MICHAEL MOORE ON THE OSCARS

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AN EXCERT FROM HIS LATEST:

When the film was over, I sat there amazed and wondering, "Why can't I see movies like this all the time?" What is wrong with filmmaking, with Hollywood? Why are most films just the same old tired assembly line stuff -- sequels, remakes, old TV shows turned into movies, predictable plots and storylines... "If you've seen the trailer, you've seen the movie."

But "Troubled Water" was not like that -- and therefore its distribution to the theaters of America was, in essence, doomed.

That's not to say we don't make great movies anymore. I loved "Avatar," "District 9," "Inglourious Basterds," "Up in the Air," and "Up" among many others.

Some critics have hailed "The Hurt Locker" because the film "doesn't take sides" in the Iraq War -- like that's an admirable thing! I wonder if there were critics during the Civil War that hailed plays or books for being "balanced" about slavery, or if there were those who praised films during World War II for "not taking sides?" I keep reading that the reason Iraq War films haven't done well at the box office is because they've been partisan (meaning anti-war).

The truth is "The Hurt Locker" is very political. It says the war is stupid and senseless and insane. It makes us consider why we have an army where people actually volunteer to do this. That's why the right wing has attacked the movie. They're not stupid -- they know what Kathryn Bigelow is up to. No one leaves this movie thinking, "Whoopee! Let's keep these wars going another 7 years!"

James Cameron has been targeted by the crazy right, too. Because -- and Fox and Rush have this one correct, too -- "Avatar" is, in fact, an allegory for America -- a land stolen from an indigenous people who were slaughtered, a nation that not only allows corporations to call the shots but let's them privatize our wars (wars in distant places with the objective of controlling a dwindling energy resource), and a people who seem hell-bent on destroying the environment.

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