[Cerek the Barbaric]

Originally posted by Oblivion437: Just so long as I'm understood.

For what it's worth, Oblivion, I thought the 3 links you provided earlier were very informative. Hardy did an excellent job at showing exaclty how Moore used the "smoke and mirrors" effect in BfC. He also provided links and sources to back up his claims against the film. In the "controversial" speech by Heston at Denver, he gave a side-by-side comparison of the transcript from the film compared to the transcript of the actual speech. It shows - without any opinion or conjecture - how Moore deliberately took some sentences far out of context and even spliced two separate sentences together to make a completely different statement.

Moore's defense of Hardy's criticism were mostly red herrings or dodges in my opinion. By an example of a "red herring", I point out the scene in the bank when Moore got his gun for buying a CD. Moore "defends" the criticism of that scene, yet Hardy never criticized it. He said certain parts of it were suspect, but that it wasn't a serious enough deception to be included in his major arguments against the film. I noticed that Moore never answered any of the criticism with a direct answer and he did just completely ignore a couple of the most serious claims (serious in Hardy's opinion).

I also noted that Hardy did a good job at rebutting the defenses Moore did offer. All in all, I thought it was an extremely insightful effort on the part of Mr. Hardy and his friends that helped him.

As to the point that Hardy had an "agenda" to discredit Moore's film because he is an NRA member....that may be true. Then again, Moore would have an even more "vested interest" in lying or stretching the truth in an attempt to defend his film. I also find it interesting that - waaaaay back at the beginning of this thread - it was mentioned that Moore was also a member of the NRA and that BfC wasn't meant as an "attack" on that organization. Yet Moore's own words regarding BfC was that he had a huge team of lawyers and researcher go over EVERY scene in BfC to make sure it was accurate because the "NRA would come after him with everything they had if they could because they are mean people that will use any bullying or threatening tactic they can to prevent the "truth" about guns from being told" (paraphrased by me, but the second link in Oblivion's post will give you the exact words Moore says about the NRA. He most certainly is NOT supporting NRA and definitely sounds as if BfC WAS a deliberate attack on them. And - in fact - he does try to make them look like uncaring ogres (a term I used earlier) that have a habit of holding "big gun rallies" in or near towns that just recently suffered a horrific tragedy involving guns. The reasons the NRA couldn't move the Denver meeting have been well documented and the supposed "big gun rally" in Flint, MI has been shown to have occurred months after the tragedy - and also has been shown to have not even been a "gun rally" at all.

But of course, these "opinions" are all from biased sources - so many of them are discounted out of hand. So I offer the criticism given by Roger Ebert - a fan of Michael Moore. He voiced (and confirmed) many of the same criticisms about BfC as the opposition did. He lamented (rightfully so) that Moore had plenty of data and information to work with without deliberately distorting some of the facts and figures used - and also commented that such "creative editing" actually cheapened Moore's argument and cheapened his credibility. He also confirmed that Moore told him and other reporters to "do their job" and NOT say that the crowd at the Acadamey Awards was evenly divided in their support and criticism of his anti-Bush speech. He tried to blame the boo's he received on 5 stagehands, then claimed that the loud chorus of "boo's" which was undeniable to anybody that saw the footage was actually his supporters "booing" the stagehands for "booing" Moore. [img]graemlins/wow.gif[/img] And again, these statements from Moore were confirmed by Roger Ebert - a liberal, friend, and FAN of Michael Moore.

Ah well, in the end it doesn't really matter. Moore is an American and - as such - has every right to his opinion and has every right to make his films as he sees fit. It is then left up to the individuals to decide just how much truth is contained in the films, and how the film's message affects each of us in our beliefs and value systems.