The Awful Truth: Complete DVD Set (1995)
Review by Doc Ezra
Film:
DVD:

Written by Nick McKinney & Michael Moore
Directed by Michael Moore
Starring Michael Moore, Karen Duffy, Jerry Minor, Gideon Evans, and V. Emerson

Features:

• Select episode commentary by Moore
  
• Extra "Lenny the Bookie" content originally cut from season 2
  
• Moore "Awful Truths"
  
• Michael Moore biography
  

Released by: New Video
Region: 1
Rating: NR, suitable for audiences 16+
Anamorphic: N/A; presented in original 1.33:1 TV aspect

My Advice: Rent it if you're a fan of his work, all others should seek out TV Nation

Before he was making an ass of himself at the Oscars and whining because someone didn't want to publish his books, Michael Moore was actually a reasonably interesting, creative, and entertaining guy. His television shows were controversial, daring guerilla film-making with an unashamed political agenda. The Awful Truth was the second of his television outings, and while not as funny or as clever as TV Nation, the show's two seasons contain moments of brilliance in between Moore's steadily swelling ego and increasingly shrill political stump-jumping. Broadcasting from the "People's Democratic Republic of Television," Moore introduces the show's skits before a live audience apparently hand-picked for their political leanings and worldview.

The show revisits a few of the big favorites from the first series, including the ever-entertaining Crackers the Corporate Crime-Fighting Chicken. Crackers enters corporate headquarters, harrasses executives, protests on the sidewalk outside, and generally makes a nuisance of himself until he's either escorted out by security or arrested (as happened at Disneyland, when he went on behalf of the beleaguered workers wearing lice-ridden costumes at the park). Moore also demonstrates for Ken Starr's benefit how to hold a more cost-efficient and effective witch hunt at the height of the Clinton impeachment hearings. Perhaps most entertaining is his tour in the "Sodomobile," a bright pink RV full of openly gay men that travelled from state to state where repressive and backwards sodomy laws were still on the books that made homosexuality a crime. The looks on the faces of some of these knuckle-dragging halfwits as the RV parked, began blaring music, and discharged its cargo of men in chaps and leather vests is worth the price of a DVD rental, at the very least.

Despite these moments of cleverness, the show too often falls victim to the horrific crime of taking itself too seriously. Moore was at his best when he was gently poking fun at cultural mores and skewering bad political policy with a dash of humor. But here, he occasionally drifts over the line to the tragic mistake of thinking he is in a position to produce Serious Social Commentary. He isn't. He doesn't have the gravitas for it, and anybody that thinks Crackers and the Big-Ass Communist Eighteen Wheeler are funny can't possibly aspire to that sort of credibility. Funny, sure. Insightful, yeah, that too. But a serious cultural and political barometer? Not on your fact-manipulating life, Michael.

Nowhere does this error in judgement shine through more than in the four episodes on which Moore provides commentary. When he stops spouting rhetoric and talks about the ideas for his more comical sketches, it's actually quite interesting, but there's too little of that. More often than not, Moore can't resist the chance to share with us, the viewers, his keen grasp of global politics and domestic affairs (dial the sarcasm up and down here to fit your comfort zone). Quite frankly, I'm not interested in his views on political affairs any further than his comedy bits can express them. When he wants to get people thinking, Moore is brilliant. When he wants to start thinking for people, he's overbearing and annoying.

The other features on these discs aren't really worth mentioning. A few factoids here and there, most of which are readily available to interested parties. I'd have been more interested in outtakes or cut footage of the real hostility exhibited by some of Moore's victims. Even a nice compilation of the dirty details accumulated in the process of researching his targets would have been pretty cool, though again more politics than entertainment. Hell, a bibliography of his sources for the data he cites in the skits would have been pretty keen, but I can understand, given the furor over Bowling for Columbine, why he might not want to show us his research sources. Credibilty is already stretched plenty thin without subjecting his already in-the-can TV outing to further scrutiny.

Basically, if you're a huge Moore booster, you'll want to add this to the collection. If you were a fan of TV Nation, you'll probably want to rent it first, because this just plain isn't as good as the first show was. If Moore's politics are on the opposite end of the spectrum from your own, the show is more likely to annoy than it is to entertain, but if you've got a more moderate viewpoint, there's quite a bit of material here to chew over. Give it a rental and see where he hits and where he misses your own civic sensibilities.