R-rating for Moore’s 9/11 film

June 23, 2004 D. H. McKee
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Michael Moore has lost an appeal to lower the R-rating for Fahrenheit 9/11, his controversial film about George W. Bush's actions before and after the September 11 attacks on the US.
The R-rating prohibits children aged 17 and younger from seeing Fahrenheit 9/11 without an adult.
Distributors Lions Gate Films and IFC Films said yesterday the appeals board of the Motion Picture Association of America had rejected their request to reduce the rating to PG-13.
Moore urged teenagers to see the film anyway. "I encourage all teenagers to come see my movie, by any means necessary. If you need me to sneak you in, let me know," the director said.

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Bradbury: Change ‘Fahrenheit’ title

June 22, 2004 D. H. McKee
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Ray Bradbury is demanding an apology from filmmaker Michael Moore for lifting the title from his classic science-fiction novel "Fahrenheit 451" without permission and wants the new documentary "Fahrenheit 9/11" to be renamed.
"He didn't ask my permission," Bradbury, 83, told The Associated Press on Friday. "That's not his novel, that's not his title, so he shouldn't have done it."
The 1953 novel, widely considered Bradbury's masterpiece, portrays an ugly futuristic society in which firemen burn homes and libraries in order to destroy the books inside and keep people from thinking independently.

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Democrats Warm To ‘Fahrenheit 9/11’

June 17, 2004 D. H. McKee
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After more than a week of round-the-clock Reaganolotry, New York was so ready for the rollout of Michael Moore's Bush-bashing movie. I mean really, really ready. There was such demand to get into a small screening at the Beekman Theatre on Monday night that executive producer and host Harvey Weinstein moved the celebrity crowd to the thousand-seat Ziegfeld Theatre. This was a canny PR move. There was only a one-week frenzy window between Gippermania and the pending Clinton memoir, and Weinstein flew right through it.
Disney's refusal to distribute "Fahrenheit 9/11" was a perfect ploy to dramatize one of Moore's favorite themes, the suffocating power of big media. Attempted suppression is a promotional must these days. Bill O'Reilly's lawsuit put Al Franken on the bestseller list. The distributors who ran away from Mel Gibson's "The Passion of the Christ" made him a miracle worker at the box office. Now we have the Moore/Disney psychodrama. We have gone from the marketing Calvary of Christ to Michael Moore's Messiah complex.

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Moore fights “Fahrenheit 9/11” rating

June 15, 2004 D. H. McKee
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Filmmaker Michael Moore and distributors of his anti-Iraq War documentary "Fahrenheit 9/11" are contesting the restrictive rating it received from the Motion Picture Association of America because of its strong language and violence.
The MPAA, which represents major studios and administers its classification system, gave the film an R rating due to "violent and disturbing images and for language", a spokesman for the Washington-based organisation said on Monday.
An "R" rating prohibits anyone under 17 years of age from seeing the film unless accompanied by a parent or adult guardian.
Moore's film, a scathing critique of U.S. President George W. Bush's foreign policy and the U.S. war in Iraq, is slated for U.S. commercial release on June 25 in 500 to 1,000 cinemas, making it one of the biggest openings ever for a documentary.

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Bratt ‘wasn’t white enough for Troy’

June 14, 2004 D. H. McKee
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Benjamin Bratt is not happy with British actors after being rejected for the film Troy because he wasn't white enough.
"About a year and a half ago, I read a wonderful script called Troy and, though the leads were set, even the tertiary roles, smaller in size, were of interest to me. I succeeded in getting a meeting, but was told that I was 'too brown'.

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Brigitte Bardot fined for inciting racial hatred

June 10, 2004 D. H. McKee
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French actress turned animal rights activist Brigitte Bardot has been convicted of inciting racial hatred and ordered to pay 5,000 euros (3,300 pounds) -- the fourth such fine for the former sex symbol since 1997.
The Paris court sentenced Bardot, 69, on Thursday for remarks made in her book "A Scream in the Silence", an outspoken attack on gays, immigrants and the jobless which shocked France last year.
In the book, she laments the "Islamisation of France" and the "underground and dangerous infiltration of Islam".

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Brando plays Brando in “Brando”

June 9, 2004 D. H. McKee
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Reclusive actor Marlon Brando is in final negotiations to star as himself in "Brando and Brando", a low-budget movie about disenfranchisement and broken spirits.
The 3 million pound project details the story of a young innocent with a fascination for the American dream -- embodied by the iconic Brando -- on a journey of hope to the United States. Brando has played an active role in the development of the project, which is scheduled to shoot this summer on location in Tunisia and Los Angeles.
Writer/director Ridha Behi describes his screenplay as "a path to explore the desperately unfair conflict between Western technological and materialistic power and those many human beings whose only weapons are their identity and their timeless values."
Brando was last in cinemas with "The Score", a 2001 heist movie starring Robert De Niro and Edward Norton.

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Fahrenheit 9/11 gets industry “thumbs up”

June 9, 2004 D. H. McKee
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Director Michael Moore's controversial anti-Iraq war film "Fahrenheit 9/11" has won a standing ovation from an audience of film industry professionals attending its West Coast debut at Academy Award headquarters.
After an audience of more than 600 people in the theatre of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences cheered, whistled and laughed their way through the two-hour film on Tuesday night, they jumped to their feet to give Moore a standing ovation as he took the stage.
Clearly buoyed by the reception, Moore, whose film is scathingly critical and mocking of President George W. Bush, declared: "There has been a shift in this country. ... The average American is finally beginning to figure it out. We were duped (into invading Iraq)."

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France and Brazil vie for top Cannes prize

May 20, 2004 D. H. McKee
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CANNES, France (Reuters) - French and Brazilian films are the leading contenders for top prize at the Cannes festival but movie industry watchers say that with cult director Quentin Tarantino presiding over the jury, anything is possible.
They lead the race for the Palme d'Or top film prize at a 2004 festival which has, by common consent, far surpassed last year's lacklustre effort, bringing big stars, edgy themes and powerful politics to the Riviera.
French director Agnes Jaoui's "Look at Me" and "The Motorcycle Diaries" by Brazilian Walter Selles both deal with themes of awakening, but there the similarity ends.

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CNN: Cannes applauds anti-Bush film

May 19, 2004 D. H. McKee
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CANNES, France -- Michael Moore's controversial anti-Bush film "Fahrenheit 9/11" has debuted at the Cannes Film Festival to resounding applause from film critics.
Moore, who is facing an uphill battle to get his movie into U.S. theaters this summer as planned, offers a relentless critique of the Bush administration both before and after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.
"You see so many movies after they've been hyped to heaven and they turn out to be complete crap, but this is a powerful film," Baz Bamigboye, a film columnist for London's Daily Mail newspaper, told The Associated Press.
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