Tag: Dinesh D’Souza

Every two years, I get to start a review talking about how every two years Dinesh D’Souza releases a piece of crap documentary.

It is the only thing getting him money, and it is presumably getting him nice amounts of money too, since he just keeps doing it. Maybe he sells some books and does some speaker tours too, I don’t know, but dumb asses keep throwing their money at him, so this whole thing continues.

I am meant to be a bit unbiased about these things, but the past films of a director totally should influence the future ones. Then you can see growth. Or see if they keep the same bad decisions that are calling cards for them. D’Souza’s calling card seems to be conspiracy theories, creating false narratives, projection, and usually, repeating the same arguments over and over in these documentaries.

Like three of them in a row seemed to pretend that why were different, but kept falling back on the weird same arguments about the history of parties and didn’t offer almost no new material between them. But yet, he made money.

So I will say this about 2000 Mules, the latest effort. This documentary is finally, FINALLY, about something new. Although just because it is new doesn’t mean it is worth watching.

This cover photo is reenacted for maximum fear mongering.

So what is 2000 Mules about? It is saying that at least 2000 people were hired during the 2020 election, to take pre filled in ballots to ballot boxes in states that were going to be close. To then stuff 3-10 ballots at a time in these ballot boxes, before going to 5 or more in an area in one night, early in the morning, whatever. And then doing it again, and again, and again. The assumption being these are people paid by Democrats to push the election in 2020 to Joe Biden’s favor, and is why Trump lost the election.

Sigh.

Okay, first of all, I can’t debunk everything in this review. That isn’t the point of my reviews. What I was surprised to find out though is how detailed the Wikipedia on this movie is, including noting how all these claims are basically bullshit, with sources. So here you go.

Instead, let me just note a few things. One, this thing really likes to attack people who are voting early in the morning or late at night, with the assumption that if you do something late, you are clearly suspect. Which is factually stupid. So moving on.

Two, it claims it doesn’t understand any level of selfie/internet culture. Since it attacks people on cameras who would take a PICTURE on their CELL PHONE when putting a ballot in the box, and said it was clearly them proving they did it for pay. Instead of like, you know, the many people who love to vote and take pictures of their vote and encouraging others to do so.

Thirdly, and this one is the most hilarious. They will show a video of someone with multiple ballots for whatever reason they might (maybe they brought in their families, I don’t know, I don’t care). And claim that this person also went to many other drop boxes, and would do this many times. And then they never showed that person in another video again. Like, it seems like the obvious proof of something awkward. Show the same person, in different boxes, or the same box, voting on multiple days or times. And they don’t. Why? Because this whole thing is just bullshit.

Honestly, yes, the Wikipedia does all the work.

This is a documentary that was even talked about in the January 6 public hearing already, and more people noted the dumbness about it.

So congrats D’Souza, you tried something new, and it was worse than before. I always need a good mind refresh after these things.

Fuck, it is 2020.

And I am not saying that for all the many reasons you might be thinking about. I am saying that because it is an even year. And every even year, for the last 8 or so, we’ve gotten stuck with a summer/fall documentary by Dinesh D’Souza.

It is clockwork now. Big election soon? Let’s get my huge ass propaganda piece out so help convince people with false facts and weirdly produced scenes.

For example, Trump Card, it begins and ends with a torture scene. A futuristic big brother thing of a government official torturing and brain washing a regular republican to a new way of life. All the same or else. Completely ridiculous stuff, and that is just one of the many things Dinesh throws into his movies.

Like most of his previous documentaries, this one has overall the same theme. Democrats are bad an evil, Republicans are trying to save the world. Repetitive talking points, no real proof, and occasionally patriotic music to really drive home that propaganda.

Ah yes, this is the part where Dinesh is the main focus.

