Not only does the film's author, Steven Greenstreet, obviously idolize Michael Moore, but he also follows in his footsteps by using several of Moore's Propaganda film-making tactics. Moore has expertise in distracting the viewer from this focus though, while Greenstreet is obviously less skilled here.
Having been privy to all of the issues surrounding Moore's speech at UVSC, I was disappointed to see that the major complaints of the community -- that Moore was being paid $40,000 of the State of Utah 's educational funds to basically promote John Kerry's campaign and to advertise his own liberal movie -- were pushed to the background by Greenstreet while lesser issues were sensationalized.
The marketing methods for this video have been equally biased and objectionable... promoting the film by claiming that "Mormon's tried to kill Moore". Not only is this preposterous, but it defames a major religion that Greenstreet obviously has some personal issues with. I followed Moore's visit very closely, and all of the major news agencies noted that Moore's visit came and went without any credible security problems or incidents in Utah.
Greenstreet has banked on this film to jump-start his film-making career to the point that he has even dropped out of film school to help accelerate this. This seems to have been a severe miscalculation though, since Moore's visits to roughly 60 other colleges and Universities across the country in 2004 diluted interest for this rather common event. Greenstreet's assumption that American audiences would be interested in this film due to the promoted religious and conservative angles doesn't seem to be well founded.
Even the name of the film, This Divided State, is somewhat of a misnomer since Utah voted overwhelmingly for Bush's re-election and thus appears to be more politically unified than any other State. The division in the movie title seems more indicative of the gulf that exists in Greenstreet's ideological differences with his religion and State. If anything, I find a humorous correlation between the religious angle of this supposed documentary and Woody Allen's hilarious contention in Sleeper (1973) that, "I was beaten up by Quakers".
Having been privy to all of the issues surrounding Moore's speech at UVSC, I was disappointed to see that the major complaints of the community -- that Moore was being paid $40,000 of the State of Utah 's educational funds to basically promote John Kerry's campaign and to advertise his own liberal movie -- were pushed to the background by Greenstreet while lesser issues were sensationalized.
The marketing methods for this video have been equally biased and objectionable... promoting the film by claiming that "Mormon's tried to kill Moore". Not only is this preposterous, but it defames a major religion that Greenstreet obviously has some personal issues with. I followed Moore's visit very closely, and all of the major news agencies noted that Moore's visit came and went without any credible security problems or incidents in Utah.
Greenstreet has banked on this film to jump-start his film-making career to the point that he has even dropped out of film school to help accelerate this. This seems to have been a severe miscalculation though, since Moore's visits to roughly 60 other colleges and Universities across the country in 2004 diluted interest for this rather common event. Greenstreet's assumption that American audiences would be interested in this film due to the promoted religious and conservative angles doesn't seem to be well founded.
Even the name of the film, This Divided State, is somewhat of a misnomer since Utah voted overwhelmingly for Bush's re-election and thus appears to be more politically unified than any other State. The division in the movie title seems more indicative of the gulf that exists in Greenstreet's ideological differences with his religion and State. If anything, I find a humorous correlation between the religious angle of this supposed documentary and Woody Allen's hilarious contention in Sleeper (1973) that, "I was beaten up by Quakers".