I thought it was over between me and Michael.

I was convinced that his day was over.  That his type of guerrilla filmmaking was passe.

It’s true that he really changed the game for commercial political documentaries.  Before him there wasn’t even such a category of movie.  Now there’s a dozen each year, and it’s all because of his revolutionary series of films, which include Roger and Me, Bowling for Columbine,   Fahrenheit 9/11, Sicko and his most recent efford, Capitalism: A Love Story.

I admired all of these movies, mostly.  I admire their bravery and their very provocative nature.

However, there’s always the issue of Mr. Moore himself.  He’s like me:  obnoxious.  And while I can appreciate that, it doesn’t really help his cause or his films.  Bowling For Columbine was seriously undermined by his ambush interview of Charlton Heston.  And of course he’s been accused of distorting, misleading and outright lying in his movies as well.

His strident presence and juvenile stunts seem as inevitable as his pungent political points. 

So lately I’ve found myself just not that motivated to see his Capitalism.   Mostly because the trailers for the film show him up to his same old stupid stunts:  sectioning off the front of the AIG building with police tape, attempting to make a citizen’s arrest of fat-cat CEOs, attempting to rob a bank for the good of the people, etc. 

It just looked tiresome.

So, was I ever pleasantly surprised when I finally dragged myself to the movie this past weekend.  I loved it.  I think he’s quite brave to attack our national religion, which or course is Capitalism, NOT Christianity.

And the fact is, he really works up to the stunts you see in the trailers.  And what seems silly and childish out of context in the trailers actually feels cathartic and justified in the flow of the actual movie.

I think it’s valuable to have obnoxious punks like Michael Moore.  They do the heavy lifting that the rest of us SHOULD be doing:  questioning the status quo, questioning our leaders, questioning our basic assumptions about how life is supposed to work.  Even when Moore pisses me off, I’m glad he’s around.

He makes a particularly smart move at the very end of the movie, which — beware! — I’m going to spoil right now:

Moore’s point in the movie is that greed and big business have taken over our government.  So at the film’s conclusion when he unambiguously asserts that we should abolish capitalism, what he suggests we replace it with isn’t what you expect him to say — socialism.

No.  He thinks we should replace capitalism with democracy.

And I agree with him.