Roger & Me (BD) [Blu-ray]

I went to college at the University of Michigan's main Ann Arbor campus. We used to make jokes about the Flint campus as being just about automotive engineering. I knew General Motors was big there, but I didn't realize until I saw this movie today that they essentially owned the whole city.The Roger in the title is Roger Smith, at that time Chairman of GM. Michael Moore grew up in Flint. So when GM started closing plants and laying off thousands of auto workers, Michael decides he's going to interview Roger and ask him what he has to say to the laid-off workers of Flint. Amazingly, after three years of determined effort, he finally got to ask a few questions of Smith. Not that it did any good, of course.Moore makes it clear that the only solution offered to the laid off workers was to move out of town, and probably out of state. Some got jobs at Taco Bell, but couldn't keep them in light of the demands for hurry, hurry, hurry. Michael interviews the manager of one of the Taco Bell restaurants.He also talks to the sheriff's deputy in charge of housing evictions (just doing my job; somebody's got to do it), the laid off auto workers who were persuaded to take training to be a prison guard, as the crime rate in Flint skyrocketed. Talks to the country club set who insist that Flint is a lovely town, and generally documents the death of a city.Now, I've never had much reason to like Flint, but it does seem rather horrible that the decision of GM to move a good bit of their manufacturing to Mexico was rather callous. He asks Miss Michigan what she would like to say to the laid-off workers, and she asks them to cross their fingers for HER, so she can be Miss America. They must have, because she won. To me, she also won the prize for unashamed selfishness.This one is both important and entertaining--although I had to cover my eyes when the woman who sold rabbits killed and skinned one on screen. In "Sicko," it was a guy sewing up a wound in his own knee because he could not afford a doctor visit. Moore does seem to find it necessary to try to gross us out at least once per film.

When "Roger & Me" came out in the late eighties, two Chicago film critics, Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert of "At the Movies," gave two enthusiastic thumbs up to this documentary and Michael Moore. Twenty five years later, Michael Moore is still at it with his documentaries ranging on issues such as gun control, Iraq war, elections, American health care and more. Michael Moore was born and raised in Flint, Michigan.In the first documentary, you can see how Michael Moore's film style came about with a mixture of popular culture and realism. His documentary about Moore trying to meet and talk with Roger Smith, the head of General Motors, is more like a goose chase around Michigan, Chicago, and New York City. Roger Smith doesn't want to meet and talk with Michael Moore. Moore wants Smith to come to Flint.For most of the documentary, Michael Moore meets the people including an African American sheriff whose job was to evict people from their homes even on Christmas Eve while Roger Smith is celebrating in downtown Detroit. There are plenty of comparisons between the haves and the have-nots. Michael Moore has become a champion of the have-nots with his documentaries.Since "Roger & Me," Michael Moore keeps making films. Twenty five years later, he provides a commentary about his film. I usually don't listen to commentaries since they distract me from viewing them. I hated the scene where a woman skins and kills a rabbit. As a rabbit lover, I just can't watch. It's the once scene where I want to fast forward.

I think every American should watch this movie. I was moved by the scenes of women with children having their belongings put into the street - including a Christmas tree and presents at one eviction site. And all of this because Roger Smith decided he owed nothing to the workers who build GM into a mega-power...and wanted to maximize profits for a few at the expense of an entire city. It pained me to watch the rich friends of Roger playing golf and sipping drinks at the country club while real people who had real jobs watched their entire lives unravel. I will never forget something he said early on in the movie about how no other country on earth had ever had their working class experience such a great lifestyle. And since GM was making billions, was it really necessary to make it a billion more by collapsing the future of everyone as if they made no contribution whatsoever? And then, to add insult to injury, instead of using the available city, county, and state monies to create jobs in unarguably useful arenas such as shoring up infrastructure and replacing old lead pipes, they wasted it on an indoor theme park that cost millions and closed in six months. And now, there is no one to pay the taxes needed to support even basic services. I applaud you again, Mr. Moore. You were a hero when you made this movie and you remain so with me to this day.

A Michael Moore early documentary about the abrupt downfall of Flint, MI due to GM pulling their plants out and opening plants in Mexico. The whole town went bust, and it is very moving, sad/funny, and enlightening. He interviews the Old Money Women at the golf course, the local celebrities who made good and came back, and does a nice flashback to the 50s and 60s when times were good. He also follows the guy who evicts all kinds of people from their homes. Don't miss the interviews with the rabbit lady!! All while trying to catch up to Roger Smith, the CEO of GM, whose evasiveness makes him seem even more sinister.I don't usually care for Michael Moore movies (hated Canadian Bacon), but this was an early and earnest little film, and I think he did a good job. Forget Moore's way left leaning and Trump-hating for a while, and catch this little gem.

Having read most of the output from the Michael Moore production line, I came to viewing "Roger and Me" with a working knowledge of why and how Moore actually works. This film filled-in some of the gaps as it gave me a further insight as to why Michael Moore does what he does - and why he does it so well!This was the first of Moore's productions, a ground-breaking and triumphant entry into the independent, social commentary, documentary genre - a penetrating and humorous film that catalogues the difficulties of trying to reach "the man at the top". In this case that man was Roger Smith, at that time the Chairman of General Motors. His purpose in doing so was to try to engage Roger Smith in conversation and get Smith to visit Moore's home town of Flint, in the mid-west industrial state of Michigan - a town undergoing post-industrial trauma.For Michael Moore, Smith and General Motors represents some of the worst excesses of the economic system of Capitalism - profit over people, the powerlessness of industrial workers, lack of concern for future investment, re-location of industries that are of vital concern to the economic and social interests of working-class people.. In this enterprise Moore is intrepid, but his success remains an open question for the interpretation of the viewer.The film also shows how the mistreated people of Flint, Michigan, cope with the set-back of the closure of the GM plant in their town. In so doing it show how human beings can be resilient in the face of adversity. On the other side, it reveals the smugness, arrogance and lack of appreciation for the lives of ordinary people that big business, whose primary concern is financial, can and often shows.This is a film that should be watched at the beginning of a viewer's interest in and following of the work of Michael Moore. It sets the context for Moore's documentaries and starts at the place where any social commentary should start - the interface between the haves and the have-nots, the inequalities of a post-industrial society. Moore treats the subject with hilarity as he slyly lampoons corporate America, including the role played by the those at the top of corporate tree.Watch it and learn!

Yes , I am a liberal conservative and despite Moore benefiting , massively financially from attacking the capitalist or more relevant for today , corporatism , he raises good points . I think it is wrong for companies making profits to lay off workers to boost the value of company stocks at the benefit of the few at the expense of the many .I think its wrong for companies to ship jobs overseas to increase profits . It has Also resulted in an emboldened super wealthy , dangerous power like China to rise out of the ashes .This doc is well made and I agree with some of the dangers of capitalism when profits are made , but jobs cut .

The least best Michael Moore documentary. I am a fan of his work and have several in my collection. I found it very slow and I simply lost interest.

I have been trying to get this movie for some time and was horrified at the price of brand new...£45..wow. I managed to get this used and it was great value. Good movie too.

Great!