Roger & Me

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Buy This Item Roger & Me by Warner Home Video  Available from Amazon  $18.99  on 11-27-2008     <I>Roger and Me</I> is a loose, smart-alecky documentary directed and narrated by Michael Moore, an everyman host with a devastating wit and a working-class pose. When his hometown is devastated by the plant closure of an American corporate giant (making record profits, one should note), the hell-raising political commentator with a prankster streak tries to turn his camera on General Motors Chairman Roger B. Smith, the elusive Roger of the title, and the film is loosely structured around Moore's odyssey to track down the corporate giant for an interview.<p> While Moore ambushes his corporate subjects like a blue-collar Geraldo Rivera, a guerrilla interviewer who treasures his comic rebuffs as much as his interviews, his portraits of the colorful characters he meets along the way can be patronizing. The famous come off as absurdly out of touch (Anita Bryant appears for some can-do cheerleading, and hometown celebrity Bob Eubanks tells some boorish jokes), and the disenfranchised poor (notably an unemployed woman who sells rabbit meat to make ends meet) all too often appear as buffoons or hicks. But behind his loose play with the facts and snarky attitude is a devastating look at the victims of downsizing in the midst of the 1980s economic boom. This portrait of Reagan's America and the tarnish on the American dream comes down to a simple question: what is corporate America's responsibility to the country's citizens? That's a question no one at GM wants to answer. <I>--Sean Axmaker</I> Reader Reviews I agree on the majority of Moore's political views and used to be a huge fan. However, more and more I learned about his techniques to get a point across. This film which happens to be - like all his other films - tremendoulsy entertaining is by no means a documentary. The reason: The extent to which Moore bends the truth is called even among the most unethical journalists "lies": - Moore who in this picture tries to get to talk to the GM ceo Roger Smith DID GET to talk to him. Moore tried in vain to prevent his colleagues from admitting this, nevertheless the interview got printed by Premiere Magazine. - According to witnesses in the stockholder meeting shown in the film, Moore did not get cut off when he asked questions to Roger Smith. Moore deliberately edited the scene in a way where it comes off that way. Often he takes quotes from interviewees out of context by letting parts end up on the cutting room floor. He himself admitted to this. - The failed mall, hotel and autoshow were closed down prior to the layoffs and are hence not the result of them. - Reagan visited Flynt in 1982 not in 1986 during the layoffs as claimed here. - Moore doesn't mention anything about the impossible requests by the unions, which ultimately led to the heads of GM to contemplate foreign assembly. - There are more reasons as to why the Academy Awards revoked an Oscar for Roger & ME, however I'm tired to waste any more time on this hypocritical, self absorbed former stockowner of Ely Lilly and Halliburton securities. Michael Moore bends the truth, cashes in, and thus is just as much of a journalistic failure as his greedy right wing counterpart. He puts us left wing libertarians in a bad light.

Roger & Me Available from Amazon Price: $18.99 Updated on 11-27-2008.

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