On his latest podcast, Adam Carolla remarked about the great divide of the reviews of Dinesh D’Souza’s latest film, “America: Imagine the World Without Her”. At the moment they currently are as follows:
That’s a pretty wide gap between “top critics” and the public. It would make for an enlightening article to interview those professional film reviewers to get a sense of their lifelong voting patterns and their feelings about their country and its history. If the same questions were honestly answered by American journalists, would the results be very different?
Not that I would expect the typical (leftist) movie critic to be disinterested when it comes to a Dinesh D’Souza film, but it’s quite possible the film is crap and that the positive reviews are totally in response to the politics rather than the quality or convincingness of the film. Certainly I haven’t seen very many well-made political documentaries coming from conservative sources.
The “public” who are going to see this are the hyper partisan far right minority that occupies spaces like this. The audience for this film has already drank the kool-aid you see. Of course they like it.
“The retail giant Costco Wholesale has issued an order to remove all copies of Dinesh D’Souza’s bestselling book, “America: Imagine the World Without Her,” from the shelves of its stores nationwide, WND has confirmed.
The book, in this midterm election year, is a strong rebuttal of the progressive ideology behind President Obama’s policies, which have been supported by Costco co-founder and director Jim Sinegal, a major Democrat donor and a speaker at the 2012 Democratic National Convention that nominated the president. A Washington Post political reporter has noted Obama’s “romance” with the nation’s second-largest retailer.”
and…
“Amazon readers have given “America” an average rating of 4.6 out of 5.”
http://www.wnd.com/2014/07/costco-removing-dsouzas-america-from-shelves/
I guess they had to make room for those 800,000 unsold & printed copies of Hillary’s new book.
tim, you may be correct, but you have no facts to support that argument. It’s just as likely that the 7 critics (more likely, in fact, given the small sample size of 7) who gave it a 0% are drinking from the kool-aid on the left side of the table.
Really tim?
So if they made a movie about the death of America. You would be first in line.
Marc.
In case you don’t know. Costco is a off shoot of the Price club started by Sol Price. When Mr. Price the sold the company to another Biz partner who by the way is a big lib, he changed the name.
You can see what is going on.
Yes if you wonder Mr Price was (Rep)
“Sales of Hillary Clinton’s new book, Hard Choices, fell by 43.5 percent to 48,000 copies in its second week of availability, according to Nielsen Bookscan.
Bookscan, which tracks sales at over 80 percent of book vendors in the U.S., had reported first week sales of 85,000. Add in e-book sales of 15,000 and Clinton sold 100,000 copies total.
These figures don’t bode well for the publisher, Simon and Schuster, despite the fact that the book will be No. 1 this Sunday on The New York Times list of hardcover nonfiction best sellers. Typically, books generate about 30 percent of their total sales in the first week due to the book tours and publicity a major title receives.
Using that formula, Hard Choices might hit the 300,000 mark, which is far short of the one million copies that Simon and Schuster shipped to bookstores in anticipation of a flood of sales for the former Secretary of State’s latest tome.”
http://www.aim.org/don-irvine-blog/hillary-clintons-book-sales-plunge-in-second-week/
… just so you know where I arrived at the above “800,000 unsold & printed copies”
and tim @ 11.54, “drank the kook-aid” is a leftist idea, you’re aware of the communist Jim Jones story?
For the right I believe it’s red wine at lunch, margaritas by dinner..
From a group of people that pride themselves on their ability to read, they don’t seem to be doing much of it. Wait until august, “Hard Choices” will be right beside Al Gore’s books in the dollar bin.
Thanks, I’m not a Costco shopper, I’ve been in one here in cowtown about 5 times as a “guest” over the past 2 decades and wasn’t aware of any of their story prior to this week.
I don’t have anything against their business model, just that this sort of censoring from the business office isn’t expected. It seems a political decision.
Interesting, that China wouldn’t allow its book sellers to buy the rights to Hillary’s book, either in english or mandarin as it had some hefty content on how Hillary disagreed with China’s internal affairs.
