While the Media Research Center fawned over a new film about Ronald Reagan, defending it against against purported “censorship” and claimed movie critics who didn’t like the film as liberal activists (without proving the conspiracy theory), it was unsurprisingly much harsher on a biopic about Donald Trump. Tim Graham spent an Oct. 12 post complaining that a Washington Post film reviewer argued the film could have been even more critical of Trump:
Washington Post film critic Ty Burr not only hated the biopic Reagan with Dennis Quaid as too soft and bland. He lashed out at the young-Trump movie The Apprentice as not at all harsh enough on Trump. Shouldn’t Republicans always be unintelligent monsters? So say the film critics on the Left.
Burr mentioned both movies near the top of his movie review on the front page of Thursday’s Style section: “The Apprentice isn’t the scorched-earth hit job that Donald Trump supporters have feared and others have hoped for. Nor is it the kind of bland Great Man biopic that would sweep its subject’s flaws and crimes under the rug, as in the recent Reagan.”
The Trump film’s director Ali Abbasi disappointed the Left by saying he didn’t want to make a “political movie.” That might just be a way to expand the audience right in mid-October when it can have political impact. Burr shot back: “If that strikes you as disingenuous or naive or both — if the idea of a Trump movie that isn’t political seems absurd, if even possible — you’re not the only one. (That includes several audience members at the Q&A who expressed surprise that the film wasn’t harder on the 45th president.)”
So Trump should basically be presented as Satan. Burr says Roy Cohn is Satan, several times. The movie is “the tale of how a raw young real estate brat from Queens became Donald Trump under the tutelage of Satan himself, Roy Cohn, who served as Joe McCarthy’s wingman in the 1950s.” Communists are never villains, only anti-communists.
Burr repeats the Satan part here: actor Jeremy “Strong has the showier performance; his Cohn is reptilian and mesmerizingly assured, the snake in the garden of the Big Apple.” And: “the older man takes him under his wing as a blank template for the dark arts according to Roy Cohn, rules of the road that, in Gabriel Sherman’s screenplay, have the blunt force of hindsight.”
This does not sound like an apolitical movie! Then Burr turns to a marital-rape scene, and you ask “the film should have been harder on Trump”?
Graham did note that Ivana Trump did testify that the rape scene happened, though she later recanted. And he doesn’t explain how being an “anti-communist” exempts Cohn from criticism over his job as McCarthy’s henchman.
The MRC’s right-wing film critic, Christian Toto, spent an Oct. 19 column gloating that “The Apprentice” didn’t do well at the box office:
The corporate press pulled out all the stops to promote “The Apprentice,” Hollywood’s latest attack on Donald Trump. Story after story after story. Fawning interviews. False claims that the film is a fair assessment of Trump’s rise to power.
The latter is Hollywood fiction.
And it all failed. Miserably.
“The Apprentice” couldn’t crack the Top 10 in its debut frame, earning a pathetic $1.5 million from 1,740 screens for 11th place. “The Nightmare Before Christmas,” released 31 years ago, earned more on fewer screens ($2.1 million, 1,700).
Toto further whined about the rape scene:
“The Apprentice” goes out of its way to demonize its subject in small and huge ways. The controversial rape scene speaks for itself. Director Ali Abbasi fought to keep that in the finished cut despite legal pressure from Team Trump.
Ivana Trump denies the rape happened, twice, after initially making the accusation in court. Abbasi and co. know better, apparently. An artist eager to tell a balanced story would certainly leave out a questionable detail, no?
No?
We don’t recall Toto or Graham demanding a “balanced story” about Juanita Broaddrick, who signed a sworn affidavit stating that Bill Clinton didn’t sexually assault her before abruptly changing her mind. Instead, he complained about the film’s timing:
Yes, a film hitting theaters weeks before Election Day which shows Trump raping his wife is meant as a nuanced look at the leader. It’s so fair and balanced that Politico compares Stan’s Trump to a young Darth Vader.
Politico repeatedly says (wishes?) the film could tip the balance in the upcoming election. The film’s pathetic box office results suggest that the wish won’t come true.
[…]Trump is no saint. Making a connection between him and Roy Cohn, brilliantly played by Strong, is a more than reasonable gimmick for a movie like this.
The actual film remains a hit piece. Every time a scene suggests Trump has a flicker of humanity, the rug is pulled out from under him. And the viewer.
And that’s fine. That’s the story Abassi wanted to tell, and he has every right to tell it.
The media should just stop lying and give us the truth.
You first, Christian.
Toto followed this with a Nov. 23 column cheering that the actor who played Trump is purportedly being ostracized in Hollywood for the role, out of fear of retribution from Trump:
So the team at Variety magazine asked Stan to be part of its annual “Actors on Actors” series. The chats pair two awards-season hopefuls to discuss their films, their craft and more.
Stan agreed to the opportunity but ran into a roadblock. No other actor wanted to join him in a conversation.
Why? The answer is almost too surreal to believe, but it’s true. Call it the latest manifestation of Trump Derangement Syndrome.
[…]Hollywood has spent eight-plus years talking about Trump, often in the most negative way possible.
- He’s a fascist!
- He’s Hitler 2.0!
- He’ll end America as we know it!
Now, two weeks after Trump’s re-election, the same industry players are afraid to bring him up in polite conversation.
Why?
The progressive pain is too real, too raw, and they can’t broach the subject at this time. That’s one theory. Another is based on liberal projection.
They’re afraid speaking ill of Trump now will either hurt their careers or invoke the President-Elect’s wrath. It’s not unlike the reasoning behind the “Morning Joe” team meeting Trump over the weekend for an off-the-record chat.
[…]The “Ruthless” podcast said Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski made peace with Trump to avoid his administration targeting their show or, worse, them personally.
They fear President-Elect Trump will round up his perceived enemies, using the power of government to do his personal bidding. Trump did no such thing during his first four years in office.
There’s no tangible evidence he’ll do so now.
Well, that didn’t age well. Trump’s purge of Department of Justice and FBI employees who worked on legal cases against him and prosecuting those who committed crimes in the Capitol riot amply proves that he’s rounding up perceived enemies and using the power of government to do his personal bidding.