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Rottentomatoes.com And September Dawn Reviews.


Bsix

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On our way in to see Harry Potter at the local megaplex, I ducked

in to see how many folks had shown up for the opening of September

Dawn. There were 4 people there. The dialogue at the time was

between the lovelorn son and the evil dad. Something like, "How can

you believe in a man who only went to school for 2 weeks?"

That brought a huge guffaw from one of the 4 audience members.

Bernard

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Get ready for the box office numbers toward the end of the weekend.

The widest opening of the weekend will be "War" from Lionsgate being shown in 2,277 theaters nation wide.

"September Dawn" on the other hand will only show in 847 theaters. They did not even make their 1,000 locations they had been promising.

The smaller number of theaters will most likely supress the weekend gross numbers. We'll see what sort of per-theater dollars it pulls.

Regards,

Six

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My favorite part of the NY Times review :P

These characters are made up, but lurking in the shadows is Brigham Young, upon whom the movie pins the massacre. Young has been called many things but is not usually accused of being British. As Terence Stamp plays him with no effort to hide his General Zod accent
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My favorite part of the NY Times review <_<

Mine is this gem:

Part historical reenactment, part high school drama, and part melodramatic twaddle, â??September Dawnâ? wonâ??t be remembered for much other than the film that went after the Mormons with a bloodthirsty vengeance...

...The point of the picture appears to be the blunt mockery of the Mormon culture, but surely â??Dawnâ? would be far more controversial if it didnâ??t try so hard to be raw and unpleasant. [Director Christopher] 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.... Itâ??s a trashy, tasteless, and ridiculous film about a serious event in prairie history, eliciting laughter instead of education....

...Itâ??s a trashy, tasteless, and ridiculous film about a serious event in prairie history, eliciting laughter instead of education.

[emphasis added]http://www.efilmcritic.com/review.php?movi...mp;reviewer=404

:P
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Yikes! From the NY Post:

'SEPTEMBER Dawn" succeeds completely at failure; the unified incompetence of its writing, directing and acting suggest a man who manages to be on fire and drowning at the same time, just as the bus runs him over. I was baffled: Why does this film even exist?
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"September Dawn" on the other hand will only show in 847 theaters. They did not even make their 1,000 locations they had been promising.

:P

I wonder why?

Perhaps a few LDS may have complained to their local theaters hmmmm? <_<

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Another review.

Here:

"September Dawn" is the movie, and it is so clunky and strident that it sabotages its very intent.

...

Director Christopher Cain misuses this shameful moment in frontier history to promote a hokey love story along with a message about the dangers of religious extremism. There are no mitigating circumstances for such savagery, of course, but Cain isn't interested in exploring what went wrong. Instead, he equates the institution of the Mormon church with Islamic extremism at every opportunity. It's an evil empire, and he even cooks up some fictional atrocities to bolster his position as if the massacre itself wasn't terrible enough. The fact that it occurred on Sept. 11 is noted prominently.

...The Mountain Meadows massacre deserves more than this: a serious consideration instead of a distasteful and amateurish melodrama.

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Perhaps a few LDS may have complained to their local theaters hmmmm?

The vast majority of theaters are now owned by corporate chains. As such, the choice of what movies to play are in the hands of a relatively small group.

The movie industry uses surveys and buzz metrics to determine the public interest in a film and then plan the location and density of the release.

I think that any public campaign would have increased public awareness and buzz and would have resulted in more...not fewer openings.

Regards,

Six

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Eric Snider (of Snide Remarks fame) has posted his review.

http://www.ericdsnider.com/movies/september-dawn/

In closing, I offer my impression of the way this movie establishes its characters and their beliefs:

MORMON: Hey, fellow Mormon, how many wives do you have? I think you should have even more!

JONATHAN: My father has 18 wives! The prophet Brigham Young has 27! We sure do like having many wives, we Mormons do! This is because we are strange and cultish.

BISHOP: All the people who are not Mormons like us deserve to die, because that is God's will. God is crazy like that.

