Rottentomatoes.com And September Dawn Reviews.

[Stormin' Mormon]

Rotten tomatoes has posted its first "fresh" review for September Dawn. And even the positive review is kind of luke warm.

When the movie isn't doling out ham-fisted history...it gives us magnificent vistas of a pristine prairie...and there's a deep sweetness to the subplot of Jonathan and Emily falling in love.

Frank Lovece

Film Journal International

[Dale]

John Voight was also in a movie called Rosewood. It was about a black town destroyed based on a white woman's lie. I think that is a horrible film, but I figure September Dawn will be on cable and satellite for years. Without seeing this new film I can't know if i would like it or not. I don't plan to purchase it on DVD. Maybe I might rent it from Netflix.

[MAsh]

Incidentally, today at BYU Education Week, I give three lectures. One of them is entitled "The Best of the FARMS Review: 'No More Uncontested Slam Dunks.'"

Will this be available somewhere in audio/video or print form?

Mike Ash

[smac97]

More reviews coming in.

Here:

Unfortunately, Cain ("Young Guns") paints a rather black-and-white picture for us. Most of the elders (including Terence Stamp as the church's president, Brigham Young, and Jon Voight as a fictional bishop) are grotesque monsters, while the travelers are uniformly kindly.

...

Veteran actors Stamp and Voight certainly give their all to the unforgiving characters they portray. Cain photographs Stamp in tight, unflattering close-up, in 1857 rallying his people to seek "blood antonement," and then in 1877, during an investigation, denying any involvement in the murders. As the bishop who has been rescued from the clutches of poverty by the Mormons, Voight is particularly unsettling: narrow-minded and imperious.

...

Cain also includes a rarity for motion picture production notes: a bibliography of printed and Web site sources of information about the Mountain Meadows Massacre. Among the sources cited is "Roughing It," by Mark Twain.

Here:

Suffice to say, Stamp's casting feels like a low blow. It's an obvious gimmick in a pedantic, cable-TV-caliber melodrama that bullies the audience into accepting its rather slanted, selective agenda.

It all goes back to the shabby treatment Mormons received in Arkansas and Illinois before their westward exodus (the director's son, Dean Cain, has a bit role as Mormonism founder Joseph Smith). Are the Mormons legitimately aggrieved? Not really. The filmmakers intimate that the murder of Smith was more or less justified, and frame the Mountain Meadows bloodshed as the final culmination of the sect's extremist arrogance.

It makes for a sordid display, all right â?? not just the murders, but the way director Cain ("The Next Karate Kid") exploits them to build a case of religious "terrorism."

Here:

Director Christopher Cain ("Young Guns") has said that transcripts and testimony were used to buttress this presentation. If so, a documentary of some kind would have been far more useful than this bombastic, slow-drying dramatization with lead-weight dialogue and a turgid romantic subplot.

...

Though some have accused the movie of carrying an anti-Mormon agenda, it seems mostly preoccupied with connecting the dots between past and present-day fundamentalist violence - as if the coincidence of the massacre's date with another mass killing 144 years after weren't enough emphasis. The point is hammered so loudly and insistently that your head feels like the inside of a drum long before the bloody climax, whose impact is likewise blunted by its heavy-handed excessiveness.

Here:

Despite some stodgy writing, the film is cohesive and entertaining enough. But it can't shake the implication that it's some sort of attack piece on the Mormon religion and, in turn, conspiracy theorists may believe, Mitt Romney's presidential campaign. Some dialogue negatively likens Mormonism to Islam and paganism.

...

Cartoonish scenes detract from the film's plausibility, including Mormon characters' referral to Brigham Young as "the Mormon god on earth," and a group of Mormons chanting "blood atonement! blood atonement!" over and over as though it were a softball rally cry. It's also bizarre how the Mormon hierarchy speaks in vaguely British accents. "September Dawn" is a stirring love story that dabbles uncomfortably close to hate.

Here:

The Mountain Meadow Massacre was one of the Old West's most disturbing incidents and should be rich material for a gripping film.

September Dawn, a stridently anti-Mormon and cliche-heavy melodrama, isn't that movie.

...

Though largely based on historic fact, September Dawn is so ham-handed as to feel like blatant propaganda. The film is painfully unsubtle and in the end borderline laughable.

...