There are many crony capitalists these days. I bet Costco and Google get much investigation from the IR.
I saw it. I loved it. And the critics can stuff it!
“… I haven’t seen very many well-made political documentaries coming from conservative sources.”
Have you seen political documentaries that you thought well-made that came from leftist, socialist, or “progressive” sources?
Dinesh D’Souza should have released “America” under the name “Jules Dash.” It would have gotten much better reviews.
I like Rotten Tomatoes as a general guide to movies but I often see large gaps between what the audience likes and what the reviewers like. Seems like the audience is usually neutral but the reviewers feed off each other. 7 reviews is probably insignificant as anyone can be a reviewer for Rotten Tomatoes. Friends of Obama just voted first. Also, must be a very limited release as it doesn’t even show up yet. Or did it come and go and I missed it ?
http://www.rottentomatoes.com/
Interesting comparative numbers for Michael Moore’s films on Rotten Tomatoes:
Bowling for Columbine: Critics 96%, Audience 83%
Roger & Me: Critics 100%, Audience 79%
Fahrenheit 9/11: Critics 83%, Audience 69%
Hmmmm….
So we have
users: 91% liked it
critics: 11
top critics: 0
Contrast this with fahrenheit 911:
users: 69% liked it
critics: 83
top critics: 83
A complete reversal. Looks like the critics are an arm of the Democratic Party.
Critics are crap anyway. That’s the whole idea behind RT in the first place.
The critics don’t like it because it speaks to “American exceptionalism” as the foundation for the nation.
Further they see the film as subversive, as the American Revolution was essentially a repudiation of taxation without representation. IE it calls the ‘big government’ nation state into question.
Naturally, this rubs the progressive freaks the wrong way so they give the movie a thumbs down, while the regular folks will have a field day of enjoyment out of it.
Who among the progressives will enjoy a mounted charge into a hail of fire from the everyman rifle; sporting the then ubiquitous black powder soft lead ball ripping into the opposition?
In short, it questions the “Obama-Nation(tm)” progressive ideology and that is why they panned it.
Cheers
Hans Rupprecht, Commander in Chief
1st Saint Nicolaas Army
Army Group “True North”
Lot of bitter socialists who realise that Americans still love their Nation. After all these unrelenting years of being lambasted by the Marxists.That’s what this boils down to. The critics belong soul & body to the collectivists, so of course they hate the Documentary. The people love it though.I guess your socialist Utopia Tim is a ways away.Have you ever noticed very few movies that get Oscars never stand up. Its almost always the ones who nobody cared about, that where not leftist that became hits. Most though that become cult films really have no political but moral messages.
To answer the question the movie asks, “what comes after America”? well,North America of course – and the NAFTA merger of borders has been on the transnational left agenda for decades – and the social and cultural homogenisation that goes with it.
Off topic:
Germany 5 Brazil 0
after 30 minutes of play…
One would have to describe this as “Blitzkrieg” on the soccer/football pitch.
Cheers
Hans Rupprecht, Commander in Chief
1st Saint Nicolaas Army
Army Group “True North”
That is strange…two days ago the score was not 0% but 21% for critics and about the same as it is now for the audience/public.
It seems the critics revised the score, but isn’t that like cheating?
“America: Imagine the World Without Her”
Let me fix that headline for ya, Robert.
“Journalists: Imagine a World Without Them”
“Certainly I haven’t seen very many well-made political documentaries coming from conservative sources.”
That is because you have not watched “The Great Global Warming Swindle”….
You probably won’t because you realize it counters your world view.
Tim does have point we all, including you and Tim, preselect our viewing…..guys don’t willing watch “chick flicks”.
Apologize to Islamists
Leave Iraq, Syria and other countries to Sunni & Shiite terrorists
Ignore extra-state funding of the above-mentioned terrorists.
Withdraw security from Libya/Benghazi, learning nothing from the Nairobi attacks.
