Michael Moore Hates America

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DVD cover for "Michael Moore Hates America"

Michael Moore Hates America is a documentary film directed by Mike Wilson which criticizes the prominent political film director and author Michael Moore. It premiered September 12, 2004 in Dallas, Texas at the American Film Renaissance film festival, which was described as "the first conservative film festival in the country" [1].

The film parodies the "shrillness" of American political discourse as exemplified by Moore. The tagline for the film is "A documentary that tells the truth about a great nation", and it purports to be more than merely a criticism of Moore but also a defense of American culture and values, which he feels are unfairly assailed by critics such as Moore. Wilson received funding from Brian Cartmell, an Internet entrepreneur with conservative views.

The movie is subtitled The story of a rebel who took on Mike, an allusion to Moore's movie Roger & Me, during which Moore attempts (and succeeds though that never made it into the film) to chase down Roger Bonham Smith for an interview. In this case, it is Wilson who seeks an interview with Moore. Wilson also adopts other aspects of Moore's style in his efforts at satirizing Moore. For instance, Wilson interviews a mix of "average Americans" across the country and well-known figures like conservative Dinesh D'Souza and fellow libertarians such as Penn Jillette. Wilson revisits some of Moore's shooting locations and subjects from Roger & Me and Bowling for Columbine, and attempts to discredit many aspects of Moore's films.

The DVD cover accurately says that popular Chicago movie critics Roger Ebert and Richard Roeper gave the film the coveted "Two Thumbs Up," but Wilson's critics^{[citation needed]} claimed that to be a lie. The review stated: "It's kind of a sweet movie in its own way it's not really angry about anything." Ebert and Roeper even interviewed Wilson on his movie.

The original trailer for this movie contained three unlicensed songs composed by the Minneapolis band Johari's Window. Although the producers contacted the band and verbally contracted to remuneration for the material, numerous attempts to contact the film's producers regarding the property rights were unsuccessful and the band gave up.^{[citation needed]}