This is a warning to anybody planning to see Stephen K. Bannon’s “Occupy Unmasked” as it opens in theaters this weekend in Dallas, Denver, Phoenix and Los Angeles: clear some space on your calendar for a second viewing.
Occupy Unmasked is a dense film. It’s packed with ideas, images, sounds, and stories that were suppressed by a media culture all too eager to embrace the deeply un-American, radical ideas that lady at the heart of the Occupy movement and the modern left.
Prepare to be stunned. Bannon’s film is a gut punch to the liberal myth carefully built up by the mainstream media, academia, and forces of the institutional left.
In preview screenings, the audience was left rocked back on their heels by the sheer amount of information and imagery. Occupy Unmasked demonstrates the power that a cinematic experience can have over just reading a blog post or watching a short YouTube video. First you’ll be shocked, then you’ll get mad, and then you are going to start replaying parts of the film over in your mind. That’s the point that you’re going to want to head back to the theater for a second viewing.
One thing that strikes home upon repeated viewings of the film is just how much the Occupy movement relied on deception. This theme comes up time and again, from the a false rumor of a concert by Radiohead to help bring crowds to Occupy to the untrue narrative of a journalist swept up in the Brooklyn Bridge protest to the intentional coverup of rapes and assaults. This is no accident. As the film details, this deception goes back to the very roots of the modern left.
Repeated viewings also allow audiences to spend a little more time holding on to the animating force behind “Occupy Unmasked”: the late Andrew Breitbart, who rips through the lies of the left like a hungry bulldog. The film starts with Breitbart speaking directly to the audience and ends with the catharsis of Breitbart screaming at the Occupiers. For those people who never understood what Breitbart was so angry about at CPAC this past February, once you watch “Occupy Unmasked” you’ll see the fountainhead of Andrew’s outrage.
You’re going to want to see “Occupy Unmasked” more than once. And you’re going to want to bring a friend or two with you when you return. Bring your liberal friends and plan for one of the most interesting post-movie dinner discussions ever.
For more information, including theater listings, visit OccupyUnmasked.com.