Slacker Uprising

Watching Slacker Uprising, you get the idea that Michael Moore shot it, during his tour of college campuses to get out the vote in the weeks leading up to the 2004 election, thinking John Kerry was actually gonna win.

Mad people had already died in Iraq, and at that point, pretty much everyone realized the war was bullshit. I can't remember what the economy was like back in 2004, but I know I was broker than a motherfucker. As usual. It probably wasn't that good, though.

John Kerry had a pretty good shot at winning.

If he had won, I imagine Michael Moore would have released Slacker Uprising at some point during 2005, after Kerry had taken office. Which would have been one hell of a coup for him, as far as the perception of his influence.

At the time, he was coming off of Fahrenheit 9/11, which was the biggest documentary evar, and for which he won the Academy Award. (Remember that shit?) Imagine if he'd actually managed to swing a presidential election.

Between Fahrenheit 9/11 and the campus tour depicted in Slacker Uprising, he probably would have been in as good a position as anyone to claim that it was all him, even if it wasn't. I mean, who was his main competition? P Diddy with those dumbass Vote or Die t-shirts?

He must have been kicking himself on election night, when he realized George W. Bush was about to be reelected. A man of his girth, I'm surprised he didn't keel over right then and there. I almost did myself, and I'm half his age.

And so Slacker Uprising sat on a shelf for the past few years. Basically a compilation of clips of him talking to college students about voting and how much he supports the truth, it probably wouldn't have been compelling enough to play very well in theaters even if Kerry had one. They probably could have released it straight to DVD, but then people would have gotten the wrong idea about Michael Moore's career, especially in light of the relatively tepid response to Sicko.

So this election cycle was probably his last good chance to do something, anything with Slacker Uprising. Only thing is, it wasn't made to help the rally the vote for the next presidential election, and it doesn't really play as if it was. The parts at the beginning and end, where it says that more young people voted in 2004 than ever before, and that Bush still won, but this year the Republicans won't be so lucky, just feels tacked on. As I recall, there isn't even any mention of who's running this year.

You wish he'd gone back, taken the best of the footage he got in 2004, and updated it with new material relevant to this year's election. Especially since his guy lost last time, and this time, he's not even going out on tour. He's just putting some of his b-roll footage up on the Internets for free download.

Don't get me wrong. I didn't find Slacker Uprising to be a complete waste. What's there is reasonably amusing for what it is, if not on the level of, say, Bowling for Columbine. But if you're into that sort of thing, you might want to DL and have a look.