You see, at this point, these documentaries are basically all about Dinesh too. He can’t help have himself be part of the main focus. He can’t help showcasing himself more in every interview instead of the speaker. He loves to ask his interviewees leading questions as well. You know, to get that specific sound bite. But for some reason Dinesh doesn’t even edit these things to get rid of that fact. Come on dude, you could make it look more menacingly if you don’t look like you are spoon feeding the people on what to say!

And so how does he phrase these arguments? Eh, just regular old gaslighting. “You know how the democratic parties seem to appeal to women, or the gays, or black people, or Hispanic people, or foreigners? Well, here is one person saying they don’t. And also everything they do is evil, and it is actually the Republicans who help these group the most! Yayyy!” Usually he also likes to give a throwback to something decades ago to why the republicans today are totally helpful. Because decades ago was relevant.

But hey, he is not done. Let’s go and attack Ilhan Omar, and Biden’s family some more, and things like that. And at the very very very end? Give a quick comment that sure, Trump might sometimes not be the most eloquent, or not be nice with his words, but can we blame him, what with all the attacks he deals with?

If you like being gaslighted, you will love this documentary. And if you do see this documentary and love it, please let me know.

Welcome to a Movie Roundup! A movie roundup features a few films that I didn’t feel like making full reviews for, but needed to get basic reviews out there for completionist reasons. It also helps me deal with my backlog. It may have a theme, and today’s theme is Documentaries 2018 (Part 1)! Basically, the documentaries I watched and didn’t yet write about, and need to really review, or else.

Being on a movie round up doesn’t mean a movie is inherently bad, or good, or meh. I can feature any rating on here! So don’t assume the worst! I will also just post the reviews in alphabetical order.

The Bleeding Edge is a Netflix medical documentary, and one I assumed was targeted towards Women. You know, because of bleeding.

And sure it isn’t about periods, but it is definitely geared towards women in some aspect, as two of the three technologies would only go into women. Long story short, there are a lot of “cutting edge” technologies out there that can save lives, be put into people, to solve problems. You know, like the pacemaker. However, the medical technology field is the least overseen of the official fields, unlike food and drugs. Anyone can get their device approved, especially if you just say its the same as a previously approved device, but one change. You can daisy chain approvals, and get to a point where what you are claiming was approved, was only approved from something else now discontinued for not working.

That is scary, people can get hurt, watch what you put in your body, and check the testing. That is what this documentary teaches, which is fine, but I can’t fully explain its science. I will assume dozens of real people testimony about other side effects should be heard, and this documentary gives them a voice, it is just a bit boring.

Look who it is. Dinesh D’Souza, this fucker. This guy who breaks the law, gets pardoned by Trump, and keeps making these documentaries.

I wanted to watch this one in the theaters and review right away, but still, I knew how it would be, and knew how angry I would be, and didn’t want to give it any more money. So I yes, waited, until I could see it for free, and then blast it, and here is the blasting.

A lot of this documentary is saying the same things he has said in past documentaries. No one gives a shit about Thomas Jefferson and it isn’t relevant to now. The past is not now, and right now Republicans are racist and shitty. Very simple. He badly tries to tear down Democrats and there is nothing new in this documentary at all. He isn’t even trying, he just needs his documentary every 2 years to take from Republicans, to give it back to Republicans. Hard pass.

Speaking of political documentaries, we have Fahrenheit 11/9, a sequel or sort. I will say the title is very clever, since it is about the election, and that happened on 11/9. Fantastic work on titles, Michael Moore.

A lot of people don’t like him and that is fair. He is brash and in your face and annoying. But this is not just an inverse of the previous documentary. Like one that only Liberals will like or anything. It is definitely in its sort of own path, and plenty of liberals won’t like it, either. Moore does a better job of shitting on current Democratic leadership and practices over the last decade than D’Souza has in his last few movies. There are real truths here and they are important and useful for us to move forward.

Overall again, not a great piece of work, but it is better, and highlights some interesting aspects of the Flint water crisis as well.

