By most accounts, Dinesh D'Souza's documentary, "2016: Obama's America", has been a success. Even the New York Times Arts section (hardly a bastion of conservative thought) admits:
"The movie capital didn’t see this coming: The political documentary “2016: Obama’s America,” beat two new Hollywood releases at the weekend box office and came very close to passing a third. “Obama’s America,” released by Rocky Mountain Pictures, took in an estimated $6.2 million at North American theaters, for a total of $9.1 million since opening in limited release last month."
OF COURSE the movie industry didn't see this coming. The movie industry, which has largely ignored the majority of the population by shunning conservative ideals both in its movies and in personal politics, was surprised that a conservative movie could make money? Shocking.
While audiences clamor to see the movie, critics are working double time to downplay its significance. Nowhere is this more evident than in the disparity between the critics' and audiences' scoring of the movie on Rotten Tomatoes, a movie ratings web site, below.
Of course, the opposite was true of Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 911 – the critics loved it, while the audiences did not.
Here are just a couple snippets from critics' comments across the country:
Washington Post: "And, make no mistake, D’Souza’s documentary profile of President Obama — which is like his earlier writing attempts to portray its subject as not just anti-capitalist but anti-American — is just that: a slick infomercial."
Roger Ebert: Of course, we were sure that Ebert would have reviewed this movie since he's from Chicago, like Obama, and it was a sleeper hit. That is, until we went to his web site, at which he claimed it wasn't being shown in any downtown Chicago theaters (that alone is strange). But, he has not seen it yet. We're not holding our breath.
New York Times: "The strident documentary (Peak emphasis) '2016: Obama’s America' builds on Mr. D’Souza’s 2010 cover article for Forbes, which asserts that Mr. Obama pursues his father’s left-leaning, 'anticolonial' ideals. Here they are presented as flaws consistent with the senior Obama’s multiple relationships, alcoholism and fatal auto accident in 1982." Funny, we found D'Souza's temperament to be anything but strident.
Mad about Movies: "Indeed, “2016: Obama’s America” can’t be construed as a hatchet job on the president, nor does the polite and well-spoken D’Souza seem to aspire to such. So while his material can’t be easily disproved or marginalized like Moore’s emotive rants and innuendo, neither does his film succeed as sheer bravura entertainment."
Hollywood, this is a wake up call to you. Conservatives make up a significant portion of the population in the United States, perhaps one of the reasons that movie sales have been in a slump is because you've ignored them for too long.