Watch This Divided State For Free

i know i wasted 90 mins of my life.

Pretty good movie overall. First half was nothing special but it got better as it went along.

I am only giving this movie a 1 for the great cast, though I can't imagine what any of them were thinking. This movie was horrible

The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.

"This Divided State" examines the controversy that erupted on the campus of Utah Valley State College when leaders of the student government invited incendiary documentarian Michael Moore to appear on campus in the closing days of the 2004 presidential election. The filmmakers jump into the fray capturing the protests, pickets, posturing, and pablum generated on both sides of what amounts to a fairly petty squabble among partisan ideologues and semiprofessional hotheads.The drama unfolds fairly slowly, interviewing both key participants and curious bystanders. Conservative radio host Sean Hannity is recruited during the squabbling for political balance. Other characters include a young Michael Moore look-a-like, a Michael Moore namesake, and a Moore's Pizzaria manager. A good deal of padding footage is included to stretch the story out to a feature length runtime. The production values are extremely uneven as it was necessary to cull material from several videographers to build a coherent through line.I admired the filmmaker's ability to capture the story's principals at key occasions in the drama and fairly neutral point of view balancing between the battling sides. Almost everyone in this film comes off looking like simple-minded weaklings or obnoxious blow-hards. The UVSC faculty members are stereotypical liberal academicians and the students overly idealistic adolescents. In the end it all seems much ado about nothing.

The American heartland of tolerance proves to be tolerant only to its own beliefs.What should have been just another election time political talk turned to be an insight into the democratic values of USA.The producers take their time to build up our knowledge of the students and the community involved, and it is a good thing. This moves the focus away from Moore and into the events that transpired before (and after) his arrival. Good time is spent on the students themselves and their views, as well as the major figure representing the conservative residents. Both sides get a fair balance.What comes out of the film is how shockingly low are the democratic values many US citizens hold. In a country which prides itself about being an example of democracy, a leader of the "Free World" there is just as much intolerance as anywhere else. The part where the conservative personality gives a talk is unpleasant to watch for any supporter of democracy.This documentary should strike the average US American as a wake up call about how complacent democratic citizens can be when it comes to their political ideas. Everyone likes to thing they are upstanding democratic citizens, until M.Moore comes to town! The true test of democracy is being willing to listen to points of view opposite to your own and not outright dismiss them as wrong or even evil. This little film painfully depicts that (at least) the Utah community failed this test miserably.On the other hand I'm sure that many Utah citizens didn't have a problem with M.Moore coming to town. Unfortunately either the film fails to represent them or I am mistaken and the film is right in giving the impression that most of Utah agreed with the extreme undemocratic views expressed from their prominent(?) citizen.Is this the nature of politics? To be divisive? Would M.Moore speaking in a New York University have made such a show? Unlikely. Then I guess it must have been something about this Utah community. That could have been an area that the documentary could have explored. In doing so it would have be digging deeper into the heart of politics (and rational thought at that). Stil, even with its more narrow scope this little gem does very well. Very well indeed.

This is a fine, fine documentary.Stangely--or, perhaps, tellingly--the only "weak" part is the footage of the "provacative" speaking engagements by Hannity and Moore. At the end of my viewing of the main movie, before watching the extras, I was left with impressions of these appearances as being weaker than the dialog (and diatribe) shown in the rest of the film. What the editors decided to show was pretty much the "feel-good" aspect of Hannity and Moore's deliveries; the playing-to-the-crowd, singing-to-the-choir stuff. However, there were two extras tracks featuring more of the content part of these talks, which were significantly more substantive, especially Moore's, than what you see in the movie. Bonus tracks are nice, but in the end a movie needs to be able to "stand alone." As it was, it left me with a feeling that all the community fire and passion which had gone before had been ill-spent on these unworthies; that's it's one thing to vociferously defend the right of someone to challenge prevailing thought, but it's another to have your beneficiary then use that podium to pat backs and not hit the issues hard. Again though, the extra footage showcasing Moore's substantive positions mitigated this, and, to a lesser extent, with Hannity.In my humble opinion, if you keep that proviso in mind, you'll find the movie well worth viewing, and in fact a pretty good picture of red-state mentality. Remember: It *can* happen here.

I live in Utah and sadly, this film portrays the typical mindset here. We tend to be xenophobic, intolerant, and hateful of anything different yet it is cloaked in a message of "love thy neighbor." This film does a wonderful job of portraying the all-too-common view that Utahns are unable to handle outside ideas and any type of diversity. In looking at the anger spewing out of the mouths of putative Christians, in particular Mr. Bryson, I am reminded of the looks of white southerners in the 50's when the schools were about to be integrated. The seething fury and irrationalism of these people is shown all too well by the filmmaker. I recommend seeing this excellent film and if it makes you avoid visiting or moving to Utah (especially the Provo/Orem area south of Salt Lake City) it will have served a good purpose.