I just saw the movie "Roger and Me"

[bluestateguy]

I have been wanting to see this film for months now, but it seems as if many video stores do not carry it. I finally found it at Hollywood video last night and I just finished watching it.

The movie is really more about Flint than Moore's search for Roger Smith (a certifiable prick if there ever was one). The town was absolutely devastated by the GM layoffs of the 1980's (and as we learned in Bowling for Columbine and F 9/11, it has still not recovered). It's a lot less sensationalistic than F 9/11 or Bowling for Columbine, but it's a fine piece on the decline of industrial America.

[jonnyblitz]

1. the rabbit scene always grosses me out

I have seen the movie several times and I always dread that part.

[Elidor]

2. Pets or Meat

What a great analogy!

I'm with you, though–I can't deal with violence to bunnies.

[jonnyblitz]

10. it helped prove his point, that's for sure. n/t

[Taverner]

3. If you want to really get depressed, see "American Dream"

It took place at roughly the same time, and was about a Hormel Worker strike in the midwest where the union was brought to its knees and had to cave in.

Real depressing, but that with Roger and Me will show you how we got where we are today...

[jonnyblitz]

9. I will have to search for that one and check it out. n/t

[Pithlet]

4. I grew up in Flint

in the 80's. That film was so dead on.

[A HERETIC I AM]

5. The economic policies in vogue in those days (The Reagan Era) are

EXACTLY the same ones we see today with Shrub. Thats what Rupugs do, weaken unions, make it easier for companies to pay less and/or move off shore and encourage consolidation which causes loss of jobs and the devastation of entire communities. Many of the factory jobs that left Flint went to Mexico ostensibly to save money but for whom? Is a Chevrolet or Buick made in Mexico sold for less than one made in Michigan?

I remember when the movie came out, i had just moved to Detroit. Phil Donahue (remember him?) did his show live from an auditorium in Flint and it was PACKED.

[meppie-meppie not]

6. it did me too (gross me out with the rabbit )...but I

sure liked the movie :-)

[SKKY]

7. That movie really changed how I view a lot of things...Very powerful.

[meppie-meppie not]

8. I've found all of MM movies to have that effect on me and to be profound

[SKKY]

11. They're all good, but having lived something similar, it stirred things...

...inside I thought I had forgotten.

[Pithlet]

13. Same here.

My family was fortunate in that my father never lost his job, but that thread always hung over us as he worked for GM, and lots of family and friends suffered directly. I can remember friends moving away because their parent(s) lost their jobs, friends not having much on the holidays, schools closing... I love the film, but it definitely brings back a lot of feelings, emotions, and memories for me. I can remember during my early childhood when all of those factories were up and running, and then how they all closed and created vast parts of the city that were nothing but a ghost town.

[Archae]

12. Guess how much the people Moore filmed in Flint got?

Easy answer: Zilch.

[Pithlet]

14. Not true.

At least, if your point is that Moore did nothing for the people of Flint. Michael Moore stood up for us when no one else would. I don't think he would have been able to fix anything with the proceeds he got from that money. That money didn't make nearly enough for that.

But, more importantly, that movie just wasn't about Flint. It was about the whole country. He could have done the same thing about any number of towns in the 80's. I think he meant for that to be a message. A warning that if we continue down this same path in America, the whole country becomes Flint. Really, it already has. It is a microcosm for the state of America. The influence that movie had on me, and many like me, was worth more than you can measure in dollars. If you have now, or have ever had a blue collar job in this country, that movie was about you. Hell, if you've ever relied on a paycheck from any kind of labor, and not mommy and daddy's money, or dividends, that movie was about you (collective you).