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List Price: $14.95 | | Label: Weinstein Company
Salesrank: 14989
Released: February 20, 2007 |
| Our Price: $4.47 |
| Used Price: $1.08 |
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MPAA Rating: R (Restricted)
Media: DVD |
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| Features:
Closed-captioned Color Full Screen NTSC | |
Editorial Review:
(Documentary) "Just so you know, we're ashamed the president of the United States is from Texas." This film documents how those 15 words in 2003 took the Dixie Chicks from the peak of their popularity as the top-selling female recording artists of all time, through the days, months and years of mayhem that followed.
Description of Dixie Chicks: Shut Up & Sing (Full Screen Edition):
Shut Up & Sing finds two-time Academy Award winner Barbara Kopple (American Dream) and co-director Cecilia Peck following the lives and career developments of the Dixie Chicks in the wake of singer Natalie Maines’ denunciation of the Iraq war and President Bush in 2003. The film returns to the pivotal moment in which Maines, speaking to a London audience, raised opposition to America's invasion of Iraq, resulting in a backlash in America. The Chicks, as one sees, have had little peace of mind since then, banned from country music stations, picketed at concerts, and targeted by death threats. Maines, Martie Maguire, and Emily Robison respond to the extensive and sometimes scary criticism they've faced, though their latest music, including a song called "Not Ready to Make Nice," also speaks for itself. Kopple and Peck spend a lot of time with the band on a human level as well, in homes and dressing rooms and recording studios. The collective--and quite touching--portrait is of three women who wish only the best for one another and back each other's decisions all the way. This is essential viewing for fans of the gifted Kopple as well as the always-against-the-odds Dixie Chicks. --Tom Keogh
Dixie Chicks: Shut Up & Sing (Full Screen Edition) Reviews:
Top 40 Country Shows Its True Colors? 
2009-11-10 - This DVD was pretty much what I expected. I was never a Chicks fan, but I did recognize their talent, and liked a few of their songs. Whether or not what Maines said about about W was right, what the band got from their so called fans,the right wing, and Top 40 Country radio, was atrocious.I am a performer of country music,and I have not listened to Top 40 Country Radio in years. Now I know why.I'll just bet that over half of the top country performers felt the same way as Natalie. We are living in a country of idiots. Like I said, the film was pretty predictable to me, but then 3 years later, at the same venue as the Bush remark,she(Maines) says it again! That made me weep. Talk about guts.
Freedom of Speech 
2009-05-22 - This DVD is based on informal conversations with the Dixie Chicks surrounding the statement made at a concert in Great Britain that was 'unkind' to then-President G.W. Bush. There was a transformation over the course of a few years as they dealt with the after-math of this statement. A well done, informative and interesting look at the lives of musical artists, the music industry, and the different interpretations of our First Amendment Rights.
shut up and sing 
2008-11-10 - I loved the film however my experience would have been more enjoyable if I had not made my purchase from Amazon.com. I ordered the movie over a year ago and Amazon.com kept sending me emails delaying the delivery date giving me an option to either cancel my order or keep waiting until it became available. I opted to wait because I really wanted to see the documentary. I probably selected to wait at least 4 times over the course of 14 months before they finally sent me an email telling me that Amazon.com regretted that they were unable to fill my order and that they cancelled my order. So with my order cancelled because Amazon.com said they did not have the DVD I went to Amazon.com pulled up the video purchased what they told me they did not have and finally over a year later I was finally able to see the film.
Shut Up & Ask
2008-10-25 - One of our great challenges as a Democracy has always been the ironic fear of our freedom of speech. One wonders, "Well, if you say you hate me or have an issue with America or something about America, then you don't love or like or need or want or appreciate it." Suffice to say: "leave." Likewise, we have struggled with the notion of critical dissent in the name of the national good. Both of these are the same coin, different sides, and the great reason Freedom of Speech is the FIRST Amendment of our amazing Constitution. It's concepts, challenges, possibilities and difficulties easily translate to any time. It is greatly worth fighting for and we all must be reminded too of the value of challenging it.
Such is the world of Shut Up & Sing, an involving, smart, inclusive musical/celebrity doc about the abrupt tumult surrounding The Dixie Chicks' Natalie Maines' disdainful remarks about George W. Bush during a 2003 London concert. A mere insulting reference and millions of people, fans and commentators, citizens and families were dramatized and activated into a ferocious communal vengeance, the likes of which few artists or celebrities has suffered. Jane Fonda's outspoken reputation has stayed with her for decades since the Vietnam war, just as she has remained outspoken. Fill in any artist who angers people with their views and you'll get the dynamic that they are too lucky to speak, too famous to have an opinion, have nothing to say because they aren't real, don't know what it's like to be a real American, etc. This is our badge of Speech Reckoning, and it represents our frequent ignorance and polarity as much as our collective pride in active bickering.
We are an opinionated people, we have been raised and taught to speak out and loud, and there is president that ruffling feathers makes for a better bird.
Barbara Kopple, legendary documentarian (Harlan County, U.S.A. and American Dream won Oscars) co-directs and produces Shut Up & Sing with the vitality of a fly with a camera who knows she's in the midst of something juicy, warm and important. Unlike some documentarians, Kopple and co-director/producer Cecilia Peck (famous-liberal -Gregory's daughter) are nowhere to be found; smart enough to know the intimacy of the Dixie Chicks' world, it's variety of children and husbands, managers, musicians, and according members, all aware of the power of their communal securities; a profoundly successful feminine entity that values it's mutual love.
Shut Up & Sing is the kind of doc that would work in school because it begs the question: "What is Freedom of speech?" Is it release from responsibility of what one says or is it possibly threats to one's life and livelihood or somewhere in between.
Texas vs Texas
2008-09-24 - A doco of Dixie Chicks female music band cashing on anti-Iraq-war, anti-US-president stance inevitably triggered questions of freedom speech limits and right to express own opinion pro- and against the issue.
More politics than music.
