Watching Michael Moore's new film "Slacker Uprising" - which documents his 62-stop tour through swing states in the weeks leading up to the 2004 election - is a strange, awkward experience. After all, you spend 97 minutes watching Moore passionately stump for Democratic candidates John Kerry and John Edwards in packed, cheering arenas and auditoriums, all the while knowing the election's outcome. And since those who agree with Moore's politics will be the ones who see this movie - which you can sign up to download for free - it will likely be hard for some to revisit and relive that time.
Moore calls "Slacker" a concert film, and the description is apt. Not only do we see Moore on stage and behind the scenes during the tour, but we see musicians like Joan Baez, Eddie Vedder, Tom Morello (of Rage Against the Machine) and Steve Earle perform at the rallies. In truth, there's a bit too much of this in "Slacker" - the songs, filmed in their entirety, bog down the pace - and Moore's ego shows when he takes care to include footage of Baez, in an interview, likening him to Bob Dylan, and of Vedder singing Moore's praises in an introduction. The film fares far better when depicting the controversies surrounding the tour. First, a few Republicans accused Moore of illegally "buying" votes by handing out underwear and ramen noodles to new, mostly college-age voters who promised to show up on election day (hilariously, this was nicknamed "noodlegate"); and later, student organizations in Utah and San Diego were pressured to cancel Moore's campus appearances. It's no coincidence that these are among the most compelling and entertaining parts of the movie, for they offer something that much of the rest of the film sorely lacks: conflict. Moore's best movies, such as "Bowling for Columbine" and "Sicko," work because he's posing important questions and, through the medium of film, cheekily exploring various answers, taking us along for the ride. With "Slacker," we're literally along for a ride, but what exactly we're meant to glean from it is far from clear. Fortunately, Moore's smart-alecky humor (including some funny fake ads for George W. Bush) provides the film with moments of levity. At times, however, his targets are too easy. The Moore protesters who get air time in "Slacker," for example, are the ones who sound sublimely uninformed and silly, when obviously, there are articulate, thoughtful people on both sides of the political divide. And because the 2004 election's outcome ominously haunts "Slacker," you wonder why Moore chose not to explore, or even broach the subject, of how he eventually reconciled investing so much time, effort and passion in an election that didn't go his way. The silence on this subject in "Slacker" seems deafening. Down Load Video at: http://slackeruprising.com Posted From: http://blog.mlive.com  954-394-4980 |
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