movie review- Capitalism: A Love Story

It came in a white cardboard courier envelope.

It was addressed to the YOUNG COMMUNIST LEAGUE. I was curious as to who would have sent it. Alliance films, Toronto, the return address stated.

I understood the moment I opened the package and several tickets fell out. They were tickets to an advanced screening of the latest Micheal Moore movie.

With a title of Capitalism: A Love Story, having a communist see the movie is a sure bet that they will like the movie and give positive reviews. Darn tooting. I liked the movie. And so sure enough here is that positive review.

You know what the movie is about by the title. Micheal Moore has his sites set on the economic crisis and the system that created it.

The movie starts with clips from many old corporate films. You hear the audio track from a school film that narrates reasons for the fall of the Roman Empire. While you hear the track you see images of examples from modern day America. It really does hit home that the Capitalist system is screwed up and ready for downfall itself. It's one of the best scenes in the movie.

Micheal Moore talks about growing up in Flint Michigan in a middle class family, living the American Dream in the Industrial Mid-West during a post-war economic boom. He asks after this scene about the current crisis, what the hell happened?

Later scenes will invoke various emotions: disbelief, heartfelt empathy, rage, and as you leave the theatre, hope.

Some topics covered are:

• a bank internal memo that declared the U.S. a plutonomy/plutocracy.
• an example of "dead peasant insurance"
• Airline pilots that are in fact in poverty because of the low wages they receive.
• mortgage foreclosures, evictions, and bottom feeder buyers.
  

It's not all bad news however:

• the premiere of a long lost film showing FDR outlining a second bill of rights-including the right to health care, a job, an education, etc. It shows what could have been. How close it can be. And still able to fight for.
  
• interviews of priests who say capitalism is evil.
• a sheriff who declares a moratorium on enforcing home evictions.
• a congresswoman, while speaking in the house of representatives, calls for people to revolt against foreclosures by squatting in their own homes.
  
• American examples of worker co-operatives.
• the sit down strike at Republic Windows.
  

It's like a movie adaptation of a chapter out of Marx's Capital. Or Lenin's Imperialism for that matter. As the end credits role you hear a jazzed up rendition of the Internationale. It's pretty obvious people power and socialism are implied.

You may know the movie's subject, but to see these scenes still leaves you reeling at the times we are now living.

Notice I did not say this is a documentary. Not in the objective sense anyway. Objectivity is pointless if one is to make a point of view known in dialogue or a debate. This is not the "objective" six o'clock news. But then again neither is Fox. It is a Micheal Moore film. And it argues a point. Effectively.

Moore says the Emperor has no clothes. Because the CEOs stole them.

watch the preview for yourself.