Change Your Image
russdaren
Reviews
2016: Obama's America (2012)
Character Assassination pure and simple.
I'm neither a Republican nor a Democrat. Lets be honest, both parties are corrupt. I went to this movie thinking it would be stimulating to see a flick dishing dirt on the president. I am a politics junkie, which might be why I hold the above opinion about both of our nation's major political parties. So I am just as likely to watch Alex Jones as I am to watch Michael Moore.
This movie simply does not deliver. There are no bombshells, unless you count finding out that Reagan's white house employed a foreign national(Dinesh wasn't a US citizen when employed by the white house) as shocking. I do not.
The movie has a few moments of lucidity. It makes a valid point about American Empire. There has always been a dominant empire in the world during modern human history, if not several. Dating back to the Greek, Roman, Islamic, Holy Roman, Austro-Hungarian, British etc. If not The USA now, then who? The point the movie tries to make about Obama's "anti-colonialism" never really connects the dots with America's current Imperial status.
It also quickly becomes tiring to watch if you do not share the same assumptions as Dinesh. For example, I was not aware that Dinesh D'souza was an East Indian Christian. Of course Christians are a minority in India. I mention this because there is a kind of winking anti-Islamic subtext in the movie. I would not blame D'souza for holding some antipathies towards Muslims as a result of growing up in the fractious environment of India where people are killed over religion. However, the movie proceeds on the assumption that America's interests are not congruent with Muslim nations' interests. There are several points in the movie that if you do not agree with this assumption, the entire narrative will jarringly cease to make sense. For an ivy league educated political activist such as D'souza this is a ridiculous mistake to make. He is knowingly preaching to the choir throughout the film, so if the aim of the doc was to harvest more votes for Romney, it fails. If the aim is to shore up support among voters already likely to vote the straight GOP ticket, I don't doubt that it succeeds fantastically. A better tactic is to adopt a more neutral "a priori" approach. Merely present the facts in a linear fashion without inference. Though as I write this I wonder if Dinesh wasn't attempting to appear neutral, but simply failed to conceal his obvious zeal. In summary, this movie does not "open eyes" or connect the dots using facts and figures. When it does briefly rely on facts and figures for a few moments, it is hard to resist yelling at the screen. The facts are just glatingly off. For the remainder of the film you are expected to tolerate jittery closeups of Obama's fathers headstone, just to be sure you are aware that his middle name was "Hussein". Or the strangely contemptuous way Dinesh treats the 3rd world environments where he meets many of his interview subjects, mostly comprised of Obama's tertiary family members that agree (or disagree) to be interviewed. I thought it was childish to use corny "ethnic" music beds during depictions of events that transpired in Africa and the various interviews in Africa. In contrast, how offensive would it be to film a documentary on Romney and play old timey country and western during the segments that occur west of the Mississippi. Then play Mariachi music during segments about Romney's relations that lived in Mexico.
If you want the dirt on Obama, proceed to Youtube and do a search for Obama. There are a number of serialized amateur documentaries that do a better job than D'Souza at disassembling Obama. The fatal flaw in this film actually isn't that it attacks President Obama during an election year or that it is politically incorrect. The flaw is that it is written, produced, directed and starring Dinesh D'Souza. He should have relinquished the directorial chair to someone willing to make hard choices in order to get the point across more objectively.
Legong: Dance of the Virgins (1935)
Interesting technically and as a story.
I found this to be a very interesting film. It is shot in the film equivalent of a duo-tone, 2 strip Technicolor (more specifically process 3). This basically comprises red and green filters used on initial exposure of the film. Followed by a process which creates red and green dyed frames on a single reel. On playback the red and green frames combine on the screen to create various shades and hues. One of the major drawbacks of Technicolor 2 strip is that you shouldn't compose shots which contain blue sky, as it will reproduce green! Technical aspects aside, I first saw the film at Castro theater in San Francisco with Gemelan Sekar Jaya performing a score. While this may not be the original way the film was shown it surely enhanced my experience. Gamelan are Balinese metalophone orchestras which perform on instruments with non-western tuning. The color tones add a vaguely otherworldly hue to the proceedings. At several plot turns audience members actually let out audible gasps or shrieks. Such was the enthralling effect of the film. Yes there is an element of cultural colonialism, but not nearly so bad as contemporary films I have seen in other non-western locales. The principals are Balinese, not westerners made-up to look native. The depiction is sympathetic almost anthropological not sensationalistic. It is also remarkable in that it is one of the last of the silent films. 1935 being well after the inception of talkies. The story is somewhat simplistic. I do not know if this is a conceit of the directors style as I have not seen any of his other works. However it did not impede my enjoyment.
Get Crazy (1983)
Everybody knows I'm here
This is what I love about late night TV watching. Back before it all turned into infomercials. You could actually discover weird monster movies and b movie abortions. One night I was scanning the dial and discovered this gem. It's a mix of genres "battle of the bands" meets "we got to save the orphanage" Like "Blues Brothers" meets "Up in Smoke". Plenty of drug references. As the night progresses every band that plays does a version of the blues standard "hoochie coochie man". Even an all girl "punk "band fronted by Lee Ving of FEAR (its actually Fear on the soundtrack). Nothing groundbreaking, but fun for fans of "Cheech and Chong" style yuk fests.