hyped garbage

Good story, Not enough for a whole film

Absolutely the worst movie.

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

Other than the fact that his presentation of himself as the "Average Guy on the Street" is a little questionable and VERY staged, Roger & Me has a major, major problem if Moore wants it to be taken as a factual documentary. The chronology of the events has been changed.The concept of cause-and-effect is crucial to Roger & Me. One of the defining criteria of a documentary film is the absence of obviously fictional elements. Don't create events, dialog, costumes--and don't manipulate chronology. But that's exactly what he did. When Flint started hemorrhaging jobs, the city did not just stand by and do nothing, they tried to recreate the economy by building the Water Street pavilion, the hotel, and autoworld, attempting to raise tourism money. In the movie, the reverend comes to town for $20k to pray away unemployment, Reagan shows up and his advice is basically to move (wearing a UAW jacket--totally inappropriate for him). Now when Moore comes back to Flint, it's 1986 when the BIG layoffs are happening. It's been intermittent up to this point.In the film these events are presented as a response to the massive layoffs that began in 1986, but Reagan actually came in 1980, the evangelist in 1982, and the tourism plan was in 1985. This is a huge problem for the film and basically disqualifies it as a real documentary because these visits/plans were not a result of the BIG layoffs.These are well-documented, look around a bit, see what you can find. The hotel and Autoworld also went bankrupt before or early on in the layoff cycle, even though they are presented very late in the film.Along the vein of the chronology problem, notice that Moore wants to bring Roger Smith to Flint to see the devastation. The film explains that GM, the richest corporation in the world, closed 11 North American plants. Work went to Mexico. With increased profits, money goes to shareholders. They then invest in high tech weaponry. Before this, they were the most profitable corporation in the history of mankind, but this decision is made to increase the profit margin further (needlessly, the film asserts).So here's my point about that paragraph. They spend 28 seconds on these highly important facts. Now notice that they spend about 5-10 minutes on Miss America, and another 5 or so minutes on the crazy rabbit lady, simply because people will get a kick out of that stuff. That's also a big part of what I'm talking about. How can you discuss complex global economics in 28 seconds? Left out are the facts that there was a significant recession at the time, lots of unemployment, and lots of people buying imports which were cheaper and more efficient with the gas crisis. In order for plants to close, contracts had to be dissolved and the UAW played a huge role in this. This is pertinent information that people need to know if they are to be educated on this subject. Yet Michael Moore is harder on Miss America than on the UAW. He displays some condescension and ambush journalism tactics like with the wealthy old ladies at the golf course.You see, I'm not saying he's lying, I'm saying he's twisting and distorting. The whole thing is just an entertaining film designed to fill theater seats. It's not pure documentary.And like I said, Michael Moore is not just an average blue-collar "one-of-the-guys" type of guy, he's a media giant (admittedly this was not AS true in 1989, but he was still big). Putting on the baseball cap and jeans, not lighting anything, and walking in the front door of GM to try to get an interview with Roger Smith is totally absurd. They were very conscious decisions and very trite ways to get some entertaining footage.Even if you can somehow dismiss those problems with Roger & Me, I have one that's a lot harder to deal with. This film was made on bad faith. He wants to present himself as the intrepid "Joe Plainfolks" going on a noble quest to bring Smith to Flint and force him to own up to the consequences of his decision. This goal was abandoned in favor of making a comedy. Whatever the serious, human, and compelling issues motivated Roger & Me were thrown out the window in favor of making a series of SNL skits.Apparently Roger & Me is not meant to be seen as pure documentary, but as advocacy and partisan journalism, it's just that it's not marketed that way. Sadly, and this is coming from someone who mostly agrees with Moore's opinions, I have to call 'BS' on this film.

I first heard of this documentary when it was praised by Chicago legendary film critics, Roger Ebert and Gene Siskel on their television show. This documentary shows how General Motors built and destroyed Flint, Michigan. The factories closed and unemployment soared as thousands became jobless. Michael Moore is a rebel with a cause. He wants justice and fairness. The fat cats like Roger Smith, Chairman of General Motors, is the Roger in the film. Moore has watched his hometown of Flint, Michigan into a ghost town with abandoned houses and closed businesses. Moore wanted answers from Roger about how he could allow this happen to Flint. It is obvious that Roger Smith and the other fat cats have no conscience about closing factories and laying off thousands of employees.

