Michael Moore’s take on the economy

“As the American economy goes to hell in a hand basket,” said Variety online, “gadfly” director Michael Moore has decided to set his sites on “the villains of Wall Street and corporate America.” The man “who went after General Motors in his breakthrough film Roger & Me” seems like just the right person to take on “the Gordon ‘greed is Good’ Gekkos of the world”—this documentary “couldn't be more timely.”

“But will Americans take heed or listen?” said The Playlist online. Moore's “well-crafted Health Care documentary, Sicko,” asked U.S. audiences, ‘Is this fair?’ ‘Will you stand for this?’” They answered “with a resounding shrug and said, ‘Pass me the clicker and the Cheetos.’” And Moore “better hope” that the “economy doesn’t realign itself” before his film comes out, “or he may be too late to, ahem, capitalize.”

Well, Moore is “feverishly shooting,” said Steven Zeitchik in The Hollywood Reporter online, and this movie might come out by spring. But will “Moore's incredulousness and occasional pessimism about the state of U.S. policy,” which served him well during the Bush years, “play in the current hopeful climate brought on President-elect Barack Obama”? Then again, Moore sees this film as a “bookend to Roger & Me,” which featured plenty of commentary on the U.S. economy, so maybe it will play well.

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