.

Capitalism: A Love Story

Directed by Michael Moore
Rolling Stone: star rating
5 3.5
Community: star rating
5 3.5 0
September 24, 2009

The Pirates of the Caribbean have nothing on the buccaneers of Wall Street, and the banks and insurance companies that merrily loot America with the help of our elected officials. You know this. I know this. So how come Michael Moore has to make a movie about it? Because we're doing fuck-all to change things. The explosive Capitalism: A Love Story is Moore's call to arms against the robber barons who shamelessly empty our pockets while we do nothing about it. Why? Because we want to get in the pants of the upper one percent and rub up against expensive stuff just like they do. Some love story!

Moore sees our abusive relationship with capitalism as a growing plague. His movie, a genuine and welcome rabble-rouser, lays out the history of how democracy got corrupted. Moore's enemies label him as a fat, fatuous irritant who leans toward the overblown, inflammatory and clownishly silly. What's with those crazy stunts like making a citizen's arrest on the board of AIG or hanging yellow crime-scene tape around the banks? To get our attention, that's what. Moore is a populist, not an academic. He knows how to wield a camera like a blunt instrument. He also knows how to put a human face on statistics as we watch banks foreclose on the homes of families who never read the fine print. Moore's fireball of a movie could change your life. It had me laughing with tears in my eyes.

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