Roger & Me
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Movie Reviews of Roger & Me
Movie Review: Social Satire & Cultural Commentary: Not Documentary
Summary: 5 Stars
It is unfortunate that Roger & Me has been so often characterized as a Documentary, and thus has been left open to ridiculous (and moot) criticism about it's lack of merit as a Documentary. I have watched Roger & Me numerous times over the years since it was released and have always come away with the same overall impression. Michael Moore made a film that through irony, humor, and a host of hard hitting and subtly emotional scenes, translated the bittersweet, frustration wrought demise of working class ANYTOWN U.S.A.It always seemed to me that he filmed it in Flint simply because it was familiar territory, and he used GM and Roger as his vehicle (excuse the pun) purely to supply contiguity and to keep the body of his film somewhat linear.
Roger & Me does not warrent 5 stars due to supperior camera work, editing or even because of Michael Moore's ideas. Roger & Me has stood the test of time, however, and it did and does accomplish what it set out to accomplish: it challenges viewers, it disrupts or charges viewers emotionally, despite the omnipresent aloof nature of the filmmaker himself.
Movie Review: Car makers ruin towns?
Summary: 5 Stars
A nice, funny way of approaching a truth that isn't very funny at all, namely the raping of Americans by companies like GM, who have now exported their jobs to other countries where laws against "rape" haven't been enacted yet . . .A basic question to those who might happen to read this review - our country was founded on the myth of one person, one vote. Does the admixture of boatloads of cash into the political process make our republic a plutocracy? Is freedom, in the political sense, illusory as long as money is allowed to buy votes, congress, and whole administrations? When the very "enemy" who directed aircraft into buildings are in business with the leader of the country? Where the vice-President's company breaks the law in dealing with the verbotten Iraqi govenment before he was elected, and yet still gets elected?
Finally, notice how towns in which the big three car makers set up shop, are dying? Ford Heights, in Chicagoland, is a nice example . . . one of the poorest cities in the land of freedom, named after the old anti-Semite himself . . .
Movie Review: Superb documentary
Summary: 5 Stars
What I find so amusing from some of the one star reviews is the assertion that Mr. Moore used creative editing of this movie to somehow distort the facts, and therefore the entire premise and basis of this documentary is null and void.
The man is not only making a video to entertain you (and this is wildly entertaining, in a factual and hilarious way) but it also rests in an unarguable fact, the closure of the GM plants in Flint Michigan and the devastating impact it brought with it.
Whether or not you like they style of Moore's presentation, it is witty, backed by appropriately titled music and shows the almost incomprehensible response on the part of the city of Flint at this loss of future revenue (or, more bluntly, its threatened economic survival) and in the joining the impact that corporate America can have on the lives of its citizens and the coldly calculated, dollars and cents approach to the bottom line, Moore succeeds in showing the viewer how both work with each other, as you often cannot have one without having both.
Movie Review: Moore in Michigan
Summary: 5 Stars
Michael Moore's "Roger&Me" was revolutionary in its day. It was Michael Moore's first major documentary...back in his slimmer,less propagandistic days. Moore aptly tackled the subject of corporate corruption when trying to interview the said "Roger" who ran GM in Flint, Michigan and laid off thousands of his workers. Flint is shown to be a wasteland. A woman subsists on skinned rabbit. The city has fallen apart.
"Roger&Me" shows the divide between corporate culture and that of everyday people. Corporate honchos make millions while everyday people struggle to survive. It's timely,considering how oil companies are making obscenely huge profits while working class people try to get food on their tables and commute to work without going into debt.
"Roger&Me" was Michael Moore's debut. Unfortunately,he got plumper,angrier,and progressively wackier. It's a promising debut,with a strong message about corporate responsibility. Capitalism is good when it's moral,not when it makes profits at the expense of the everyday person.
Movie Review: Michael's best - and here's why...
Summary: 5 Stars
With all the fuss over Farenheit 911 many people will overlook Michael's brilliant, heartbreaking (and funny!) Roger & Me.Of course Dittoheads won't get it but what makes this movie important is that for once, somebody shows the suffering that results from the quest for profit without consideration of the consequences. Ever since the Republican Revolution I've been hearing that I must take responsiblity for my actions. But Roger takes none. Bupkis. He is a babe in the woods.
This time around its Roger Smith. But it could just as easily been "Kenny Boy" Lay. Certain things are just plain wrong and everyone, moderate, conservative, whatever, should distance themself from condoning such behavior.
But no. Conservatives would rather whitewash what goes on in Roger & Me, saying things like "That's the American way" or "Take responsibility" (Of what? How?) and this is why someone, finally, had to respond.