Michael Moore's new film Sicko is released this month and, rather than spend money on posters and adverts and stuff, Michael Moore has decided to promote the movie by barking about how the US government is discriminatory towards him.
The US government is busy investigating Michael Moore for illegally visiting Cuba with a group of 9/11 survivors for a scene in his new movie Sicko – an investigation, Michael Moore's attorney says, that is entirely rooted in discrimination due to the fact that Michael Moore wasn't very nice about the government in Fahrenheit 9/11 and some of his books once. In other news, Michael Moore's attorney has also claimed that the sky is blue, water is wet and that two plus two equals four.
We can't wait to see new Michael Moore movie Sicko, we really can't. It's been promised that Sicko shows a newer, more mature side to Michael Moore's documentary-making, that the subject matter is allowed to speak for itself and that the issue of healthcare is so sensitively handled that you couldn't possibly find fault in any of Moore's arguments. Plus we totally want to see a dangerously obese human being make a film about healthcare with a straight face.
But, although Sicko has a release date of June 29, we're still not sure if anybody will actually see it. Not because Sicko is released on the same day as Die Hard 4 and that Pixar film about the rat-chef, but because the US government seems to be going all out to stop people from going to see Sicko.
Ostensibly this is because Michael Moore filmed some of Sicko in Cuba. Since he apparently didn't get government permission for the Cuba trip, the government launched an investigation on Michael Moore. American citizens aren't allowed to visit Cuba without authorisation or they face fines of $250,000 and ten years in jail. With Michael Moore investigating the government's Michael Moore investigation rumbling on too, Michael Moore has probably never been as famous as he is now. And that'll only get worse now that Michael Moore's attorney has labelled the government 'discriminatory'. Did we mention that Sicko is coming out soon?
Apparently Michael Moore is under the impression that the US government is after him for all the nasty things he said about it in Fahrenheit 9/11, and this – courtesy of Newsday – is what his lawyer David Boies had to say on the matter:
In a letter to the U.S. Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control, attorney David Boies noted that Moore has been a critic of President Bush in his books and films… "For this reason, I am concerned that Mr. Moore has been selected for discriminatory treatment by your office," Boies wrote… "I am requesting that you provide to me information regarding the person or persons who participated in making the decision to send Mr. Thompson's letter, the nature of the discussions that took place, and the knowledge your office had of Mr. Moore and his trip to Cuba at the time the letter was sent."
That's not the end of it, though – Michael Moore is so worried that the US government will seize the master copy of Sicko due to the Cuba investigation that he's apparently hidden a second master somewhere in Canada. Although it's hard to see where this cycle of allegation and counter-allegation between Michael Moore and the government will end, it's probably fair to guess when it'll end – on June 29, with a slight reprise whenever Sicko comes out on DVD.
Still, none of this actually matters. People who like Michael Moore will say that the government is being discriminatory and that he's standing up for the people by refusing to roll over for the state while those who don't like Michael Moore will claim that his rampant self-promotion broke the law and he should be punished for it, and this latest tiff won't change anyone's mind in the slightest.
Us? We're not going to go and Sicko anyway. Until the day that Sicko includes a scene of Michael Moore driving a car up a ramp and exploding a helicopter with it, we're probably just going to see Die Hard 4 instead.
Read more: