I have seen a number of films this year and unlike most professional movie critics I believe this is one of the better films released this season. I know you cannot fault the writing because the construction of script is so seamless from interviews and narrative to actors playing a scene of history and back. No. The production was a thing of wonder, untouched from what has been done in the past. The level here is a high watermark that won’t be surpassed without tremendous work and planning. I wasn’t prepared for the incredible acting and sets and special effects. Clearly all the stops were pulled out. There was Washington, Lincoln, Frederick Douglass and Madame C.J. Walker. All played by a wonderful cast. Top this off with grand military battles and you have a film destined for greatness, but the arbitrators of all that is good seem to already have their minds made up with a bunch of empty-headed reasons and have casted “America” (2014) away like trash. Only let us look back ten years to another documentary that was far less grand: “Fahrenheit 9/11” (2004) and read the comments of a gushing review, “Extremely one-sided in its indictment of the Bush administration, but worth watching for the humor and the debates it’ll stir.” That film got 83 percent on Rotten Tomatoes whereas “America” (2014) gets 12 percent. Draw your own conclusions, yet I think the bias here stinks like a basket of rotten Korean skate fish. |