In a measure of full disclosure I should first say I am a registered Republican. I did not vote for Barack Obama four years ago and do not plan to vote for him in two weeks. Although I really do not go around announcing my conservatism much lately because my party has become a party of nutjobs who spout the most unbelievable things like our president was not born in this country and is a Muslim (even though four years ago he was anti-American because his Christian minister once said negative things about this country). 2016: Obama's America is supposed to be the thinking man’s attack on the president. There are no accusations of being a Muslim or even being born in Kenya or even hints at them (it even points out two separate newspapers in Hawaii that announced Obama’s birth).
The movie is based on the book by Dinesh D’Souza, The Roots of Obama's Rage
which he wrote in 2010. The tagline claims, “Love him, hate him… you don’t know him”. Except after watching the movie, there really was not much of the movie that I found new. There was one guy that Dinesh called one of Obama’s “founding fathers” (along with people like the 2008 buzz person Bill Ayers) who was a registered communist. Except like all the other “founding fathers” (aside from Reverend Wright) there are no pictures of Barry with any of these people (even the liberal communist were able to find one picture of George Bush with Jack Abramoff). If he was so close to these people to the point they shape his policy, why is he never pictured with them. And Dinesh sure likes his pictures because the one of Barry smoking (something) is shown multiple times.Even in the film, D’Souza features a cable show where he tells some talking head that accusing Obama as a Muslim and a socialist have not worked, so he has moved to attack number three: Barack Obama is anti-imperialist. Who knew there were imperialists left to be anti to? (Ironically the day after I watch this movie, I read an article by conservative commentator Niall Ferguson reporting a story where Chinese nationalist surrounded the US ambassador to the nation chanting “Down with US imperialism!).
Why is Barack Obama an anti-imperialist? Because his father was Kenyan and Barack wants to continue the Mau Mau uprising that kicked out imperialist British Army. To all of the even keel thinkers out there that are wondering, “You mean that Barry, who was raised by two Kansas women, was influenced by a man that abandoned him and only met once in his life?” And before you suggest that abandoned sons usually distance themselves from their absentee father, Dinesh finds a psychologist who specializes abandonment where the two men, who never met Barack Obama theorize that he is the an exception to the rule. Keep in mind earlier in the film Dinesh theorizes what would have happened had he stayed in his native India where he thinks he would have had been in an arrange marriage and the like, yet Barack, growing up in America, still ended up like his Kenyan father that he barely knew.
The first anti-imperialist argument that D’Souza is that the first thing Obama did after being inaugurated was to return a bust of Winston Churchill that the White House had since the 60’s to England. Except the reality is that the bust from the 60’s is still there, and the bust that was returned was loaned (note loaned, not permanently given to) to George W. Bush after 9/11 and was cleared out of the Oval Office with all of the other art and furniture that Bush put in there during his two terms. Obama’s supposed anti- British streak continued when D’Souza says that Obama supports Argentina gaining control of the Falkland Island but when I did a simple Google search most articles I read said that Obama is neutral on the issue.
After an hour of Obama history, D’Souza finally gets to theorizing what 2016 will look like if we reelect the anti-imperialist Obama which includes a world where Obama gets rid of all of our nuclear weapons because he is on the record of wishing we could live in a world without nuclear weapons (confessed Reaganite Dinesh conveniently omits that Ronald Reagan said the exact same thing). He also theorizes that because of Obama’s foreign policy that in four years we may see “The United States of Islam” that would stretch from Morocco to Pakistan (surprisingly his map leaves out Obama’s ancestral home of Kenya) even though many of the countries in Islam Fantasyland hate each other as much as they hate us.
The only potential doomsday scenario that Dinesh exposes that I agree with is that our debt will bring down the country, though I disagree that Obama wants it to happen because of his anti-imperialism. But this is not a Barack Obama problem; both Democrats and Republican have a spending problem that they need to reign in. One of the commentators that D’Souza speaks to even dings George W. Bush for his overspending. Granted Dinesh does conveniently omit in his stat that Americans have lost a large percentage of their wealth since 2006 that two of those years were under Bush.
Politics aside, 2016: Obama’s America just looks just a step above student film with hilariously staged dramatization and bizarre sound choices. While talking about a debate he had with Jesse Jackson, the dramatization actually depicts a black dude walking into what looks like a biker bar where the white patrons give the black dude a birthday cake. But still is not as funny as Dinesh doing the hula while researching Obama’s past. And it was were in a taped phone conversation, which looked more staged than one on The Hills, the sound would inexplicably change depending if the camera was on Dinesh or the person he was talking to.
