Here’s a review of the documentary made of Michael Moore’s visit to Utah.
The flick is called “This Divided State.” has anyone else seen it?
(I know this will probably get political real fast, just keep the insults and name calling down )
‘This Divided State’ is a winner, Moore or less
By Sean P. Means
The Salt Lake Tribune
“This Divided State” looks at the controversy that erupted over Michael Moore’s 2004 speech at Utah Valley State College.
This Divided State
Where: Tower Theatre.
When: Opens today. (Director Steven Greenstreet will be on hand for question-and-answer sessions after the 7 p.m. shows tonight and Saturday.)
Rating: Not rated, but probably PG-13 for language.
Running time: 86 minutes.
Bottom line: A Utah filmmaker lets us relive the strange political circus surrounding Michael Moore’s 2004 visit to Orem.
“This Divided State” draws an unflattering picture of Kay Anderson, who tried
“This Divided State” looks at the controversy that erupted over Michael Moore’s 2004 speech at Utah Valley State College.
to block Michael Moore’s visit.
Wasn’t that a time last fall, when a fair number of Utahns went goofy over the prospect of a fat guy in a baseball cap giving a speech?
Now you can relive the moment with “This Divided State,” filmmaker Steven Greenstreet’s engaging if uneven chronicle of the tumult over Michael Moore’s visit to Utah Valley State College.
The movie chronicles the uproar when UVSC student officers invited Moore to Orem. This opened the officers, Jim Bassi and Joe Vogel, to threats from irate locals and a recall petition mounted by conservative students. Greenstreet’s interviews with Bassi and Vogel showbthem as fair-minded guys trying to drum up student interest in a presidential election that was (as least concerning the fate of Utah’s five electoral votes) a foregone conclusion. The movie also shows how Bassi and Vogel’s friendship eventually cracked under the pressure.
The loudest opposition to Moore’s arrival came from Orem businessman Kay Anderson, who filed a lawsuit over the $40,000 in student fees paid to Moore - and, in a brazen act of stifling dissent, offered a $25,000 cashier’s check to keep Moore from coming.
In a one-on-one interview, Anderson comes off as personable and soft-spoken. But in his public pronouncements, like those at a school forum on Moore’s visit, he comes off as a harsh and narrow-minded man who refuses to acknowledge the existence of other opinions in Utah Valley.
Anderson has demanded to be removed from Greenstreet’s film, and I don’t blame him. Greenstreet uses the most effective weapon possible to point out Anderson’s foolishness: verbatim quotes. Here’s one less-than-Jeffersonian example: “Free speech works because most of us have the good sense to keep our mouths shut.”
“This Divided State” (which was supported in part by the Center for American Progress, a liberal D.C. think-tank) gets a bit repetitive, and Greenstreet could have scaled back the footage of Moore’s Bush-bashing speech and of conservative radio host Sean Hannity’s pre-emptive visit - though a scene of Hannity bringing a liberal student onstage to embarrass the kid does neatly illustrate Hannity’s typical bullying tactics.
But Greenstreet compensates for those rookie faults by capturing a part of the story that was overlooked by most media (including, I’m ashamed to say, my own paper): the spirited discussions among students who suddenly realized they had a stake in their nation’s politics. As one campus official says, “It almost felt like a college campus.” movies@sltrib.com >
Hey, I just wanted to see what everybody thought of it and if they’d seen it yet .
I personally do not care for Michael Moore, but by the same token, I do not care for folks like Hannity either.
…or did you mean the lunatic part???
It’s not playing around here, yet. I’ll keep an eye out.
Honestly, I don’t remember the Michael Moore/Utah controversy. I don’t know if that means
it didn’t reach this far East (which would be surprising, because the media seems to like to
make fun of Utah whenever they can…), or if I was just so saturated on Moore that I ignored
it.
The whole situation was idiotic. Some studentbody officers in the most conservative county in one of the most conservative states in the U.S. got the great idea (and I think it was a great idea) to invite Michael Moore to speak. The uproar was amazing. Private donations to the school were pulled, the studentbody officers received death threats, and on and on. Statements like, “I don’t send my kids to that school to listen to that kind of stuff” were common, although the reason given out for the hostility was that public funds were being used to pay Moore’s fee. (Due to donations, however, most of the fee was NOT paid for with public funds.) BTW, Hannity agreed to come in response to Moore and said he’d waive his speaking fee - but (and this is true) his travel “expenses” came to, amazingly, $50,000.
I think it was super that the kids had him speak and fine with me if they were forced to bring in Hannity to round things out, but to make a movie about it? I can’t really see that. Utah wasn’t the only place an invitation to Moore has caused this type of reaction. Other places have had the same brouhaha, but I am glad to say Utah Valley was one of the schools who didn’t then un-invite him.
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