Rabble, roused

I did something very uncharacteristic last night: I went to see a blockbuster film on the first weekend of release. I mean Fahrenheit 9/11, already the highest-grossing documentary of all time. I met six others from our "Sopranos"-watching crowd, now at loose ends on Sunday evenings, at the Metreon in downtown San Francisco, a hellhole of highly mechanized film screening that featured a full 21 minutes of ads and coming attractions before the two-hour film actually started.

How was it? Pretty good. I had a little trouble following the Saudi connection stuff, and it did seem to jump around a bit from topic to topic, but it built effectively to the emotional concluding sequence showing a dead soldier's mother crying in front of the White House. And Moore himself seems to have learned that the less of him on the screen, the better.

Here's a feature article on Moore from the Guardian -- the Brits seem to be fascinated by the Moore phenomenon -- and an article on what Moore's next film will cover.

Finally, just one article from the heartland. This is from the Visalia Times-Delta, a small-town newspaper in the conservative San Joaquin Valley:

Visalia resident Mike Lorah went to a 2 p.m. screening. Lorah, 28, said he considers himself a conservative Republican but the film has convinced him not to vote for President Bush.

"I'd have to say that I agree with the message that was made in the film, even with me being a Republican," Lorah said. "This would probably be the first time I don't vote for a Republican, but I don't think John Kerry's any better."

Oh, one more thing. Go to the Fox News website today, and how much coverage are they giving Moore's film? NONE. While there's a mention of the film's box-office success and controversial views on virtually every news site, Fox News has finally realized that attacking the film just makes people want to see it. Therefore silence. I wish it worked like that with them more often.