SHUT UP & SING: THE DIXIE CHICKS

Director: Barbara Kopple
Run Time: 98 minutes
Country: United States
Year: 2006
Language: English
Rating: PG (Coarse and sexual language)

“For three years, the camera focuses on the Chicks as wives, mothers, entertainers and political flash points. Their fight to stay uncompromised is inspiring.”- Peter Travers, Rolling Stone

The Dixie Chicks are the best-selling female group of all time. Dixie Chicks: Shut Up and Sing takes us behind the scenes during a dramatic period of their career; the result is one of the most intimate portraits of artists ever put on screen.

The group made headlines all over the world in March 2003 when, as bombs were falling on Iraq, lead singer Natalie Maines told a London audience, "We're embarrassed that the President is from Texas." Not since John Lennon quipped that the Beatles were more popular than Jesus has a backlash been so fierce. Right-wing groups responded with radio boycotts, CD burnings - even a death threat. This film will send fans into ecstasy and turn you into a convert if you've never heard the music before. Behind the scenes, we see the band endure persecution and plot their comeback. With millions of dollars at stake in music sales and corporate sponsorships, band members Maines, Emily Robison and Martie Maguire uphold their artistry and politics against pressures to just "shut up and sing."

Throughout the ordeal the women, along with their wise-cracking band manager Simon Renshaw, maintain a delightful humour and independence. The film also follows them balancing career and motherhood, and we see sisters Robison and Maguire both go through in-vitro pregnancies. Several narrative threads interweave as the band goes into the studio. The story gets the filmmakers it deserves in Barbara Kopple and Cecilia Peck, who follow the story right up to this summer when "Taking the Long Way" debuts at number one on the Billboard charts and the band takes to the road again. At a time when celebrities are carefully controlled to not rock the boat - and media access is even more controlled - The Dixie Chicks exhibit openness and the courage of their convictions. Like the title of their hit single, they're not ready to make nice quite yet.

“The filmmakers are clearly in awe of the Chicks' fighting spirit. If you think Maines's original Bush remark was disrespectful, wait till you hear what she calls him here. Maines is not ready to make nice, and neither is this riveting documentary.”- David Ansen, Newsweek