While managing to say something about the principle of free speech and the power of consumerism in America, it also manages to be as smart, sassy and enjoyable as the Chicks.
Shut Up & Sing (2006)
Tomatometer
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Reviews Counted:117
Fresh:105
Rotten:12
Average Rating:7.6/10
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
Shut Up & Sing wrestles with a number of compelling issues facing the Dixie Chicks without going into too much depth on any particular one.
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.
[M]assively depressing, and highlights some of the hypocrisies and idiocies of American public life, and points out how... ignorant some Americans are, and makes you want to just give up and move to Mars and start all over again with a new revolution.
Shut Up & Sing should be one of the great inspirational stories of our time.
A hell-raising soul stirring musical documentary about the right of free speech.
...this documentary may be just the thing to find them a new audience. This non-Country fan was surprised by how much she enjoyed their music.
The film is a wonderful and intelligent creation and certainly a must see for any Chicks fan that lost the faith over such an absurd and misunderstood moment of personal expression.
The filmmakers had impressive access to the group, and the results are eye-opening.
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.
While watching the Chicks balance career and family life, Kopple and Peck paint an intimate portrait of a group breaking free of being a brand.
Academy Award-winning documentarian Barbara Kopple does an excellent job capturing the Chicks' thoughts, and uses judicious clips from political speeches to put Maines' off-the-cuff comment into context.
One of the many remarkable things about this film is watching the band evolve as a result of an unplanned and apparently inconsequential remark.
Life in Bush America gets a blunt, honest telling in this documentary that makes you want to stand up and cheer without ever begging for tears or glib sympathy.
An entertaining and smartly paced blend of concert footage, media clips, and behind-the-scenes interviews, Shut Up and Sing is a provocative and insightful documentary of lives under very public fire.
Capturing the women in concert, backstage and at home with their families, the movie is compelling and insightful, if a bit self-serving, promoting a group whose popularity is waning.
The film gives us a fascinating look at how the Chicks and their bemused-yet-concerned English manager, Simon Renshaw, alternately tiptoed and blundered through the crisis.
Documentarians Barbara Kopple and Cecilia Peck are skillful enough to tell this story from multiple angles, making Shut Up & Sing as insightful as it is entertaining.
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