JONATHAN: What happened to my mother when I was very young? I want to know the truth! Even though it has nothing to do with what we were just talking about, I demand that you discuss this with me now!

MICAH: I marry many wives just because I like having sex with them! I am not in love with any of them. Mormon men do not believe in love. It is one of the many things that makes us so weird.

MORMON: Let's go to the temple and perform bizarre, outlandish rituals that bear only a passing resemblance to the actual ceremonies of actual Mormons!

EMILY: I am an innocent Christian person who is passing through Utah. I sing Christian hymns at night while the Mormons are cursing me and wishing damnation upon me.

DUMB PERSON WATCHING THE MOVIE: The date of the massacre is September 11, 1857. Oooh... spooky... September 11... OOOOOOOOOOOOOHHHH ... This is ironic, but only because I don't know what "ironic" means. The word I'm really looking for is "coincidental." But I can't help it! I'm dumb! Those Mormons sure are creepy!

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The vast majority of theaters are now owned by corporate chains. As such, the choice of what movies to play are in the hands of a relatively small group.

=Then perhaps LDS complained to the corporation itself, me included.

Either or, Christopher Cain just made himself a money pit here.

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Here's a three-part review by a Protestant blogger (Part 1, Part 2, Part 3).

For starters, take a look at this comment from Part 3:

These are my thoughts about the movie September Dawn and its portrayal of the MMM.

I do not believe the intent of the movie was to promote â??Mormon bashing.â?

And yet check out her out-of-the-chute reaction to the film in Part 1:

After processing my emotional reaction, I have this to say: I now see the church in an entirely different light, and it is not bright and shiny.

Such an atrocity should have never, ever happened. How anyone could have killed innocent men, women and children 'in the name of God,' is repulsive and an abomination to the God I believe in.

So much for the film not promoting "Mormon bashing."

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Here's a three-part review by a Protestant blogger (Part 1, Part 2, Part 3).

For starters, take a look at this comment from Part 3:

And yet check out her out-of-the-chute reaction to the film in Part 1:

So much for the film not promoting "Mormon bashing."

Looks like she swallowed the bait hook, line, and sinker. She's not even cognizant of it either. Wow.

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Looks like she swallowed the bait hook, line, and sinker. She's not even cognizant of it either. Wow.

So, why are we hearing it was done "In the name of God?"

Is there some historical evidence that participants said that?

Bernard

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Another review.

Here:

Angry and broadly metaphorical, the independently made, revisionist Western sets up a clear line between the innocent travelers, led by the ultra-decent Captain Fancher (Shaun Johnston), and the Mormons, cast here as bloodthirsty religious extremists. Their history is revealed in brief flashbacks to 1944, when their founder, the prophet Joseph Smith (played by the directorâ??s son, Dean Cain), is killed in Arkansas by angry locals wearing Indian war paint and protesting the LDS, in particular, Smithâ??s practice of plural marriage and campaign for U.S. President.

...

The filmâ??s overwrought version of events has Samuelson referring more than once to the fact that the wagon train includes members from Arkansas (at the time, the federal government was reportedly sending troops to oust Young from his position as governor of the Utah Territory, again having to do with concerns about polygamy and separation of church and state.

...

The movie does include some historical figures, most damningly Young, who gives Samuelson the order to attack (the case has never been made against Young per se, and some historians claim he sent a letter commanding the militia to stand down, though the letter arrived, as they say, â??too late").

...

Johnâ??s protests that the travelersâ??whom he is told to â??keep an eye onâ? while his father goes to see Young and get his ordersâ??are innocent only make Samuelson madder. (His very-badness is tied in the sonâ??s mind to his treatment of Johnâ??s mother as property to be traded among LDS members, underscored by his insistence that John go through an induction and purification ritual that looks very creepy-cult-like.)

...

