Roger Ebert devotes his Q&A column this month to the topic of Michael Moore, from his lame speech at the Oscars to the controversy surrounding the veracity and integrity of Bowling for Columbine.

On the Oscar speech:

On Ebert & Roeper, I said I hoped Moore would win the Oscar and deliver one of those "offensive political speeches they hate to sit through." Be careful what you ask for; you may get it.

On a day of bad war news, Moore cued the Academy negatively with his hurried delivery and defensive body language. He came on fast and strong; they instinctively recoiled from being identified with him.

Ebert almost makes him sound like an aggressive blind date. I don't think it was that he "came on fast and strong". I think he was booed because he had nothing of substance to say, only silly, hateful bile.

On the level of booing in the audience that night:

Instead of acknowledging he had been booed and dealing with that, he lectured the press to "tell the truth--don't say it was a divided house because five loud people were booing." Everyone in that room had heard a lot of booing ("at least half the house," The New York Times reported). To paraphrase a famous Richard Pryor line, Moore was asking us, "Who you gonna believe? Me, or your lyin' ears?"

There's also a discussion of the charge that Moore and his producers staged one of the scenes in Bowling, in which Moore opens and account at a bank which promises a free gun with every account over a specific amount.

Ebert provides URLs to different sources, but he needs to learn how to use a little thing called hypertext (it's the mother-friggin' internet, Roger...get with the program).

And here's what Moore has to say about his own films:

"I don't know what category to put my films in. They're like a film version of the op-ed page, and not a traditional documentary. They are cinematic essays presenting my point of view. I may be right or wrong, but if I state something as a fact, I need the viewers to trust that those facts are correct."

He needs us to trust that the facts are correct? Huh? Isn't it his responsibility to present the facts, as a purported documentarian?

Anyway, it seems pretty even-handed for someone who's obviously somewhat sympathetic towards Moore.