The irony of this film is if Roger Smith, then Chairman and CEO of General Motors, had agreed to Michael Moore's request in 1987 when Moore began production, there wouldn't be a film, or at least it wouldn't be half as interesting as it turned out. Moore simply wanted to interview Smith and take him on a day-tour of Flint, Michigian where he and the GM executives decided to close several of their car-manufacturing plants. Instead, Smith avoids the encounter, sending Moore on a kind of corporate wild-goose chase which ends up being both amusing and heart-wrenching.The tragic under-story which is really at the heart of Moore's film is how Moore's hometown of Flint, Michigan, essentially goes down the proverbial sewer once the plants began closing, because in all likelihood, the GM executives did not understand how entwined the plant was with the local economy. Unemployment went up, businesses closed, houses went into foreclosures, people were evicted from rentals, and crime escalated. At one point, Flint becomes the crime capital of the United States. Certainly, to blame all of Flint's problems on the plant closing may be unfair, but most of the people who made the decisions to close the plants, particularly Roger Smith, are unwilling to talk about it. Moore, as far as I can tell, never demanded Smith reopen the plant. He just wanted to talk about how the life of the town had changed as a result. But talking about it would mean having to look at it, and look at it is not what Smith wants to do, which is I think the whole point of the film.At some point, Smith and the execs of GM become aware of Moore, his mic, his cameraman, and his crew, and hide from him at all costs, despite repeated requests for an interview. His employees as well as one of the lobbyists for the car industry, most of whom were not making 1% of Smith's yearly income, have to make excuses for him. The few who are willing to talk to Moore on camera rationalize that the decision to close the plants were in the best interests of the company, and that GM has absolutely no civic responsibility whatever, only the responsibility to make lots of money for their stockholders. Because Smith avoided Moore's microphone and camera, the irony itself makes interesting fair for a documentary film. The viewer's first thought is, what's he hiding? Of course, if Smith and his fellow executives made such a good decision by closing these plants right at the height of their profits, they should have nothing to hide and welcome the opportunity to explain their reasonings. Their avoidance of the conversation is quite telling."Roger and Me" was Michael Moore's first documentary and became the prototype for all his later projects. Moore interjects all the elements that will become trademarks for his future films: Moore's voice-over, classic film footage, home-movie footage, interviews with local people, footage of local events, and the most interesting of them all, going to the large executive suites, trying to get interviews. He did the same thing in his most-recent film, "Capitalism: A Love Story" where he used a blow-horn in front of a New York financial firm yelling "Give us back our money!" In Roger & Me he simply tries to get to the 14th floor of the main GM Building. At the time, the security and company managers didn't realize this would be tame by "Moore" standards.One of the more interesting developments is the numbers of celebrities and singers who come to Flint to try to inspire the town, everyone from the televangelist Robert Schuller, Pat Boone to then President Ronald Reagan, and Donnie and Marie Osmond make an appearance. Reagan suggests that the unemployed leave Flint and relocate to another state where there are more jobs. Sort of reminds me when certain politicians in the 1850's suggested African-American slaves relocate back to Africa. It's not only unrealistic, it's kind of insulting. Even Bob Eubanks, a native son and the MC for the Newlywed Game, visits Flint. Eubanks admits he knows nothing of their problems or their politics even though he was born there. The celebrities came and provided inspiration in very contrived live performances; unemployed persons got half off the regular ticket prices! The biggest irony is that aside from the discount, these celebrities who have made millions do nothing to actually help the town. The only attempt is an Autoland theme park, sort of like a Disneyland for cars, which bombs and closes after only six months.People have criticized Moore and his films because they distort the facts. But I don't think Moore is presenting a Frontline-like documentary. He uses humor and irony to make his point. The funniest and most-telling scenes are often the interviews of those on the adversarial side which inadvertently end up making his case. My favorite scene is when he is interviewing a few upper-crust ladies at a golf course, most of whom haven't worked a real day in their lives. With their golf clubs and sun hats, they're saying that these out-of-work people need to get off their duffs and do something. All the while they're swinging away at golf balls in between riding around in golf carts. It's so funny that they don't even see how hypocritical they appear. Of course none of the four women offer to do anything for their fellow Flint townsfolk. It's sad that these women could probably make such a difference in these people lives, but all they do is play golf.Certainly, Moore doesn't try to re-open the plant himself. But what he did was tell the story of Flint, Michigan, and I think that's Moore's main contribution. Again, his initial goal was simply to open a dialog. But of course, the minute people are willing to talk, who knows where it might lead?

During university, our Philosophy professor, Mr.R, played us "Roger & Me" in its entirety. This was at a time when the obese misfit was still pretty much unknown; a charlatan-in-the-making, a soon-to-be-household-name who was still busy honing his fact-bending skills and still learning how to manipulate the easily impressed, the pathologically paranoid, the mentally ill, the sexually frustrated, the illiterate, the semi-literate, the clueless, and the laughably gullible among ye.As we finished viewing it, I thought: "Yeah, it was somewhat entertaining - in a totally daft Bugs Bunny kind of way - but what an ultra-biased, anti-Capitalist propaganda turkey that has no objectivity whatsoever this is; its sole purpose being to take cheap shots at people and ideas which the film's creator has pet-peeves for. This isn't a documentary by any stretch of the imagination." However, our beloved Marxist professor was absolutely thrilled with R&M, and we ended up not only NOT criticizing any aspects of it, but Mr.R actually spent the remainder of class praising its "qualities". Just so we understand each other, the words "propaganda", "viewer manipulation", "left-wing Extremist", or "selective fact presentation" never exited his perpetually smiling mouth... And just to remind you: this was supposed to be a philosophy class, not INDOCTRINATE YOUR STUDENTS WITH YOUR OWN POLITICAL B.S. course.Anyway, now I get to the really interesting aspect: this professor, Mr.R, is now a highly successful screenwriter in Hollywood. He has written several left-wing scripts with A-grade stars in them.The moral of the story: those are the kind of people for whom all doors are open in Hollywood.Michael Moore is a talentless filmmaker (which he proved beyond a smidgen of a doubt with "Canadian Bacon"), but being a Marxist liberal opens doors to just about anyone. Tinseltown is teeming with rabid pro-Chavez extremists, hence why political brainwashing through simplistic portrayals of reality has been part-and-parcel of the Hollywood experience for many decades now.Embrace this demagogue and you've betrayed your own brain forever.