Capitalism, A Love Story

Hu tutufong i ha'ani siha esta ki mana'huyong este gi i fanegga'an guini...

Capitalism, A Love Story

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Sunday, September 6th, 2009
This Is It! World Premiere of 'Capitalism: A Love Story' Tonight ...a message from Michael Moore

Friends,

Well, this is it!

Tonight, at the Venice Film Festival, I will premiere my new movie, "Capitalism: A Love Story." After 16 months of production, I am proud to present this work of mine to you. It is unlike anything you'll see on the silver screen this year.

Twenty years ago this week I premiered my first film, "Roger & Me." Tonight, my new film will premiere at the oldest film festival in the world, the Venice Film Festival in Venice, Italy. It is an incredible honor they've bestowed on us, and we feel very privileged to be able to present "Capitalism: A Love Story" tonight in Venice.

The director of the festival said that our movie was "incredibly symphonic" and that he was moved by its epic nature. Jeez, these Italians! Everything's an opera to them!

But seriously, I do believe we've made something that will knock your socks off. I showed it to a friend of mine last week and he said, "It's your most dangerous film yet." (But I assure you, you'll be completely safe watching it in your local theater.)

I've kept a pretty tight lid on what we've been up to while making this movie and you're about to see exactly what that means. It isn't easy, in the age of YouTube and the internet, to keep something like this under wraps, but we've pulled it off and I can't wait to show you this latest effort of mine.

So wish us well tonight. We'll be home soon to open the movie all across the country (September 23rd in New York and L.A., October 2nd everywhere else).

I'll leave you with a quote from Thomas Jefferson: "Banking establishments are more dangerous than standing armies."

Yours,
Michael Moore
MMFlint@aol.com
MichaelMoore.com

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Michael Moore Slams Bailout of Wall Street, Wants 'Money Back'

By Farah Nayeri

Sept. 5 (Bloomberg) -- Michael Moore launched his movie "Capitalism: A Love Story" at the Venice Film Festival today, staging an all-out attack on the free-market system and on the U.S. government bailout of financial institutions.

"Capitalism is an evil, and you cannot regulate evil," Moore, an American director and satirist, says in his two-hour documentary, one of 24 films vying for the top Venice prize. "You have to eliminate it and replace it with something that's good for all people, and that something is called democracy."

The movie covers a wide range of issues -- from home foreclosures to the bankruptcy of General Motors -- and has a lengthy section on the past year's global financial meltdown, starting with the collapse of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. and bailout of companies including American International Group Inc.

Lehman's failure and U.S. taxpayers' $700 billion rescue of the financial system are providing material for film and television dramatizations. "The Last Days of Lehman Brothers," a BBC Two drama, airs on Sept. 9 in the U.K.

In "Capitalism: A Love Story," Moore and his crew are seen entering the AIG building to "make a citizens' arrest" of the board of directors. They're escorted out by security. Moore also goes up to bank buildings, saying that he wants to get "money back" for the American people.

Elsewhere, Moore suggests that Goldman Sachs Group Inc. influenced the administration of President George W. Bush because Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson was previously Goldman's chief executive officer.

'Goldman People'

Representative Marcy Kaptur, a Democrat from Ohio's 9th District, says in the Moore movie that "all the people in charge" at the U.S. Treasury during the George W. Bush administration were from Goldman Sachs.

Contacted by e-mail before the movie's Venice screening, Lucas van Praag, a spokesman for Goldman Sachs, didn't immediately respond to a message seeking reaction to the references to Goldman in the trailer.

Moore spoke at a Venice news conference hours before his movie screened.

"There's culpability amongst all groups," he said, "whether it's the U.S., corporations, government, and the American people buying into a rigged system."

"I hope that people will start to wake up a bit and see that they are participating in something that's causing them a lot of harm," added Moore, wearing a buttoned red polo shirt.

Moore's movie is on limited release in the U.S. on Sept. 23. It opens in movie theaters across the U.S. on Oct. 2.

"By spending just a few million dollars to buy Congress, Wall Street was given billions," Moore says in the movie trailer.

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