Cheap The Big One (DVD) (Michael Moore (II)) (Michael Moore (II)) Price

Related Products

Customer Reviews of The Big One

A humorous look at corporate greed
This film follows Michael Moore's book tour for "Downsize This: Random Threats from an Unarmed American." Michael Moore shows thousands of Americans that have been downsized (unemployed) because big corporations shut down their factories in America and make new factories in foreign countries and pay foreign people a criminally low wage like eighty cents a day. He confronts the big wigs and shows his anti-corporate views humorously. If you agree with Moore's political views (liberal) and are sick of big corporations putting people out of work, you will love this movie. Conservative/Republican people probably won't enjoy this movie.

---

Does Moliere know about this guy?
Michael Moore should be in the presidential cabinet. I don't care as what. Invent a position for him. First of all, he's funnier than...well, than a lot of people. Moore has a way of finding fault with some accepted part of the status quo and pointing it out in a way that one wonders why they didn't realize that it was ridiculous a long time ago. "The Big One" is hilarious, but it's a pointedly persuasive movie, too. An example: Moore recently (this is as of May 2000) became the campaign strategist for several Ficus plants running for office against incumbent and unopposed candidates. Moore says that the plants will do a far better job than the candidates who have been entering congress by default, and it doesn't need all the money that the candidates get, anyway. It does need, though, a little fertilizer, which according to Moore, it "should find plenty of in Washington." And of particular note is the segment on the video of Steve Forbes...just watch for it. Buy this movie!

---

Moore targets hypocrisy again, WAY before Bush and "F 9/11"
Like Moore's earlier film "Roger and Me", "The Big One" (Moore's tongue-in-cheek term for the large, all-encompassing corporate bohemoth that this country may eventually become) takes a disturbing yet often comical look at how Big Business is running roughshod over whatever is left of Corporate Responsibility in this country.

This film is alternatingly funny and deeply depressing. Mainly, however, you want to shake Moore's hand for having the chutzpah to shove a microphone and camera in Corporate America's faces and demand they explain their "outsourcing" actions directly to the faithful and long-term employees (generations of them, in some cases) who were unceremoniously dumped in favor of cheaper overseas or over-the-border labor.

These large corporations are selling America off piece by piece, in a way. They are giddily happy to lay off American workers by the thousands to make a few extra bucks, line their pockets a bit more, or hasten their Golden Parachute paydays.

Sure, a primary function of a business is to make money. But when doing so to such excess involves actions that could undermine America's already fragile socio-economic fabric on a relatively grand scale, then it becomes an issue of Conscience. Moore, like many of us, realizes this. Moore rushes up to the Corporate Big Dogs (or at least the highest-ranking ones he can find or the nearest media outlet he can find) and asks the questions we wish we could ask -- he expresses the common-man outrage we wish we could express. We all have motive, but Moore has motive AND opportunity.

Few of his theatrics will actually result in actual change, but perhaps they serve a higher purpose: to get us to wake up and realize that all is not well in America, that Big Business is making DAMN sure that the economic chasms between the haves and the have-nots will continue to expand, and that YOUR JOB IS NEVER, EVER GOING TO BE SAFE. The days of working for the same company from college 'til the day you retire are all but over. Your job can be taken away from you AT ANY TIME as soon as the powers-that-be at XYZ Corporation figure out that it can be economically profitable to throw your entire town out of work.

And the attendant problems that go with massive layoffs: increases in crime, suicides, etc.... Well, sorry! You should have gone to Harvard Business School, got an MBA or something, and snagged one of those rare, hard-to-get jobs where you just show up, meet with your Accounting, Finance, and Legal Departments, and start divvying up the pie you are about to share.

Enron, Worldcom, Pillsbury, Nike...... they aren't unique in their business practices. They are just the higher-profile ones we have all heard about. This kind of "morally and socially questionable" business practice happens everywhere.

Your company may be next. How much do you have in savings right now? You'd better check. And be afraid. Be very afraid.