Creative Loafing presents Ed Loves Bacon

It’s hard to peg down the message in director Doug Pray’s latest documentary Art & Copy. There’s no cause to champion, no historic precedence, not even a controversial notion. Instead, the audience is engaged in a brief, candid discussion on the ad industry’s evolution and the successes that the changes spawned through a series of anecdotal interviews.

Art & Copy is essentially a series of one-on-one interviews with some of the ad industry’s innovators and trendsetters. Pray masterfully stitches together an open forum on creativity, its genius, and its impact with past and present ad directors and copy writers who were responsible for some of the world’s most popular ad campaigns. While the faces, names and companies may draw a blank for the average viewer, one immediately connects with the dialogue about their various successes.

Continue reading Art & Copy misses its own point

(Photo courtesy of Seventh Art Films)

Oh shit, its another Michael Moore film!

Once again Moore points a spotlight on the topic du jour -  this go round, it’s about the all mighty dollar in his upcoming release, Capitalism: A Love Story.

In the trailer, we get to ask “show me the money!” to Congress and the big wigs on Wall Street as Moore tries to make sense of the recession and the bail outs, asking those parties responsible to ‘fess up and pay up.

It would seem Moore has turned his particular type of documentary-styled filmmaking into a successful formula; add one part American tragedy to one part government bureaucracy. Add a dash of public outrage and a pinch of easy-to-find victims. Stir in some humor, skewed opinion and public flogging of parties responsible to the mix. Shake well and spread thick on the conscious of the concerned and you get yet another “controversial” Moore film.

As much as I think Moore makes a killing by pandering to the lowest common denominator – public fear and skepticism in the system and American culture, let me be fair in saying he does bring the sentiment and voices of John Q Public to the podium. If nothing else, he tries to help some of his fellow Americans by champion the causes they desperately need answers to.

Capitalism appears to be haphazard walk into the bowels of the recession and the greed that created it. I sincerely hope Moore casts an objective light on the subject to spark a real debate amongst the people he intends to snare and enrage.

Yeah, right.

Capitalism: A Love Story (not rated) in limited release September 23, 2009.