Type in any movie or show to find where you can watch it, or type a person's name.

User Reviews for: Reagan

JackDoddy
/10  3 months ago
This is a right-wing propaganda piece with no redeeming qualities. It will be highly rated here on Trakt because the only people that will watch and rate it are trying to make a political point. If you watch this as someone who isn't in the very narrow target audience, you will recognise this for what it is: dogshit. If you take a step back and analyse it based on historical fact, you will also recognise this for what it is: a lie.

Many (if not most) Hollywood movies have a right-wing bent to them. Hollywood is a beacon of capitalism and individualism. However, for many reasons (anti-semitism, sexism, racism, the lack of artistic talent among the American right, anti-Republican actors, etc), the conservative and far-right sentiment in the US is that mainstream movies are somehow leftist or liberal. Some can be interpreted that way, but most are pretty conservative stories.

Why, then, do they hate Hollywood and its movies? Ironically, it's because the studios are giant capitalist enterprises that are interested only in selling their movies. Conservative and far-right political beliefs and values are unpopular and don't sell movies. Therefore, studios are forced to pay artists to make movies that reflect the views of the people they are trying to sell to more closely, without actually upsetting the status quo _too much_. For example, in order to sell movies to women, you need women with actual stories in them. In order to sell movies to people who aren't white, you need non-white characters in them. In order to sell movies to people who aren't straight, you need non-straight people in them. The writers and actors of these movies might care about the social and civil rights aspects, but to the studios and the shareholders of these studios, they are merely a capitalistic means to an end.

The US has, and always has had, a powerful far-right white supremacist movement, of which Reagan himself played a crucial role. Unlike the studios, they do care about the social and civil rights aspect of these stories. They hate them. It is a threat to them and their power. They will disregard even conservative stories being told, if that story has even a handful of references to people they don't like having any sort of agency or power.

That is, in short, why Republicans and the far right in America portray Hollywood and the media as 'liberal' or 'leftist', even when it's largely on their side like any other huge corporate enterprise. What keeps this situation balanced is that it tends to benefit both sides. Hollywood gets to sell their otherwise right-wing stories to everyone, including people that disagree with them, via 'diversity' set dressing. In other words, Hollywood gets to promote it's right-wing capitalistic and individualistic messages to liberals and leftists as long as it pays people to write stories with a couple of gay people in it or something. While this social message is sometimes a threat to the far-right, it's often actually helpful. It gives Republicans something to hate and create community around. Republicans still buy tickets to go and watch the movie _and_ they get to use it as part of their nonsense culture war stuff. It's win-win.

Ironically, that is what we learnt from Ronald Reagan them man himself. He was an actual member of the Californian 'liberal elite' who, like the rest of the 'liberal elite', actually believed some batshit crazy stuff and had a surface-level understanding of politics. This is the movie he would have made about his own life. That should say enough in and of itself.

Hollywood's dominance isn't threatened from the far right in kind. They can't make art for shit, when they do it is so weird and bad even they struggle to like it. They have to pretend to like it for the good of the cause, but they don't actually enjoy it. Just look at Sound of Freedom. When it was politically important for them to do so you could summarise their quotes on it as 'oh my god, this is the best and most important movie ever'. When it became clear they couldn't stand by the massive creep Tim Ballard any longer, suddenly it changed to 'actually, it was pretty boring and didn't make much sense'. The support of these pieces of art is not based on whether the art itself was good, but whether it was politically advantageous.

Reagan (the movie) is no different. Like Sound of Freedom, it is supposed to be based on historical fact, but bends it so much that this is almost entirely fiction. The entire point is to make a hero out of an actual real-life supervillian. Also like Sound of Freedom, that makes it incredibly boring as a movie. There is no tension, no growth, everyone feels fake, nothing feels real. Because it's not. If you threw in any actual facts about the man it would necessarily have to be a _very_ different movie. If you have to ignore 90% of the man's life to make him look like the hero, you end up with a character that's only about 10% believable as a human being.

