The Hollywood glitterati love to make movies that show conservatives or Republicans in the worst possible light. Everything is political in their universe because politics is the left's religion. They're right and everyone else is wrong. Intolerance is tolerance in their worldview. This explains why the new and shockingly even-handed Ronald Reagan movie "Reagan" is the exception and not the rule.
Reagan was reviled in real time by the media. It's stunning that this well-made movie was allowed to debut at all. Reagan's quasi-political progeny, Donald Trump, received the 40th president's treatment. The left's politically violent attacks aren't due to any greater degree of awfulness by Trump.
Related: West Coast, Messed Coast™ — Hollywood's October Surprises
Their treatment of Trump is the "Borking" by the left of any candidate representing the Republican or conservative movements. This will be the treatment of any future GOP candidate. Though Mitt Romney would be too timid to agree, his dog and that guy who got a swirly in high school would.
If you wanted to create a story arc of Donald Trump's political life, you could say he descended the escalator into the left's planned maelstrom. They've tried to depict candidate Trump as a Russian secret agent, a sex assaulter, a cheater, crazy, and intemperate. Then they tried to bankrupt him, jail him, and kill him. But this is not the story of the left's hit pic about Donald Trump. Since they've tried everything to murder him, his career, his businesses, his bank account, and his character, they now seek to murder his past in a new hit flick called "The Apprentice." A quick note here: titles can not be copyrighted, which is why the movie is the same name as Trump's wildly successful NBC reality show. Arnold Schwarzenegger ruined the franchise when he took over.
The movie debuted at the Cannes Film Festival in May and it got so many raves by the left's x-ray thin (thank you, Tom Wolfe) actresses in see-through dresses, whose last appearances were in pink hats in 2017, that it was picked up by a big production company and scheduled for an October release. This is what's known as an October Surprise. Sure, it's not so surprising to you and me but it will be surprising to the unsuspecting lofos who will seize upon news of the film's release, take it as gospel (which is the point), and vote accordingly.
Coincidentally, as a young and impressionable reporter, my first October Surprise was run against Ronald Reagan. The leftist turds in the media delightedly hoovered up the story by a made-up outfit called "The Christic Institute" that the unelected Reagan worked with Islamist nutters in Iran to release the 44 American hostages after he was elected. This was pre-internet (the institute now has a webpage whose last entry is about Iran Contra). It was a lawfare organization of three people that dissolved in 1991, according to Wikipedia, so consider the sources.
I was enamored of this information operation. Reagan was a sophist, the media would never lie, so it must be true, I thought. Fortunately, for me and the rest of the world, the news director was much smarter than I was and didn't run the story. It also used to be a tenet of our newsroom, and newsrooms in general, that last-minute hit pieces would be ignored because there would be no chance of chasing down the facts before an election.
And Hollywood would never lie to you, right?
Now that THE APPRENTICE is officially getting a U.S. release before the election, I would like to remind everyone that the movie isn't very good. https://t.co/ELEYwdU0NS
— Tim Grierson (@TimGrierson) August 30, 2024
This movie will be released at fall film festivals and will be pushed in a huge Oscar campaign by the distributor. Billboards in L.A., full-page ads in The Hollywood Reporter, and streaming and broadcast ads and placements on Hollywood gossip shows will get the full, anti-Trump treatment.
The story, written by two Vanity Fair reporters, which should be your first clue about how this movie is going to go, is about young entrepreneur Trump and Roy Cohn, the gay, hard-nosed, killer-of-an-attorney who gave Trump some advice that boils down to this: when your opponent hits, hit them a thousand times harder; don't apologize; and even bad publicity helps.
Related: Dead 20 Years, Ronald Reagan Can Still Trigger the Left
A documentary precursor about Cohn released pre-2020 election entitled, "Where's My Roy Cohn" had as a subtitle, "If you were in his presence, you knew you were in the presence of evil."
In 2019, while "sipping champagne with ice in a huge glass on the terrace at the Chateau Marmont," Vanity Fair writer Matt Tyrnauer told Mo Do he initially feared that his Cohn doc would never be made because "Donald Trump is not going to win the election. And the only real reason to make this movie would be if Trump wins because then it would be very pertinent and we would get financing in an instant." He enthused, "But thank God, Hillary is going to win and we’ll never have to think about Roy Cohn again and...we’ll sail off happily into the sunset of a Hillary Clinton presidency.”
And now it's another election year and another movie about Trump and Cohn. The theatrical release stars Sebastian Stan and Jeremy Strong in the title roles.
Trump tried to get the film stopped and last May demanded the filmmakers stop the movie from being distributed because it was a "libelous farce because it accuses the New York entrepreneur of sexually attacking his wife," a claim she denounced.
In the letter, Trump's lawyers said the movie "is a concoction of lies that repeatedly defames President Trump and constitutes direct foreign interference in America’s elections."
The letter continued, "If you do not immediately cease and desist all distribution and marketing of this libelous farce, we will be forced to pursue all appropriate legal remedies."
The filmmakers responded by saying the film was "a fair and balanced portrait of the former president. We want everyone to see it and then decide." We're sure you do.
As I explained in my West Coast, Messed Coast™ report nearby, one of the film's money men was thoroughly PO'd over the anti-Trump bent of the movie.
NEW: Donald Trump has reportedly sent a cease-and-desist letter to the creators of "The Apprentice" movie after they depicted him violently r*ping Ivana Trump.
— Collin Rugg (@CollinRugg) May 27, 2024
Trump's attorneys are demanding that the filmmakers not seek a distribution deal in the U.S.
"It is a concoction of… pic.twitter.com/RmntIe29Lx
Screendaily considered the movie a missed opportunity to make a great film. Indeed, critic Tim Grierson wrote after its May 2024 release at Cannes that the movie maker "resisted," "humanising his main character, although he and Stan avoid glib caricature. Stan does a remarkably subtle job of capturing Trump’s mannerism and facial tics — the pursed lips, the jerky hand gestures, the cocked head meant to convey toughness — while keeping the character appropriately life-sized." But in the end, he wrote recently on X, "I would like to remind everyone that the movie isn't very good."
As Grierson puts it "The Apprentice" asserts that "it was Cohn’s unapologetically unscrupulous behaviour that inspired Trump to lie, scam and bully his way to success." He concludes, "The Apprentice'" ends up dramatically flat" and a perfunctory set piece.
The vast majority of Americans won't see this film, but you can bet Hollywood won't let them forget about it. All the ads will serve their purpose. It will win undeserved awards because this isn't so much a movie as a planned October Surprise.
