reviewing the (negative) reviewers

having seen the excellent discovery channel The Flight That Fought Back (i have yet to see the recent flight 93 i just tivo'd last night), i will also see the theatrically released united 93.
however, before seeing it the online response interested me.
slate predictably had two less than stellar reviews within the last coupla days--Ron Rosenbaum cynically questions the 'the first people to inhabit the post-9/11 world' and takes the doomsday viewpoint, while Dana Stevens laments the 'neutrality'(!) of the docudrama.

meanwhile, rotten tomatoes' flight 93 review round-up to find ~90% fresh rating

while i intended to seek out both negatives, i couldn't get past the first one by Jeffrey M. Anderson without response. i dashed off this e-mail (slightly altered here for formatting purposes)

apparently the "exploitation" and "self-satisfaction" you note in your review of fahrenheit 9/11 (by deeming "Moore a maker of personal essays--or even propaganda films--filled with opinion and emotional manipulation as well as facts.") didn't hold back a 4-star rating
why is "emotional manipulation of this kind as its main weapon" acceptable in a documentary but not in movie based on official records and personal histories?
perhaps you simply weren't able to leave your partisan baggage at the box office since you admitted to being "a frustrated American who does not support Bush, and I found myself whipped into a frenzy."
otherwise, the weak arguments which riddle fahrenheit 9/11 , as Christopher Hitchens noted

"It must be evident to anyone, despite the rapid-fire way in which Moore's direction eases the audience hastily past the contradictions, that these discrepant scatter shots do not cohere at any point. Either the Saudis run U.S. policy (through family ties or overwhelming economic interest), or they do not. As allies and patrons of the Taliban regime, they either opposed Bush's removal of it, or they did not. (They opposed the removal, all right: They wouldn't even let Tony Blair land his own plane on their soil at the time of the operation.) Either we sent too many troops, or were wrong to send any at all—the latter was Moore's view as late as 2002—or we sent too few. If we were going to make sure no Taliban or al-Qaida forces survived or escaped, we would have had to be more ruthless than I suspect that Mr. Moore is really recommending. And these are simply observations on what is "in" the film."

wouldn't have found such an easy target in you

"Yes, I was an easy target. Moore's film had tears in my eyes, my stomach in knots and my brain spinning. But if it gets people to start questioning their leaders and asking how much we are willing to let them get away with, then it will have done a service." [snip]
"Unlike a work of journalism, the film merely stops after showing these connections, leaving the viewer to finish the job in his or her imagination. That's where Fahrenheit 9/11 gets most of its power. Directly accusing this administration of wrongdoing would be met with disbelief or even violent opposition. But merely suggesting and raising doubt is a much more powerful tool."

that is simply cowardly film making...and you fell for it...
-nitish
http://chumpo.blogspot.com

i know it's likely the sound of one-hand clapping, but i had to vent

¶ - nitish @ 10:07 AM