September Dawn makes an upfront argument, depicting the militiaâ??s bloodlust as a multi-faceted and wholly devastating phenomenon. While Micahâ??s relationship with John is mostly cute (they tease each other about girls, obligations, and manly aptitudes), his decent into his fatherâ??s madness is abrupt and horrific. During Samuelsonâ??s rousing â??meeting of the saints,â? John suggests, â??Weâ??re still part of the United States,â? obliged to obey laws and not follow a man who â??went to school for two months!â? Samuelson asserts the need for â??blood atonement,â? glaring at his son the heretic: â??To question the power of the apostle,â? he roars, â??is to question Jehovah Himself.â?

Here:

The maudlin, grotesque western â??September Dawn,â? about the massacre on Sept. 11, 1857, of about 120 settlers by Mormons (and their Paiute Indian mercenaries), apes â??Schindlerâ??s Listâ? in hopes of creating a Christian Holocaust picture.

...

In flashbacks and framing devices that feature a bewigged Terence Stamp as Brigham Young and Dean Cain as Joseph Smith, founder of Mormonism, â??Dawnâ? alludes to the persecution that the insular, polygamist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints endured in the early 19th century.

But these aspects are eclipsed in the film by the Mormonsâ?? Snidely Whiplash-like treachery. Their evil is established in an early sequence that crosscuts between two dinner-table prayers: the travelers wishing the Mormons well, and Jacob urging God to please send Satanâ??s children to hell, amen â?? in a grimly righteous tone that begs for the punch line, â??Now please pass the ham.â?

Here:

"September Dawn" is propaganda pure and simple. In fact, it features the greatest vilification of a religious group since "The Passion of the Christ."

...

Writer and director Christopher Cain must have some type of personal vendetta, because he takes this tragic event and turns the entire religion into a group of bloodthirsty lunatics based solely upon an event whose facts are not even entirely certain.

Now I am not a religious person, nor am I affiliated with the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, but I have a hard time believing that a roving band of church leaders cut a man's scrotum off and hung it on his wall just because he was having an affair, or anyone praying for the death of a group of people during a pre-meal prayer.

Ridiculous amount of propaganda aside, "September Dawn" still has major flaws. At its heart, the film tries to be a love story along the lines of Romeo and Juliet. However, the entire thing is extremely trite and feels tacked on in order to justify all the Mormon bashing.

...

The true icing on the "September Dawn" cake is the 20-minute scene where they vividly show all the innocent women and children getting shot, stabbed, bludgeoned and generally being treated in ways that are best left to the imagination. It seems the desired effect was to hammer home the true brutality of the Mormons in the same way that Steven Spielberg showed the viciousness of the Nazi's in "Schindler's List." While it worked for Spielberg, Cain was not so lucky, and instead of invoking reverence, this scene only invokes disgust.

From start to finish, "September Dawn" is filmmaking at its worst. The fact that a film so obviously lacking in substance and so full of propaganda makes it likely that its financing came from someone who really doesn't want Mitt Romney winning the presidency in 2008.

-Smac

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More reviews.

Here:

What did it mean to be Mormon in 1857? That question is answered in â??September Dawn,â? a Christopher Cain film that funnels historically-based events through Cainâ??s sociopolitical perspective.

According to the director, being a Mormon meant giving up oneâ??s individuality to follow the dictates of a fanatical theocracy. By many accounts, Cainâ??s suppositions are legitimate. However, without any justification (aside from appealing to the lowest common denominator) the director muddies the water by adding a fictional romance to this harrowing tale.

...

Several decades of persecution prompted Mormons to travel further into the West because they were tormented and reviled for practicing polygamy, and blood atonement, defined as ritually cutting the throat of an irredeemable sinner, whose only hope of receiving forgiveness was to shed his blood.

...

Though Mormons now condemn polygamy and have publicly denounced the concept of blood atonement, the LDS continues to exercise secret rituals that include large scale baptizing of the dead, meant to save their souls postmortem. A history of secret religious practices has primed some to believe that Brigham Young, delivering recorded sermons encouraging blood atonement, was complicit in the Meadow Mountain Massacre. Assuming we are to believe Youngâ??s assertion that he knew nothing before the fact, it was, nevertheless, his leadership and promotion of blood atonement, that laid the groundwork for the massacre.

