I did not include this film on my post named "The Best, Middle, and Worst Films of the Year that I Saw" (a couple posts down) for a couple reasons.1. I have huge reasons for loving it which include witnessing most of the events of the film as they were happening, going to the school that the film takes place, being obsessed with the story from the start, and finding myself on one of the special features on the DVD after I bought it on the September DVD release date.
2. On that post I wanted to list major motion pictures that played in theaters all over the country and save this film for a separate post.
Now that I have that out of the way. I was excited about this movie ever since I read that director Steven Greenstreet was making it in my campus newspaper. I RSVP'd and attended the February 3rd, 2005 premiere at the Ragan Theater @ Utah Valley State College. It was a very enjoyable experience because I got to laugh and get extremely pissed off at the whole story all over again.
If you don't know the story or what the hell I'm talking about, here's a very good summary.
A raw and riveting examination of the heated "red versus blue" rift in the nation, This Divided State begins in September 2004 with the presidential election fast approaching and the State of Utah ready to declare itself "Bush Country" once again. However, this complacent state of Republican majority was rocked when Utah Valley State College announced that liberal filmmaker Michael Moore would speak on their campus two weeks before the election. Within 24 hours of the announcement, a media frenzy descended upon the school as angry community members and religious leaders shouted protests, pointed fingers, and quoted Mormon scripture. Some even claimed Mooreπs arrival would bring the Apocalypse.
The student body representatives who had invited Michael Moore soon were inundated with hate mail, death threats, and claims that they had committed "treason." An effort to Other students who supported Mooreπs right to speak were labeled "liberal," "anti-Mormon," or just simply "evil." Spearheading the anti-Moore campaign was Kay Anderson, local millionaire, Sunday School teacher and self-appointed community spokesperson. Mr. Anderson made local headlines when he attempted to bribe the college administration, during a public forum, with a personal $25,000 check in order to cancel Michael Mooreπs speech.
Attempting to calm outrage, the college invited FOX News pundit Sean Hannity to speak a few days before Moore. But this was to no avail. The controversy continued to explode into a full-blown war of political and religious differences and, within days, lawsuits were filed, resignations occurred, and friendships were torn apart.
My personal story about the whole thing is that I love Michael Moore and what he does. When I heard from my parents that he was coming to my school, it was like hearing my favorite music group was coming to my city to do a concert. So immediately I got my free student ticket to Michael Moore's speech which was funny cause the ticket lady said to me "Are you sure this is what you want?" All the events between getting my ticket to going to the speech was pure chaos at its best. I saw the "Anti-Moore Rally" and the "Anti-Hannity Rally" take place luckily because I was on my lunch break at school. Without getting into every scene, my opinion on the whole story is it was a big deal over nothing. The school lost donations, the enrollment went down, and most other major changes to school were slightly blamed on the incident. On the other hand, the end of the world didn't come and it brought attention to the school, and at the time it made school a very cool place to because people had something to talk about. Ever since then, school for me has been sort of boring.
Anyway, here's my little review of the film. I wish they put more of the "Anti-Hannity Rally" in the DVD special features first off. This is because there was a guy who said fuck a few times and then a guy came up and said something like, "You should be ashamed of yourself," which was funny. I was sort of disappointed in how they changed the ending from the screening at the premiere to the DVD release. I liked how the filmmakers orignally put a clip of Michael Moore on The Tonight Show telling Jay Leno that Bush won the 2004 election because "Bush got more jokes." Not that I'm conservative, because believe me I'm not, but the whole way he said it was funny.
About Kay Anderson (The obvious antagonist in the film). The guy is not the Mayor of Orem City, my father, my church bishop, the President of Utah Valley State College, or President of the LDS church. So I think he and his wife should move next to Brigham Young University, have a Caffeine Free Diet Coke with a smile, and shut the mother fucking hell up. He had only one good point throughout the whole thing which was that the school would likely lose donations.
I really like how the film showed how much of a dick Sean Hannity is and how polite and tolerant Michael Moore is because he probably did research on the mormons who make up most of the population on location. Oh by the way, free speech works because we know when not to keep our mouths shut and something should definitely be said.
And about Sean Vreeland, the guy should not be doing a "controversial" petition in the middle of the UVSC student center if he's not ready for people to ask why the hell he's doing it. "Read it and sign if you agree" is not good enough. He needs to discuss the reasons why the petititon is such a brialliant idea or go do something else. I remember Vreeland at the time saying that people shouldn't listen to Michael Moore because he's not a college graduate. Well neither was he at the time so that comment just plain sucks ass.
The film captured all the different events very well and not leaving any huge details out. I also love the little scenes outside of the school about a Michael Moore look-a-like and talking to a guy who was in the U.S. Army dressed up as a stormtrooper which makes me laugh because a proud soldier ends up being a Star Wars character. I thought the visit to a place called "Moore Pizza" was good because the guy look so excited to have somebody actually being there. Those and the numerous other shots of places around Utah Valley show what kind of place it is very well.
The film is supposed to be unbiased but in a way it isn't. Yes, both sides get their say and there's no narration in the film but the filmmakers did pick what things to put in it and the questions asked by the director to Kay Anderson and Sean Hannity were to trap them and make their "side" look dumb in my opinion. Not that I hate that but it's good to point out. I loved that a montage of newspaper clippings and other items in the press was displayed in one sequence.
I love the choice of music which is very important in my book. The music was strong in getting the emotions out whether it be calm, angry, or sad. The editing and sound don't bug me cause as long as I can tell what's going on and what people are saying, it's all good to me. The film has plenty of memorable lines. My favorite quote is, "This guy's not evil," said at the public discussion panel portion of the film about Michael Moore as a person.
So as you can see, I have a huge bias for this movie and I recommend it to anyone that is interested. I bought my sister who lives near Washington D.C. a copy and I'm pretty sure she enjoyed it. For more details and a bunch of other stuff, go to the film's website.
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