Thomas Frank

Under the Trump administration, USA is a deeply divided country. One side feeds populism and religious rectitude in a monochromatic landscape, painted white, lamenting for a past that never will return. The other side fuels diversity and multiculturalism, a biased vision of a progressive future, quite unlikely. Both sides are constantly confronted, without listening to each other. Only a few reasonable people gather to change this potentially dangerous situation.

This documentary fulfills a unique niche by taking a non-partisan, unbiased approach to the history of Liberalism and Conservatism in the United States. The film starts at the foundation of the country and continues though the 2006 election. Scholars, authors, historians and partisan activists are used not only to tell the history of each movement, but also to show how the meaning of each term has changed over time. Modern Conservatism is depicted as arising from opposition to Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal, becoming a national movement in the 1960's and reaching its apex with Ronald Reagan. Modern Liberalism has its roots in the progressive era of the 1890's becoming dominant with the New Deal, and losing influence with the perceived failures of the "Great Society programs" and Vietnam war policies of Lyndon Johnson.

Surrounded by wheat fields, cowboys, and cars, four bespectacled misfits in Kansas grabbed instruments and blasted out “a ravenous strain of rock ‘n’ roll” as tuneful, brainy, and enthralling as anything coming from the coasts. They worshipped the Stooges and witnessed the Sex Pistols bring punk to the Great Plains, igniting within them an uncontrolled prairie fire to do-it-themselves. They threw a house-wrecking party and invited “a thousand loving friends” into their secret world of “weirdo new wave freaks” in Wichita and beyond. They played Chicago, D.C., and New York, drawing the attention of influential figures like Allen Ginsberg, John Cale, and Jonathan Demme — but their independence and refusal to sell out sparked tension within the group and kept mainstream success at bay. Through original interviews and restored concert footage, this documentary shows how the Embarrassment rose out of nowhere to become a post-punk legend that's almost been forgotten — until now.