I caught the Los Angeles premiere of Capitalism: A Love Story last night — documentarian Michael Moore‘s latest foray into the heart of American hypocrisy, greed and the thorny political considerations that protect the status quo.

More thoughts on the film will follow, but it will be interesting to see how this movie plays in the rural flat-lands. Will it somewhat tap into something similar to the type of righteous anger that helped propel Fahrenheit 9/11 to a record-smashing $119 million domestic gross, or will aggressive pre-release push-back from invested powers-that-be consign it to something along the lines of the relatively paltry $24 million gross that greeted 2007’s Sicko, Moore’s documentary on the American health care system? One of the interesting things about the movie, to me, is that it seems to stand a good chance of being fundamentally misread by the sort of angry, undereducated masses (“Birthers,” Tea Partiers and the like) who, after eight years of profligate spending, have suddenly embraced fiscal conservatism — or, in more knee-jerk fashion, a freeze on federal spending and action of almost any sort — as their wave-the-flag cause. In Capitalism, Moore underscores income disparity and advocates the infusion of more democratic principles and ideals into the workplace, but folks like Joe the Plumber will stand a good chance of looking at the movie — if they see it at all — seeing in the Wall Street bailouts a massive giveaway, turning red with rage, and then saying, “Yeah, no money for health care! Screw that entitlement!” Ironic, no?

Like I said, more thoughts soon. The event itself, meanwhile, was lovely. Overture Films CEO Chris McGurk, above left, provided a pre-screening introduction; Moore gave brief speeches before and after the film, introducing various crew and the family of Jonas Salk, who were special guests in attendance; and Bill Maher, Olivia Wilde, Larry King and others mingled with the plebians at a deliciously catered post-screening event in the lobby of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences building.