The MyPillow guy's bonkers election "documentary" deserves all of the awards
Golden Globe nominations were announced this week, which means we're entering the early stages of an awards season tasked with the unenviable job of celebrating Hollywood in a year when hardly anyone went to an actual movie theater. Given, then, that the upcoming Academy Awards (and SAG awards, People's Choice Awards, et al) will already be operating under pretty weird circumstances, I humbly propose a radical new category for the various decision-making committees to consider: "Absolutely bonkers vanity project that made me laugh so hard I almost choked."
[Opens envelope ... ]
[Drumroll ... ]
And the winner is: Mike Lindell, for Absolute Proof!
[Applause, tears, and let's go to commercial!]
Yes, on Friday the MyPillow guy finally released his much-hyped (by him) "docu-movie" on Joe Biden/China/Communism/Dominion's nefarious efforts to subvert the 2020 presidential election. And reader? I'm thrilled to report that it does not disappoint — unless you were hoping for actual "absolute proof" of election fraud, in which case, yeah, this whole thing will be deeply disappointing.
If, however, you're a normal person whose brain hasn't been irrevocably mutated by the right-wing fever swamp, Lindell's rehash of the various, thoroughly debunked, conspiracies surrounding Donald Trump's decisive electoral defeat is one of the funniest films of the year. Think "Tim and Eric" meets Idiocracy, with a healthy sprinkle of Pepe Silvia thrown in for good measure. If not for the fact that Lindell is a deadly serious martial law enthusiast, this would be the sort of avant garde outsider art that made Sacha Baron Cohen an international superstar.
God, where to even begin?
Perhaps it's the fact that Lindell begins his nearly two-hour presentation with a 15-minute preamble, complete with dramatic piano music, hammer and sickle stock art, and the funniest low-rent Matrix graphics I've seen since, well, the Matrix.
I mean, come on! Just look at these ~n u m b e r s~ !!
Wow.
To be perfectly clear, the details of Lindell's — again, absolutely debunked — claims of voter fraud and electronic election-tampering aren't worth going into in the slightest. The less said about the content of his theories, the better. What's important here is the melodramatic way Lindell raises the stakes on this whole thing, calling it a "miracle."
Here's a real quote:
The biggest thing against humanity, and our country, is this attack through these machines. They got ... this opened up ... this revealed, the machines, to where we're at right now.
Folks, this is serious stuff here.
Evidently, Lindell was so confident in his film that he predicted anything less than massive success would be a sign of the biblical end times in which "we pray and we go to heaven, it's over." Ultra-conservative "news" network OAN, on the other hand, was slightly less sure of the film's providence, prefacing it with a novella-length disclaimer from their lawyers that disavowed any of Lindell's actual claims.
Now, look, do I think this film is going to be the smash hit Lindell hopes it will be? No I do not. Does that mean the end times are upon us? I doubt it. (Although honestly? Who knows!)
What I do know is that the Pillow Man has created a piece of absurdist art so unintentionally hilarious that I have absolutely no regrets about spending the better part of my morning watching it. And frankly, that's about the highest praise I can offer pretty much anything these days. If you have two whole hours to spare, and feel like diving head first down this incredibly stupid rabbit hole, I encourage you to check out Absolute Proof for yourself, here.
