Maria, Audrey and I went to see Fahrenheit 9/11. Moore�s biggest flaw as a director is his somewhat simplistic and sledgehammer approach to driving home his point, but I found it very effective. Moore�s two earlier documentaries were much more simplistic; this one shows a more mature and sober Moore. Good selection of footage. He managed to make both George Bushes and their cronies look both greedy and idiotic. And very, very evil. ;) Quite well done. Although of course the people in the administration surely don�t see themselves as selling out the American people in pursuit of their own economic self interest, there were several interesting connections drawn between Bush family and the Saud family and big oil. E.g. Karzai used to be an advisor to Unocal (coincidence? Hah). Also the large and mysterious influxes of money to the companies Bush Jr. ran � and ran into the ground � while his father was president suspected to have come from the Saudis. Also that Bush Jr. was investigated by the SEC in the early 90�s. Some wrenching scenes, too, of people both Iraqi and American crying over lost family members. It had fewer of Moore�s trademark �shock attacks� than his earlier movies and his tv show. This is my own favorite aspect of Moore�s work, except for the rather cruel-spirited argument with Charlton Heston in Bowling for Columbine; no matter how odious Heston may be, he is aging and slightly fuzzy-minded, and watching Moore verbally nail a doddering old man disturbed me. But taking potshots and politicians and businesspeople is always amusing, like shooting rather unpleasant fish in a barrel. Perhaps it is unsporting, but damn funny. My favorite part of the movie was when Moore took a bunch of recruitment brochures and enlistment paperwork to the street outside Capitol Hill and was trying to convince members of the House and Senate to enlist their own children (as Moore pointed out, only one person in Congress has a child serving in Iraq). The looks on the faces of the few politicians Moore managed to corner were priceless, although it was exactly what cynical ol� me expected to see (i.e. are you frickin� nuts!?) The audience actually applauded after the movie was over. Imagine Bush lost a few votes in that crowd. Moore just may do more to win the election for Kerry than Kerry�s own campaign.