Posted on 03/18/2003 7:03:51 AM PST by TC Rider
PORCINE provocateur Michael Moore is howling that the Oscars are fixed.
Moore - whose popular anti-gun movie "Bowling for Columbine" has been nominated in the Best Documentary category - is lashing out at Sony Pictures Classics for allegedly rigging the contest so he's destined to lose.
The wide-bottomed windbag claims Sony, which is distributing rival documentary prize contender "Winged Migration," a boring French bird flick, is exploiting Academy rules to ensure "Columbine" strikes out.
The Academy requires that all voters in the documentary category must prove that they've seen every film nominated. As a result, fewer than 400 of the 5,600 Academy members bother to vote on the docu prize, only the hard-core documentary fans who tend to turn their noses up at populist tripe like "Columbine," which isn't nearly high-brow enough for their tastes.
Moore is upset because he knows that most of the members who saw and liked his film won't be able to vote for it because of the arcane rules. And he claims Sony has intentionally made it difficult to see "Migration" to ensure the voting goes in their favor, noting Academy members who want to vote for him have complained they were able to see everything but "Migration."
Moore claims that he asked Sony Classics co-president Michael Barker to make a print of "Migration" available for extra screenings to level the playing field, and that Barker refused.
"He said no," Moore told the L.A. Times. "He said in so many words that this is what's best for them . . . I told him we should all be supportive of each other's films. Especially in this category, which has a history of embarrassment" for overlooking popular films.
"It really limits the number of people who can vote," echoes Dennis O'Connor, vice president of marketing at United Artists, which is distributing "Columbine."
"Sony does it all the time."
"I told him that people wouldn't come," Barker counters. "We've had a lot of screenings . . . Every year, whoever the favorite is complains about not enough screenings."
Moore complained to the Academy itself, to no avail. "It's not about winning," Moore insists. "It's about democracy . . . Let's let people vote. I'm more than happy to live with a vote that reflects the will of the majority."
Love it. Various Sony product policies have placed them squarely on my fecal list -- I don't plan to buy another Sony product, ever. And now to see Moore go after them... heh.
This is too much for me to take before noon.
"Moore is upset because he knows that most of the members who saw and liked his film won't be able to vote for it because of the arcane rules."
Boo hoo. Academy voters were able to endure 8 hours of Holocaust survivor stores in Shoah (back in the 1980s). When Crumb the documentary made about Robert Crumb and his brothers came out, academy voters walked out saying that it was too depressing.
Michael's film isn't even a documentary; he hoaxed up footage to make his points. It is a work of fictional propaganda and an insult to those who craft genuine documentaries.
Yes, even the title is fraudulent since it is based on a mistaken police report that the Columbine psychos went bowling prior to shooting up the school. They did not.
You've pinned down his entertainment forbears...
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Thanks for the photos 8-).
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