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Michael Moore

Filmmaker and gadfly Michael Moore, whose provocative features, Fahrenheit 911 and Bowling for Columbine, demonstrated that documentaries can still draw at the box office, kicks off UB’s 2007-2008 Distinguished Speakers series this weekend. Moore’s most recent film, Sicko, is filling theaters nationwide and sparking a national debate on how to solve America’s health insurance crisis. This critique of America’s for-profit healthcare system, which leaves roughly 50 million uncovered and many millions more under-covered, is vintage Moore, as we travel to Cuba with several debilitated Ground Zero rescue workers. There they finally receive the medical care they’ve been denied at home—not at Gitmo, where enemy combatants get state-of-the-art treatment, but at a Cuban clinic, free of charge. For this bit of guerilla theater, and his attack on the pharmaceutical industry, Moore has again been pilloried by the vested, corporate interests. In response, he urges fans to “take a Republican to Sicko” to build support for universal healthcare in general, and for the US National Health Insurance Act (HR676) in particular. Whether Democrat or Republican, you’ll find Moore, one of Time’s “100 Most Influential People in the World,” provocative and humorous, especially in person.

Saturday, September 29 at 8pm. Alumni Arena, UB North Campus (645-6147, specialevents.buffalo.edu). $26-$48

(Alumni Arena box office, Tickets.com, Tops).