You will only get any sort of enjoyment out of this movie if you are already so pilled you can't watch other movies without getting so angry that it hurts. That's the only way this makes sense. Everything else hurts you so much that something so bland and tasteless seems interesting by comparison. If other movies make you so angry you can't pay attention to the story just because they have even one person of colour on the screen who isn't either the enemy or the help, then you might get some enjoyment out of this.

For literally everyone else, this will probably be the worst movie you've seen this year. It's not even cringey or so-bad-it's-funny. It's just boring and preachy. Don't bother.
Like  -  Dislike  -  39
Please use spoiler tags:[spoiler] text [/spoiler]
Reply by uz8gb2swg@mozmail.com
3 months ago
It's hilarious you are commenting on a trailer. Didn't watch it or make an attempt to do so. Didn't watch the movie, didn't describe your theater experience sitting next to all those awful people. <br /> <br /> Don't tell others how to think and shape a narrative, you're doing whatever you think you want to prevent. There are several movies about him. This is an artist's freedom and you are telling people they are to stupid to understand entertainment.<br /> <br /> Anyways it's so funny to read some crazy politicized persons of the USA telling the world how to think about something without watching it themselves.
Reply  -  Like  -  Deslike  -  20

Please use spoiler tags:[spoiler] text [/spoiler]
Reply by JackDoddy
3 months ago
@uz8gb2swg-mozmail-com <br /> &gt;It's hilarious you are commenting on a trailer. Didn't watch it or make an attempt to do so. Didn't watch the movie, didn't describe your theater experience sitting next to all those awful people.<br /> <br /> It's been out for a week now, longer if you went to an earlier screening at a right-wing event like I did. Hell, you can even pirate it and watch it in full right now if you want.<br /> <br /> My experience at the event _was_ pretty awful, to be honest. A bunch of strange people saying strange things. A pretentious talk by writer Howard Klausner on his thoughts on Reagan, which for some reason needed to include an anti-LGBT diatribe. Since he brought up the topic, it should be noted this film does nothing to address Reagan's legacy of AIDS denial. Nobody I mingled with in the lobby after talked about the actual movie or how good/bad it was, simply that it wasn't 'woke' and that's all that mattered. People's opinions were based on what it was in opposition to, as opposed to what it stood for. There were plenty of nice people, but they were only nice until they started talking politics. It was like watching a switch being flicked, nice folk suddenly overwhelmed by hatred. <br /> <br /> The 'artists' who created this were Klausner adapting deranged books by Paul Kengor. Klausner actually somehow managed to make Kengor's books seem reasonable by comparison, it was significantly toned down from the source material, instead focussing on creating a glossy sympathetic view of Reagan. Both men are incredibly weird and highly political people interested in pursuing specifically political outcomes. This is not some 'artistic' interpretation of Reagan, it is literal propaganda where Klausner is intentionally trying to rewrite history for the benefit of his beliefs and how he wants to change the world _in the present_. It is not intended by him to be anything other than that, and nothing he said afterward made me think otherwise. <br /> <br /> Paul Kengor is a propagandist who has worked for CSIS and The Heritage Foundation. He's a Catholic zealot and extremist who _literally_ believes Reagan was a divine intervention by God to crush communism. He also _LITERALLY_ believes that the devil created and controlled Karl Marx. You can probably guess his political ideologies and what policies he supports based on that. It's some truly heinous stuff, largely centred around how Christianity should sieze control of all levels of the United States government. He has written extensively about how Reagan was divinely controlled to save the world and has singlehandedly rewritten Reagan's entire life and career to match his political beliefs and how he wants to change _the present day_. None of it is accepted as historical fact by anybody else. <br /> <br /> This isn't entertainment. It's not an artistic creation pushing a political message on the side. There isn't a compelling story that happens to be set in the world of politics. It's simply propaganda whose one and only message is political, and the only thing it attempts to do is rewrite history. That's why it's boring, if nothing else.<br /> <br /> &gt;Don't tell others how to think and shape a narrative, you're doing whatever you think you want to prevent.<br /> <br /> That is what this movie is about. My intention here is to warn people who see a movie on Trakt rated at 70%, who know nothing of it otherwise, from wasting over two hours of their life. <br /> <br /> &gt;Anyways it's so funny to read some crazy politicized persons of the USA telling the world how to think<br /> <br /> That's literally Klausner and Kengor's jobs. They are paid to do this.
Reply  -  Like  -  Deslike  -  00

