As one user before said, he feels the film to be more of a time capsule today, since the impacts and importance of downsizing has been overwritten by other issues like terrorism, homeland security, 9/11 etc.
Well, I live in Europe and I can just say that here in Europe the film just comes out on DVD (I saw it only yesterday, July 15th, 2004 on TV) at the right time for Europe (if not a little too late). Economical matters are getting worse here in Europe day by day, and the patterns CEO's use to make their companies "profitable" (which should just always correctly read: "MORE profitable) are just the same as CEO's use in the USA. In fact, the only idea that comes to their minds is: downsizing, laying off people and transferring labour into countries with extremely cheap labour-cost. That's all.
Surprisingly there is just very little resistance to these tendencies, even though Europe is (in most countries) far better organised as far as Labour Unions are concerned. People are told by politicians that reforms are necessary, and people just sit back and accept it and continue to suffer.
In this context, "The Big One" by Michael Moore just comes at the right time here in Europe, even though I think that not many of the concerned people will actually see it.
But it's worth watching it, even though sometimes I questioned myself how I could laugh over such sad facts. But this is the virtue of Michael Moore and this film: it doen't leave you desperate, it gives you a laugh at the time and maybe, if we're all lucky, it will lead to a better organisation of the people concerned and to more resistance against the 1 percent of the rich keeping the rest in poverty.