Don't expect to see September Dawn at your local Mormon Visitor's Center. Or, for that matter, on anybody's list of recommended movies.

Here:

Grisly story of 1857 massacre is unbelievably ugly and an insult to Mormons

Thursday, August 23, 2007

- Roger Ebert

What a strange, confused, unpleasant movie this is. Two theories have clustered around it: (1) It is anti-Mormon propaganda in order to muddy the waters around the presidential campaign of Mitt Romney, a Mormon, or (2) it is not about Mormons at all, but an allegory about the 9/11/01 terrorists. Take your choice. The problem with allegories is that you can plug them in anywhere. No doubt the film would have great impact in Darfur.

My opinion is that there isnâ??t anything to be gained in telling this story in this way. It generates bad feelings on all sides, and at a time when Mormons are at pains to explain that they are Christians, it underlines the way that these Mormons consider all Christians to be â??gentiles.â? The Mormons are presented in no better light than Nazis and Japanese were in Hollywoodâ??s World War II films. Wasnâ??t there a more thoughtful and insightful way to consider this historical event?

...

If there is a concealed blessing, it is that the film is so bad. Jon Voight, that gifted and versatile actor, is here given the most ludicrous and unplayable role of his career, and a goofy beard to go along with it. Terence Stamp, as Brigham Young, comes across as the kind of man you would find at the back of a cave in a Cormac McCarthy novel. The Christians are so scrubbed and sunny they could have been teleported in time from the Lawrence Welk program.

...

I am trying as hard as I can to imagine the audience for this movie. Every time I make any progress, it scares me.

Here:

This hammy melodrama is a Swift Boating of Mormonism that advocates the religious intolerance itâ??s supposedly condemning.

Here:

Christopher Cain's movie about that September Dawn has no such doubt. It has the chilling certitude of the self-righteous. This misguided 9/11 allegory and fictionalization of that history utterly demonizes the perpetrators of that massacre and those who may have given the orders.

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Every religion, when scrutinized by a skeptic, is open to mockery. Tune in to South Park if you want satire that ridicules, sect by sect, all comers in the world of religious zealots especially Mormons.

But September Dawn isn't mockery. It's practically a call to jihad.

We can probably count the days until this shows up for sale on fringe Christian TV channels, its virtues trumpeted by some minister or other marketing his or her version of "The Truth."

There are facts here. It's thought-provoking in the ways it makes you consider how this event resembles that later 9/11.

But there's the unmistakable air of evil about this enterprise, and not just an atrocity the Mormon church caused to happen 150 years ago.

Here:

Part historical reenactment, part high school drama, and part melodramatic twaddle, "September Dawn" won't be remembered for much other than the film that went after the Mormons with a bloodthirsty vengeance.

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This is a brutal historical subject, but director Christopher Cain makes it impossible to take anything seriously. He's created a clumsy picture, unable to finesse its low budget into something compact and direct. Cain is married to his "Romeo + Juliet" plot and the more he tries to sell the unsophisticated overtones of love and hate, the more the film looks amateurish and silly. A veteran of the industry, Cain should know better than to reach beyond his grasp. His sloppy efforts to insert epic wrath into the fabric of the picture makes it all resemble a lukewarm "MAD TV" skit.

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The point of the picture appears to be the blunt mockery of the Mormon culture, but surely "Dawn" would be far more controversial if it didn't try so hard to be raw and unpleasant. Cain has turned the Mormons into baby-eatin' Nazis to suit his argument, parading around these black-clad, chin-bearded, testicle-slicing gunslingers without any thoughtful consideration. To Cain, the Mormons were hulking, borderline insane fundamental gorillas who flung excrement at anyone daring to besmirch the name of Joseph Smith (played by...oh man...Dean Cain), and led around on a dog collar by a Zod-like deity in Brigham Young.

...

Cain's points are crudely made (the majority of the massacre occurred on September 11th! ooooooooh, ahhhhhhhhhh) and the film isn't interested in a rounded examination of religious extremism. "September Dawn" is more content poking sticks into the unknown to rile up sensitive viewers. It's a trashy, tasteless, and ridiculous film about a serious event in prairie history, eliciting laughter instead of education.

Wow! This is one crappy movie!

