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just a few miles from Midland Texas, Laura Bush's home town, and the town that junior gained all his moral values. This is strong strong repuke country.
Here is the news article;
Odessa American
Judging by their reactions, audiences for Michael Moore’s “Fahrenheit 9/11” are as polarized in the Permian Basin as anywhere else.
In Ector County, the presidential race wasn’t very close — George W. Bush beat Gore by a 40 percent margin — but Moore’s documentary appears to have as many fans as foes.
“Fahrenheit 9/11” was the biggest seller of the weekend at the Century 12 Theatres in Odessa, an employee of the theater said.
Odessa’s Century 12 is the only theater in Odessa or Midland that is screening the controversial documentary.
“I believe it was No. 1,” the employee said Tuesday. “It’s our best-seller today, and the majority (of viewers) today have been senior citizens.”
The employee said customers’ reactions to Moore’s unflattering portrayal of the Bush presidency have been “kind of mixed.”
“For this area, I was really surprised it was such a mix,” the employee said, adding that she expected a more hostile reaction from what she thought would be a more conservative crowd.
After a screening on Saturday, the audience applauded. And a theater employee said another audience gave the film a standing ovation.
But “Fahrenheit 9/11” has its detractors as well.
A group called Concerned Citizens of Odessa submitted a petition threatening to boycott the theater if it elected to show the film.
“Showing this movie could have a detrimental effect on your profits,” the group said in a letter to the theater before the film’s first showing at Century on Friday.
“ ‘Fahrenheit 9/11’ is nothing but a direct attack on President Bush and the Bush Administration as well as disrespectful to our country,” the letter reads.
Some who saw the film Tuesday didn’t share the group’s disdain.
Wardna Molitor, 80, of Odessa, said she watched the documentary in response to the petition, “because in Odessa they said they shouldn’t show it.”
“I don’t like censorship,” she said, adding that she is a registered Republican. “I think every Republican should see it.”
Peggy Wilson, 67, of Odessa, said she wanted to see Moore’s film “because I’ve always believed this war was an absolutely unnecessary thing and was for somebody’s ego.”
“When I left I said, ‘That’s preaching to the choir.’ All this movie did for me was confirm everything I’ve believed from the beginning,” she said.
Andree Rosen, 47, a Midland Democrat, supported Moore’s work.
“It was very powerful,” she said. “It was very understandable in the way it was presented — not as one-sided as the press has led me to believe.”
Jim Brown, 52, of Midland, said “Fahrenheit 9/11” illustrated the human side of the war in Iraq.
“It shows the true cost of this war,” he said. “Someone’s going to lose a father, brother, cousin. And on their (Iraq’s) side — double.”
Staff writer Melanie Wong contributed to this report.
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