`Fahrenheit 9/11': Luring TV viewers to the theater for news

`Fahrenheit 9/11': Luring TV viewers to the theater for news: "Time was, you had to go to the movies to see the news. Then came television, which brought newsreels right into your home.
Now, in this election year a half-century later, people in huge numbers have found that getting news about the war in Iraq and the politics behind it makes a trip to the multiplex well worth the bother.
Who could have forecast such a relapse?
Could be, neither fans nor detractors of Michael Moore, whose 'Fahrenheit 9/11' has uprooted couch potatoes by the carload since premiering three weeks ago.

So what does "Fahrenheit 9/11" give its audience that newscasts thus far don't?

For starters: the video footage of recuperating U.S. soldiers, Iraqi casualties, President Bush in that classroom paralyzed for seven minutes after learning of the terrorist attacks. This is video you have likely seen nowhere else, and you emerge from the theater wondering, "Why the heck not?"

"Fahrenheit 9/11," which won the top prize at the Cannes Film Festival in May, tackles grand themes with humor, fury and naked partisanship that insists upon a response from the viewer."


FRAZIER MOORE
AP Television Writer