-Smac

[LifeOnaPlate]

Another blogger has joined in the rally cry, pro-September Dung:

http://janverhoeffonline.wordpress.com/200...dianne-e-butts/

A tie to 9/11, of course, is made.

Just today she spoke on her blog about a movie called â??September Dawn.â? Sheâ??s stirring up a fever of controversy and I believe thatâ??s a good thing.

The 'fever of controversy' stirred by the other blog was about 3 or 4 comments from me.

Itâ??s been said that Kathi Macias, one of many writers on the Movie September Dawn has mentioned that the Seventh Day Adventist Church has slowed up the Release of â??September Dawnâ? because of the topic, a raid on a wagon train in the late 1800â??s by the renegade Mormons.

So the 7th Day Adventists have been slowing the release because they don't like wagon train movies? ?

Is it a valuable movie? Yes, itâ??s part of our nationâ??s history.

I would say if its value rests on historical accuracy this movie is even more worthless than I had at first imagined.

Is it a story that needs to be told? Yes, it is part of our nationâ??s history.

Why not tell it as history then?

Is it embarrassing to a group of people? Probably. That too, is okay, because life happens and sometimes embarrassment is the thunder we hear when we made a mistake, did something that hurt others, or wounded our own selfish pride.

The embarrassment dealing with the movie is caused by the inaccuracy. If anyone should be embarrassed it is the film makers, producers, actors, and supporters of the film.

[smac97]

Here's an interesting video clip about September Dawn that appeared on the TV show Showbiz Tonight.

Thoughts?

-Smac

[Hawkmoon]

Here's an interesting video clip about September Dawn that appeared on the TV show Showbiz Tonight.

Thoughts?

-Smac

Well, over all it was a rather run-of-the-mill piece; however, I did find the part where she states that the Church "has already put September Dawn on its' do not watch list." Um, exactly where do we find this "list"? I went to lds.org and could not find it-- obviously this is an error on my part since Showbiz Tonight knows about the existence of this list. Anyone else know where we can find it?

[LifeOnaPlate]

Perhaps she was referring to this?

[Hawkmoon]

Perhaps she was referring to this?

While I'm sure that it does fall within many of the parameters indicated-- it is still not a "list." I WANT TO SEE THE LIST!!!

EDIT: Where is the head SCMC Agent when you need 'em? I'm sure he would have a breakdown on all the banned items that are on "the list"... McKrispey?

[smac97]

More reviews.

Here:

GRADE: C+

Director Christopher Cain weakens his story by imposing a Romeo and Juliet romance upon the stark material. Jonathan (Trent Ford), the bishops' oldest son, and Emily (Tamara Hope), the minister's daughter, do little but make eyes at each other, yet their love is apparently deeper than both family ties and religious convictions. The message is that we should learn to live together, but such naivete becomes increasingly preposterous as the body count increases.

Here:

To the movie's director, Christopher Cain, "September Dawn" is not an attack on The Church of Jesus Christ Latter-day Saints but an examination of religious fundamentalism that connects to another Sept. 11 six years ago.

"This story, to me, was about religious fanaticism," Cain said in a recent interview from his Colorado home. "For me, it's not about Mormons, it's not about Muslims. It's about religious fanaticism, and how it can lead otherwise good people to do deeds that are otherwise unthinkable."

Some who have seen "September Dawn" say the movie does bash members of the LDS Church.

Richard Dutcher, whose 2000 drama "God's Army" launched the Mormon Cinema genre, called the movie "a throwback" to the notorious 1922 propaganda film "Trapped by the Mormons," where "all the Mormons are bad guys and all the non-Mormons are good guys. And the Mormons are really bad, and the good guys are really good."

"The film really is very, very kind of anti-Mormon, almost unnecessarily so, depicting them as out-of-control religious fanatics," said University of Utah film professor Brian Patrick, who made the 2004 documentary "Burying the Past" about Mountain Meadows and its aftermath.

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Cain read several books on the massacre and did much research on the Internet.

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The movie depicts 19th-century Mormons as religious zealots whipped into a murderous rage by their leaders' paranoid preaching. And by arguing that Young was complicit in the massacre, the movie takes sides in a long-simmering historical debate.

Cain's reading of Young's speeches and writings at the time, he said, makes the filmmaker believe that "if [Young] didn't order it directly, he certainly created the climate that allowed other people to interpret what he was saying as orders."

