Shut Up and Sing tells the story of three young women whose belief in America is bred in the bone, and it shames their critics.
Shut Up & Sing (2006)
Tomatometer
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Reviews Counted:34
Fresh:31
Rotten:3
Average Rating:7.7/10
Consensus: Though ostensibly an intimate look at the Dixie Chicks after their 2003 anti-Bush remark, the film achieves broader relevance by exploring how media, politics, and celebrities intertwine.
Theatrical Release:Oct 27, 2006 Limited
Box Office: $1,072,805
Synopsis: This documentary captures the female country-&-western group the Dixie Chicks in performance around the U.S. and London between the years 2003 and 2006. While performing in 2003, singer Natalie... This documentary captures the female country-&-western group the Dixie Chicks in performance around the U.S. and London between the years 2003 and 2006. While performing in 2003, singer Natalie Maines ignited a maelstrom of controversy and red-state outrage when she declared--from a London stage on the eve of the Iraqi conflict--that she was ashamed that President George W. Bush was from her home state of Texas. When a rabidly right-wing group picked up on it, the band found themselves in the center of controversy regarding the nature of patriotism, freedom of speech, feminism, and the split between pro- and anti-war Americans. Filmmaker Barbara Kopple brings us the fly-on-the-wall view of the next three years, capturing Haines and sisters Emily Robison and Martie Maguire in dressing rooms, on stage, and in recording studios, bonding with each other, their families, producer Rick Rubin, and their supportive manager, Simon Renshaw. Through the crises, they keep their sense of humor and sisterhood, not backing down from their liberal stance, and turning the backlash into a triumph. They also make some great music, and the film includes plenty of riveting, intense footage of the band in performance onstage and in the studio. Among the faces appearing in archival footage are President Bush, Bill Maher, and right-wing country star Toby Keith. [More]
Starring: Natalie Maines, Emily Robison, Martie Maguire, Rick Rubin
Starring: Natalie Maines, Emily Robison, Martie Maguire, Rick Rubin, George W. Bush, Adrian Pasdar
Director: Barbara Kopple, Cecilia Peck
Director: Barbara Kopple, Cecilia Peck
Producer: David Cassidy, Claude Davies, Barbara Kopple, Cecilia Peck
Studio: Weinstein Company
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Reviews for Shut Up & Sing
A fascinating look at the intersection of commerce, celebrity, and controversy.
[Natalie Maines] makes it clear in this astonishingly candid, intimate film that she doesn't think she has anything to apologize for.
These two movies — one about family and one about freedom — never quite dovetail.
The Dixie Chicks certainly don't shut up, but they do sing in Shut Up & Sing; and while some may wish they'd done more of one or the other, there's no denying the power of this documentary.
...[We] see the real concern as the backlash gets serious enough to prompt death threats and the affair takes its toll on band members' families.
However you feel about the Dixie Chicks flap, you can enjoy the way Kopple and Peck capture candid moments.
What emerges is an intimate and fascinating portrait of the three women who, instead of being 'divided and conquered,' stick together and build something new.
The filmmakers give us a good taste of what took the Chicks to such great heights
... [Kopple] takes us inside big-dollar professional entertainment and lets us see ego and stupidity and self-indulgence at play just as fiercely as artistry.
Whatever the ultimate effect on the group's career, their excursion into politics produced a wonderfully watchable movie.
... unfettered access to the band's strategy sessions with their manager and publicist yields a fascinating story nonetheless ...
In watching the documentary Shut Up & Sing, one thought comes to mind. We all may be over the Dixie Chicks.
There's no more soul-stirring way to relive the last three years, in all their miserable divisiveness, than to see Shut Up & Sing.
What's most compelling about the movie are the film's revelations about the out-of-the-spotlight lives of Ms. Maines and fellow Chicks Emily Robison and Martie Maguire.
Shut Up & Sing should be one of the great inspirational stories of our time.
Despite the promise to turn the audience into converts if they’ve never heard the music before, listening to the Dixie Chicks is, to me, not unlike metal spikes scraped across a sidewalk grating.
One of the many remarkable things about this film is watching the band evolve as a result of an unplanned and apparently inconsequential remark.
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