Michael Moore's film's title "Capitalism: A Love Story" (On IMDB) puzzled me throughout the film, as a love story is normally told with overtones of romance whereas "Capitalism" comes across more like a gangster/mob movie that bothers to stop in and talk to the victims.

Like most of Michael Moore's movies, "Capitalism" stars Michael Moore as much as anyone else, and isn't really a documentary so much as a polemic. And it occurred to me on the way home that the subtitle "A Love Story" is really intended to to make people think about the modern infatuation with capitalism even by those who really don't benefit much from it.

There's some interesting bit of history mixed throughout the film, including the fact that Flint, MI (amongst other things where Michael Moore grew up, as he reminds the audience every film) was the birthplace of GM (General Motors) and originally one of the major manufacturing areas for GM. Like most single-industry cities, Flint appears to have affected by GM pulling out in a way that it's never recovered (nor have many of the other vehicle manufacturing areas around the country). And Franlin D Roosevelt's "Second Bill of Rights" which was to guarantee a living wage, a home, medical care, education and recreation -- as one of several bits of archival footage.

The other thing which struck me about the film is that much of the success of the United States of American in the second half of the 20th Century was firstly about lack of competition (both Europe and Asia were recovering from the Second World War), and then later about short term profit taking by consuming the surpluses in factories, skills, working capital, etc, that had been built up over the previous generation. Since then a lot of people having been living off the House ATM consuming the last of whatever equity they had (or others were persuaded they had).

Which reminds me of both Tim Flannery's The Future Eaters, and Jared Diamond's Collapse). The United States as an area hasn't yet reached the point of consuming all natural resources -- although it's clearly going to be substantially affected by the increasing difficulty in obtaining cheap energy -- but lots of individuals do seem to be completely "tapped out", even well into the middle class. What happens next for those individuals, and for a society where a substantial portion of the population have "eaten their future", is unclear. Time will tell.

Overall, if you like, or can tolerate, Michael Moore films, then it is worth seeing. Much of the information has been presented elsewhere, but it is brought together in a thought provoking manner. However it is very much a Michael Moore film, so if you didn't like, eg, "Bowling for Columbine" (IMDB; wikipedia), then you're unlikely to like "Capitalism" either.