Sunday, July 6, 2014

Cheap shot: Guess who's coming for Dinesh?

I mean, other than the police? If it's for the new movie, I think the answer is that it's not everybody, quite, though the ever-optimistic fans are expecting a breakthrough soon:
In tears of chagrin and amazement, no doubt, at how they were watching a movie so dismal that its most stirring trailer moment is when General George Washington dies in battle (that's just one of the trailers; another one has a charming appearance from a nonfictional Noam Chomsky trolling D'Souza pretty mercilessly but too politely for D'Souza to notice); watching a movie instead of fireworks and eating artificially buttered popcorn instead of barbecue. People who can't take a break from their resentment and rage even on Independence Day, because that was the only day folks really came out.

As the Hollywood Reporter put it,
Dinesh D'Souza's new documentary America, which expanded nationwide Wednesday, grossed $4 million for the five days from 1,105 theaters. That's a modest footprint ... [which] didn't match the $6.5 million nationwide launch of D'Souza's hit documentary 2016: Obama's America two years ago, but soared more than 60 percent on July Fourth after an intensive marketing push tied to the holiday. On Saturday, America was the only film in the top 20 that was down, however.
In other words it may have enjoyed a bit of a one-day bump among people whose favorite radio talk shows were taking Friday off and who had nothing else to do because they have no families or friends other than their fellow wingnuts and hate fireworks and barbecue anyway, and if truth be told hate America too, but it will be sinking soon.
Edited (or something) by KraljAleksandar at DeviantArt.
He got a warm welcome this morning, I hear from Heather at C&L, from the television people,
Why, ABC? WHY? Someone please tell me why you would put convicted felon Dinesh D'Souza on This Week and give him plenty of time to pimp his movie? And why would you do it without even a whisper about his sentencing for campaign finance violations coming up in September?
From the critics, somewhat cooler. Gabe Toro, at IndieWire, asks,
Is Dinesh D'Souza's 'America' The Worst Political Documentary Of All-Time?
...artless propaganda, uninformed, sensationalistic and devoted to buzzphrases (“the shaming of America”), simplicity (“have the United States been a force for good or ill in the world?”) and grandstanding (“We won't let them shame us, we won't let them intimidate us”—who is them and who is us?). Insidiously, these are some of the ways D'Souza and co-director John Sullivan keep the film brisk and conventionally entertaining, not unlike a “Sharknado” sequel or a particularly embarrassing YouTube video. Filled with soaring guitars, pointless blacksmith montages and recreations with porn-level production values (check out the sponge-wig on Frederick Douglass), it's all fist-pumping anti-thought, consisting of baseless revisionist history and idle contrarianism. And maybe, deep down, D'Souza knows it: one of the lasting images of the film is his voiceover threatening, “Capitalists are under fire,” while he watches Michael Moore give a speech on the Jumbotron, eating a Times Square hot dog and standing in front of an Olive Garden.
May not be the worst of all time, but looks like a pretty good case. Sharknado sequel!

No comments:

Post a Comment