I FEEL THE TEMPERATURE RISING: As referenced below, I did go to see "Fahrenheit 9/11" this evening. After shooting down the couple sitting next to me's argument that the movie would be "the biggest movie worldwide ever. They asked me for my view, and I said that I doubted it would surpass the record held by "Titanic." It's a provocative film, and a good one, but I think it's not as good as "Bowling for Columbine" was. My problems with the film:

1. Moore (as he often does) makes mountains out of molehills. He points to the blacking-out of a name in Bush's military records and uses this to build a chain "proving" that Bush and Bin Laden have certain ties. Now, there's a strong case to be made on that front without that leap of logic. Moore's case would be stronger if he states his best evidence and stops, rather than stretching his case to the next step.

2. While the "before the cameras really roll" footage of Bush and other administration officials is effective (and funny), I'd bet dollars to donuts that there's similarly embarassing footage out there of Clinton-era officials. While I understand that the film's one-sided and argumentive, this struck me as a little bit disingenuous.

3. Ultimately, while the anti-Bush message of the film comes across clearly, I'm not sure if the film ultimately will motivate people to vote for Kerry and other Democrats, or whether it will just rile up folks and make them angry at politics all together. The film's opening scene is effectively "Democratic Senators lack courage!," which is perhaps not the best message when the Presidential nominee is a Democratic Senator. Later on, there's a "where were the Democrats?" segment. I hope and believe that Moore is firmly behind Kerry, but I'm worried that the movie isn't sending that message clearly enough.

4. Ultimately, "Bowling for Columbine" asks tough questions about "us." Are "we" at fault for violence in America? What can "we" do to change things? On the other hand, "Fahrenheit 9/11" simply pounds one answer into the viewer's head--"Bush bad!" That's far less provocative filmmaking.

5. The film is preaching to the choir, and while the choir needs to be preached to, I'm not sure that's good politics at that point, and it's certainly not challenging art.

That said, it's worth seeing, and raises provocative questions and issues, but I just wish it were even better.

To add one more thing--despite Moore's whining, the film deserves its "R" rating. In addition to a sequence where the "Roof is On Fire!" chant is delivered (uncensored), there are multiple fairly gory moments, including surgery film and battered and bloodied people. Then again, I can't imagine your average 15 year-old wanting to see, much less sneak into, the movie, so who knows?

Addendum (6/26): Being at work today reminded me that during one of the early interviews, with a retired FBI counterterrorism specialist, I couldn't help but be drawn to the bookshelf in Moore's offices, where I noticed "Nimmer on Copyright" sitting there. God, I'm pathetic.

DOES THIS MEAN IT'S NOT A "WHITE SHOE FIRM" ANYMORE? According to this story, NYC legal behemoth Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen, and Katz has elected its first African-American partner. The truly disturbing fact? The guy claims to have billed an average of 3,400 hours a year to clients for each of the past 7 years. I was pretty busy last year, and billed just over 2,100 hours. If that's what partnership there takes, I think I'll pass.

PHILM - THE CHRONICLES OF RIDDICK: I did love Pitch Black, and was surprised to enjoy the supremely silly XXX back in summer 2002, but The Chronicles of Riddick has to be the worst-conceived sequel since Highlander II, and the most disappointing summer blockbuster I've seen since Dude, Where's My Dragon? Pitch Black was character-driven. XXX was funny. Chronicles, however, is just a bad, bad action movie.

The plot is approximately two-thirds of Conan The Barbarian, chromed-out and heaved unceremoniously into a rapidly decaying orbit. We have an impossibly muscle-bound and totally unstoppable barbarian warrior up against a mysterious death cult and its supernatural leader, running into the teeth of the cult's legions on the strength of a legend that one from his tribe ("Furians" ... ugh) is destined to destroy the bad guy. The details -- and there are plenty -- that embroider this outline are arbitrary to the point of being totally unmotivated, as if the production team storyboarded the action sequences and then sent them off to Ye Olde CGI Shoppe thinking they'd just throw a plot around them sometime later on.

