN's drawn the short lot here, especially given that the O'Keefe only released four or five of the tapes before launching a structural critique of what could, and in all probability is, a case of bad apples. I could, I'm sure, find some individual In-N-Out stores that aren't up to the rather remarkable snuff required by corporate, but I wouldn't indict the chain on account of those stores.

Moreover, since the majority of quasi-legimitate concern about ACORN has to do not with fraud perpetrated by ACORN but against it---volunteers who register Mickey Mouse to vote in order to inflate their registration counts and score more cash are defrauding ACORN, not democracy, unless conservatives can show that Mickey Mouse actually voted in the 2008 election---I'm not inclined to believe that these stunts are done in good faith so much as political calculus. But say what you will about Moore, his populism is genuine: he attacked the DLC in the '90s with the same rancor he went after CEOs in the '80s and Bush in the '90s.

[timb]

The ACORN pimp, on the other hand, went in disguised, with hidden camera, and lied to people whose only crime was... actually, I don't even know. Helping poor people?

Their crime, Clay, was helping poor Democrats vote. There's nothing conservatives hate more than minorities voting.

[Martin Wisse]

It's a bit puritan isn't it, this disapproval of Michael Moore's stunts? (Especially being "annoyed by the perniciously entertaining results".) As if it doesn't count if it isn't twenty pages of logically derived arguments, that you need to distrust emotion.

Not just here of course, but it seems every liberal/leftwing American blogger who mentions Moore always has to step back of him and his methods for not being serious enough, or stunts, or god forbid, propaganda. Between all the liberals who hold him in disdain and the wingers who just plain hate him, it's a wonder Moore manages to be as succesful as he is.

And right much more often than not.

[thor]

Thor:

Your posts typically read as if you regularly hand-job both, Bob.

First, keep it civil; second, I had a dream last night that there was an Anonymous Coming Out Day---likely because of a feature on Anonymous I read in Wired while nodding off---in which you figured as one of the only people who refused to participate. I have no idea why you wouldn't, though I suspect it might be fear of some of the more unhinged elements you've taken crowbars to.

Uncivil, me? Nah.

Ghoster Goldstein and Bobbo know that I only pull on their noses when they deserve it.

[David R. Block]

Interesting that Moore is bashing Capitalism while enriching himself with it.

Sounds like an ingrate. :) Although some would say hypocrite.

[JPool]

It is interesting that life can at time appear to contain contradictions, but it should not be surprising.

One could say that you can live inside a system that benefits you, say white supremacy or patriarchy, and still oppose it. Others would say you can belive in or value a system, say democratic government, and still criticize the way it functions. Those people are what we call reasonable.