Dreams From My Real Father

There's a plethora of conspiracy theories surrounding Barack Obama, ranging from whether or not he's actually a Republican or a Socialist, why he no longer wears an American flag lapel pin and whether or not he's a Muslim. Over the past year, Obama conspiracy theorists have focused on his U.S. citizen and have been sceptical about his upbringing. Fortunately for these theorists, they have reason to don their tinfoil hats and huddle in their basements as Joel Gilbert's Dreams From My Real Father, a 97-minute film, has been slapped together and released, coincidentally, just in time for the upcoming 2012 U.S. election. Narrated by an awful Obama impersonator, the film posits that Obama's grandfather wasn't actually a salesman, but an undercover CIA agent and that his biological father wasn't actually a Kenyan goat herder. Frank Marshall Davis, a hardcore communist, apparently impregnated Obama's mother and there was a massive cover-up to have her wed the Kenyan-born Barack Obama Sr. to prevent shame and scepticism from the prying eyes of the public and, more importantly, stop the CIA from questioning the family's patriotic loyalties. In case there's any doubt, the filmmaker makes sure to show countless images of President Obama and Davis side-by-side to confirm the belief that they have identical noses, foreheads, chins, ears and smiles. Of course, the narrator sets up the film as "the story I would have told if I were being honest with you," which when coupled with a disclaimer that states it includes "recreations of probable events using reasoned logic, speculation and approximated conversations in an attempt to provide a cohesive understanding of Obama's history," makes the entire film nearly laughable. The 97-minute runtime is painfully paced, riddled with spelling errors and the Powerpoint-esque visuals are gaudy, somewhat like a grade ten school project. Some of the content will undoubtedly satiate the right-wing nuts of America, but the only possible appeal of this "documentary" to everyone else is that of drinking game derision. Every time Davis's mug appears beside Obama's face to show their similarities, take a shot of Don Julio!