Worth a fresh look: Michael Moore's "Roger and Me"

[Auggie27]

Posted: 8/9/05 at 10:57pm

Anyone who hasn't seen this film, or hasn't seen it in several years, should take a (fresh) peek. This documentary about the closing of the GM plant in Flint, Michigan, has a startling relevance.

My favorite moments (among many) ... the ladies on the golf course, talking about the laziness of the auto workers for not finding new jobs. Roger Smith himself invoking Dickensian charity as we cut to a family being evicted on Christmas eve. And the gay man who stands in front of the Anita Bryant poster and waxes on about life's ups/downs, the irony of his position in front of a homophobic icon of the 70s unnoticed by him, but surely not by Mr. Moore's camera man. And Miss Anita's comments -- she invokes Margaret Thatcher's tribute to the American workers' spirit, if you can believe it -- are priceless. She and Pat Boone -- those Christian missionaries -- make pointed remarks about Capitalism's triumph, no matter what the cost in jobs, lives, "values." What's creepy is their steely resolve, their zealotry, and especially their lack of any measurable empathy as they dish up the lukewarm platitudes about corporate reality. And the Silver Fox Reverend, Robert Schuler, a minister from sunny CA, shows upt to collect a 20 thousand dollar fee for telling the unemployed citizens to buck up and have faith. What goes around comes around. The movie could've been made yesterday.

Updated On: 8/9/05 at 10:57 PM