"Hillary's America: The Secret of the Democratic Party" Movie Review

Of course this movie comes to Payson. We couldn't get Sausage Party- oooh no. We got convicted felon Dinesh D'souza's newest partisan conspiracy flick Hillary's America: The Secret of the Democratic Party. But to be fair, I can only imagine this film was just as raunchy as Sausage Party is, what with all of it's on-screen self-righteous ego masturbation. 

The beauty of film is that it's for everyone- anyone can find something they like. The cinematic arts appeal to so many people with so many tastes and ideals, a movie like this coming out during one of the most divisive elections our country has seen is no surprise. Also, one of the beautiful things about our country is our freedom of speech- while I may not agree with what one person says or thinks, I feel they have a right to say it and think it. Having said that, I am definitely not one of D'souza's intended demographic, and I am also not completely sold on which side is the better option this election. I, like many Americans, am not happy with our current options for who should be the leader of our nation. I am by no means a Trump supporter, but I am also not fully on Hillary's side. But after sitting through Hillary's America I am no more supportive of Hillary than I was before, but I am also no where near convinced that I should be supportive of the GOP. 

For those who aren't familiar with Mr. D'Souza's work, he has written and directed such films as America: Imagine the World Without Her (2014) and his biggest "hit", 2016: Obama's America (2012), which garnered an astonishing $33,349,949 during it's time in theaters, making it one of the highest grossing conservative films of all time. These films were created for a very specific audience, so of course said audiences ate these films up, but the same can be said for documentaries such as Fahrenheit 9/11 and Blackfish; both of which were huge hits with a more liberal audience. However, even some of the best documentaries are pretty biased toward the position the creators of the film take toward the topic they are talking about in the film but they present their argument for their position, generally, through the use of statistics, well-documented and sited quotes, and facts. Not all documentaries do so, and this is one such 'documentary.' I also use the term documentary loosely as this film was made up of wooden reenactments versus doing much else.. 

The film starts out with showing Mr. D'souza receiving his sentencing from a judge after he had been found guilty of violating campaign finance laws. Of course, he blames Obama for his sentence, as he had just created 2016: Obama's America before he was tried and found guilty. So the judge sentences Dinesh (being played by himself) to spend time in a halfway house, be

Dinesh D'souza is living the thug life in a halfway house
[Found on Google Images]

on probation, and have to go to mandatory psychological evaluations during that time. While he's at the halfway house, he makes friends with the criminals including a man named Roc who was thrown into jail because he started a life insurance scam where a few of his cronies would go out on the street, offer people life insurance policies with no down payments and a check for $5,000 just for signing up, and then a few days later go and kill them to collect the money. Of course, this Roc fellow isn't a real person- I mean, he could be, but Dinesh never clarifies if the character of Roc is being used to protect the name of someone who didn't want to be mentioned in the film or what. So for all I know, he's not a real guy. Anyway, so after talking about the finer points of con artistry with Roc, Dinesh starts to put together this idea that the Democratic party is part of the biggest con in history, and is wanting to steal America. 

Dinesh visits some Democratic history museum and manages to sneak into a room for "Employees only" and uncovers the truth about how the Democratic party was started. And here we learn that when the Democratic party first created it was lead by Andrew Jackson who was pro-slavery and drove Native Americans from their homelands to reservations, that the founder of the KKK was a member of the Democratic party as well as a lot of racists who supported the same ideology, Woodrow Wilson who was pro-segregation,

A KKK clansman leaps off the screen during the White House's
screening of Birth of a Nation. You know, cuz stuff like that happens
all the time.
[Found on Google Images]

and even brought up that Margaret Sanger, a Democrat and founder of Planned Parenthood, supported eugenics as a means to cleanse the country of racial impurity. 

All of these factors, to some extent or another, are true and many of today's Democrats don't argue that, as all of those things are historically valid. But the problem is D'souza seems to forget that both the Democratic and the Republican parties have changed drastically over the past 100 or so years. He does mention "The Big Switch" that took place when Democrats and Republicans switched their party platforms, but only once and without much explanation, which if you want to know more about this important historical tid-bit, you're SOL; you'll be needing to hit up Google to get some answers. 

D'souza touts the glory of the Republican party by focusing on President Lincoln, who was the first Republican to be elected to the presidency and all the good that he did in regards to the Emancipation Proclamation, but that's really the only Republican president he focuses on. He briefly mentions Reagan during the course of the film, but he never delves into his politics or platform as a president. Also, while the film is called Hillary's America, he does a poor job of showing what that America would look like, as he waits until the final 20 minutes of the movie to start talking about it. He finds his way to Hillary's campaign headquarters, and again lets himself into an "Employees Only" room where he is met with reenactments of Hillary as a young woman, and how dastardly and power hungry she is by nature, as he seems to heavily imply. From there, we are met with footage of victims of Bill Clinton's sexual scandals and Hillary's defense of her husband. This information translates into Hillary and Bill being a political "Bonnie and Clyde" who want to bend America to their will for profit. While I do accept that Bill Clinton has a pretty nasty history when it comes to sex scandals, let's not forget that the current Republican nominee has his own list of mysogeny and sexual assault against women, but D'souza never touches on that, of course. 

