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.
“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.”
The problem is that one of the biggest perps on the Mormon side was Joseph Smith himself. He lead a revenge posse of 200 (including Parley Pratt) to try and take back Jackson County (Zion) before Far West and the Missouri Mormon war started, that posse withdrew but it all might well have started there.
“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.”
Look up Parley Pratt, one of the twelve Apostles, and you will see why it all links up with Bishop Mitt, whether he was the original target or not.
“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.
I think the Internet has allowed a greater depth of research by more people.
Two words:
Not ME!
I've gotten over myself already!
No question; you are right.
The question is: Is it the SAME Christ that the BIBLE tells about??
At Lake Woebegone, all the kids are above average.
“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.”
That’s my read on it as well. Except Jim Jones wasn’t into building armies like General Smith was. That would have scared the bejeebers out of people.
There’s a nice one in Hackberry Creek.
Just a normal above ground dry bed, with yer gravel and yer sand, and then it cuts through some softer stone and DOWN it goes!
“If the “Mormon” Church was interested in wasting its time with historical events that occurred nearly 150 years, slinging mud,losing money in the “movie” business, etc. it could make a really exciting films. For example, films could be produced concerning the Mormon’s’ suffering under the “extermination orders” of two state governors, the mobbings,lynching, tarring and feathering, and being driven from their beautiful city of Nauvoo — built over a malarious swamp but finally sacked after the Saints were forced to flee in the dead of winter.”
And that would be a propaganda movie, so that’s why it hasn’t been made. General Joseph Smith was well on his way to trying to create an early Theocratic Kingdom for himself, sort of a cross between Hugo Chavez and Jim Jones. While the Mormons certainly suffered, it wasn’t due to religious persecution but due to the fear that a swindler/tinpot general would take over using his followers as a robot army.
“Ever heard of the Haun’s Mill massacre, Elsie? No. And Hollywood will never make a movie about it either. Here’s a little history for the bigots among you:”
Of course, you bigoted Mormons always leave out a little thing called the Mormon War that preceded Haun’s Mill, where Mormon Danites burned out Gallatin and the surrounding area on a plundering rampage condoned by Joseph Smith. They also bushwhacked the militia at Crooked Creek, that’s where Parley Pratt killed a prisoner in cold blood I believe. So how about a little history for Mormon bigots like yourself.
Calf Creek is very neat.
While you’re there, talk to the BLM guys about Death Hollow. I took a group through it a good few years back. It’s like Zion Narrows, but with four or five parties a year rather than hundreds.
Not beginner country.
Maybe someone will post a thread about all the innocent black men, women, and children that were murdered and lynched by the ancestors of the good southern Christians who are piously swinging their bigot sticks on this thread.
“Maybe someone will post a thread about all the innocent black men, women, and children that were murdered and lynched by the ancestors of the good southern Christians who are piously swinging their bigot sticks on this thread.”
And maybe you will show us how whitebread Mormon Utah went out of its way to invite blacks to settle there.
You said: “
I don’t care what they did or said, look at the rest of the world everyone who is not rabidly antimormon is laughing at you. You do know that less than 1% of the church ever practiced polygamy, right? So logically you are trying to say that less and 1% was trying to kill the 99%+ that was not polygamous”
I have no idea what the percentages of those practicing polygamy were. I never said they tried to kill ALL monogamists. You just love setting up straw dogs, don’t you?
You said: “I would really love to see some kind of document backing this up (one you didn’t write your self). Got a diary you can scan?”
I don’t know how to scan, but I do have some old family records and letters:
-Stephen Maloney born in Tulla Ireland 1828.
-Immigrated, served under Gen. Zachary Taylor during the Mexican War.
-Married Mary Jane Hewitt, a daughter in a Mormon family living close to Austin, Texas, 1850.
-Baptised into the church 1855 by Elder Henry W. Miller.
-On June 26, 1856 left for Utah with eleven other families under Elder Jacob Croft, captain of the traveling company.
-Maloney’s settled in Ogden City, Utah (I was wrong about Provo).
-In late 1850’s Stephen and Mary Jane traveled to Salt Lake City and went through the Endowment House (I was wrong to call it the “temple.”
-Subsequently he was ordered to take another wife by Brigham Young in person. He asked for a five-years delay and it was granted.
-After the five-year period three attempts were made on his life before the family fled to Camp Douglas. They were escorted personally under the protection of government soldiers. (One attempt had shot off the upper part of an ear as a lifetime reminder and visual testimony of his plight.)
-At Camp Douglas, Stephen worked for the military.
-In 1867 they finally acquired passage, with the help of military friends, on a government wagon train which had brought provisions to Camp Douglas.
-They settled in Marysville, KS.
Now, all I have is my grandmother’s story and these old family records. I wasn’t there. But it does amaze me how so kind and gracious certain people can be reacting to one account of one family’s experience in Utah in the latter 19th century.
