Michael Moore is 61 years old, an Oscar-winner, wealthy beyond his wildest dreams, and yesterday’s news in all the areas that matter to a Michael Moore: artistically, politically, and culturally. As someone who can remove his biases and look at film from an artistic point-of-view, as someone who is on record praising the genius of “Fahrenheit 9/11” and the unpersuasive charms of “Sicko,” as reprehensible as I find Moore’s art, I can objectively say that he was once a great artist and is now an artist in steep decline.
“Slacker Uprising” (2007) was a creepy, Riefenstahl-ish love letter to himself. “Capitalism: A Love Story” (2009) was an outright mess. You can only get so fat, so old and so wealthy before you lose your edge, lose the creative drive and hunger that birthed a serially-dishonest but nonetheless brilliant career. And now, with Donald Trump closing in on the Republican nomination and ISIS effectively rampaging worldwide, Moore’s upcoming “Where To Invade Next” (February 12) is already in trouble.
Trump is no neocon, in fact he and Moore are in total agreement on the issue of Iraq. Moreover, after San Bernardino and Paris, the American people are not in the mood for a Hollywood multi-millionaire’s preach-a-thon against American militarism.
With your box office fortunes fading, and your latest attempt at a cultural comeback looking irrelevant two months before its release, what do you do?
Well, if you’re as shameless as Michael Moore, you latch your falling star to The Biggest Star on the Planet — you target one Donald J. Trump in the same sad and pathetic and failed way you attempted to target Clint Eastwood last year. Remember that? And remember how effective that was as “American Sniper” went on to become the biggest grossing film of the year?
Moore is writing letters to Trump — Yawn.
Moore is protesting outside Trump Tower — Yawn.
Did anyone even recognize Michael Moore out there?
Or did they ask, “Who’s the old lesbian?” before dropping some coins at his feet?
Follow John Nolte on Twitter @NolteNC
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