Capitalism: A Love Story [DVD]

Thanks to Michael Moore we have another brilliant documentary that highlights more injusticies in the political world.
The film is focussed and to the point, with snippits of humour thrown in. Anyone failing to follow this movie is clearly not concentrating!
Of course all of the salient points are backed up by alot of evidence, which is especially disheartening to the Moore-haters.
I recommend everyone to watch this movie and do their own research of the evidence, it is time we all exercised our democratic rights!

For those wanting to research more into the failures of Capitalism, I suggest you look at David Harveys book "The Enigma of Capital".

This is a timely film questioning the appropriateness of capitalism at a time when many will be undoubtedly feeling that it increasingly a system biased in favour of the greedy and reckless at the expense of the conscientious and cautious. The theme will resonate with many in light of banking bailouts. Moore quickly highlights the reason that Capitalism has proved so popular is the way in which the many believe that they might be one of the top brass themselves one day - so don't rock the boat that you might be climbing into... The connection with Brave New World is apparent.

Moore reminds us that however this is unlikely to be the case, because the game is rigged, people like Paulson and the other top bankers are pulling the strings of global government so they will always win the game at our expense. Until the point comes when there are are so many disenfranchised `peasants' that there is an uprising.

Capitalism: A Love Story starts well, drawing parallels with the fall of Rome, and echoes of Adam Curtis's short film for Punchdrunk's "It Felt Like A Kiss", using archive material of the American Dream. It reminds us out how we are increasingly expected to work harder and longer for the money to be concentrated in the hands of the few - i.e. working more for a lower quality of life, and the hand in glove relationship between the big banks, governments and how monetary policy and the focus on financial markets. All of which has generally been at the expense of the real economy.

Moore questions what has become of the `common good': altruism, humanity, open-source. People like Dr. Salk? Where are people's champions like them these days? He correctly identifies the fact that if you're smart and motivated, you go to Wall Street or the City where you use your gifts to develop ever more esoteric financial instruments to allow the world to engage in more and more complex financial betting.

Moore highlights how the short-termism of the markets frequently ends up costing those in the real economy, and increases the disparity between those at the top and bottom of the pile, and has contributed to the high levels of personal debt that the majority of the working classes now rely on to live their everyday lives. He reminds us of how we were persuaded to remortgage our homes to keep financing the consumer frenzy, which, now it has unwound, has driven the repossession boom in the US. The footage about the FOA's (Friends of Angelo of Countrywide) and the corruption at the very top regarding Countrywide is truly dismaying and alarming. As we all know, the people who are (still) running the show now are the very same people who caused the problem in the first place.

The documentary has a lot of POV footage of US homeowners getting repossessed after foreclosure, and having to burn their worldly possessions after cleaning the property out. The human face of the credit bubble, the face that the bankers would obviously not like to, and don't have to worry about.

Many have said - capitalism isn't great, but it's the best system we have. Moore isn't convinced, and nor am I, but Moore doesn't offer up any alternative other than democracy, which in itself I am not sure is sufficiently strong. Regrettably, as is the case with a lot of American film-directors of his ilk, he gets swayed by the religious / righteous issue and the Christian view of capitalism.

That said, Moore does keep himself in check with the loudaphone and publicity stunts, limiting himself to only a few stunts in Wall Street towards the end of the film. He correctly gives over the majority of the film to narrating the real story here - the human cost to the people at the bottom of the ladder who can least afford it, and should be commended for reminding us all of their plight at a time of further excess in the City. Above all, it is incredible that a film questioning Capitalism has proved so popular amongst audiences in Capitalism's birthplace - the US. Had this film come out 10 years ago, I expect it would have been broadly panned across all social strata. 4/5

This is one of the most self-indulgent, one-sided, Marxist crap I have ever seen. I respect Moore as a documentary filmmaker, but this is all over the place. The subject of Capitalism is incredibly interesting and out of all people you would think Moore would be the one to make a documentary about it that is accessible to everyone. However instead of looking into economics and how we got into the mess, Moore just focuses on sob stories. There is no attempt to interview any real experts on economics or politics, just a d-list actor, Moore's dad and a bunch of people in financial difficulty (i.e people who have absolutely no knowledge of how the system works.) Instead of learning about Capitalism I just got really angry at Moore's marxist views.

I beg you not to waste your time and money on this garbage. This is proof that Moore has gone from a really interesting filmmaker to a complete waste of space.