While there is no direct proof of Youngâ??s participation, he certainly was an iron-fisted dictator unlikely to look kindly on any serious action occurring without his consent.

...

Setting aside the forgettable and fictional romance, the movie does a passable job of depicting actual events. Representing Mormons forced to go along with the ruling, Bishop Samuelson reveals that he had previously been stripped of a favorite wife coveted by an apostle, then forced to bear witness to her death as blood atonement for her adultery.

Because there is much sensitivity concerning this dark chapter of LDS history, itâ??s regrettable that Cain choose to fictionalize any characters or portion of events, no matter how seemingly inconsequential. He has produced a good looking, heartfelt, but ultimately unreliable account that is more likely to stir the debate than settle it.

-Smac

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Another review.

Here:

Unfortunately, this significant and controversial event is given a made-for-TV throwaway treatment with needlessly chaotic storytelling techniques, trite camera work and sleepwalking performances by Jon Voight and Terence Stamp.

-Smac

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Another review.

Here:

Mormon Massacre Flick May Hurt Romney's Image

Of course. The relevance of a massacre that occurred 150 years ago to the presidential campaign of Mitt Romney, and his "image," is just plain as day.

A new Hollywood movie retelling the true story of a band of Mormons who brutally murdered more than 100 pioneers passing through the Utah territory in 1857 may hurt the image of presidential hopeful and professed Mormon follower Mitt Romney.

...

Dr. Ted Baehr, chairman of the Christian Film & Television Commission, believes the film will be harmful to Mitt Romneyâ??s campaign.

â??What [the character of] Brigham Young does in the movie is talk aboutâ?¦that you have to have blood atonement, you have to kill the Gentiles; then he declares himself a modern Mohammad,â? said Baehr, according to OneNewsNow. â??This is going to be an issue [for Romney]. Itâ??s going to be an issue that will dog him. I think heâ??s got tremendous problems to overcome, and the movie will aggravate those problems.â?

Many Christian voters have already voiced concerns over voting for a Mormon for president of the United States. Some Christians are uncertain if Mormons can be considered Christians, while many view the Mormon church as a cult.

Recently, prominent theologian Dr. R. Albert Mohler, Jr., president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, stated conclusively that Mormons believe in a false gospel and are not Christians after a month-long online debate with a well-known Mormon science-fiction writer.

...

Aside from criticism of Mormon theology, the newly released film, which revisits the infamous Mountain Meadows Massacre, is also â??pretty condemning of Mormonism,â? said Baehr. The entertainment expert does not recommend Christians watch the movie due to the level of violence.

Lovely.

-Smac

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Another review.

Here:

Of course. The relevance of a massacre that occurred 150 years ago to the presidential campaign of Mitt Romney, and his "image," is just plain as day.

Lovely.

-Smac

We knew this was coming. Did anyone think Mitt's opponents would let an opportunity to exploit this angle pass by?

"Sept. Dawn" as a negative political tool will probably be the only reason this movie does not die a quiet death--as most poorly written, poorly made movies do.

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Another review.

Here:

Here:

Here:

-Smac

From the first review:

Their history is revealed in brief flashbacks to 1944, when their founder, the prophet Joseph Smith (played by the directorâ??s son, Dean Cain), is killed in Arkansas by angry locals wearing Indian war paint and protesting the LDS, in particular, Smithâ??s practice of plural marriage and campaign for U.S. President.

Is it just the article or does the movie itself show Joseph being killed in Arkansas of all places?

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I wasn't aware Joseph Smith was killed in 1944.

Yep he was killed nearly a century after the attacks. It was really Joseph responsible for it all. He told Brigham to send the message to not kill the people late to give the Church plausible deniability and then lead the charge himself. Afterwards he fled into the wilderness to secretly lead the Church until he was 85 and Christ returned.

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