Starring: James Bond (IV), Pat Boone, Anita Bryant, Karen Edgely, Bob Eubanks Average Rating: Audience Rating: R (Restricted) Binding: VHS Tape Format: Black & White, Closed-captioned, Color, HiFi Sound, NTSC Label: Warner Home Video Number of Items: 1 Release Date: June 25, 1994 Running Time: 91 minutes Theatrical Release Date: December 20, 1989
Amazon.com essential video: Roger and Me 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.
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. --Sean Axmaker
Roger and Me DVD Michael Moore tends to be a bit skewed in his perspective, however, when there is enough evidence to support his skewed perspective it makes for a more frigthening picture. My having lived in Flint, MI for nine years may not have ever happened had I seen the movie before the move there because I may never have moved- too much of it is (still) true!
Roger & Me DVD Overall, Roger & Me was a great movie. The DVD cover had some scratches on it, but the DVD itself plays perfectly.
The DVD arrived rather quickly.
Roger is worse than Evel "Roger and Me' is a riveting, fast-paced, fascinating and scitillating tale of Michael Moore's efforts to get the evil Roger to face him in front of his noble movie crew. I was at the edge my seat from the first to last second of this truly superb, academy award quality, film. We learn about how the hard working proletariat of the quaint village of Flint, Michigan have been foully betrayed by that behemoth of Capitalism--dare I say it--General Motors.
General Motors is outsourcing jobs to Mexico [?] and millions of people are being laid off. Most of the unemployed people turn to lives of crime, basketball, alcoholism and rabbit killing. It's absolutely disgusting--delicate women skinning rabbits to make fur coats for fat cat Capitalist women who never did a lick of real work.
Well, the General Motor Capitalists are doing right well for themselves in the midst of poverty and starvation. They are eating carved food, drinking martinis, playing old ladies golf and forcing pitiful jackasses to jump into pools of water. Did I say it was disgusting? Fortunately, a film which had the potential to be truly crummy, is saved by Michael Moore's monotone.
Thank God for Michael Morre. Thank God for the masses. Thank God for the noble workers who make the United Auto Workers great. And let General Motors, its fat cat executives and all Capitalists and Capitalism in general...eat strawberry cake...Nah!! It's the guillotine, instead.
Of course, now in the day of antigas and anti-big car sentiment, this movie looks kinda stupid.
Ron Braithwaite author of novels--"Skull Rack" and "Hummingbird God"--on the Spanish Conquest of Mexico
Moore in Michigan Michael Moore's "Roger&Me" was revolutionary in its day. It was Michael Moore's first major documentary...back in his slimmer,less propagandistic days. Moore aptly tackled the subject of corporate corruption when trying to interview the said "Roger" who ran GM in Flint, Michigan and laid off thousands of his workers. Flint is shown to be a wasteland. A woman subsists on skinned rabbit. The city has fallen apart.
"Roger&Me" shows the divide between corporate culture and that of everyday people. Corporate honchos make millions while everyday people struggle to survive. It's timely,considering how oil companies are making obscenely huge profits while working class people try to get food on their tables and commute to work without going into debt.
"Roger&Me" was Michael Moore's debut. Unfortunately,he got plumper,angrier,and progressively wackier. It's a promising debut,with a strong message about corporate responsibility. Capitalism is good when it's moral,not when it makes profits at the expense of the everyday person.
Ummm ... I think you all are missing the POINT ... WOW! After reading the reviews of this film, then watching the film, I have come to the conclusion that all of you that have commented that this film is a "comedy" ... are demented. Whomever feels that this is a COMEDY, is "touched".
I found the responses to Michael's questions, and the NON-responses to his questions, to be ludicrous and unbelievable, but I did NOT find them to be FUNNY.
Look at our economy here in 2008, and THEN laugh at this film. It's all still happening!
The very demise of our economy in this country is directly the fault of our large corporations and the 1% of our society that control all the wealth.
WAKE UP AND SMELL THE REALITY FOLKS .... This movie looks at the stupidity of our quest for more money.
Big business does NOT care about the worker.
Don't buy this movie if you are looking for a light-hearted comedy. It's about the reality of big business, the naivety of the wealthy toward the common person's situation in this country, and the WOOL they are trying to pull over our eyes.
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