The film then wraps up with Dinesh telling the audience that while he can't vote thanks to his conviction, he hopes the audience will go out and make the right choice. He walks off screen and the audience is met with a full scale band, an adorable girl-child in a white dress, and a large choir performing "The Star Spangled Banner" accompanied by stock footage of cowboys, children running with American flags, The Blue Angels, cannon fire, fireworks, mountain ranges and everything else that screams Americana for the last 3 minutes of the film. 

Margaret Sanger hangin' with the Clan and talking
about eugenics.
[Found on Google Images]

Honestly, thanks to poor editing, ridiculous moments of acting, and a lack of a solid argument as to why Clinton would be a bad candidate, this film is nothing but conspiracy-theorist garbage. While there could be a solid argument as to why Hillary would be a bad option for President and why she could clearly be considered a criminal, D'souza never provides any hard evidence to sway his audience, but rather just plays news footage and audio recordings that the Fox News crowd has seen and posted on Facebook at least a million times by now. 

While a lot of people are really fired up over this election, myself included, Hillary's America follows the same formula for bullshit that the rest of Dinesh's films follow; surprise, surprise. If you are the type of person who just can't stand Hillary no matter what the reason, you may enjoy this movie. But for anyone looking for a logical argument based on current and relevant facts to help form an educated opinion of who you should consider for president- do yourself a favor and look elsewhere. 

"God's Not Dead 2" Movie Review

Oh... There is just so much I want to say about this movie... 

"God's Not Dead 2" is the newest film distributed by faith-based entertainment company Pure Flix and is a "continuation" of the story that was set up in the first film of the "God's Not Dead" franchise. 
This film focuses on a teacher (played by Melissa Joan Hart) who is accused of proselytizing in her classroom when a student asks a question about Jesus, and then must go to trial to not only defend her job and innocence, but also (apparently) her faith. 

While I myself am not a "believer", as this film refers to it, of the Christian faith I do know a little bit about it as I grew up in a home with parents who did support this faith. Having said that, I do appreciate that this film is trying to appeal to a Christian audience (more specifically, an Evangelical one), but I can't help but feel that this film while trying to sincerely make a point, is purely constructed on Strawman arguments and "the feels." This film, while no where near as offensive and hate-filled as the first "God's Not Dead," this film continues in the latter's footprints of painting all Evangelical Christians as  victims who are constantly trying to be taken down by 'The Man' as well as "Non-believers", and everyone who doesn't share their brand of religion are just generally terrible people. In the first film, all "non-believers" were rude, demeaning, combative, and insanely sarcastic, this film paints a slightly different view of these people that is no less insulting; apparently, everyone who doesn't believe are self-centered, sneaky, soul-less automatons who want to bring down and snuff out anyone who believes in Jesus. 

The film starts off by introducing us to the character of Brooke Thawley (played by Hayley Orrantia) who is having a hard time getting over the death of her brother 6 months prior to the film's opening. Her parents, however, have completely gotten over his passing and push Brooke to do the same so she can focus on getting into college. And when I say they've gotten over the brother's passing, I don't mean that they're putting on their brave faces for their daughter, or they've gotten therapy to cope with their son's death- no, I mean these people are treating their son's passing like that of a fly buzzing out the window. Honestly, while I watched scenes with the mother and father going about their day to day life, I started to question whether or not they had murdered their own son. I have seen quite a few real-life crime shows and a majority of the people who are found guilty of murder go about their lives like nothing ever happened until they get busted. The movie also tells us that he died in an "accident", though it's never reveled what sort of accident it was- was it an automobile accident? Did he drown in a canoeing accident? Did his parents "accidentally" shove him into a wood chipper? Who knows. At this point, it's anyone's guess. 
Anyway, then we're introduced to Melissa Joan Hart's character Grace Wesley, who teaches American History at a high school. In the middle of a lesson where she is covering famous peaceful leaders such as Gandhi and MLK, Brooke (who has been getting more into Christianity), asks a simple question about the similarities in what Jesus and MLK preached in their practices and whatnot.  When MJH answers her with a bit of scripture, some of her students started texting about it, and the next thing you know, Grace is being punished for having a sermon in the classroom. 

