MovieChat Forums > September Dawn (2007) Discussion > Reviews

Reviews

posted 15 years ago by ungy357
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http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070823/REVIEWS/70823001/1023

Forget religion, history and politics. Anyone who claims this movie isn't utterly awful cannot have even the most minute understanding of cinema as an artform. Acting, writing, directing, etc, are utterly inept. And that's the overwhelming consuensus of critics like Ebert, who, guess guys, isn't Mormon, or even religious.

While some posters here argue that Mormons have driven down the rating of the film, given the univerally bad reviews this film recieved, it's astonishing (again, based ONLy on artistic quality) that it isn't in the IMDB's bottom 100, and simple logic suggests that, if anything, bias word the OTHER way for it's IMDB rating (since even "Gigli" and "Batman and Robin" got better reviews than this did). "Big Love" doesn't suck, so it gets some respect, because it can't be denied talented people do good work on it, regardless of youyr religious beliefs. "Sepetmber Dawn", on the other hand, is a well below the standards of a first semester student film. And this is, frankly, true of most of Christopher Cain's work (i.e. "The Next Karate Kid").

To paraphrase Jeery Seinfeld "It doesn't oofennd me as a Mormon, it offends me as a filmmaker."

[–] ungy357 15 years ago

http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/september_dawn/

This shows how universally, overwhelming ly negative the reviews from critics, not irate Mormons, were.

[–] ungy357 15 years ago

http://www.rottentomatoes.com/celebrity/christopher_cain/

And this clearly shows that's the standard response to a Christopher Cain film.

The point is, argue histroy all you want. Many good points can be made on both sides of the argument, and I'm one Mormom who'll clearly admit that an accurate account of the Mountain Meadows Massacre makes it a shameful, horrific stain on our history. But I'm also one filmmaker and film scholar, who, backed up by simple logic, can refute the absurd notion that this is an otherwise respecatble film that has been smeared by Mormons. Mormons didn't have to smear it. Anyone who knew ANYTHING but the art form of film did it for them.

[–] geode 15 years ago

I didn't think much of this film as my long ago deleted review on this board indicated. On the other hand I think the technical skill shown is well beyond that of a first semester student film. It isn't that badly shot, the main problem is the intellectual dishonesty shown in the poor script. The makers of the film went out of their way to claim accuracy, while splicing together pieces of things Brigham Young had said to make him say things he never did and come up with conclusions not supported by historical evidence. This film is basically a hate piece in which all Mormons are shown negatively in contrast to the saintly Christians in the wagon train. Just look at the juxtposed prayers.

For the lazy:

http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070823/REV IEWS/70823001/1023

I have no good reason and suspect that monkeys possess some sort of soul. Geode

[–] JackDaniels-theJackMormon 15 years ago

Forget religion, history and politics. Anyone who claims this movie isn't utterly awful cannot have even the most minute understanding of cinema as an artform. Acting, writing, directing, etc, are utterly inept. And that's the overwhelming consuensus of critics like Ebert, who, guess guys, isn't Mormon, or even religious.

But Ebert's review really only addresses the political or bigotted aspect of the script. The film is pretty bad in that regard, but it was fairly well photographed in my opinion and none of the performances is particularly inept. Jon Voight is really over the top, but the rest of the cast is OK. I wouldn't call this a prime example of film as art, but I think that your bias as a Mormon appears to be the main reason that you are practically foaming at the mouth in hatred of it. But then again perhaps I don't have even a minute understanding of film as art from what you claim.

"I'll take the fifth"