Dinesh D’Souza, who’s best known as a convicted felon who also occasionally makes movies, has a new documentary out this weekend called Death of a Nation.
Donald Trump recently pardoned D’Souza for his felonious behavior — but, sadly, the pr*sident can’t do anything to make this tendentious hack’s films any less shitty.
As an aside, I must say that every time I see this Stuart Little-looking motherfucker’s eminently punchable face, my fist involuntarily quavers like Thor’s hammer until I can pummel something ugly, soft, and useless. Which is pretty much the only reason I stopped reading Breitbart while naked.
Anyway, the movie’s a piece of shit. It got 0% on Rotten Tomatoes — which is actually really hard to do.
Of course, that’s based on just 10 reviews so far, but unless The New York Times recently replaced A.O. Scott with Curt Schilling, it’s probably not going to score much higher.
Here are some of my favorite excerpts from the reviews RT has logged so far.
Peter Sobczynski, RogerEbert.com:
In concluding my review of “Hillary’s America: The Secret History of the Democratic Party” (2016), the previous film from conservative pundit-turned-conspiracy theorist/hack filmmaker Dinesh D’Souza, I offered the mild critique that “it may well be the single dumbest documentary that I have ever seen in my life.” Good thing that I added that qualifier “may well be” because with his latest effort, “Death of a Nation,” he has managed to outdo his earlier works to such an extent that this could be considered the “Mission: Impossible—Fallout” of crackpot cinematic screeds.
Owen Gleiberman, Variety:
“Check out the official Nazi platform!” says D’Souza, whose recitation of the official Nazi platform is just about the only set of facts “Death of a Nation” gets right. Here are a few of the regulations he quotes: “Money lenders and profiteers punished by death…State control of media and the press…Seizure of land without compensation…State control of religious expression.” Then D’Souza, in his sing-song hey kids, let me tell you a story about history! way, makes the following statement: “This reads like something jointly written by Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders!” And all you can think is: It does? In “Death of a Nation,” Dinesh D’Souza is no longer preaching to the choir; he’s preaching to the mentally unsound.
Frank Scheck, Hollywood Reporter:
And then the real fun begins, as D'Souza, with the aid of several obscure professors and authors, delivers a cinematic history lesson that would make even the administrators of Bob Jones University blanch. We're informed that the Nazi political platform could have easily been written by Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders. That the Holocaust was inspired by the obliteration of the Indians by "Jacksonian Democrats." That eugenics was a "progressive idea," and that the infamous Dr. Josef Mengele thought of himself as a "progressive." That slavery was an extreme form of socialism and that the goal of the Democrats was to turn America into "one big plantation." That the Ku Klux Klan was "the domestic terrorism arm of the Democratic Party." That Franklin Delano Roosevelt was enamored of fascism. And that Democrats, of course, assassinated Abraham Lincoln, to whom Trump is frequently compared in the film (it's amazing what a pardon can buy you these days). "Trump has Lincoln's inner toughness, but he needs the Republican Party to get behind him," D'Souza intones.
Vadim Rizov, AV Club:
To thoroughly unpack the falsehoods, rhetorical sleights of hand, goalpost shifting, and general bad-faith arguments would require a monograph. One example will suffice: To prove that Hitler wasn’t a “right-winger” but truly belongs to the left, D’Souza notes that the dictator is often deemed right-wing because he’s perceived as homophobic. (Well, yes.) But in fact, that’s incorrect, because Hitler tolerated homosexuals in the brownshirts as long as they were good fighters; ergo, he wasn’t homophobic, and by extension he’s not right-wing. Beyond the ridiculousness of the claim, D’Souza either missed the logical conclusion of his own argument—that to be right-wing is to be homophobic—or hopes the audience doesn’t clock the trap he’s set for himself. That’s typical of D’Souza’s whirlwind barrage of assertions: One minute we’re learning that FDR thought of Mussolini as a kindred spirit, the next that the Nazi party program sounds like it was jointly written by Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders because it has a healthcare plank.
So, yeah, Hitler and Mengele were actually liberals, and the Democrats killed Lincoln … 153 years ago. Which must mean Nancy Pelosi is the antichrist.
Ah, I’ll skip this one. I have a feeling there’s more trenchant political analysis in The Meg.
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