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Cain said reactions to the movie cover "everything from it's absolutely a distortion and a hateful Mormon-bashing movie to 'this is a really untold story that should have been told a long time ago and why was it hidden.' "

Here:

When watching the screen depiction of a historic event in which 120 people were murdered, giggling is not the appropriate response.

But "September Dawn," director Christopher Cain's drama set during the Mountain Meadows Massacre, is deserving of derision. Each stilted performance, each clich

[karl61]

here is a yahoo link about some peoples thoughts:

http://messages.movies.yahoo.com/Movies/Fi....kDZSmYFluvHQ--

[solomarineris]

Just two more days and it will be released. Has everybody had a chance to write their bad reviews yet? How many thumbs down have you all given it?

they sound like fair weather Cougar Fans.

And those are the wrong kinds of bettors you'd hang around.

[Mike Mill]

18 reviews are in on Rotten Tomatoes and 16 of them are "rotten". This movie truly is getting horrible critical reviews. LOVE IT.

[LifeOnaPlate]

A blogger who encourages all to see "September Dawn" ironically condemns the movie indirectly 6 days earlier in a blog post titled "Entertainment - The Big Question"

I will never forget when Zena Dell Schroeder, representing "Act One: Writing for Hollywood," approached the podium at the Colorado Christian Writer's Conference and posed two questions to the audience. "How many of you," she asked, "have seen something questionable come out of Hollywood recently?"

It has been several years since Ms. Schroeder keynoted at that conference, but even today when I think of her and that first question, a bunch of examples leap to my mind. Last season I remember several episodes (three, I think) of NBC's Law & Order had Christian characters. The normally professional cop-characters and lawyer-characters not only spoke to the Christians with uncharacteristic scorn, in every episode you could bet the bad-guy murderer was either the Pastor or the Pastor's gay son. And why is it whenever a Hollywood script quotes Scripture it still uses the King James Version with all the thee's and thou's? Have they never heard of the New International Version?

She says:

Then she asked the second question: "How many of you have prayed for Hollywood recently?"

Uh-oh. Suddenly the room was very quiet. I didn't see one hand go up. No one moved. Me included.

We find this author in her very next post saying:

So...what are you doing Friday? Have you heard of the new movie September Dawn? This is a film that deserves our support.

Wow, what about that whole "Christian-portayed-as-bad-guy" evil Hollywood shtick?

Christian author, Kathi Macias (http://www.kathimacias.com/), had the awesome opportunity to be involved with the writing of this movie. The film is controversial, and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (LDS) has been trying to stop its release. According to Kathi, the movie is the true story of "the massacre of almost an entire wagon train of settlers (mostly Christians) by Mormons on September 11 (9-11!) 1857."

Hrmmm...

Invite your friends to join you! Take a crowd. Or let your friends and church know about it. Send them an e-mail and, if you wish, point them to this blog for more information.

I wonder if she enjoyed the movie "Saved."

[captain-jack]

Don't forget the movie Dogma.

[auteur55]

So far to me the most sensible and intelligent review has come from Roger Ebert. www.rogerebert.com. He gives the movie zero stars and points out that the way in which the film was made will do nothing but cause ill will and resentment for both parties.

He also says that he believes Mormons are a peaceful people and the films cariactures are absurd.

[auteur55]

This review is quite odd, almost as though the reviewer is buying every word in the movie.

It is incredibly positive.

http://www.boxofficemojo.com/reviews/?id=2375&p=.htm

[selek]

This review is quite odd, almost as though the reviewer is buying every word in the movie.

It is incredibly positive.

http://www.boxofficemojo.com/reviews/?id=2375&p=.htm

Interesting. He seems like an otherwise reasonable individual. I would rather suspect that he's ignorant of the factual inaccuracies and basic dishonesty of the movie. There is apparent precedent for this: look at his review for the movie Kinsey.

http://www.capmag.com/author.asp?name=44

[auteur55]

Another one of my favorite quotes from a negative review:

I wish I could admire a filmmaker like Christopher Cain for taking on a challenging subject like the Mountain Meadows massacre of September 11, 1857. The incident was a tragic, but important event that a lot of history books have ignored. 'September Dawn' could have used this incident to raise some worthwhile points the dangers of misguided religious zeal in our own age. Instead, Cain has co-written and directed a film that only the most bigoted of Mormom detractors could enjoy. Most viewers, if any are willing to part with their money or time, will simply laugh derisively.

