And this past weekend Fahrenheit was front and center for many media discussions.

In a time when we rate movies like we rate stock—by the bottom line—that's pretty remarkable for a one-sided movie about politics (and it only showed in a few movie houses in the country that first weekend).

A Republican friend of mine says it's just the Democrats driving the ratings up. But the millions of moviegoers it took to get the movie to the top have to be more than just Democrats.

With its very biased point of view, one would think Fahrenheit would only draw those who share its creator Michael Moore's perspective. But there's got to be something more going on.

My sons and daughter-in-law urged me to see it one Wednesday evening, and so I did.

In all fairness, let me say that I'm a Democrat, a liberal one (not withstanding that my father was a captain in the Air Force and my son was in the Marine Reserves), and as those of you who read one of my first op-eds in The Sun may recall, I was horrified that we invaded Iraq and hoped and prayed that by some miracle it would come out all right in the end.

So when I left my very close Republican friend—my husband—to see Michael Moore's movie, he figured I would come back outraged.

I knew Moore was one-sided, that he did not pretend to be fair and balanced, and that he would have manipulated images and speeches to fulfill his goal, which he has stated is to bring down the Bush administration, and I knew I would agree with him, so I, too, figured the movie would simply add fuel to my anger.

In fact, something else happened.

I came away deeply moved. I couldn't even talk about it at first. And I haven't even mentioned the movie to my Republican friend.

Yes, Moore presented his case for evil motives in the Bush administration's handling of the war on terror, the war in Iraq and even the handling of the 2000 presidential election. And, I might add, raised some important questions that need answers.

What I responded to, however, was the raw grief and despair he captured. He put faces on the Iraqi war. He made it real, not a television reality show that we click on and off night after night.

Moore masterfully juxtaposed images to make his point: In the movie we see random images of Iraqi families playing, children laughing and obviously enjoying themselves, and then we hear the voice of our president announcing to the American people that we were going to attack Iraq because they have weapons of mass destruction.

We see an Iraqi grandmother distraught because our bombs had destroyed her neighborhood. She pleads, asking why Americans are destroying her country. Her family had suffered through five funerals that week. Then we see Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld talking about the "kind" precision of our bombs.

We see a proud American mother, whose family members have served in the military and whose son was in Iraq. We watched her hang a flag out, which she said she did every day. But when she returns later in the movie, her son has been killed. We listen to her read through his last letter and we in the theater cry with her, and then we see her growing rage against the war.

The movie shows interviews of American soldiers at the beginning of the war: fired up, getting a rush out of being a part of the attack on Baghdad. Even the embedded reporters talk about the rush—and that includes Dan Rather and Ted Koppel. In fact, I remember television images of tanks and trucks racing toward Baghdad, having all the elements of a thriller movie. I was caught up in it, too.

But since then a tougher reality has set in.

Moore interviews soldiers who have become despondent and who wonder if they will ever go home. We see coffins covered with flags, soldiers missing arms and legs. Moore follows that segment with one of strong young Marines strolling through shopping centers, telling young men and women that they can make their dreams come true if they sign up for the Marines.

As I sit here in Boulanger writing this, I overhear a group of people talking about Fahrenheit. They are debating whether the movie had validity, whether it was too one-sided. Some are panning it for being too one-sided, and some are discussing the issues the movie brings up, which is maybe what this movie is all about—to get people talking.

Sandy Sims is the editor of The Sun. Contact her at 408.200.1055 or via email, ssims@svcn.com.