The Buzz: Michael Moore's Capitalism: A Love Story [Venice Film Festival]

Michael Moore's latest film Capitalism: A Love Story screened at the Venice Film Festival yesterday, and the reviews and reports have begun to come in. So far the response has been very positive, a bunch of four out of five star reviews. Here is a look at the buzz from Italy:Variety: "By returning to his roots, professional gadfly Michael Moore turns in one of his best films with Capitalism: A Love Story." ... "Unfortunately, elsewhere, Moore strives so hard to manipulate viewers' emotions with shots of crying children and tearjerking musical choices that he's not so much over-egging the pudding as making an omelet out of it."The Hollywood Reporter: "Although it's less focused than Sicko or Fahrenheit 9/11 — whose boxoffice it should resemble — because its subject is more abstract, this is a typical Moore oeuvre: funny, often over the top and of dubious documentation, but with strongly made points that leave viewers much to ponder and debate after they walk out of the theater." ... "Simplifications are Moore?s stock-in-trade, and his documentaries are not known for their impeccable research and objectivity. But here his talent is evident in creating two hours of engrossing cinema..."The Guardian: "Michael Moore's latest documentary drew tumultuous applause at the Venice film festival today, suggesting that the veteran tub-thumper has lost none of his power to whip up a response. If the film finally lacks the clean, hard punch provided by the record-breaking Fahrenheit 9/11, that can only be because the crime scene is so vast and the culprits so numerous." ... "Capitalism: A Love Story is by turns crude and sentimental, impassioned and invigorating."Time: "Capitalism: A Love Story does not quite measure up to Moore's Sicko in its cumulative power, and it is unlikely to equal Fahrenheit 9/11 in political impact. In many ways, though, this is Moore's magnum opus: the grandest statement of his career-long belief that big business is screwing the hard-working little guy while government connives in the atrocity."ScreenDaily: "As intelligent and compulsively entertaining as his previous films" ... "The conservative right will of course dismiss Moore's elucidations as simplistic – and for the most part they would be right – yet there is a Capra-esque appeal to his pleas to redress the balance between very rich and very poor in his homeland. Moore valiantly battles the propaganda that has fused capitalism with both democracy and religion, while defending the notion of socialism which has become a curse word in the US heartland."InContention: "Michael Moore is this generation's Frank Capra.By that token, Capitalism: A Love Story – an artlessly effective slice of rah-rah rhetoric more sincerely idealistic than anything the director has yet put his name to – represents Moore's It's a Wonderful Life." ... "The question, then, isn't just whether Capitalism: A Love Story (a wholly meaningless title, incidentally) is a good film, but whether it really needs – or even wants – to be one. As cinema, it certainly isn't as formally inventive or powerful as Roger & Me or Bowling for Columbine, or even as viscerally seething as Fahrenheit 9/11, but it doesn't speak any less loudly or chidingly than those films.AFP: "Michael Moore pulls no punches in his hard-hitting new documentary blasting "evil" capitalism" ... "large doses of biting humour and a few dollops of inspiration."