Just 9 (Strike That) Just 2 Days 'Til Sicko & All Will Be "Healed" in DocuLand

It has been a wild few days for Michael Moore.  SICKO, his latest film, a.) was pirated and posted online, b.) predicted to be the movie that could turn around the slumping doc box office, and finally c.) had it's premiere date moved up one week, ostensibly to deal with the problem of the pirating and posting, even if when it premieres this Friday, it is only in a single New York City theater (along with several sneak preview dates).

Meanwhile, Moore has finally responded publicly to the makers of MANUFACTURING DISSENT, the anti-Moore film that premiered to much ballyhoo at this year's SXSW Film Festival, and about which I wrote a scathing review as well as a more in-depth piece.

First the SICKO news, which popped up late last week and was covered extensively by David Poland.  It began one week ago with this post announcing that copes of SICKO were on the street in New York and that at least one site had portions of the film online.  By Friday, Poland noted that the situation had grown much worse:

Since Friday, a very mainstream streaming video site has had Sicko up in full... according to the site, just under 2000 people have viewed the film. Even worse, the site has a new downloading system, so it's not just streaming the film, but you can download it to your computer.

Pirate sites are a problem. This is a much, much bigger problem. And the fact that it has not been noticed and removed since Friday is truly remarkable.

On Monday, Poland wrote on the topic again, noting that even though the Weinstein Company had moved (somewhat? vaguely?) quickly to get the film pulled from online sharing sites, the proverbial cat was out of the bag and the downloaded film was already on his/your/someone's hard drive:

This is all made worse by Google's new download option, which allows you to download and play on a Google player. YouTube doesn't offer the feature, but people across the globe have created software for you to download and play their proprietary streaming files.

Later, in the same piece, Poland calls for resepect of copyrights in the internet wild west:

(T)here must be a moral contract that we, as a society, accepts if any of this is to lead anywhere good. We have spend the last decade-plus of the world wide web with many people taking the, “if I can get to it, I have a right to it” mentality. And as I have noted, I do feel there are a few acceptable exceptions to the most absolute adherence to the moral rules of engagement. But every time we smirk past infringements that we feel are the ones that are okay, we are opening up the door for more.

This led to today's announcement that SICKO will sneak this weekend in 27 markets and open at the AMC Loews Lincoln Square in NY this Friday. 

What happens then is anybody's guess, although it seems entirely possible that SICKO will be the biggest nonfiction film this year.  The NY Times quotes a Weinstein Company spokeswoman as saying they were predicting a box office return similar to BOWLING FOR COLUMBINE (which did a little more than $21 million) and not like FAHRENHEIT 9/11 (which did $119 million and remains the biggest nonfiction film ever).  That seems like obviously setting the bar and expectations low.  David Poland, in predicting box office for summer films, offers that SICKO will end up at $48 million (he made the prediction pre-Cannes, where the film premiered to rave reviews, and has kept that prediction in his post-Cannes chart).   More on SICKO predictions in the days to come.

In either case, last weekend Variety posited that "'Sicko' could heal documentaries", yet another in a long line of "the slump at the box office" stories that have been trudged out in recent years:

A few docs with commercial hooks got traction when they managed to tap the cultural zeitgeist earlier this decade. Reality-obsessed tabloids blossomed, biopics enjoyed a resurgence (think "Ray" and "The Queen") and reality started to fill every cranny of the TV dial. Now, at this saturation point, theatrical returns for docs are slipping significantly, with much of the upside shifting to ancillaries.

Since the release of "An Inconvenient Truth" more than a year ago, only "Wordplay" has really resonated, with a $3.1 million tally that's big by doc standards. In that period, pics with festival and press attention like "God Grew Tired of Us," "Deliver Us From Evil," "Zoo" and "Air Guitar Nation" have struggled.

But wait, there's more.  This paragraph from the top of the story:

After "Bowling for Columbine" and "Supersize Me" helped heat up the genre, the bar was set awfully high for docus, with "March of the Penguins," "Fahrenheit 9/11" and "An Inconvenient Truth" upping the stakes even more.

This year, though, the public's love affair with docs seems to have cooled, with 29 releases grossing less than $2 million combined. Many hope "Sicko" can add some spark to the genre, but the docu world is seeing a market correction.

Instead of a wide release of "Sicko," the bow has been scaled back to something closer to 800 runs, and TWC says it's hoping for a gross in the range of "Bowling for Columbine's" $21.6 million, not "Fahrenheit's" $119 million.

The return to rationality was perhaps inevitable for a corner of the film market that hasn't traditionally drawn huge buzz or box office.

The title of 2007's top-grossing doc is telling: "Into Great Silence," a nearly three-hour film about Carthusian monks with no dialogue, which has grossed $666,587. ("Angry Monk," by comparison, made $3,178. There's a lesson somewhere there.)

Well, where to begin?  First off, there haven't been that many docs released so far this year, and certainly none with a massive groundswell of interest.  ZOO was the closest thing to a word-of-mouth sensation, but the subject matter made any theatrical return minimal.  Meanwhile, INCONVENIENT TRUTH came out just 13 months ago.  And that's the focus of the story - we haven't had another big hit like that in a whopping 13 months?  Someone call Development!

Meanwhile, in addition to SICKO, we are awaiting new films from Errol Morris, Morgan Spurlock, Alex Gibney.  Oh and there's a movie about astronauts that I expect to do pretty well.

