Louis Proyect reviews Capitalism: a Love Story:
Despite its formulaic quality and despite some very dubious politics, I have no problem recommending Michael Moore’s “Capitalism: a Love Storyâ€. Since there are so few movies (or television shows) that reveal the human side of the largest economic crisis since the 1930s, we must be grateful to Michael Moore for his steadfast dedication to the underdog. Except for Andrew and Leslie Cockburn’s American Casino, a documentary that covers pretty much the same terrain as Moore but without his impish humor, there’s nothing out of Hollywood that would give you the slightest inkling of the scale of human suffering.
Not quite a fullblooded recommendation, but note that it’s a critical review coming from the left of Moore, rather than the more usual puritian out of hand rejection of Moore and his movies by supposedly serious liberals. The Exile is on their case, as per usual.
Meanwhile some annoying rightwinger or other finds it interesting that Moore was financied with Goldman Sachs money in the kind of tedious gotcha aimed at any critic of capitalism. If you’re rich and succesful, you’re a hypocrite; if you’re not, you’re just jealous.
Much more examples of rightwing froth at Google’s blogsearch.
This is what I think Moore does best and seemed to have achieved again with Capitalism: a Love Story: breaking open the accepted limits of political debate. He shocks both liberals and rightwingers into defensiveness because he touches a nerve. He reminds both groups that the system they’ve both invested in is fatally flawed and has been for a long time, that there is a world outside the Beltway that can’t be captured in statistics and dry information.