When it comes down to it, 2016: Obama’s America will only make the people who already have an irrational hated of Barack Obama crazier and will make Obama supporters laugh more than they did for this week’s episode Modern Family. While people in the middle will not bother to watch it unless their crazy uncle forces them to. Just take the movie as it is, just something Dinesh D’Souza put out to make money. Actually, Dinesh may have changed my vote, I had no intentions of voting for Obama, but now I kind of want to see how wrong his movie is. And since I live in Ohio, my vote may very well decide the election.
Full Discourse Notice: This DVD was given to me by Lionsgate for review.
- Bat for Lashes
. She followed that up with other kind of fairytale 
).
), realizes Ella does everything she asks and decides to use it to her advantage.
) and collects a rag tag group of fairy tale outcasts (elves, giants, and ogres, oh my) on her trip as well as a handsome prince (Hugh Dancy, who really has not taken off here in the states but will fill the shoes of Will Graham in the upcoming televised version of Hannibal) that Ella just writes off as a pretty face. But the infatuation grows the ire of his evil uncle (Cary Elwes who knows a thing or two about princesses) that wants the crown for himself.
and 
, it may be time to give Ella Enchanted another look (or a first one in you missed the 2004 the first time around and perfect for any girl that has been born since then) and the film is more family friendly that the two show. And for those wondering about Hathaway’s singing voice with her upcoming role as Fantine in the movie version of Les Miserables, she actually sings two songs in Ella Enchanted including 
- The Walking Dead, Halloween, Piranna 3DD, Alien Anthology
- Taylor Swift
below and click the link to preorder the DVD over at Amazon.
starring Brendan Gleeson (Albert Nobbs) and Stephen Curry (Rogue). Also out Tuesday is 
starring Melissa Gilbert and Robert Mailhouse. 
where ten extremely attractive New Yorkers get it on with each other one by one. No, this is not five vignettes of the characters pairing off. Instead the movie starts with two characters hooking up, and then one of them leaves to find a new person to spend special time with and so on until we meet all ten people in the film.
), Lee Pace (
), Jennifer Tilly (
), and Paz de la Huerta (
). But do not expect to see much of any of them because no one gets more than ten minutes of screen time in the whole movie. Which also means it is hard to invest in any of the characters because by the time you start to care about them, they are already done with their part. I even thought they may pop up 
style in other people stories, but that rarely happens during the film.
was my favorite show on television; this of course was early on before Denis Leary’s ego went out of control. So it is hard to watch Chicago Fire and not compare it to that previous firemen show. There are similarities, like how a fireman goes down on duty in the first episode, and differences, instead of Probie, the new guy is call the clunkier Candidate. The most notable difference is that the characters on Chicago Fire are significantly less interesting. There are no hot heads like Tommy, idiots like White Shaun, really, most of the characters are just pretty boys like Franco. If the show had not cast one brunette and one blonde I probably would not be able to tell the two leads apart.
a couple seasons ago was much better. And it was odd that they made one of the lone females on the show a lesbian (the usually absurdly hot, but needs to go back to being a brunette Lauren German) which eliminates any chance of any inter-department hanky-panky.
) plays the chief and is his usually epic self. I really wish they would spend more time on him than the bland pretty boys. The show was also able to wrangle a local celebrity to make a cameo in the premiere. But do not get excited sports fan, it is not Mike Ditka, Michael Jordan, or even the big head of Sammy Sosa, but a local politician. If there is a reason to watch future episodes of Chicago Fire it would be my sources tell me that at some point Shiri Appleby will be showing up as German’s ex-girlfriend. Okay, maybe making German a lesbian was not the worst idea in the world.
thinking it was a show a about football, a game they just did not care for. But the show was not about football, it was family and a small town whose population just happened to gather together every Friday night to watch the town high school play football. In fact the football scenes were the least interesting part of the show. I do not bring this up in relation to the new show Nashville because Connie Britton played the great Tami Taylor on the show. I bring it up because I fear people not bother to tune into Nashville simply just because they do not like country music or even music that can described as alt-country, punk but more cerebral. 
), a evil(er) version of 
) plating Britton’s father , who doesn’t like the hillbilly music, but does like controlling the politics in Music City and does not mind playing dirty. This includes handpicking Britton’s husband, who lost most of his money in the economic downturn, to run against one of Connie’s good friend. Not surprisingly she does not like her husband under the wing of her estranged father that leads to a great confrontation in the first episode.