[found on Google Images]

Now, this is the point of the story where I start to have a real problem with the message of this film. I really believe there needs to be a separation of church and state, and I do not follow or believe any of the gospel. Having said that, I can honestly say that this exchange between Hart and Orrantia is in NO WAY pushing any sort of boundary. I really don't think that mentioning Jesus in the context of their exchange to be in any way forcing religious beliefs on her students. Even when she started quoting the scripture, she was not pushing Christ's divinity or his claims of being a savior, but rather it was more about how to treat fellow man. Nothing wrong with that. And that's the sort of thing that logically, most people would see as being a ridiculous charge- all Hart would have to do when brought before the school board is just explain the conversation that she had with the student as best she could, and then have the student recount the same thing. However, this did not happen and the Victim Card is played when NO ONE asks her to do that. No one. They just ask "Hey, did you mention Jesus in the classroom?" "Yeah." "Scripture too?" "Uh huh." "Well, you're going to be disciplined for that you naughty, naughty Christian".  Of course I'm paraphrasing, but that's basically how it went down. Trust me on that one. 

Mr. Burns = Ray Wise's Character

Hart eventually gets a union-appointed lawyer who is a "non-believer" and then they go to court and have to go up against Ray Wise playing an atheist lawyer stereotype. Also, when talking to her lawyer about why people are reacting to Hart's protection of her faith, the lawyer goes so far as to say that they want to make an "example" of her, and treat her "kind" like a disease that needs to be stomped out. Yeah. That happened too. And then you have Wise's character Pete Kane. Honestly, Mr. Wise gives a great performance, but through the entire movie I was expecting him to start rubbing his hands together and laughing in a menacing way every time he had a line. But really, that's how all of the "non-believers" are portrayed in this film as I said earlier; Ray Wise is just a good enough actor that he's entertaining to watch while he's doing it. 

As the case goes on, Hart and her lawyer get the great idea to prove to the court that Jesus was a real person, therefore making him a relevant historical figure that she can freely talk about in class without persecution. So her lawyer wrangles up a couple of authors who wrote books about how Jesus was a real person.

[found on Google Images]

Let me be honest here for a second and say that I have a problem with this again because both authors supplied answers that were nothing short of being strawman-like. They boasted that Jesus was a real person, but they never provided any solid proof or evidence that he was real. One author, who is/was a homicidal detective who specialized in cold cases said that he had studied the gospels and had come to the conclusion that Christ was real. He said he had come to this conclusion because of the "different accounts of the same situation" all said the same thing, even though there were slight differences. Really. Yeah, that was the argument. He never once went further into explanation of this, but kept insisting the same thing. And they kept saying that "non-believers" wouldn't be able to deny those facts. Riiiiight. While these witnesses are touted as providing "facts", all of the information they give is still speculative from the viewer's prospective. And instead of producing any ounce of logic, reason, or (like I said) facts, the case trudges onward until Hart is found innocent by her jury. Of course we all knew that was going to happen in the end, but how does it happen in a court drama where there is very little actual evidence to help prove her case? The power of prayer makes it happen. Yep. When things go South in the case, a whole bunch of people pray and miraculously, she's found innocent. If prayer has enough power to sway a jury into finding someone innocent in a court case, I'm sure things like a cure for cancer, ending world hunger, and stopping war around the globe would be totally within our grasps, right? Well, I hate to say it but apparently God finds helping a teacher who, if the accusation was handled in a logical way from the get-go, could have handled the case without going all the way to trial is more important than stopping any of those other issues. 

[found on Google Images]

This film is nothing more than a propaganda film created to foster a false sense of victimization as well as make the target audience feel good about themselves. While I have no problem with movies that appeal to a specifically Christian audience, I do have a problem with ones that paint a whole group of people in such a negative way, and fosters a sense of "us versus them" among the viewers. "God's Not Dead" 1 and 2 have both been fairly big successes with their target audiences; the sequel alone garnishing $7,623,662 on it's opening weekend which more than makes up for it's $5,000,000 budget. However, I feel that Christian films like this are nothing more than exploitation films. At the end of the movie, several court cases are shown via text crawl that helped "inspire" the story of God's Not Dead 2. While this isn't the first time that cases like this have inspired a film; afterall, "Texas Chainsaw Massacre" and "Silence of the Lambs" were both heavily influenced by various crimes and murderers- this film takes these different court cases and stitches them together to make a cinematic Frankenstein's monster that not only tries to make the point to the audience that their faith is the only valid faith and everyone is out to get them, but also show the rest of the world that a movie doesn't have to actually be good as long as it gives someone a warm fuzzy feeling afterward. I think it's time that Christian films be held to the same standards as general films, and audiences stop falling for this type of toxic storytelling. Films like "The Prince of Egypt", "The Ten Commandments" and "Ben-Hur" are all Biblical films that are also amazing to watch and witness. I know not all films can be masterpieces, but what's wrong with striving to make an actual work or art instead of making a film to not only exploit a group of people to gain their money, but also to tear apart human connection based on differences in faith. 

If I had to grade this film, it would be get 1 star. I feel that is more than generous for this propaganda film.