So, let's put a lid on all the "genre slump" BS until we have a 3 year downturn or something.

Lastly in Michael Moore/SICKO news, there is this, courtesy of Karina Longworth in her new gig over on the newly energized Spout Blog, in which Moore responds to questions raised in MANUFACTURING DISSENT:

(T)his weekend, a reporter asked Moore to comment on an independent documentary critiquing his filmmaking methods. Moore responded by calling the makers of that film "f-ing liar[s]", and went on to accuse them of spreading misinformation about "a fictional character that's been created with the name of Michael Moore."

Specifically, as noted in the story in London's Guardian newspaper, Moore refuted the filmmakers' claim that he had purposefully left footage on the cutting room floor of an interview with GM's Roger Smith, circa ROGER AND ME, an interview that would have undercut the central conceit of the film:

"Anybody who says that is a fucking liar. If I'd gotten an interview with him, why wouldn't I put it in the film. Any exchange with Roger Smith would have been valuable."

He said that GM would certainly have made public any interview in response to the movie.

Moore admitted he had spoken to Smith about a company tax abatement at a 1987 shareholders' meeting, but that was before he began working on Roger and Me and had nothing to do with the film. Manufacturing Dissent film-makers Rick Caine and Debbie Melnyk claim Moore also interviewed Smith in 1988 in New York.

More SICKO news to come...

Comments

[Mark S]

The intervew that is shown in Manufacturing Dissent actually took place several months before Michael Moore committed himself to making Roger & Me.

Did Debbie Melnyk and Rick Caine not make this clear?

Throughout production, Roger Smith was unreceptive and declined repeated requests to be interviewed. Moore obtained the original footage of his earlier encounter and for a time considered including it in his film, before rejecting the idea. (So, yes, to that extent it ended up on the cutting room floor.) Moore, in a style now familiar, decided to ambush his subject instead. We see this one ambush scene toward the end of Roger & Me.

Does this earlier encounter invalidate the premise of Roger & Me? No, because (1) it happened before he started filming, and (2) the premise was never so narrow as trying to get Roger Smith to sit down in an interview chair.

[DL]

In the film Manufacturing Dissent the filmmakers included a clip that clearly shows (from a VHS with a time and date stamp on screen no less) Michael Moore's wife and producing partner, Kathleen Glynn,
working with the Roger & Me film crew outside of the GM annual shareholders
meeting that you guys keep trying to say took place prior to their beginning
the film. Are we to believe that they filmed outside of the shareholders
meeting but not inside? And if you can buy that, then how is it
Michael Moore was able to show himself being cut off by Roger Smith?
Furthermore both Jim Musselman and Ralph Nader say, and I believe them, that
Michael Moore also interviewed Roger Smith at the Waldorf Astoria in Jan.
1988 at the GM advanced products showcase confab in NY (essentially a dog
and pony show for GM's largest institutional and corporate shareholders.)
According to Musselman Michael Moore interviewed Roger Smith for 10 to 15
minutes during the luncheon part of the Waldorf Astoria get together. Now why
did Michael Moore choose not to include that in Roger & Me? Perhaps it was
because he was anxious to paint Roger Smith as a callous corporate CEO who
in addition to not wanting to see the destruction his policies caused in
places like Flint (among many others) but he is so callous he wouldn't even
discuss it with the little guy from Flint in search of the truth.
I read in USA Today on June 22 that Michael Moore himself seems dissatisfied
with the legacy of his films. Why would Michael
Moore choose to include a complely fabricated sequence about the stealing of
the Nightline satellite truck? Is lying is going to get us to where we want to
be? I get it, Bush lied and lead us into a destructive and counterproductive
war in Iraq, so the solution is we should lie to make that right? Since when
do two wrongs make a right? Michael Moore's films have always been HIS
truth, not THE truth.

[MS]

That was not a Roger & Me film crew -- it was a Mike Westfall camera crew.

Westfall had been protesting the Flint layoffs since before Moore arrived on the scene. He even helped Moore get inside the conference hall. All of this took place BEFORE Moore mortgaged his home to make Roger & Me (hence the 1987 datestamp).

Westfall soon became bitter because Moore made a name for himself. Today he spends much of his time on FreeRepublic.com, badmouthing Moore. Too bad the Manufacturing Dissent directors swallowed every word this crackpot had to say.

[Jill Sweet]

Come on, do you actually believe that anyone who tells the truth is bad mouthing Moore? You cannot explain what Moore did in Flint except make an inaccurate film because he did nothing of importance.If Moore did anything in Flint,what was it?
The documented truth from dozens of people from that time is that Jim Musselman aided the Westfall people who were the ones fighting for common workers.They were the real deal, not opportunistic counterfits.
They weren't in it to get rich selling movies, they were in it to save middle class jobs. Moores personal mission was to become a star in his own movies and make millions of dollars. Isn't that clear? Can't you see and understand that?
Moore capitalized on these Flint efforts and became the ficticious leader that he wasn't. He has been fooling America ever since.
Check out

http://www.newmediajournal.us/guest/m_westfall/04142007.htm

http://michaelwestfall.tripod.com/id17.html

[MS]

Love those selective quotes from the Phil Donahue show.

Isn't that what you people attack Michael Moore for - not showing the other side?

[Jill Sweet]

Since you like quotes, how about a quote from Moores pal Roseanne Barr's website...
http://www.roseanneworld.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=3537&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=15