[smac97]

Another one of my favorite quotes from a negative review:

From this review.

-Smac

[smac97]

More reviews.

Here:

But controversy aside -- and that's a big aside, considering how September Dawn accuses a founding father of a major American religion with mass murder -- Christopher Cain's film is more substandard than it is scandalous. The dialog feels like it was taken from a school historical pageant -- heavy on factual exposition and bound up in stiff, flat language.

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Director Cain also co-wrote the film alongside Carole Whang Schutter, but the script feels like it's just there to follow one path -- bad guys bad, good guys good -- on rails until the concluding massacre.

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September Dawn is stiffly written, twisted by flashback upon flashback (and often by flashbacks-within-flashbacks) and shoddily made -- and that's putting aside the issue of whether the film's an insightful expose of a forgotten part of American history or a blatant libel against a forefather of one of America's more singularly American religions.

Here:

Although the romantic storyline is fictional, the film claims to be historically accurate in tracing the massacre to Brigham Young and portraying 19th-century Mormons as obedient, bloodthirsty fundamentalists. In one scene, for instance, an angry mob ignores a report that the wagon train's ``gentiles'' are friendly and chants for ``blood atonement!'' in the form of death.

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As debate swirls, observers are theorizing why Mountain Meadows is gaining traction in popular culture. Hollywood tells a distorted version in order to increase ticket sales, Otterson says, and in the process actually validates Young's stature as a prophet.

Here:

Historians have long debated Young's actual involvement in the murders, but that hasn't stopped screenwriter Carole Whang Schutter and co-writer/director Christopher Cain (Dean's father) from implicating Young in the massacre. In fact, the film is clearly anti-Mormon; a tart denunciation of the movie from the Mormon leadership has been issued, but the low-key status of the film has likely prevented the Mormon prejudice from becoming a bigger issue.

Here:

Yet "September Dawn" leaves us nearly indifferent as it dramatizes the terrible Mountain Meadows Massacre of 1857, when a group of crazed Mormons slaughtered 140 defenseless people. It slowly slogs to the drawn-out, slow-mo climactic sequence, where men, women and children are clubbed, shot and stabbed with vengeful fury.

So, where's the outrage? It's left in the blase, formulaic and laughably simplistic story -- which demonizes polygamist-fundamentalist-conservative Mormons as self-righteous harbingers of divine doom, uses a lifeless Montague-Capulet love story to make grim historical events seem trite and features a characteristically ham-and-cheesed Jon Voight performance.

Here:

But, writer and director Christopher Cain -- the father of actor Dean Cain, who appears briefly in the film as Mormon Church founder Joseph Smith -- has created a flawed movie, one that could have had much more of an impact if it didn't work so hard to demonize the Mormon Church.

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The problem is that the details of the actual events aren't quite as neat as Cain presents them, particularly with regard to the level of involvement -- and, by extension, the level of culpability -- of church elders and Paiute tribe members. But that doesn't stop Cain from casting nearly every Mormon character in the film -- Brigham Young foremost among them -- as a fanatical evil-doer.

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That criticism shouldn't be construed as a defense of the slayings. Rather, it's a lamentation that the film, which begins building a case against intolerance, crumbles into an intolerant, us-versus-them polemic.

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It wouldn't be quite as troubling if this was some piece of fringe dreck. But in nearly every other aspect -- save for the dangerous damnation of the Mormon church -- Cain's film shines.

Here:

Here I was, sure September Dawn would be the worst reviewed movie of the summer.

Worse than Daddy Day Camp, even.

Surely, I thought, everybody will sense the evil intent of the filmmakers and financiers, the ineptitude of the script and direction and acting.

Not everybody. Almost, though. Dave Tianen of the Milwaukee paper, come on down! Dude fom Maxim, likewise!

Here:

The people who made the historical drama September Dawn have sworn that their intention was to dramatize the tragic dangers of religious fanaticism, not to directly attack the Mormon religion

Most moviegoers who see it will leave thinking the filmmakers succeeded at doing both.

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Against a host of factual details, September Dawn tosses in a fictional romance between one of Samuelson's sons and a daughter of the wagon train. It is an uninspired and unlikely appendage that the movie didn't need.