Isolate Israel, then criticize them for defending themselves, asking them to show “restraint.” IOW tell Israel they can defend themselves as long as they don’t defend themselves.
Make idle red line threats
Reduce military deterrence all of the world
Replace American (free-enterprise) exceptionalism (no they’re not perfect but far superior to those who hate them), in favour of “you didn’t build that” statism, while racking up debt at precisely the wrong time and creating a permanent cadre of unemployed political clients.
What could go wrong?
OTOH the US administration could argue they have deterred Russia expansionism in Ukraine and elsewhere; except, it’s probably not true, Putin is just waiting for the heat to turn down as his troops remain in battle readiness on the Ukraine border.
Isn’t is such a coincidence attacks on Israel have ramped up in the last two months (they never actually stopped, since 1947)?
No, it’s not a coincidence.
I tried watching the Great Global Warming Swindle. I fell asleep halfway through. I didn’t disagree with the documentary, it just bored me.
Judging by the critics scores I’m guessing there was no gay love interest sub-plot…
These critic review excerpts seem absolutely ripe for a good old juxtaposition between this and, say the reviews for Davis Guggenheim’s “An Inconvenient Truth”.
Mark Jenkins especially from WaPo – “D’Souza controls the conversation, and thus goes unchallenged when he tries to make real-world points with make-believe scenarios.”
Here’s WaPo’s review of An Inconvenient Truth http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/06/01/AR2006060102063.html
… assuming you’re using the term “guys” loosely.
tim – what will you say after your boys get kicked out of the US Senate in Nov?
Will you admit there is ” a hyper partisan far right ” majority?
Your type have brought a liberal fascism to America, and the people loathe it. You know what comes next!
You lefties better prepare yourselves now for the destruction to come, perhaps by examining why your beliefs produced such a thumping bust for all in America except the grifters who run the gov.
Does anyone know where this movie can be purchased?
There is no way this movie could be worse than the drivel Hollywood excretes these days.
You’re a regular Carolla listener too! Love it.
I see this gap often. Critics love it, audience (the people -paying- the money) gives it two stars. Sometimes worse. Critics HATE it, audience gives it three and a half to five stars. Over and over again, same pattern.
Therefore, 100% bad reviews from the critics is EXCELLENT news for Mr. D’Souza.
I think it’s only in the theatres for now, it’s just be released.
Here’s the Canadian kindle link at Amazon, $1. more than in the US Amazon. I don’t have a Kindle, so, I wait too…
http://www.amazon.ca/America-Imagine-World-without-Her-ebook/dp/B00G1SM2QU/ref=sr_1_fkmr1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1404880577&sr=8-2-fkmr1&keywords=d%27sousa+america
been.
obviously.
Thank you sir. I will wait, maybe buy the book first.
I suspect that a couple of commenters here would love to Das Kapital in a movie version superimposed on the October Revolution, with Eisenstadt as director.
hmmm…
I don’t know if it’s available in actual book form in Canada yet. Amazon didn’t have it listed, only a Kindle version although the Cosco kerfuffle appeared to show an actual book.. There is a hardcover book at Amazon by D’Sousa entitled, “Obama’s America” I believe it’s a different book, published in 2012
Here’s his Youtube page for the movie trailers:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC8GAOCAJxBL4bExaUCvwL4Q
Your mention of Das Kapital in movie version with Oct. Revolution sounds like something from “The People’s Cube” 🙂
“America: Imagine the World Without Her”
Imagining wouldn’t be hard, really.
Like when the U.S. sat out the first THREE QUARTERS of WWI or the first HALF of WWII.
Or lets imagine the U.S. NOT getting involved in Viet Nam in the first place or losing China to the Communists or how about if the U.S. just threw in the towel at the end of WWII and let the Soviets off the hook for invading Poland in 1939. What would the world look like then, eh?
Probably a lot like it looks right now.
JMO
It would certainly look very different if the U.S.A. had sat out the last quarter of WWI or the second half of WWII.