Larry Post doesn’t mince words regarding Michael Moore’s body of work. Post recalls seeing Moore’s first documentary, “Roger & Me,” which blamed corporate misconduct for the decline of the auto industry his hometown of Flint, Mich. “I consider myself pretty knowledge about the subject matter, and the movie was totally distorted,” Post says of a film which failed to critique the “unions and the workers who had squeezed these companies” into oblivion.
“Every movie since [‘Roger & Me’] has been a piece of crap,” Post says.
So when he read a story in the Wall Street Journal last October about a neophyte filmmaker’s documentary slamming Moore it caught his attention. Post, an investment adviser by trade, is renting a Los Angeles theater next week to generate fresh buzz around the film. “Shooting Michael Moore” will be screened at 7:30 p.m. Feb. 25 at the Westwood Crest Theatre in L.A.
Post hopes “the trades” will take an interest in the screening or “maybe someone from Hollywood will come see it and pick it up for distribution,” he says.
Post knows it’s an uphill battle for several key reasons.
“It’s hard for any movie to get distribution [these days],” he says. “And Hollywood is one-sided in its thinking. I hope somebody who is brave sees that it’s valid and gives it wider distribution.”
“Shooting Michael Moore” exposes the hypocrisy behind some of Moore’s public antics. The film features people highlighted in Moore’s films who weren’t properly compensated for their time, reveals his posh lifestyle contrasts his Regular Joe persona and reveals tax returns indicating the director doesn’t practice what he preaches.
The film’s creator, Kevin Leffler, is a CPA and professor by trade. That gives the film’s tax sequences an added dose of gravitas. But it’s Leffler’s connection to the subject which may draw viewers in.
He grew up with Moore in Davison, Mich., attended the same Catholic Church and worked side by side at a hotline to help people in need. Leffler isn’t a conservative by any stretch, but he didn’t appreciate how the media built up Moore’s image on what he saw as false pretenses.
Some of the material in the film has been touched on before, in documentaries like “Michael Moore Hates America,” which was written and directed by Big Hollywood’s own Michael Wilson, and the book “Do As I Say (Not As I Do)” by Peter Schweizer. The most startling footage in “Shooting Michael Moore” comes during a sneak peek at the Cuban health care system.
Leffler and a small team entered the country armed with hidden cameras and took footage of what some Cuban hospitals really look like. It’s a far cry from the state of the art facilities highlighted in Moore’s film “Sicko.”
The story behind “Shooting Michael Moore,” Post says, is of an Everyman looking to set the record straight.
“‘The right wing didn’t pay him to do this,” Post says of Leffler’s film. “Those are the kind of heroes I like, ordinary people who decide they have a calling.
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