The London Guardian reported that Michael Moore's latest documentary drew tumultuous applause at the Venice Film Festival today, If the film finally lacks the clean, hard punch provided by the record-breaking Fahrenheit 9/11, that can only be because the crime scene is so vast and the culprits so numerous.

Capitalism: A Love Story is by turns crude and sentimental, impassioned and invigorating. It posits a simple moral universe inhabited by good little guys and evil big ones, yet the basic thrust of its argument proves hard to resist.

Undeterred, Moore jabs his finger at everyone from Reagan to Bush Jr, Hank Paulson to Alan Greenspan. He drags the viewer through a thicket of insurance scams, sub-prime bubbles and derivative trading so willfully obfuscatory that even the experts can't explain how it works.

The big villain, of course, is capitalism itself, which the film paints as a wily old philanderer intent on lining the pockets of the few at the expense of the many. America, enthuses a leaked Citibank report, is now a modern-day "plutonomy" where the top 1% of the population control 95% of the wealth. 

Moore's conclusion? That capitalism is both un-Christian and un-American,... There is something energising – even moving – about the sight of him setting out to prove it all. Like some shambling Columbo, he amasses the evidence, takes witness statements from the victims and then starts doorstepping the guilty parties.

"I need some advice!" Moore shouts to some hastening Wall Street trader who has just left his office. "Don't make any more movies!" the man shoots back. Moore chuckles at that, but the last laugh is his. This, more than any other, is the movie they will wish he had never embarked on.

Michael Francis Moore is an Academy Award-winning American filmmaker, author and liberal political commentator. He is the director and producer of Bowling for Columbine , Fahrenheit 9/11 and Sicko three of the top five highest-grossing documentaries of all time. In September 2008, he released his first free movie on the Internet, Slacker Uprising, documenting his personal crusade to encourage more Americans to vote in presidential elections. He has also written and starred in the TV shows TV Nation and The Awful Truth

Moore is a self-described reformer who has criticized globalization, large corporations, assault weapon ownership, the Iraq War, U.S. President George W. Bush and the American health care system in his written and cinematic works. In 2005 Time magazine named him one of the world's 100 most influential people.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2009/
sep/06/capitalism-love-story-review

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Moore

VENICE, Italy — Michael Moore says his film "Capitalism: A Love Story" is dedicated to "good people ... who've had their lives ruined" by the quest for profit.

Moore's latest film features many whose lives have been shattered by a corporate environment where the drive for profit is a priority over the workers' best interest.

The director premieres the film Sunday in his first appearance at the Venice Film Festival.

The movie won was warmly received at a press showing Saturday evening and won positive reviews.

Moore said Sunday he was "personally affected by good people who struggle, who work hard and who've had their lives ruined by decisions that are made by people who do not have their best interest at heart."
 

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