This article from the San Francisco Chronicle tells of how F-9/11 is selling out shows–sometimes almost selling out morning and late-night shows–around the Bay Area. Some theaters are now setting aside the voluntary R-rating on the film and and letting teens under 17 into the theaters, and in response to the sold out shows, some theaters are adding midnight shows.

The film might also be already changing people’s minds. According to the Chronicle article:

At the Century 14 Downtown theater in Walnut Creek, Matt Henley, a 37-year-old sales representative from Concord, said he was an independent who had not decided how to vote in November. He said, however, that a section of the film showing U.S. troops in Iraq speaking out against the war had a strong effect on him.

“That really hit me,” he said. “That did tilt me toward the Democrats.”

Much of today’s entertainment news was about the film, some of it bad: the film is enjoying only a limited release on 848 screens nationwide (though that might just drive up per-screen revenues), and apparently there was not enough time to strike enough prints–only 700 had been completed in time, and so some theaters will have to wait a day to get prints. Also on the good side is the fact that with high weekend grosses, more theaters are likely to pick it up a week later. One can only hope that the film has legs and can maintain large audiences for more than the opening week–because you know, you can bet your life, that if ticket sales drop soon the right wing will start dancing about, calling the film a dud, a failure, what have you, no matter how many records it breaks for a documentary.

We have also learned the identity of one of Moore’s embedded cameramen, one Urban Hamid, a Swedish-Iraqi journalist studying in the U.S. He’s visited Iraq three times this year, and says, “Every time I go back, it seems it’s gotten worse … When I last went back, people were so tired and exhausted and had lost hope. It’s extremely sad to see.”

On the Internet Movie Database, almost 2500 users have rated the film, and it’s not too hard to see which are conservative and which are liberals or moderates. On a scale of 1 to 10, 65.1% gave it a “9” or “10” rating, and 32.9% rated it as a “1” or “2,” leaving only 2% for the 3-8 ratings. So people probably either love it or hate it–encouraging, since moderates seem to be going along with the “9” or “10” scores. Most likely, however, is that almost all of the 762 rock-bottom “1” votes were made by conservatives trying to trash the film without having seen it.

In the meantime, part IV of the right-wing attack on Moore consists of new filmmakers making anti-Moore documentaries (gee, I wonder who funded those), titled Michael Moore Hates America and Michael and Me. Sounds pretty pathetic, really.