They should do an anti documentary. Show Reagan as the blood hungry man that actively sought to gut government spending for mental health institutions, show him in backrooms smoking cigars to cut taxes, and talk to the CIA director to funnel crack in neighborhood.
Bonus points for downplaying aids specifically to target the gay community.
And the war on drugs stuff, and the Iran-Contra stuff, the DoH grant rigging, Ill Wind, loans crisis, Wedtech scandal and so many more classics!
After all, he's number one in the hall of fame for convictions/indictions of Administration officials. A whooping 138 record, making him the Babe Ruth of corrupt US government leaders.
Adam McKay was in the early steps of doing a Will Farrell comedy about Reagan's time with Alzheimer’s dementia, the concept being he was too far gone so his advisers told him he was playing the President as a role... the outrage machine got summoned and it got binned, but CANCEL CULTURE only applies to other things I guess.
If you put it like that I would prefer production, casting and direction like Narcos (Mexico / Griselda etc).
Sublime in picturing another era and pure nitty gritty of real life back then. Without fake glorification.
This is comically hyperbolic. Ronald Reagan isn't even the greatest monster in the history of US presidents. Frankly I'm not even sure he was the greatest monster to serve as president in the second half of the twentieth century.
I haven't seen the movie or read anything about it.
But the writer also wrote a sequel to God's Not Dead, if that gives any indication of where this sits on the reality/lunatic spectrum of right wing shithousery.
It's like Christian rock in that with regular rock and roll, artists express themselves through music, but when evangelists produce music, it's still just regular people making music.
I'd say Buchanan still wins. Saw the Civil War coming and basically stood back and let it happen. Was even sympathetic with slaveholders and the South in general even though he was from Pennsylvania.
But I hope to see the day sentiment finally changes and Reagan joins the worst Presidents list.
I know there's the argument that "Reagan lead to Trump", but I don't think that's particularly applicable. Also, Reagan's "legacy" as it where has had 40 some years to really seep in. Trump has only had 8, and even in just those 8 he's at the very least giving Reagan a run for his money.
I'm not really looking forward to the inevitably Obama hagiography, but releasing a movie like that right now would at least be timely. Reaganism might still rule our world, but Reagan - as a personality - hasn't been relevant in decades.
Left out of this scene is Reagan’s “Make America Great Again” remark, no doubt to avoid drawing parallels between its protagonist and Donald Trump, and it’s the first of innumerable instances in which McNamara and screenwriter Howard Klausner warp history for one-note lionization.
Which is a shame, because Trump really is the modern incarnation of The Gipper. He cribbed from Ronnie's playbook extensively and won with similar constituencies in a comparable upset campaign. Where Trump really failed was in his lack of an Evil Empire motivate the country against. Instead, he got a killer virus, which his own brand of cynical bumbling fascism was ill-disposed to confront. If Reagan had been held to Trump-esque standards for the AIDS epidemic, I wonder if he'd have suffered the same fate to Mondale in 1984. But AIDS was a disease for minorities, rather than rich old white men. So Reagan got to be the hero standing at the end of Cold War history, rather than the plague bringer that decimated the domestic economy.
Nonsensicality abounds, never more so than in Petrovich’s explanation for Reagan’s success: “People will not give their lives for power or a state or even ideology. People give their lives for one another, for the freedom to live those lives as they choose, and for God. We took that away. The Crusader gave it back to them.”
A bit of a shock to hear this, given the steady slide church attendance takes with the Gen X, Millennial, and Zoomer cohorts.
Considering its ceaseless hero worship, it’s unsurprising that Reagan concludes with an Alzheimer’s-afflicted Reagan riding off into the sunset. Yet for all the effort it expends trying to sell the late president as the embodiment of American virtue, McNamara’s film is so ungainly and transparent that it plays like embarrassing propaganda.
I can't think of a more perfect ending to a movie about one of America's premiere propagandists. But it feels like a message totally out of time with the modern audience. A "Hopey Changey" conservative throwback to a period of political optimism and a utopian vision of a single all-encompassing (fascist) movement that could sweep the nation.
If the movie falls to deliver, perhaps that's less the fault of the producer and the director than the man they sought to embody in their work.
I just went to the movies and saw the poster for it, first time I had heard about it. I thought to myself, okay, whatever. Then in the trailers I saw not just a tease, but an ad for some theme park thing connected to the movie you can visit? And I thought, WTF?
We tried to watch that a few nights ago. We couldn't figure out how a group of middle schoolers all got their driver's license and doctorate jobs. Seriously, WTF? The original cast were all in their 30's, which was believable. The stars of the new movie look like they're teenagers.
I HAAAATE biopics about recent history. It's not entertainment. Doesn't matter if red or blue tinged it's still trash because the story needs to be "interesting" instead of the horrifying truth:
There is only power. And those who desire power above anything else.
And people who want other things. The rest is just window dressing.
I'm sort of fine with fictional shows like The White House which are basically fantasy. I also like cop shows even though I know they are basically cop propaganda, it's just the justice fantasy and solving crimes is fun. As long as they don't muddle the water with recent real events.
Goddammit, there are three actors that I genuinely enjoy that are in this movie, and while I would like to think they just did it for a paycheque and aren't into MAGA bullshit, I'm not naive enough to believe it. Dennis Quaid, Penelope Ann Miller and Amanda Righetti why???????