But how could any film have taken this grim material and not left the impression of an anti-Mormon broadside?

Other than a quietly academic documentary, with few commercial possibilities, any dramatic retelling of such an inflammatory story is certain to fan the flames of hatred toward America's largest homegrown religion and continue the persecution that terrified the original Mormons.

Here:

Lovers often face a potential in-law problems, but this one, in the historical setting of the infamous 1857 Mountain Meadows Massacre, is insurmountable.

"September Dawn," written by an evangelical Christian, may be the worst historical drama ever made. Not because it is about to offend one of the country's fastest growing religions - Mitt Romney, beware - but because in placing a glib romantic fable at its center, it trivializes one of America's ugliest and least understood events.

Here:

Two notable exceptions are the work of the castâ??s best-known members, Jon Voight and Terence Stamp, who play a fictitious Mormon bishop and Mormon leader Brigham Young, respectively. They invest their performances with harsh and steely passion.

Budgetary limitations (the Internet Movie Database lists its budget at $11 million) and Cainâ??s unimaginative storytelling style combine to make what is an extraordinary tale seem surprisingly small-bore and mundane.

Here:

Cain has said he intended â??September Dawnâ? to be a study of religious fanaticism with lessons for todayâ??s world (coincidentally, the massacre took place on Sept. 11). It certainly can be read that way.

It also can be read as an indictment of the LDS church. The film shows a flashback of LDS prophet Joseph Smith leading a mob in destroying a newspaper office. Even more incendiary, it shows Brigham Young giving his approval for the Mountain Meadow slaughter.

Hereâ??s where I find myself squirming. Iâ??m big on religious tolerance. Believe what you must, but leave me alone to believe what I must. Knock not, lest your own faith be knocked.

Well, Cainâ??s film knocks. He depicts the Mormons of 1857 as so paranoid about persecution (they had undergone lots before migrating to Utah), so obsessed with doctrinal purity and so disdainful of other beliefs that they easily slipped into a murderous mode.

...

So hereâ??s my question: Is it ever appropriate for movies to pick on the faith of others?

Is it OK for movies to satirize Scientologists for using an electronic gizmo to measure the spiritual well-being of its members? Should a movie criticize Jews who believe it is Israelâ??s right to seize territory owned by Arabs?

Is it intolerance if a movie takes to task certain African Muslims for practicing involuntary female genital circumcision? Or the Catholic Church for trying to cover up the activities of pedophile priests?

Part of me says nothing should be off-limits for discussion in a free society.

And part of me shudders when I recall how the Third Reich made hugely popular films like â??Jew Sussâ? to stoke the fires of anti-Semitism.

As is so often the case in democracy, weâ??re left with hard choices. You just have to hope that in the arena of public discourse, truth will eventually find its way to the front.

-Smac

[Jan]

Jason's Mormon Wasp blog has the reviews grouped by picks and pans:

http://mormonwasp.wordpress.com/2007/08/20...-dawn/#more-543

[erastus]

A scathing, hilarious review from the New York Post here

[smac97]

Another review:

In â??September Dawn,â? the director gives a rather one-sided perspective on a highly debated issue. Itâ??s hard not to notice director Christopher Cainâ??s bias towards the Mormon treatment of â??gentilesâ? during the 1857 Mountain Meadows massacre.

This is my biggest problem with the film.

...

Instead of keeping the film close to history, Cain bases his tale on a questionable 27-page confession, and subsequently portrays the Mormons as animals and zealots.

...

This movie is obviously trying to spread a message. The link between this massacre on September 11, 1857 and the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001 is as obvious as a beating drum. It is also pounded into the audiences head just as hard.

Overall, â??September Dawnâ? is dull, unnecessarily brutal, and despite being considered a historical film, is saved from complete disaster by a fictional romance.

[auteur55]

Well as predicted it looks as though the film will end up an embarrasment to all involved. Especially Voight, this film will be a terrible blight on his filmography.

Cain had to have been deceiving himself to believe people weren't going to call this film out.

Unfortunately, even if the film was onesided it appears to have already been sunk by it's amateur direction, sappy, hammy screenplay and it's cringeworthy performances.

Lets hope the audiences that get stuck sitting through this are as smart. It sounds like most will end up asleep.