Documentary Movie Reviews
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Roger & Me (1989)
Rate:
9
Viewed:
7/05, 3/15
7/05:
Roger & Me is the third of Michael Moore's documentaries I've taken the liberty of seeing.
Keeping in mind of how compelling Bowling For Columbine and
Fahrenheit 9/11 were, Roger & Me is no different: arresting, bleak, sad,
fascinating, and depressing all rolled into one.
There are funny parts, not because it's a comedy, but because it paints a picture of desperate measures that people have
resorted to to get out of the rock they're under. No matter what, it's a great documentary, leaning toward the somewhat objective
journalism in the spirit of Upton Sinclair's The Jungle.
All in all, Michael Moore has become an important filmmaker, capturing a period of time in America and the price that
people pay.
3/15:
Roger & Me is the best example of the chasm between the haves and the have-nots in the United States, thanks to the spirit
of democratic capitalism.
A lot of what's shown in the documentary is funny, and of course, I don't have sympathy for the people who
lost their jobs. It's called the survival of the fittest. Be educated, develop marketable skills, move to another
location...do whatever it takes to get out of the situation. But never, ever trap yourself into buying a house
that you can't afford, producing babies at the wrong time, and/or going to college for a worthless degree. All of them
are the surest way to debt slavery.
There are many once-prosperous towns and cities that went belly-up because of the closed-down
factories and plants. That's the reality of life. Remember, the corporate America is the new Rome of today; the easiest
way to boycott corporations is to stop buying their products. When people don't, they'll continue to profit
and therefore survive longer.
Truth be told, I've never owned a GM and think the company builds the shittiest cars ever. That's why I wanted it
to go bankrupt in 2008, but the government gave them a bailout, which was a colossal mistake, and there was no
vote on it (a report says the federal government lost $11.2 billion on the investment, but GM made $22.6 billion in profits).
The deduction of one point in my rating for Roger & Me is due to not explaining what caused
the layoffs which had to be the weak quality of GM cars, the politicians involved, the fat pension plans, the controlling
unions, the overpaid lazy workers, and the exorbitant salaries these unionized auto workers were getting given their simple jobs.
All in all, Roger & Me may be a sad documentary, but I don't really care about the city of Flint and its residents.