Michael Moore: “Hurt Locker Was Crap; Avatar Was The Bomb!” (Quote Of The Day)
By
Tambay, on March 19th, 2010
“I did not like ‘The Hurt Locker.’ It’s a lazy way to make a movie, frankly. I could put you on the edge of your seat quite easily, and have you feel the tension for 2 hours, if every other scene practically is, ‘Should we cut the red wire or the green wire?’ And if he cuts the wrong wire, he gets blown to smithereens, and you never know who’s going to get blown up in any given second. That doesn’t take a whole lot of skill to get big emotion out of this if you’re in the audience. And there’s a pornographic element to it that’s a little disturbing because you can’t take your eyes off it. But what’s it saying? What’s the substance of this? I think ‘Avatar’ was really trying to say something about the planet, about indigenous people, and about how we construct war now, how we privatize it. And I think these are really powerful things to say in this time, and I give James Cameron a lot of credit.”
Words from Michael Moore last night, during a 20th anniversary screening of Roger and Me in Ann Arbor, MI.
I wonder if he was unconsciously projecting himself when he wrote his 2002 bestseller, Stupid White Men 
.
Via AnnArbor.com
I happen to agree with him, despite the racial subliminal messages of Avatar *shrugs*
HURT LOCKER won for the same reason THE DEER HUNTER won years ago…an apolitical look at a controversial war. That’s why he’s bricking it.
Michael, who takes politics head on, appreciates Cameron’s cunning.
THIS. Fck Avatar. I’ll watch Hurt Locker a thousand times before I commit to viewing Avatar ever again. And not just out of spite, but because I like Hurt Locker FAR BETTER.
I agree wholeheartedly with MM.
I think I said it better here though:
I did not mean that I said it better than MM…just meant that I expressed my opinion better in my blog.
Michael More wouldn’t know DRAMA if it bit him on the butt. He only knows HollyWood Hype cinema for social change in HIS OPINIONATED direction. Still…it’s only his opinion. Hurt Locker is a great movie. Avatar is also up there. It’s a matter of taste, but “”crap”"..totally uncalled for statement. And he knows that.
Peace,
Flow
Haven’t seen “Hurt Locker.” I think that ‘Avatar’ was trying to say something, but it had to say it couched in white supremacist agenda. Africa had to still be the place for great transformation. The “other,” the “other’s” land always appears in these white self-indulgent narratives as “territorium nullius.” A space where the natives’ agenda is never considered. even at the risk of making social commentary, and ONLY, I mean ONLY after the fact (of destruction, of death, of slaughter) does this white narrative takes a turn in the interest of justice. Never mind that the natives said from day one, this is this and that is that. Even the white boy Jake, within the span of 3 months, can do something that no other Native on Pandora has done in 3 generations: Tame and ride that big red bird. Are you serious?
This commentary on our planet must always be stated from the social location of whiteness. It had to be the white boy who ’saved’ Pandora, ultimately. “Avatar” was a white racial fantasy about the world and about who would ultimately save the world. Like Albert Einstein said, “a problem will cannot be solved by the consciousness that created it.”
Its ridiculous. If white people would have listened to Indigenous populations (the world over) from the offset, this planet would have been in a better place. Now, only after exploiting (calling that shit the making of history, progress, modernity), its natural resources (stolen from indigenous populations), using those resources to usher in “technological” advancement (a euphemism for Modernity), can we see something so simple and fundamental, as humans having a connection to the earth–I mean we learned that shit in elementary science: our bodies share the same water composition as the earth. Also, ancient Kemetic philosophy teaches us that our cells rotate on the same axis as the earth’s. But I guess– because it didn’t come from The Discovery Channel, or the History Channel: i.e. White folks–that knowledge is not valid or even valued.
Like the Ethiopian proverb asserts: “He who conceals his disease cannot expect to be cured.”
I love Michael Moore’s work and I think he does says things that are courageous and honest, especially given that he is a white man. I think that he puts himself on the line, something white liberals & progressives should think about in terms of being advocate for social justice–disavowing themselves of whiteness, in the way that Moore seeks–in my opinion, at least.
~Ciao