User Reviews

It's time to pull the plug, Joel's brain dead.

There's no helping this one...

The film attempts to make an analogy between Obama and the wizard in the Wizard of Oz. It's mostly short clips of interviews with random people on the street, speeches of liberal/progressive leaders made to sound evil, interviews with old white guys who spew right-wing propaganda, and some lousy animation.

Otherwise, this is just a grossly inaccurate portrayal of liberals/progressives. The point of the film is to equate Obama with leaders who used Marxist/Lenninist ideas to justify building oppressive totalitarian regimes. But, the film fails to note that there is a huge difference between progressive ideas in the USA and full-blown communism of the sort that some interviewed in the film suggest.

Take one example early in the film. Jerome Corsi appears to naively think that progressives are advocating that *all* of the money one makes from a hard days work just goes to someone else. While the incentive to work hard may disappear if this were the case, society also suffers greatly when the lower and middle-class work hard for little pay and no health insurance - just so rich folks can get far richer. If those who are well off don't want to help pay for better public education, how can those who are poor realize the American dream? If uneducated can't get a good job because the minimum wage is too low, why work? Why not rob, steal, or sell drugs instead? Should we then blame people for being criminals and lock them up forever? Too little *or* too much income inequality can lead to serious problems in society. Progressives recognize that income inequality is too extreme in the USA and is continuing to get worse, and a more equitable society would help us all be better off. Taxes are not that high in countries that have figured this out and that provide good social services (e.g., just Google "tax rate in France" and you'll see the gross exaggeration in the film) - not so that people can become dependent, but so that they can have more opportunities, get back on their feet when they fall on hard times, not lose their home or go bankrupt when a medical emergency happens. Since when is the idea about caring about and helping your fellow human being a bad thing?

The film unfortunately just goes on spreading misinformation and right- wing conspiracy theories. The only interesting thing I found about the film were ordinary people's perceptions of how they thought Obama's policies would affect them and whether they (wrongly or not) thought he could really do much to turn things around in just the few years of his presidency before this film was published.

This so-called *filmmaker attempts to make a spurious argument, but does not find support for any of his points. His logical fallacies, including Slippery-Slope, are a tortured attempt to link things that are unrelated. A complete waste of time.

Joel Gilbert has hand-crafted a delightful and sobering piece of work. Using the metaphors from The Wizard of Oz, he illustrates, through historical fact, personal interviews with citizens and non-citizens, and experts, the presence of socialism in the USA and its ill effects. He also uses President Obama's biographical details and own words to bolster his case. Some of the quotes from the Obamas surprised me; I'd no idea he had spoken in words and phrases that are communist talking points. Aspects of this film, especially the use of interviews, are quite clever. The animation appears purposefully hokey. Refreshingly, Mr. Gilbert, although tackling a very weighty subject, does not take himself too seriously. I was left wondering at several points why I'd never seen these types of interviews and the places of desolation in the news before, or had Obama's words put into a more meaningful context. This film definitely provided food for thought and was enjoyable as well, as I continue to seek to educate myself on the real state of politics in the USA.

The copy-paste low score reviews from mulgiple accounts are pretty telling of the people acting offended.

I always find this sort of thing amusing: If you're going to use film as a vehicle to list your grievances and make an intellectual argument for or against something, you had better know how to construct and make a film really well. Otherwise, maybe just write a paper for your community college professor?

Seriously, if you don't know how to use film as a language and full understand filmmaking in general, then you shouldn't do this sort of thing.

When you're going to make a "documentary" like this, you really need to know how to academically lay out your argument while showing things onscreen that simply illustrate your more complicated point. You also want to be able to freely and fairly examine as many sides to your argument in case there are gaping holes in it, etc. (I strongly recommend doing that last one!)

This film sure could use another year or two back in film school just to get back to understanding some basics.

Despite what this was supposed to be about, it was assembled so poorly that it came across as laughable and juvenile. If you have a product to sell, or an idea, you gotta come at me with your best. This film did nothing to woo me and that is a terrible mistake in this genre.

There's enough of this kind of thing on YouTube and Facebook these days. But not to this director. No, he had to turn his own political brainwashing into some sort of hour+ long rant without ever presenting source citation much less an explanation from the other side.

The problem is too many people are susceptible to garbage already-debunked lies and faulty logic like this now.

I mean, anyone who thinks Obama was a communist..er, excuse me, Communist (proper noun since that's what the filmmaker seems to think) should just Google "Obama CIA covertaction" and get back to us.

Even during the McCarthy era when actual communists and progressives were being arrested, blacklisted, blackballed and having their careers ruined, this film would have been seen as a third grader's attempt to regurgitate a combination of HUAC broadcasts and the ramblings of a rabidly anti-commie dad at the dinner table.

The number of lies is so immense that it'd be impossible to get through a fraction of them here, so you have been warned. Want a better way to spend the time than watching this hot pile of steaming trash? Pick up a US history book or read up on McCarthyism.

Great movie, really shows you how well we can be deceived.

This documentary takes a creative approach of using the story of The Wizard of Oz to tell the ideals of socialism and its effects on society. Give it time to get going, but once you're into the movie a bit it all comes together pretty nicely.