Up is down, black is white...

... and Fox News just gave a glowing review to Michael Moore's new film:

Filmmaker Michael Moore's brilliant and uplifting new documentary, "Sicko," deals with the failings of the U.S. healthcare system, both real and perceived. But this time around, the controversial documentarian seems to be letting the subject matter do the talking, and in the process shows a new maturity.

Unlike many of his previous films ("Roger and Me," "Bowling for Columbine," "Fahrenheit 9-11"), "Sicko" works because in this one there are no confrontations. Moore smartly lets very articulate average Americans tell their personal horror stories at the hands of insurance companies. The film never talks down or baits the audience.

This bizarre event (didn't Roger Friedman get the official Fox News memo that Michael Moore hates America?) is even stranger than that story about the Feds trying to seize the film's negative because he took some sick people to Cuba. Speaking of which:

Moore said he made a second master copy of "Sicko" and had it shipped it to France immediately just in case of potential government issues.

Foiled, government agents! You don't stand a chance against such a cunning mind.

Feds try to seize new Michael Moore film

A bizarre story in the Guardian about Michael Moore's upcoming film, "Sicko":

The film has already caused Moore - who won the Palme d'Or at Cannes in 2004 with Fahrenheit 911 - to clash with the American authorities. Now, according to movie mogul Harvey Weinstein, whose Weinstein Company is behind the film, the US government is attempting to impound the negative.

According to Weinstein, the US Treasury's moves meant "we had to fly the movie to another country"- he would not say to where. "Let the secret service find that out - though this is the same country that thought there were weapons of mass destruction, so they'll never find it." He added that he feared that if the film were impounded, there might be attempts to cut some footage, in particular the last 20 minutes, which related to a trip to Cuba. This, said Weinstein, "would not be good."

In March, Moore travelled to the Caribbean island with a group of emergency workers from New York's Ground Zero to see whether they would receive better care under the Castro regime than they had under George Bush. He had applied for permission to travel in October 2006 and received no reply.

Can this really happen these days? There's just a single negative that the US authorities would be able to edit? I understand the desire to preserve the original, but couldn't they just have made a bunch of copies? Clearly, I don't know anything about filmmaking.