At first glance, you might not think that Mel Gibson and Michael Moore had much in common beyond the fact that they both have Oscars and an M in their first name. Mel the buff pilgrim, Michael the lumpy rebel: Opposite poles of the human spectrum, no? But watch them long enough-and in the past year we have had plenty of opportunity-and it dawns on you that maybe these guys have more in common than one would suppose. They both have a reassuring regular quality. Both seem like guys who maintain a clear channel, albeit from different locations, into that enigmatic, shape-shifting thing, the American mainstream. And if that's true, maybe it's not so surprising that they had something else in common this year, something important. Let's call it a shared intuition. Both of them knew there were enormous reservoirs of feeling out there-yearning, anger, fear-emotions that were not being satisfied by the usual run of movies or network news reports. And both made films, one sacred, one profane, that powerfully tapped into those emotions.
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