Shut Up & Sing is further proof that today’s best American films are documentaries.
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.
Runtime: 1 hr 39 mins
Genre: Musical & Performing Arts
US 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
Reviews for Shut Up & Sing
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.
The Dixie Chicks' struggle with the conflicting demands of art and commerce as portrayed in this documentary shows that they're still not ready to make nice.
...[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.
Whether you love or hate the outspoken Maines, you've got to give her this much: She's never boring.
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.
They went on stage as the biggest act in country music only to be told that the country they were singing about doesn't want to hear what they really think.
The film as a whole is less a political document than it is a sensitively detailed backstage portrait of a unique musical phenomenon.
The drama suffers: The Dixie Chicks don't provide a rebellious force to rise against the inanity they faced.
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