Given how bad the reviews for it are, and that it is an independent film, I think the only reason they were able to get a distributor was because of Mitt. Isn’t the distributor the one to pick when it hits the theaters, and how long were they looking for a distributor before they got one? I think the movie-makers just wanted to throw mud at Mormons, although I’m sure they are pleased with the timing of the release.
It took time for the church leaders to get the full story on what happened, but I don’t think they ever denied the massacre took place. The Church has expressed regret that it happened, but doesn’t accept any blame for it. What those men did there, they did in spite of being Mormons, not because of it.
“”But it does amaze me how so kind and gracious certain people can be reacting to one account of one family’s experience in Utah in the latter 19th century.””
That is a heck of a post, very interesting stuff. I was a little shocked by the personal attack on your family, I’m glad that you were able to respond so effectively.
So just because SOME sermons SUGGEST something you expect it to be instantly made law of the land? From this article...
In 1859 they released from their callings stake president Isaac Haight and other prominent Church leaders in Cedar City who had a role in the massacre. In 1870 they excommunicated Isaac Haight and John D. Lee from the Church. In 1874 a territorial grand jury indicted nine men for their role in the massacre. Most of them were eventually arrested, though only Lee was tried, convicted, and executed for the crime. Another indicted man turned state’s evidence, and others spent many years running from the law. Other militiamen who carried out the massacre labored the rest of their lives under a horrible sense of guilt and recurring nightmares of what they had done and seen. Families of the men who masterminded the crime suffered as neighbors ostracized them...
Looks to me like they tried to follow due process.
"Where was Young seeking to find the perpetrators filling the pews of the LDS church?"
That would be the job of law enforcement officials, not the Church. The fact that Governor Cumming (at the behest of U.S. President James Buchanan) declared amnesty for all hostile acts by any persons in the course of the Utah War hindered efforts to fully investigate and prosecute the crime. Many legal authorities considered MM covered by this amnesty.
"Why was there no open LDS hierarchical investigation and subsequent ex-communication of Southern Utah Mormons?"
Do you think they should have just X'ed them all for being near what happened? The church doesn't excommunicate someone for murder unless there is a confession or conviction in a court of law. It is not the job of the Church to dig into the lives of members and try to find some cause against them. It is the job of the member to confess and seek forgiveness, and to answer honestly when seeking a temple recommend. Yes, that means sometimes people who should be excommunicated might remain as members, but they will just have that much more to answer for to God.
"OK, how then does this author explain that LDS theology had nothing to do with the failure of key Mormons throughout Utah to "out" the murderers, bring them to justice, and properly distance themselves from these murderers?"
It had more to do with history than anything else. Given how often members and church leaders have been subjected to false accusations before (including unfair trials), and how the accusations in this case were of actions so contrary to the character of a good Mormon, it is easy to see how other members first mistakenly believed the charges were just more government persecution.
"The fact is this: The LDS church, no matter what was communicated between Young and his militia leaders prior to the massacre became obvious co-conspirators post-facto and helped to cover up what occurred."
The evidence doesn't support that BY or the Church itself conspired to cover anything up. There were denials by perps, and attempts by some local Mormons not involved in the massacre to shield the accused persons from capture or prosecution because they didn't believe they were guilty and/or that they would not get a fair trial.
A public thank you!
Nice display of christian compassion & charity there CC. Did you learn that from the bible? Is that the example of loving your enemy Christ was talking about? Whew! Of course the Zoramites didn’t know much about compassion & charity either.
You & FC (with his condoning the actions of Boggs & Ford) would have undoubtedly felt right at home during the crusades & inquisition. Wow! You really should be ashamed of yourselves as christians if nothing else. Something tells me that’s not the case.
“You & FC (with his condoning the actions of Boggs & Ford) would have undoubtedly felt right at home during the crusades & inquisition. Wow! You really should be ashamed of yourselves as christians if nothing else. Something tells me that’s not the case.”
Joseph Smith was well on his way with 200 men to taking back Zion in Jackson county with the precursors of the Danites. What do you think he was going to do, throw Marshmallows at them? No, he was going there to commit bloody murder. And what do you think the raizing and plunder of Gallatin were about, apparently a BoyScout Jamboree gone bad? And what do you think the Danite manifesto was about, an invitation to tea party?
Had Governor Ford not stopped Joseph Smith from being broken out of jail, you do realize there would have been a civil war, don’t you? You are a real piece of work calling other people names, the Mormons wouldn’t have been evicted from Nauvoo, they would have been killed to a man, just as almost happened at Far West before Joseph Smith was forced to surrender.
I think you belong in the inquisition with Joseph Smith and his band of grifters and sorcerers and unSaints. Maybe that could explain to you what blood atonement was all about (perhaps that was just a type of birthday party).
Look at the log in your own eye before you go blaiming other people you flaming hypocrite.
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