I might have forgiven the ridiculously convoluted story if the production had sported a sharp, rich, coherent and compelling production design like that in, say, The Fifth Element. (Just to be clear, by "compelling production design" I do not mean "Milla Jovovich wearing nothing but orange suspenders", though that was pretty hard to argue with.) But Chronicles' aesthetic is as jumbled and inexplicable as its so-called story, melding the worst elements of the Sci-fi Channel's Dune miniseries with costumes -- particularly the bad-guy armor -- that look like they were rejected from LOTR or remaindered from a defunct Glen Danzig fansite.

The last hope, as this is an action flick, is the action, but unfortunately there's no there, there either. The fights are turbulent, blurred, close and quick-cut in that all too common style that recalls the still images of a superhero comic book without being nearly as compelling. The larger action sequences are simply larger, not better in any noticeable way, so the whole thing just lies there like a tired old balloon with nothing to inflate it.

Now, this may strike some as a strange thing to say, but I had come to expect better from Vin Diesel.

ITUNES INVESTIGATIVE JOURNALISM: Shockingly, Wonkette, in her frenzy to cover "Fahrenheit 9/11" and Dick Cheney using FCC-banned profanity, missed a golden opportunity--to observe what people downloading Bill Clinton's "My Life" off iTunes are also buying--sadly, they don't name precise tracks or albums, just artists, but here's the list (as of now): Ray Charles, PJ Harvey, Black Eyed Peas, Avril Lavigne, George Michael, Bebel Gilberto (a Brazilian singer), Alanis Morissette, Velvet Revolver, Beastie Boys, Al Franken, Dan Brown, Michael Moore, Hillary Rodham Clinton, and Bob Woodward. Speculate as you will about what this might indicate about the demographic buying Bill's book. I will say it was apparently sold out at my local wholesale club--or at least it wasn't in the book aisle.

TODAY'S SIGN OF THE APOCALYPSE: Yes, according to Box Office Mojo, America has a new number #1 movie--"White Chicks," the farce in which esteemed actors Marlon and Shawn Wayans play FBI agents who must go undercover as thinly-veiled clones of Paris and Nicky Hilton.

A related runner-up: You can, in fact, pre-order from Amazon both Paris Hilton's book Confessions of an Heiress: A Tongue-In-Cheek Peek Behind The Pose, and the book "written by" Tinkerbell Hilton, Paris' dog, and titled The Tinkerbell Diaries: My Life Tailing Paris Hilton.

MY TURN TO FEEL OLD: My workplace is a "business casual" one, which is great, especially in the summer, when it gets quite hot in the city. Of course, there are times we have to break out the suits, most typically, when we're going to court. I've been instructed I may be going down to court tomorrow to provide assistance on a matter--hence, the suit must be broken out. Now, ordinarily, this wouldn't be a problem, but I have tickets to see "Fahrenheit 9/11" tomorrow night, and am now considering just how much of a tool I'm going to look like walking into that theatre with a business suit on.

A MOLE ON HIS NOSE? As noted by C. Sicha, today's Black Table reviews "entirely subjective list of major influences to what We Find Funny", those comedic cornerstones upon which is based everything we find funny today.

I want to add one to the list -- which, despite citing Self-Referential, Self-Important Mopey Boy, is a valiant effort, a television show that, I'd argue, set the stage for all the irony, self-referentialism and meta-ness to follow.

That's Moonlighting.

Moonlighting was the show that introduced me to the edges of the fourth wall. It demonstrated that silliness and drama could co-exist, that if a show wanted to just do "Taming of the Shrew" one week it just had to decide to do it, and trusted its audience to follow along.

From the Museum of Television and Radio's website, acting all smarty-smart:

Additionally, in many episodes, protagonists Maddie and David break the theatrical "fourth wall" convention with self-reflexive references to themselves as actors in a television program or to the commercial nature of the television medium. Such metatextual practices are techniques of defamiliarization which, according to certain formalist critical theories, epitomize the experience and purpose of art; they jar viewers out of the complacent, narcotizing pleasure of familiar forms and invite them to question and appreciate the artistic possibilities and limitations of generic forms. Moonlighting's use of these metatextual practices signifies its recognition of the traditions that have shaped it and its self-conscious comments on its departure from those traditions--characteristics typically attributed to works regarded as highly artistic.

Arguably, "It's Garry Shandling's Show" did it better, but it had to start somewhere.

(Of course, the show also introduced the world to Bruce Willis, and I'd argue that's a net positive.)