[.ca] Moore, Michael: Awful Truth: Comp 2nd Season

Provocateur Marvellous--Getting in Your Face MM's specialty:
Most of the world may have just seen Michael Moore for the first time on the 2003 Oscar show where he got in everyone's face about our war with Iraq. What they may not realize is that getting in people's faces and bearing down is Moore's stock in trade. He will not let something go, whether it is pursuing the CEO of GM ("Roger and Me") or following the threads of the Columbine school massacre ("Bowling for Columbine"). In this series he gets in a multiplicity of faces, all with hilarious results. This tv work may be Moore at his funniest. My favorite episode is where he sends a pimp to Congress, to organize them. The pimp perceives all of the members as the equivalent of his stable of women and that Congresspeople need his skills every bit as much as "his girls." The pimp Moore hires to do this is absolutely deadpan as he "talks the talk" in front of every Congressperson he accosts. They look like deer caught in the headlights of a car. I could watch this episode alone over and over again. The other episodes are hilarious as well. He runs a ficus plant for office, ably demonstrating why vegetation is better than the human being up for re-election. He plants a bogus dead body on the street to see which country's people are more humanitarian (we're up against Canada--anyone want to place bets?). He "re-educates" a potential police candidate who did too well on the department's written exam and was turned down from the force for being too intelligent. He presents George "W" as America's biggest example of Affirmative Action--being from a powerful family that can buy his way into things that he can't get into on his own merits. Obviously, Moore's favorite targets are anyone of the conservative American political persuasion so if that description is you, this series may offend you mightily. Anyone else though should love it.

Michael Moore at its finest:
Looking at all the formats in which Moore expresses himself (bestselling books, web, feature-length documentaries) I think the 30 minutes in-your-face style of "The Awful Truth" is the one that suits him the best. Given too much time, Moore tends to get serious and preachy, and I think that weakens his acidic irony. The second season of the "Awful Truth" is definitely where his opinions shine the brightest. Watching the entire second season, every episode had at least one segment that was both hilariously funny, thought-provoking, informative, and sometimes even very sad. This is not just a cliché: Moore does indeed provide fine humor and food for thought at the same time. Even more edifying, Moore seems, throughout the season, to actually make a difference. He prevents mexican maids from being expelled from the country in an act of vengeance for trying to start a union, for instance, or he turns his parodic statement on candidates running unopposed into a country-wide vote drive for plants. Early in season 2, Moore confronts George W. Bush, then Republican candidate, trying to convince him to jump in a mosh pit. Bush's answer is stunning: "Why don't you get a real job." Watching "The Awful Truth", it's embarassing how Bush and other people could think this is not real work: it's political satire with a real message, and it's more relevant that the pandering that 'real' journalists serve every day on the news.

Just buy it now.:
I LOVE this DVD and it's one of the few I can watch over and over again and never get tired of it. Laughter and bittersweet tears will ensue.

Funniest comedy I have ever seen:
I almost died from laughter. If you want to avoid a cardiac arrest, please do not buy these DVD's. The funniest scenes: 1) A man in a giant gun costume is sent to a gun show and a gun dealer remarks that "this is great, it gives kids something to relate to". 2) When Jeb Bush is confronted and given "advice" on how to execute more people so he can out do his brother in Texas. 3) John McCain states "I feel like I'm Luke Skywalker trying to get out of the Death Star". 4) Women in lingerie are sent to confront an oil executive. 5) A man in a giant chicken costume is sent to confront a pesticide executive. 6) A government official is confronted by a man (with a rubik's cube) who failed to become a police officer because he achieved a high score result. They hand him a new test result which now proves that he is in fact not too smart - whereby the official then proceeds to tear up the new result. 7) A montage which depicts George Bush as a recipient of Affirmative Action since he achieved a C average in high school, then enters Yale where he achieved E and D averages.

Awful indeed.:
Here we're treated to a second season of ramblings from the paranoid narcissist Moore. I recommend purchasing the second season of The X-Files instead, because although it's also loaded with conspiracy theories, it's more based in fact than Moore's self-indulgent propaganda and also much more entertaining.