How to hype your movie

Three years ago, shortly before Michael Moore's new movie came out, it was announced that his distributor, a Disney subsidiary, didn't want to be connected with the movie and pulled it. Obviously the movie was released anyway. The spat got the movie a lot of free publicity and it made a fortune.

Moore has a new movie out so he has started up the publicity machine. Stories have been going out for a few weeks about how he violated the travel ban on trips to Cuba and is being investigated. When the stories die down, he revives them by issuing a press release that the investigation is politically motivated. Possible penalties for breaking the travel ban include fines and confiscation of all film shot in Cuba.

I predict that he will pay a fine (which will be charged off as a cost of making the movie) and nothing further will come of it.

Also, several months ago the guy who runs one of the anti-Moore web sites got an anonymous contribution to help with is wife's health. A few weeks before Moore's movie was to be released, Moore reveled that he was the donor.

While it is a good think for the guy running the web site, it is a calculated move by Moore who is not otherwise known for charitable giving. The idea that Moore gave money to help a sick woman for the sole purpose of helping his movie is vaguely disquieting. This is the sort of thing you find half-way into a Frank Capra movie when the hero (for example George Baily) has to ask the heavy (for example Old Man Potter) for help. In this case, Old Man Potter is likely to win. Moore will get a wider audience for his call for socialized medicine at the expense of a detractor.

One question that Moore's movie is not likely to bring up - would he be satisfied with the sort of health service he is advocating? Moore is a wealthy man who gives himself and his family the best.

One of the medical centers in Britain recently announced that it will no longer do hip or knee replacements for people of Moore's body type. They admitted that this was a pure cost-saving move. If Moore needed a new knee, would he just shrug and start using a walker, knowing that his sacrifice was for the greater good? Or would he take a jet to India and get a new knee there?