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“Not in Kan… oh, wait, yes we are”
Michael Charney of the blog “Chasing Glenn Beck” was inspired to review “What’s the Matter with Kansas?” and his full post follows. You can read the original on his blog.
Kansas has long served as a powerful metaphor for our country. When L. Frank Baum first wrote The Wonderful Wizard of Oz in 1900, he chose Kansas […]
DVD review: “I was better for having watched it.”
Dan Deevey of The BlueRaySource.com rode an emotional roller-coaster on the way to giving “What’s the Matter with Kansas?“ a very favorable review:
He opens his review, dangling over of a cliff of despair:
I watched this movie with my mouth agape for most of it. The monumental level of ignorance and the power that it holds […]
Review: no better time for this movie than right now
John Ott, film reviewer and native Kansan, weighs in on the new Special Edition DVD of the “What’s the Matter with Kansas?”, debuting Jan 25, 2011:
What’s the matter with Kansas? As a Kansan, born and raised, one who has lived on both coasts, I’m often asked this question. Usually the question […]
Village Voice gives the thumbs up
The movie opens in New York tonight, and the Village Voice weighs in:
The subtle structure and elegant editing build to the pointed insight that the vast gulf in the country isn’t between right and left but between secular and religious. Wisely, Winston includes only a couple of the narrow-minded comments that provoke viewers to snort, […]
“More subtle, perhaps even more provocative.”
Aubrey Streit Krug is an intern at the Center for Rural Affairs in Lyons, Nebraska. She saw What’s the Matter with Kansas? in Lincoln, and posted her thoughts in the Blog For Rural America, which we’ve re-posted here:
Stories We Tell Ourselves
By Aubrey Streit Krug
Thomas Frank’s 2004 book What’s the Matter with Kansas? gave clear, yet provocative, […]
Huffington Post: why we need to get past stereotypes of conservatives
Clay Farris Naff of Nebraskans for Science shares some reflections on “What’s the Matter with Kansas?” after viewing it with in a packed house in Lincoln, Nebraska — a region with, of course, close ties to Kansas and itself home to a fiesty, hopeless outnumbered band of progressive prairie populists.
Perhaps in part because he recognizes […]
Mother Jones: “A timely exploration”
Josh Harkinson of the venerable lefty outlet Mother Jones weighs in on “What’s the Matter with Kansas?”
In his 2004 book, What’s the Matter With Kansas?, Thomas Frank probed the psyches of Midwestern “values voters” to explain why blue-collar Americans abandoned economic self-interest to vote for George W. Bush. This eponymous documentary begins as a retelling […]
SF Examiner: An engrossing visit to another world – no 3-D glasses required
In advance of the movie’s San Francisco opening this Friday, the SF Examiner has paved new critical ground by being the first outlet to compare our little movie with James Cameron’s AVATAR:
For an engrossing visit to another world — one that doesn’t involve 3-D glasses and whose name is Wichita — “What’s the Matter With […]
One of the Ten Best Documentaries of 2009
Roger Ebert just named his Ten Best Documentaries of the year, and “What’s the Matter with Kansas?” made the list! Of course all of us who made the movie are thrilled and honored. (His original review is here.) Ebert is quick to note, though, that like a lot of his favorite docs, very few people […]
Larryville.com knows what’s the matter
The Staff of Larryville of Lawrence, KS made it to a recent screening at Liberty Hall, and “armed with popcorn and beer” took a reflective journey into the politics of their home state. We feel that they may have found the heart of the movie, as they conclude:
The character selection in this documentary showed some […]
The two Manhattans
George Haymont reviewed “What’s the Matter with Kansas?” back in October for his blog, My Cultural Landscape.
Writing about our movie alongside “New York, I Love You,” he couldn’t resist comparing Manhattan, New York to Manhattan, Kansas, beginning as follows:
While two new films focus on two very different areas of American life, they are tied together […]