Thursday American Cinema Classic

Welcome to a new weekly feature here at Movies with Abe, Thursday American Cinema Classic. I’m taking a course called American Cinema Since 1960 where we’re charting the history and development of American Cinema from the 1960s to the present. We’ll be watching some pretty iconic films, some of which I haven’t seen before. Each week, I’ll be providing a short review of one contemporary classic from the annals of recent history.

Roger & Me
Directed by Michael Moore
Released December 30, 1989



Michael Moore’s first film is also the first nonfiction feature screened in this course, and it’s interesting to see how much the Michael Moore of twenty years ago resembles the Michael Moore of today. Sure, he’s a little bit more nervous and certainly skinnier, but he still deigns to wreak as much havoc as possible, and refuses to dress up or even take off his baseball cap when trying to infiltrate an elitist social club. Moore also has a tendency to get sidetracked in telling his stories, like his unnecessary demonstration of a woman slaughtering a rabbit on camera to drive home his point that the plants being closed have had a detrimental effect on Flint, Michigan. There has also been discussion that Moore purposely altered the chronology of events as depicted in the film to heighten its dramatic effect, which isn’t much of a surprise but is still disappointing given how, like all of his films, it would be much stronger if it were all actually true. From this, it is clear Moore is a talented documentary filmmaker and an entertaining host to witness the destruction of the (allegedly) once-great city of Flint. Both “Fahrenheit 9/11” and “Sicko” (I have yet to see “Bowling for Columbine,” since I was too young when it was first came out) are far better documentaries, but this one is quite intriguing too. Check out the ridiculous trailer above.