Filmmaker Michael Moore personifies the term “unlikely American hero,” although he would never be given such a moniker by the mainstream media. Recently, I had a chance to catch up with the documentary filmmaker in a San Francisco hotel room. The odd-looking filmmaker and political activist who hailed from Flint, Michigan walked in and immediately went for the complimentary cookies.

In his latest film “Bowling For Columbine”, he tackles the issue of guns in America and the media’s tendency to warp reality. Moore’s first concern, however, isn’t to drive his views into viewers’ heads.

“When I make a film like this, I set out first and foremost to make a good movie; it is not the political statement. If you put the politics before the art, nobody will latch onto the politics. They will be bored to death, and turned off by it. You have to make sure you’re making a good movie first. That way, millions more people are going to be affected by the politics. If I just wanted to make a political statement, I’d run for office, but that’s not what I’ve chosen to do.”

It’s easy to write off someone like Moore as a political activist, but he begs to differ. “I consider myself a filmmaker,” he said. “That’s what I put on my 1040, ya know, for an occupation. I read these things that say ‘activist filmmaker,’ and I think, ‘activist…no I don’t like that. I’m a citizen of this society, and that automatically makes me an activist. We’re all activists, or at least we should be activists. If we’re not active in a democracy, it ceases to be a democracy. It’s not a spectator sport. It’s a participatory thing.'”

Before you get duped into believing Moore is just on a left-winged agenda, he is definitely impartial in his beliefs. “Al Gore would be doing the same thing. He just would seem so dumb doing it, which is probably worse.”

As a filmmaker, Moore is as passionate about saving the cinema as he is about saving America. “I love going to the movies, but it gets harder and harder to go because they suck more and more. I can’t say how many times I leave the movies just going ‘I must save the cinema. Forget about George W. Bush, I must save the cinema. Let’s go out and try to make another good movie.'”

Fear is one of the major themes of “Bowling For Columbine.” Moore shows how the media does everything in your power to make sure America is afraid of as much as possible.

“I think fear is a good thing. You do need to be afraid of certain things. That’s part of our instinct; it’s a survival mechanism. But the problem is we’re told to be afraid of everything, so our fear compasses off, and we don’t know what to be afraid of anymore.”

“Bowling For Columbine” opened worldwide on Oct. 25. His book, “Stupid White Men”, is on shelves now.