Michael Moore is one of the most commercially successful documentary filmmakers of the past decade, certainly.  Frankly?  The Academy of Motion Picture Arts isn’t impressed.  They don’t care that Moore’s latest accomplishment, Capitalism:  A Love Story,  made $14M at the box office which is a huge amount for a documentary.

The short list of films is determined by a committee of members of the academy’s documentary branch. They watch all eligible contenders and vote for their favorites by secret ballot. The top vote-getters make the short list of potential nominees.

The selections this year are “The Beaches of Agnes,” “Burma VJ,” “The Cove,” “Every Little Step,” “Facing Ali,” “Food, Inc.,” “Garbage Dreams,” “Living in Emergency: Stories of Doctors Without Borders,” “The Most Dangerous Man in America: Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers,” “Mugabe and the White African,” “Sergio,” “Soundtrack for a Revolution,” “Under Our Skin,” “Valentino The Last Emperor” and “Which Way Home.”

Aw, Michael.  It look like you were just a bit too controversial and now the little designer raisin better known as Valentino is going to snag the coveted award that shoulda been yours.

Love him or hate him, Michael Moore is going to be everywhere as this election gets closer.

Inspired by Neil Young and Radiohead, Michael Moore will release his new film online and for free.

The film, “Slacker Uprising,” follows Moore’s 62-city tour during the 2004 election to rally young voters. It will be available for three weeks as a free download to North American residents, beginning Sept. 23. An official announcement of the film is planned for Friday.

Moore said he considered releasing “Slacker Uprising” theatrically as “Michael Moore’s big election year movie” as he did with 2004’s “Fahrenheit 9/11,” which was highly critical of President Bush.

Instead, Moore opted for a symbol of gratitude to his fans as he approaches the 20th anniversary of his first film, 1989’s “Roger & Me.”

“I thought it’d be a nice way to celebrate my 20th year of doing this,” Moore said. “And also help get out the vote for November. I’ve been thinking about what I want to do to help with the election this year.”

What do you guys think?

Will you be downloading the latest Moore flick?

(Heh, you know what’s funny about this? I watched his last film, Sicko, online and for free, too. It’s just that doing so was less legal than it will be this time.)

“I was just thinking, this Gustav is proof that there is a God in heaven. To just have it planned at the same time, that it would actually be on its way to New Orleans for Day One of the Republican convention, up in the Twin Cities, at the top of the Mississippi River.”

Controversial filmmaker Michael Moore, to MSNBC, on news that Hurricane Gustav may result in next week’s Republican National Convention being postponed.

Families in New Orleans are currently being evacuated.

If you just want to rock out to Michael Moore going apeshit on Wolf Blitzer (who, to his credit, handled it very well), you can see that video below.

If you want to watch the entire CNN piece, including the introductory segment CNN did on Sicko, it’s here:

And if you’d like to read Moore’s post-show rebuttal on his website, you can read it here. I’m not typically one of those “the media is lying to us all” types, but Moore makes some very good points. CNN not only twisted their facts (and Moore’s site points you directly to the primary sources, so you can check for yourself), they had some absolutely blatant errors in their discussion of the film.

Look, I don’t claim to know anything about anything, but I did watch Sicko, and I do find it just a little bit disturbing that health care is free in all industrialized Western nations other than the U.S. Seriously, no one pays out of pocket for any non-elective medical procedure in Britain, France and even Cuba. They don’t even have health insurance companies like we do in the U.S. Like, if you need heart surgery, no problem! You just go ahead and get it, for free, and everyone is automatically insured, just by being a citizen. Of course, your taxes are higher to pay for it, but that seems like a small price to pay to not have to worry all the time about what health care is going to cost you. In much the same way that you’d never think about having to pay the fire department for putting out the fire in your apartment building, or paying the policeman for stopping that guy who’s mugging you, people in those nations never think about paying the doctor who’s saving their lives. I just think it would be really nice to have that here.

“Although we think that your film could actually help reform America’s sorely inadequate health care system, there’s an elephant in the room, and it is you.”

- Ingrid Newkirk, President of PETA, to Sicko filmmaker Michael Moore, urging him to lose weight via a vegetarian diet.