I think that this is one of the first movies I watched that started my giant backlog of things to review. I saw it, couldn’t figure out how to write about it, and it just sat there on my list, forever, waiting and waiting, and then other films joined it, and here we are today.

Robin Williams is fucking amazing. Everyone knows it, or should know it, and if they like him they should see it. It gives a nice life arc, the darkest times, the better times, his family, and so on. And it goes over his passing, the aftermath, and some of the reasons why it occurred. It made me realize some of the friendships he had with some other big names that I never knew, and they tell some touching anecdotes. I watched it, I loved it, and surprisingly it didn’t make me cry.

It still feels odd as a documentary, and was never close to being as impactful as something like RBG and Won’t You Be My Neighbor?. Which is odd, because as a viewer, I would say I actually had a relationship with Williams unlike the other two, but still couldn’t get as engrossed in this documentary on his life.

There are documentaries, and then there is Shirkers. Shirkers is weird, and haunting. It draws you in, while seemingly being about nothing.

I had no idea why it hypnotized me when it seemed that it was about the making of an independent movie far away, like, how could it be good? Why should I care? And at the end, it is still hard to answer that question, even when you find out who the documentary actually ends up being about. The amount of footage of the film is incredible, and it seems like the type of movie I definitely would not have enjoyed.

And yet, I could not look away. The only suggestion for a documentary like Shirkers is to just watch the documentary. Give it a try. See it. If it doesn’t look good after about 10 minutes, then bail, but really any information on it outside of what I gave is just something to be discovered.

Overall, there are lots of documentaries out there that I have seen this year, and more that I have (because this is just part 1). But I put some of the bigger names in this one, because I am ashamed they didn’t have reviews already. Not that part 2, or 3 will be bad, but hey, they will come out soon enough.

I almost spent money to see Hillary’s America: The Secret History of the Democratic Party. I almost drove up to a theater this summer to see it. I figured it would be a review I needed on my website, or at least needed before the Election.

But I couldn’t bring myself to do it. I knew it was by Dinesh D’Souza, who made America: Imagine The World Without Her. A very biased and terrible documentary that was so grotesque with its misinformation and style that it made my Worst Films of 2014 list. It was so strange to see a documentary that turned into a hit piece against Clinton in 2014.

Because this year having one makes a lot more sense. Needless to say, I went into this documentary with very low expectations and ready to hate it given my experience. Since the last one turned out to just be a big anti-Clinton thing, I didn’t know what this one would even say given his attacks two years ago.

I mean, he couldn’t just make something that said the exact same thing for 100+ minutes right?

You’d be surprised

A lot of this documentary is actually a dramatization about D’Souza’s life. Why? Because he wants to be famous and doesn’t care a lot about this shit. That is my guess. It starts with him going to prison for campaign fraud reasons. He says he went to prison for attacking Obama in a documentary, but doesn’t disagree that what he did is technically illegal. Instead, blaming the president.

In prison he gets to teach English to immigrants. And then he talks to inmates about why they are in jail, including someone who did prison fraud. Again, all of this is reenactment of prison, not actual footage or anything, so who knows what he wanted to make up about it.

About 40 minutes of the documentary are about him in prison, talking to people, and finding out the history of the democratic party. One of his biggest issues is Andrew Jackson, who did bad things to Native American, and calls him a champion for the Democratic Party. Except, you know, most liberal-esque people seem to hate him for the exact same reasons and no one calls him a champion.

Then the documentary says that the big switch after the civil rights movements was a lie. Even though yes, clearly policy has changed. I guess the biggest point about this is that despite current policy of a party in terms of social rights, D’Souza says it doesn’t count, because of Civil Rights votes and Jackson. Yeah.

And then some attacks of Clinton, emails and her foundation. The end. After a grossly patriotic ending, with flags and choruses and an orchestra. He wants them to know he cannot vote because of his crime. Even though the party he is pissed at is the one trying to make it so he can vote. Go figure.

