'Fahrenheit 9/11' raises heat on both sides of the aisle

By CHRIS VOGNAR
The Dallas Morning News

DallasNews.com | News for Dallas, Texas | Latest News: "The Fahrenheit is rising, and the inboxes are starting to sag.
Only a movie? Try telling that to enemies and supporters of the Bush-bashing documentary Fahrenheit 9/11, Michael Moore's political hand grenade set to explode on up to 1,000 North American screens June 25. Both sides are mobilizing, but so far they're not marching in the streets. They're e-mailing the theater chains.

In one corner: Move America Forward, a conservative group run by California politico Howard Kaloogian. It's urging supporters to e--mail theater chains and demand that the film not be shown.

In the other: MoveOn, the Internet-based liberal operation. It's asking its 2.2 million members to rush to the movie and bring a few friends. It hasn't launched an e-mail campaign, but supporters have kept their fingers busy in the great e-debate.
Just ask Tearlach Hutcheson, city manager of Magnolia Pictures, which will release Fahrenheit on two screens at its flagship Dallas theater. He's buried in upward of 1,000 messages a day.

'Ever since this film started getting talked about, I've been getting e-mails telling me not to show the movie,' he says. 'But in the last couple of days, we've started getting a huge amount of e-mails saying we should be showing this movie. So there's now a huge e-mail campaign for and against the movie. I've never seen this before in the theater business.' "