Michael Moore Biography and Pictures

Michael Moore (born April 23, 1954) is an American documentary film director and author known for his satirical advocacy of social democrat views. Moore became famous for his film Roger & Me, a documentary about what happened to his hometown Flint, Michigan, near Detroit, after General Motors closed its factories and opened new ones in Mexico, where the workers were paid much less. His work has been branded Chomsky for children by the American magazine The New Republic.

In 1995, Moore released a satirical film, Canadian Bacon, which featured a US politician (played by Alan Alda) engineering a war with Canada in order to boost his popularity.

In 1999 Moore won the prestigious Hugh M. Hefner First Amendment Award in Arts and Entertainment, for being the executive producer and host of The Awful Truth, where he was also described as "muckraker, author and documentary filmmaker."

Michael Moore's 2002 documentary Bowling for Columbine, probes the culture of guns and violence in the United States. Bowling for Columbine got special notice at the Cannes Film Festival and won France's Cesar Award as the Best Foreign Film won the 2003 Academy Award for Documentary Feature, although there was controversy over the factual elements involved and whether it was actually a documentary. When he accepted the Oscar, he created a stir when he took the oppurtunity to loudly denounce US President George W. Bush for the 2003 invasion of Iraq which was met with mixed reaction by the audience. However, despite the resulting criticism for his speech, sales of his books and tickets for his film went up significantly.

He has also directed two television series, TV Nation and The Awful Truth, both with a vicious satirical wit.

Moore has authored the three bestselling books Downsize This (about politics and corporate crime in the United States), Stupid White Men, and Dude, Where's My Country (both critiques of American domestic and foreign policy).

Michael Moore was previously a columnist for and briefly the editor of Mother Jones magazine and an employee of Ralph Nader. He left Nader's employment on bad terms, but they remained friends, with Moore vociferously supporting Nader's campaign for the US presidency in 2000. On January 14, 2004, Moore declared his support, on his website, for the candidacy of Democrat Wesley Clark in the 2004 presidential election.

His Fahrenheit 9/11 documentary examines America in the aftermath of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, particularly the record of the Bush administration and alleged links between the families of George W. Bush and Osama bin Laden. Fahrenheit was awarded the Palme d'Or, the top honor at the Cannes Film Festival; it was the first documentary film to win the prize since 1956. Moore later announced that Fahrenheit 9/11 would not be in consideration for the 2005 Academy Award for Documentary Feature, but instead for the Academy Award for Best Picture. He stated he wanted the movie to be seen by a few million more people, preferably on television, by election day. Since November 2 was less than nine months after the film's release, it would be disqualified for the Documentary Oscar. Moore also said he wanted to be supportive of his "teammates in non-fiction film." However, Fahrenheit received no Oscar nomination for Best Picture. The title of the film alludes to the classic book Fahrenheit 451 (about a future totalitarian state in which books are banned; paper begins to burn at 451 degrees Fahrenheit) and the pre-release subtitle of the film confirms the allusion: "The temperature at which freedom burns." At the box office, Fahrenheit 9/11 remains by far the highest-grossing documentary of all time, taking in close to $200 million worldwide, including domestic box office revenue of $120 million.