Posted on 08/23/2007 5:45:11 PM PDT by Reaganesque
"This handsome indie Western damningly recounts the 1857 slayings of 120 settlers passing through Utah, but the didactic presentation, grim speechifying and tacked-on love story all signify a less-than-healthy regard for the audience's intelligence."
Variety Justin Chang
1/4 "The film feels less like historical drama than a venomous religious tract printed on celluloid." Minneapolis Star Tribune Colin Covert
"September Dawn has the ham-fisted lyricism of political ads and pharmaceutical commercials." Village Voice J. Hoberman
"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." Film Journal International Frank Lovece
1.5/4 "When watching the screen depiction of a historic event in which 120 people were murdered, giggling is not the appropriate response." Salt Lake Tribune Sean Means
1/5 "It has the chilling certitude of the self-righteous." Orlando Sentinel Roger Moore
2.5/5 "The real problem is that September Dawn isn't a very good movie. It moves too much like a public-school history pageant and gives us mono-dimensional characters who speak dialogue that fairly reeks of printer's ink." Arizona Republic Richard Nilsen
1/5 "The jarring MTV-style filmmaking is so distracting and the 'messaging' so unsubtle that after two long hours you find yourself leaving the theater with a massive headache, wondering when you started to hate Mormons." Orlando Weekly Brett Register
1/4 "Forget Grindhouse. September Dawn is the year's first honest-to-goodness exploitation flick." Slant Magazine Nick Schager
1/4 "Bombastic, slow-drying dramatization with lead-weight dialogue and a turgid romantic subplot." Newsday Gene Seymour
D- "Has serious problems in historical terms. But in this case they're exacerbated by the simple ineptitude of the filmmaking." One Guy's Opinion Frank Swietek
"Even if one gets past the movie's controversial depictions, there is the matter of its second-rate, made-for-television fare -- the poor battle choreography, the wooden editing and the cheesy writing." Washington Post Desson Thomson
2.5/4 "If September Dawn is a kind of Western, it's a Western utterly devoid of heroism or the usual archetypes. But the core message transcends time: Hatred laced with religious fanaticism is a toxic blend." Milwaukee Journal Sentinel Dave Tianen
1/4 "Doesn't even measure up to an episode of your typical, cowboy TV show from the Fifties like Roy Rogers or The Lone Ranger. Get my drift, Kimosabe?" NewsBlaze Kam Williams
Click here for links to the full reviews.
Ther review was much more glowing than the others posted in the OP. Thanks for posting the site. I’d never seen it before.
Buckskin is cool. We walked up the lower three miles or so from its junction with the Paria. There are many, many canyons of somewhat similar type in the area.
A big fat DUD! Probably won’t earn back the money it cost to make it.
“”A benefit of September Dawn could be it starting a two-part conversation; one about our current battle against religious fanaticism, the other about the Mormon faith as a whole.””
Anything that gets the general public to take a look at the early days of this shiny, new, American born religion is a good thing.
There is a moral equivalence between the two. The perps of both atrocities should have paid with their lives for their crimes and John D. Lee was deservedly executed at Mountain Meadows in 1877 for what he did.
John D. Lee, seated next to his own coffin, just before his execution for his role in the Mountain Meadows massacre.
We can blame all non-Mormons for mob attacks upon Mormons and we can blame all Mormons for attacks upon non-Mormons and try to justify the murders on both sides or we can blame the perps and condemn the murder on both sides without excuses.
That said, it is curious that a historical event most Americans have never heard of is made into a movie just when one of the GOP Presidential candidates happens to be a Mormon.
By contrast, nothing was heard about the Mountain Meadows Massacre when Democrat Mo Udall was a Presidential candidate in 1976 even though John D. Lee was Udall's great-grandfather.
Have either of you ever been to Skutumpah? It is interesting that John D. Lee had viewed Bryce Canyon, Cedar Breaks, Marble Canyon and the Canyons east of Salt Lake City, but the bauty of Skutumpah is the only one he took the time to describe in his journals, and he described it very eloquently. I haven’t had the pleasure of finding the place yet. Just wondered if you had.
Editor! Editor!
The one-man wonder John D. Lee who was sixth in command at the Mountain Meadow Massacre, single-handedly shot 130 people in the head point-blank after disarming them.
Glad they caught and executed the perp. Can you imagine if he had lived? He would have been the 19th century’s answer to Jack Bauer or Chuck Norris!!
True. As he admitted himself. He was understandably more than a little peeved that he was made the sole scapegoat, when he was himself just following orders of his Church superiors. Nine Mormons were indicted. Only Lee was ever tried.
I don't particularly care to go over it all again, but the only way there could be true moral equivalence is if the anti-Mormon mobs had:
1. Murdered dozens of women and children in cold blood.
2. Planned and schemed in advance to talk Mormons into surrendering and disarming, and then massacred them on a pre-arranged word of command.
As far as I'm aware, nothing remotely resembling either of these things ever happened in the anti-Mormon mob period.
The Mormons of the time were not the Mormons of today. You read the unfiltered speeches and diaries of the time, and they sound very much like a crazy Jim Jones type of cult of today. They scared the hell out of their neighbors, most of whom probably couldn't have cared less what they believed.
What shouldn't be forgotten is that many if not most of the "mob attacks" were engagements between two armed groups, which the Mormons generally lost due to being outnumbered. This is quite a different issue than the intentional massacre of unarmed people, or for that matter of religious persecution in its true form as of the early Christians.
Never heard of Skutumpah.
Here’s a link:
http://www.zionnational-park.com/gsfees.htm
No idea of whether it’s what BY was referring to. Although you wouldn’t think there would be too many places named Skutumpah. :)
Would you toss out the Gospels of Mark, Luke, and John just because you have Matthew’s account? Our motive for using the Book of Mormon is rooted in our belief that it is the word of God and a testament of Christ. We love the word of God, all of it, and we expect God to give us more of his word as time goes on.
If you are honest at heart, you will recognize that our motive for using the Book of Mormon is a love for the word of God, even if you think we are mistaken about where the word of God can be found. Attributing other motives to our using it is just spin and manipulation.
“Your Gramma HATES us!”
My grandmother has been dead for over 50 years.
And how did you manage to extrapolate from my comments that my grandmother hated anyone? When her family fled Utah, she was a little child.
Furthermore, victims who flee their persecutors don’t necessarily become filled with hatred. Perhaps it leads, instead, to telling their grandchildren about their personal history, their granddaughter (me) attending the Mormon church as a teenager and then conducting unbiased research to independently get to the truth of her heritage, and her belief in God as taught in its fullness in the Bible.
Not exactly.
If your point is that many more perps should have paid with their lives for the crime, then you are absolutely right.
I’ll have to check it out considering I lived for 26 years not more than 50 miles away.
Lee described Skutumpay not BY, just to be clear. Lee lived there at the time of his exile, but before he went to Lee’s Ferry.
That was precisely my point. The perps have hidden behind the conviction and execution of Lee for far too long. It's time for the truth. You're a military man, right? Did you know Lee had two commanding officers on that field that day, and was following orders. Why was he the one who was scape-goated?
No, because they were eye-witnesses to the events they wrote about. The only thing Joseph Smith saw was perhaps an Egyptian document and perhaps a demon named Moroni.
I pray you soon come to the realization that Joseph Smith was a man with an over-active imagination, who enjoyed writing fiction. Surely you can't say the same about Mark, Luke, John and the others who witnessed Christ and/or His friends first-hand?
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