Film Gecko Five: Questions for Michael Moore
September 26, 2009 by Jane Boursaw
Filmmaker Michael Moore’s new documentary, “Capitalism: A Love Story,” hits theaters Oct. 2, 2009 (it opens in limited release this weekend). A veteran documentarian (“Sicko,” “Roger & Me,” “Bowling for Columbine”), this time he takes on Wall Street, greed, lies and lost jobs. I caught up with Moore on his whirlwind press trip, and he answers five pointed questions…
1. Why did you make this film?
There is now a foreclosure filed in the U.S. once every seven and a half seconds. I’m gonna show you the stuff the nightly news will rarely show you. I’ll show you a pilot pilot for American Airlines who’s on food stamps because his pay’s been cut so low, a judge who gets kickbacks for sending innocent kids to a private prison, and a Wall Street Journal reporter who states on camera that he doesn’t much care for democracy and that capitalism should be our only ruling concern. You’ll meet all these guys in “Capitalism.”
2. I heard you talk about ‘sweetheart’ loans on Larry King the other night. What are those all about?
Well, another person you’ll meet in the film is a whistleblower who, with documents in hand, tells us about the million-dollar-plus sweetheart loans he approved for the head of Senate Banking Committee — the very committee that was supposed to be regulating his lending institution. People need to know what’s going on.
3. What about the people running things in Washington?
You’ll also hear from a bank regulator why Timothy Geithner has no business being our Treasury Secretary. And you’ll learn, from the woman who heads up the congressional commission charged with keeping an eye on the bailout money, how Alan Greenspan and company schemed and connived the public into putting up their inflated valued homes as collateral — thus causing the biggest foreclosure epidemic in our history.
4. Are you ever afraid to name names?
No, these are men who’ve ransacked the pensions of working people and plundered the future of our kids and grandkids. Somehow they thought they were going to get away with it, that we’d believe their Big Lie that this crash was caused by a bunch of low-income people who took out loans they couldn’t afford. And it’s no wonder Wall Street thought they could pull it off, because much of the mainstream media has bought into this story.
5. So the bad guys are wearing the suits?
Yes, it’s a tragicomedy crime story, a cops and robbers movie, only this time, the robbers are wearing suits and ties. And the cops? If you’re willing to accept a guy in a ballcap with a high school education as a stand-in until the real deal shows up to haul ‘em away, then I hope you’ll come out to see this film at your local theater. It’s in New York and Los Angeles this weekend, and across the country next Friday, October 2.
Image: INF; Overture Films
