Michael Moore and Oprah: 'A Love Story'?

When it comes to the most eagerly anticipated movie showing at next week's Toronto Film Festival, the hands-down winner has to be Michael Moore's "Capitalism: A Love Story." Arriving 20 years after the debut of "Roger & Me," it is being billed as Moore's magnum opus on the horrific impact of corporate dominance on the lives of everyday Americans, which means that the film should spark a conflagration of debate between Moore's always ferocious advocates and detractors.

But when I called Overture Films, which is releasing the film later this month, eager to set up an interview with Moore, I got bad news. The filmmaker was willing to do interviews after the film premieres in Toronto on Sept. 16, but Overture said that all interviews were embargoed until Sept. 23, the day of the film's release in New York and Los Angeles. Why? Because Moore is doing a sit-down interview with Oprah Winfrey, which won't air until Sept. 22. And if Oprah wants an exclusive, she gets it, since when it comes to books, movies or music, no one offers a better promotional platform than La Winfrey.

Of course, this being the modern-media age, the embargo isn't quite as tightly shrink-wrapped as it first sounded. It turns out that the New York Times has a big Sunday feature interview with Moore scheduled to run on Sept. 20, while Jay Leno has booked a Moore appearance a few days earlier. Since both of those interviews were booked pre-Oprah, they've been allowed to wiggle out from under the embargo.

This puts a reporter-blogger like myself in a tricky spot. Like most journalists, I want to run my stories as competitively as possible. But if I agree to an embargo, my story would definitely lack a lot of sparks, having to come after both Oprah and the New York Times. I've also never held a story from a film festival. The whole idea of covering a festival, especially for a blogger, is to provide timely reaction and analysis to the big events of the day.

I'll be huddling with my editors, figuring out how we plan to cover the movie. But I'd be curious to hear from readers: Is it worth the wait to hear from Michael Moore? Or should I just see the film and offer my own thoughts in a more timely manner? What do you think?

  

Comments

[JR Jake]

Good luck Pat. Michael and Oprah are definitely two people I can't wait to meet. Well actually I can, but it should be informative to say the least. I hope they are prepared for the questions I have to ask. I promise I will give them a heads up so they won't lose too much sleep over it.

I like both of them and Michael gives us a slant on life that makes the average person go ...................hmmm.
Michael cracks me up because he reminds me of ME. Somewhat irreverant at times but yet so precise with his analysis on things of this life. I wish them both well and if I had a TV and a little extra money I might watch TV and/or go see the movie. Anyway, good luck to you Pat. Make your questions good so everybody can relate to them.

[P.Floyd]

Just see the movie. You can think for yourself without the assistance of LaWinfrey's insight,

[RH Potfry]

I think I'd do a story on how sweetly ironic the whole thing is. I mean, isn't the Oprah exclusive an example of capitalism at its finest?

But then again, Moore has always been a waddling contradiction. Don't buy into his nonsense.

[james]

I think BUSH/CHENEY/the republican party better stop worrying about health care reform and what we will see in this film. But then again...who cares, I hate republicans.

[L.M.]

This column is misrepresenting itself. The column never says that readers' comments would not be posted, or would be posted later. The major appeal of this column is obviously hearing answers from readers. You set it up that way. You have this posted on the LAT Web's front page. You have printed no responses. As I mentioned, you have failed to say in the column that responses would be expressed later. This is exactly why institutional journalism, or legacy journalism, is dying. If you can not be honest, why should we believe anything you say?

[Gregory Diamond]

I put absolutely no stock in what Michael Moore personally has to say about his own movie prior to the movie coming out in theaters; what difference will it make in what he has to say about it; the movie's coming out, that's really all I need to know.
As a matter of fact, I don't even need to hear the critics' warnings/reviews regarding the movie because I don't apparently share quite the same tastes, likes and dislakes in movie material.
I go with my gut; it's either a movie that looks good or doesn't look good; based primarily on the trailer, and/or who's in it, and/or who may have directed it; or to put it simply, if 'it's actually worth the rip off price that the theaters charge,' or 'whether I should wait for it to land in the chaper discounted theater in three to four weeks?' To me, no movie is worth seeing so badly, since it's really not the movie that keeps us going to the theater, it the effect of all this 'movie hype.' It's the movie hype that gets us to physically see the flick. Once that primary weeklong movie hype and box office weekend/$ returns are completed, we genearlly don't hear much about that movie again, except for its $ figures in Variety on Monday morning; and then 'that's that'; the movie has come and gone.
And by then, if I hadn't seen that particular movie, I usually feel pretty good that I wasn't suckered into buying that movie ticket. As much as I like Michael Moore movies, I'd rather go see this flick without being forcefead and distracted by the unavoidable and inevitable movie hype on TV, on my computer, and practically all over town.

[Paul Scott, Australia]

I think a lot of the more astute readers aren't particularly interested in what so-and-so says about their film or their book or their whatever-it-is they are selling. The relationship reliance between journalists and sources/interviewees with something to sell is too often a compromise that requires nice things to be said if either are to get another shot at repeating what they do.

I say who cares what Mike thinks. He is going to talk about how corporate America is screwing the pooch and how legislation needs to haul in market forces and deregulation so Ma and Pa Illinois can live decently. But that's all in the film.

Let's hear what you think about the film without your article relying on Mike's hard-sell quotes that add plenty to your word count but little of interest. Engage with the product and tell us what you think of it, rather than quoting back its creator's spruiking about "being surprised of the incredible chutzpah at the big-end of town".

It makes sense that some of the best sports journalism is done by people who never talk to players or officials but discuss what has happened on the field - not in a play-by-play manner, but through the lens of the bigger world. I long for entertainment journalism that can do the same.

[Godi Gutierrez]

Do what most newspapers do: invent the story.

[Steve Cindoyan]

It seems like censorship but as movies cost a lot to make and market I'd say you should be understanding. Obviously, they want the film to get as much attention as possible and that means having Oprah cover it because she's got more fans than almost any other media source. On the business side, for you, I'd say cooperating will keep you in good stead with the filmmakers if you want access to them yourself. I don't think scratching their back in that way corrupts the whole process because you're not promising a glowing review in exchange for access, you're just respecting their request. On the moral side, I'd say that cooperating is the right thing to do because there's no reason journalists should have an adversarial relationship with filmmakers. You both help each other. Even though some people don't have sympathy for filmmakers, especially successful ones like Michael Moore, who make a lot of money, ultimately certain filmmakers are the artists of today. They don't go into filmmaking for the sole purpose of making money as say, hedge fund managers do. They go into it for a passion to tell stories, and the fact that some meaningful films do get made is valuable to our society. It takes a lot of effort to pursue that occupation and get those films made, especially when there's less and less money to finance non-popcorn movies. If added to these difficulties are an adversarial relationship with the media who covers movies then I can see some filmmakers or aspiring filmmakers choosing to do something else with their lives. Then we as a society would be deprived of movies that are the most needed, artistic movies and movies that critique society. It may sound like I'm making a greater philosophical argument in regards to this issue, that it's really about whether to let someone who has power like Oprah dictate what happens. But the fact is, she does have a following, and her endorsement brings a huge amount of exposure to various things. You can lament that so much power rests with one person, but that's the way it is, and protesting it serves no greater interest than your own. It certainly doesn't serve the public because they will still hear all the other viewpoints after her scoop. The fact that having that scoop benefits her as much as it benefits Michael Moore doesn't mean that it shouldn't be allowed to happen. The filmmakers have a right to choose how they want to market their film.

[SkinTheGoat]

Watch the movie and judge it on its own merits. Sounds like MM is playing the corporate game by leveraging access at release time.