Before our feature presentation, ACME would like to start the evening with another Merrie Melodies short, the 1939 Old Glorystarring Porky Pig directed by Chuch Jones.
The flag of the United States has only 48 stars, as this short was made before Hawaii and Alaska were admitted to the Union (both in 1959). Also, this Pledge of Allegiance as recited by Porky does not yet include the phrase "under God" as that phrase was not added until 1954.
The staff of The ACME Eagle Hand Soap Radio Hour staff thought we'd give a leg up to this old time troubadour. We found a clip of him playing recently and we thought we'd like to watch it with you -
We hope he makes it soon
We’ve selected another entry from the excellent reference book 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die, edited by Steven Jay Schneider. Today’s film is the 1989 documentary Roger & Me, directed by and starring Michael Moore (in his directorial debut).
Shot in 16mm with a minuscule crew, the film was partially funded by proceeds from church bingo games and by Moore selling his own home. Edward Asner was sent a letter requesting support and responded by sending a check; his name appears in the credits. The unnamed left-wing magazine in San Francisco that Moore goes to work for at the beginning of the film is Mother Jones. Moore worked for the magazine for three months in 1985 before being fired for putting his friend on the cover. He later sued the magazine for breach of contract and used part of the settlement money to help fund the film.
Roger & Me is classic degree-zero filmmaking. As Moore has stated elsewhere, “I didn’t want to make another ‘dying steeltown’ documentary with all the clichés about how horrible it is to be unemployed. I wanted images you don’t see on the six o’clock news.” When Moore decided to start a documentary about Flint, Michigan, and General Motors in the mid-1980s, he knew very little about the technical side of filmmaking (camera work, lighting, etc.). He met a fellow low-budget documentary filmmaker, Kevin Rafferty, who helped him learn this side of the director’s job on the project and served as one of the cinematographers.
This documentary exposes the reality of corporate downsizing and outsourcing. General Motors’ opening of facilities in Mexico and shuttering of its plants in Flint, Michigan, became emblematic of a trend during the mid-1980s, as employment across the Rust Belt declined. The increased use of automation - particularly Detroit’s Big Three implementing industrial robots - also contributed to the decline of the blue-collar factory worker. When GM initiated these changes, it was also consolidating its vehicle lines by sharing bodyshells, a practice that became known in the automobile industry as platform sharing.
Please find a comfortable chair, dim the lights, and join us here at The ACME Eagle Hand Soap Radio Hour as we watch this still-pertinent documentary: Roger & Me.
According to the documentary Manufacturing Dissent, Michael Moore falsely implied that he could not get General Motors CEO Roger B. Smith to respond in front of a camera. The filmmakers claim that Moore actually had two interviews with Smith but chose to leave them out of the documentary to create the illusion that Smith refused to answer for his actions. Moore has denied these claims, saying that if he had consciously withheld such footage, General Motors would undoubtedly have used that fact to discredit him.
Demand Euphoria!
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