Please use spoiler tags:[spoiler] text [/spoiler]
Reply by uz8gb2swg@mozmail.com
3 months ago
Thank you for adding some context. <br /> Still it's a movie, known to be an homage to Reagan. Based on a book about how he fought communism Quaid even said in an interview. How you came to believe any movie (including this one) is based on some reality and not just entertainment and someone loose interpretation I don't know. Even documentaries don't do a good job. <br /> You can't condens complex history in a 2 hour film or a 12 h + series. So you can see most of them as propaganda I think. the amount of basic historical inaccuracies I've seen in movies is uncountable. <br /> So why did you go and watch it and go true all that rage? I hope it's not the first time you are confronted with this reality I hope.<br /> <br /> Anyway thanks and easy on the political coolade <br /> (it's not worth it). The movie isn't out where I live so, I haven't seen it.
Reply  -  Like  -  Deslike  -  00

Please use spoiler tags:[spoiler] text [/spoiler]
Reply by Dstewartseverns
3 months ago
Boo hoo. Poor thing. Why did you watch it if it causes you to tailspin?
Reply  -  Like  -  Deslike  -  00

Please use spoiler tags:[spoiler] text [/spoiler]
Reply by DNAXIII
3 months ago
Thank you for this. Reagan literally killed the American Dream. This is yet another low quality grift to extract money from the red hat morons. <br /> <br /> Thematically, this film reminds me of the Trump superman AI NFT trading card scam. Dressing a villain up as a hero only works on profoundly ignorant individuals.
Reply  -  Like  -  Deslike  -  10

Please use spoiler tags:[spoiler] text [/spoiler]
Reply by MrFlaggsWatchedList
3 months ago
@uz8gb2swg-mozmail-com Jack clearly is just an NPC repeating bot like actions. His only comments are on political films and he only makes them for political reasons. I wouldn't believe a word coming out of his keyboard.
Reply  -  Like  -  Deslike  -  10

Please use spoiler tags:[spoiler] text [/spoiler]
Reply by JackDoddy
3 months ago
@mrflaggswatchedlist I have a particular interest in political and religious extremism having grown up in a right-wing cult. It's been a bit over a decade since I got out, and I now follow and study various movements which includes me going to the opening nights of pilled films like this one. <br /> <br /> Watching and commenting on media that overlaps with this interest is precisely what I use this account for to keep it separate to the account I use for my own general use. This is something I do with all of my accounts online, as interacting with any extremist content without taking the proper precautions is dangerous.<br /> <br /> If you want to do personal attacks, then I could say the same about you. You seem to have an awful lot of comments that are purely about how you were triggered by (often non-existent) political 'agendas'...
Reply  -  Like  -  Deslike  -  00

Please use spoiler tags:[spoiler] text [/spoiler]
Reply by GreoJ
2 months ago
@jackdoddy not woke enough for you?
Reply  -  Like  -  Deslike  -  10

Please use spoiler tags:[spoiler] text [/spoiler]
Reply by JackDoddy
2 months ago
@greoj It's too boring to be effectively "anti-woke", you should probably focus your efforts elsewhere.
Reply  -  Like  -  Deslike  -  00

Please use spoiler tags:[spoiler] text [/spoiler]
Back to Top