Breaking Glass Pictures will release writer/director/actor Greg Bergman’s outrageous political satire OBAMALAND in North America. The film debuts on all digital VOD platforms December 4, including: iTunes; Amazon; Vudu; iNDEMAND; Direct TV and more, as well as on DVD.
Written and directed by Greg Bergman (the documentary BIG LIKE ME), the film asks the greatest “what if?” in the annals of politics: what if everything the far right feared was true? What if everything the left hoped for came to pass? What if Barack Obama became…President for Life?
The fact is, there’s something in this film for both sides of the aisle: for conservatives, it explores the depths of their deepest nightmares. For liberals, it skewers just about every liberal trope and boogey, um, person, or thing there is, from multiculturalism to gender fluidity to public enemy #1: kale.
By way of plot, humble nebbish Tinder Tucker (Issac Anderson) in Obamaland West’s capital, Silver Lake, California, just got dumped. To restore meaning to his life, he aims to set off for the Rainbow House in Obamaland, but has to cross hostile territory across the country to get there. Along the way, he encounters characters ranging from El Chapo (Mark Vincent) to LGBT Joe, and picks up a partner, the archetypical American cowboy Ed McCain (P. David Miller). After he meets the Great Hope White (Christina Leidel), however, he undergoes a political transformation and discovers a plan to reunite the nation. Now, all he has to do is implement it.
By turns polished to amateurish, obvious to inspired, cheap to Apple-cheesy, OBAMALAND mashes up styles from improv sketch comedy to simply appropriating plot points from films like MACGRUBER. And there’s actually some credible graphics and special effects that approach the status of a term we’ve used before: DIY sci-fi. As Frank Zappa once said, “true cheapness is visible nylon strings hanging from the jaws of a giant spider.” This movie doesn’t have anything to say about that, but the film delights in cheap shots, cheap thrills and very, very expensive humor.
Why make a movie like this? Why now? Bergman says, “The evening of March 31, 2015 began like any other. I read some of my favorite psalms, cleaned my guns, posted some photos of aborted fetuses online, and fell asleep to the soothing sound of my favorite baritone, Alex Jones. And then it happened…a vision! A nightmare! A prophecy! WHAT IF EVERYTHING WE FEARED ABOUT OBAMA WAS TRUE?” And thus, Obamaland was conceived, and as everyone knows, filmhood begins at conception.
