I first heard about Moore's film from my family, after it had been abruptly pulled from Youtube. There was, it seems, something amiss. I too don't like the cancel culture that exists out there.. (that is, the one with power, the right wing). So when something like this happens, it seemed odd. Especially for such a famous filmmaker. I looked it up and on Moore's twitter and it appeared that it was a copyright issue.

But later I found out, from Moore talking on an interview, about how the film was taken down for a very odd snippet (a few seconds, he said) they had used. Moore claims he has expertise on this matter and he knew he hadn't broken any law, but it appeared that he had done his due diligence, but someone was out to get him. 

Fair, that happens. So he took out the snippet and the movie is back on. Again, fair. But during this interview, Moore did not mention any of the criticisms against his work and tried to make it sound like there was a witch hunt against him. 

Tell you the truth, I have so little trust for our elites that I sense that there is indeed something amiss. So I took him at his word, still finding it odd that no one would criticize his work directly (for the content). After all, I have plenty of criticisms about his other movies that I've seen. I've enjoyed them, don't get me wrong, and sometimes he raises some really interesting points. 

But he always seems to go for bluster when analysis could be better and (in my opinion, obviously this style has worked out very well for him, and it comes down to , what the fuck do I know about documentaries, right? or moving people, for that matter). In the end, I've always seen him as a kind of Malcolm Gladwell of filmmaking, in that there are things that don't vibe, but you always come away learning something, (and as with most things, better do more research into it) so what's the harm right? Just keep a critical mind when watching his stuff. 

So, in the end, I managed to watch the doc and enjoyed it for what it was and then, came away feeling the same as I did for other films by Moore: some decent points, but never nuanced enough to break things down. For example, his claim that a host of green tech has some carbon footprint (and sometimes bad or evil mining practices) to it sounds like a child, because I assumed everyone knew that all these things required some level of carbon or that storage was a major issue (still is, IIRC). 

But it just seemed like a good place for a discussion, so I looked at some of the criticisms of it. This one by Vox and another by Yale (the real one? Who knows?) raised some issues that I did: yeah some things aren't entirely green, but they're a step in the right direction (a movement completely away from cars seems like a smart move to me). And they point out other flaws about the movie that I saw too (like how the bio-mass industry is problematic, but also Moore doesn't understand what carbon capture means). 

Indeed, Moore's obsession with "too many people" did seem problematic to me, since it's not a matter of people but carbon footprint, but even if that was borderline Eco-Fascist, one can merely point that in the passing (no I don't think Moore is at all an Eco Fascist). Not smear the entire movie or him for it. 

And still, even these criticisms didn't take on some decent issues that Moore raised (sometimes implicitly): that perhaps we do have to think of ways to spend less energy. Here in the US, that's an especially big issue. IOW not only do we have to make the switch to these green energies, but also try to spend less of it. That does mean an almost complete lifestyle change. People trying to say nothing has to change are really part of the problem right now. 

And given that we on a trajectory to an Eco-fascist world, we'd better heed some of what Moore said. 

So for shame on all these critiques. If there's a good critique of the movie that I'm missing, I want to hear it. Any thoughts from those who did see it?