I am an independent voter and I hate shit like this on both sides equally. But for whatever reason D’Souza keeps making bad documentaries, with lies, mostly reenactments, and a lot of hatred. So I will hate it right back.

Happy Freedom Day everybody! Unless you are reading this from Not-America, in which case, you know, the Fourth of July or whatever you want to call it.

I needed to review some sort of patriotic like movie for this special and awesome holiday, much like last year how I showed God Bless America. So when I found out some strange documentary was coming out this week with America in the title, I was thrilled.

America: Imagine The World Without Her. Alright, umm. Kind of a weird title. In fact, just reading it gives me negative thoughts about how this “Documentary” will go.

In middle and elementary school, every February for many years I would end up seeing a play put on for Black History Month. Usually it was about the achievements and inventions of Black Americans, and how life would be so different without them. It was an awkward play then and it is now, because they make the claim that if they weren’t there, then it would never be made. Which is bullshit of course, if they didn’t do it, someone else would have most likely. So I was scared that this documentary would be a lot like that play, but on a bigger screen scale with more kung fu fighting bald eagles or something.

But I was wrong. Somehow, it was far worse than I could have ever imagined.

And it was made by a man who looks like the Indian version of my second to last roommate.

Rage. That was my first emotion during this piece. After the intro of course. The documentary is full of historical reenactments, such as speeches by Lincoln or Frederick Douglas. It asks a hypothetical, how the world would be if Washington died in the Revolution. If the South won their independence. Some cool questions, of which, none of them were explored.

Instead, they ignored basically the title of the documentary and those questions and talked about why America was bad and their country was founded on thievery. What thievery? America stole the land from the American Indians, stole half of Mexico, stole people from Africa, stole resources from the world, and stole money from their own citizens.

What? This is what made me rage as it went through this list, detailed explanations from interviewed people as to why America was dick. I remember yelling retorts in my head. Like, “Fuck Christopher Columbus! He wasn’t American, he was Spanish, I don’t care what he did. Didn’t even land in modern USA!”

And then you know what? The documentary did it for me. Here came my confusion phase.

It started to use the same arguments in my head to clear up some of the issues. But it also used incorrect facts coupled with correct facts to make its point. I should have knew something was up when it grouped those five things together.

Not only did it mold the incorrect with the factual, blurring the lines with its biases, but a lot of what it started to say seemed pointless. Like, using these pointless “facts” as an argument against the earlier brought up points, where these stories didn’t actually relate to the points the argument made.

It’d be a lot easier to just dismiss if it was biased in one way. All falses, or something. But this documentary is sneaky.

So sneaky, that the true intentions of this documentary aren’t all made clear until near the last third.

And it all involves this woman reenactment video.

Turns out this documentary has a completely different agenda. It has turned suddenly into an anti-Obama documentary, almost completely out of left field. The director also did 2016, a documentary that I now have no reason to ever watch, because I can’t trust a thing he said. Should have known that, I guess.

So yeah, it went super hard against Obama out of nowhere. A lot of it was strange in that it was angry at him and his policies, despite it specifically being things started in the Bush years?

Then it went and talked about socialism, talkign about Saul Alinsky, and how Obama was someone who liked some of his ideals. This makes everyone bad by the way. Not only does it bring in Obama, but it then attacks Hillary Clinton, who wrote a thesis on him in college.

So there you have it. The whole point of this doc. It is entirely right wing propaganda, even had pro Tea Party information which no one should like. It made them seem like the little guy who was being walked all over, so the documentary wanted them to stand up and fight back against these evil changes to America.

They didn’t answer the questions brought up in the documentary. It was misleading. And it literally was just made quickly to affect the 2016 elections, which haven’t even had primaries for either side to see who is in the running.

What in the actual fuck.

Politically, I am an independent, so if a Democratic type documentary like this came out I would bash it equally as well.

America is an ass kicking country, and this documentary is part of the problem, not part of the solution. Political division is fucking stupid.