Anthony Kaufman polled industry folks about Michael Moore’s announced Doc Night plan in his excellent indieWIRE article today. “Reactions to the plan are largely split between documentary filmmakers, who welcome any initiative that helps get their work out to the world, and industry insiders, who are skeptical about the plan’s feasibility and disturbed by what they see as a further ghettoization of the documentary form.”

As I was reading the article, I was feeling like some of us (myself included) come across as quite snarky about the whole thing. I can’t hold back when it comes to Moore; in a typical fashion, he couldn’t bother to comment for Anthony’s article, which just adds fuel to my snark about the man. But as Thom Powers says at the end of the article, “When you have a curated event, you’re building a relationship with the audience. When they have a couple of good experiences, then they don’t have to be sold on each title individually.” I was a season pass holder for Thom’s excellent Stranger Than Fiction series in New York and would gladly promote something similar in cities across America.

This is fantastic! Wait for the bullshit CNN commentary at the very end meant to discredit the entire thing. I hate CNN, ever since I saw the “report” on how “Osama” (as in Osama bin Laden) rhymes with “Obama” (as in Democratic Senator). They actually put a picture of them side by side, and that is news? But I digress….

There was a lot of buzz going into SXSW about Manufacturing Dissent, a new documentary by Debbie Melnyk and Rick Caine. They are doc filmmakers based in Toronto and the perception of the project, as intimated in John Anderson’s Feb. 25 article, “Michael & Them: Filmmakers Chase Moore,” in the NY Times, was that they are progressives yet the project would somehow expose Moore (as what, I’m not quite clear). The very idea seemed enough to irritate lefties who think that whatever might be bad about Moore, he does more good than harm in film and politics and shouldn’t be a target of progressives. Of course, the righties have been on to Moore for a long time and abhor the fact that he wields so much influence when he fictionalizes items in his films. They have tried unsuccessfully to discredit him by uncovering half-truths and fictional elements of his movies.

My position going into the film is that of a passionate advocate for media literacy: thinking critically when viewing any media; so while I tend toward progressive ideals, I also think that no media message is exempt from critique. What are the modes of production? How does the message influence our collective consciousness? Who is paying for the production? It doesn’t matter whether the media is Fox News or Michael Moore, I see them all as targets for critique.