[Mark Rabinowitz] A collection of some of the goings on across the InterWeb, including an interesting 1st person piece at indieWIRE.com and Michael Moore's latest distribution plan.

First Person 9/11
Over at indieWIRE, the co-presenter of Docsider, filmmaker Steven Rosenbaum ("7 Days in September") writes a first person piece on the 9/11 generation. It's a lovely and moving piece Reading it, I found myself going back to that day and replaying it, or parts of it, in my head. At any given time I can only remember pieces of that day and those that followed and much of what I do remember is painful, but Rosenbaum's piece certainly sparks some curiosity in me and not only to see his film, which I will endeavor to do this weekend, but maybe to write up my own recollections, if only for myself. I think maybe we all should. It turns out that seven years isn't very long at all.

Michael Moore To Release "Slacker Uprising" For Free
According to Agence France Press and other outlets, Michael Moor is releasing his new film, "Slacker Uprising," free at SlackerUprising.com, beginning on September 23rd. The DVD will be released in October through Netflix and Amazon. In a prepared statement, Moore said, according to AFP: "I've been very blessed and fortunate to have so many people come to my movies over these two decades, I decided the way to say thanks was to make one that the fans can have for free, as a show of my profound appreciation of their support."

A Cnet story mentions the recent similar experiment from Radiohead, saying "The band invited fans to pay what they wanted for the download, but the music was essentially free for the taking. Radiohead has never revealed the promotion's sales figures, but there was speculation that the money wasn't very good." The piece neglects to mention that Radiohead subsequently released the album through traditional methods and likely made out pretty well, although didn't score as much dosh as they would have with a traditional release.

Hmmmm...why would Moore do this? Release a film for free online just to show appreciation for his fans? Don't get me wrong, I am all for exploring alternative methods of distribution and doing something nice for one's fans, but going from being the biggest doc draw in the world (Moore has made 2 of the top 3 grossing docs, ever) to free online releases? Sounds odd, to me. I wonder if it's any good. Any one seen it?