5:52 pm: Horizon scratches anti-Moore film

By VANESSA McCRAY
vmccray@record-eagle.com

January 06, 2009 07:36 pm

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TRAVERSE CITY — The Traverse City screening of a movie critical of documentary filmmaker Michael Moore has been canceled.

"Shooting Michael Moore" was scheduled to start a one week run on Friday at Carmike's Horizon Cinemas. But the company halted plans to show the movie today, on the eve of a press conference organized by Moore supporters to protest the movie's local debut.

The movie is directed, produced, narrated and largely financed by Kevin Leffler, a Davison native and schoolmate of Moore. He learned the film would not be shown but was not told why. Leffler blamed the Oscar-winning filmmaker for pressuring the theater chain to yank the film and "silencing a voice that he did not want to come out."

"It was listed, and now it's not, and, obviously, the pressure got to them. Wow, amazing — that he (Moore) was able to move a national theater chain like that," Leffler said.

Leffler's movie drew criticism from some local Moore backers who thought its title went too far. The title is a "thinly veiled call to violence," said Jeff Gibbs, who worked on Moore's films "Fahrenheit 9/11" and "Bowling for Columbine" and also knows Leffler from school.

Gibbs planned a Wednesday press conference to show support for Moore and also was considering a Friday protest.

The movie is sharply critical of the Traverse City Film Festival founder, his movies and his public persona. Moore has a worldwide reputation as a controversial filmmaker. In northern Michigan, where he makes his home in Antrim County, it's customary to spot him at the summer festival he started or glimpse him at the State Theatre, the East Front Street movie house he helped revitalize.

A Carmike spokesman did not know why the company had pulled the movie. The chain's Traverse City cinema was to be the first of its theaters to show the movie, said Dale Hurst, director of marketing for Carmike Cinemas.

"Shooting Michael Moore" has been shown in Miami and in the Detroit area.

Moore could not be reached for comment.