Meet Ray Griggs, a California conservative who wants to stop government spending through the magic of claymation. Conservatives will probably be hopping on Fandango this fall to get tickets to see Griggs’ Michael Moore-style documentary billing itself a “controversial look at government spending” and featuring an animated boxing match between President Obama and Ronald Reagan.
I Want Your Money, which will land in theaters this October, aims to contrast the “two paths” the United States could take — Obama’s approach or Reagan’s. The promotional site tells visitors that $182 million is spent during the span of one viewing of the 90-minute film.
Today TPM interviewed Griggs, who said one third of his flick is animated to “make it entertaining for a younger audience.” (It includes claymation and 3-D computer animation.)
Griggs, who also brought the comic book flick “Super Capers” to screens last year, is currently working on a film adaptation of Wind in the Willows. Readers might remember him from Rachel Maddow’s critique last fall of Griggs’ “I guess I’m racist” anti-health care ad.
Griggs, 36, has a young daughter and a new baby on the way and he made the movie because he’s “just really worried about the freedoms and the opportunities they are going to have and the amount of debt the nation is taking on.”
“We need to stand up and start taking a stand, we need to stop the spending. Reagan had it right,” Griggs told TPM. “Whether you’re on the left or the right side whatever your view is, we all pay taxes.”
Griggs would not disclose the cost of making the film, but said it was self-funded and that he is not affiliated with any organizations that might benefit from such a movie coming out so close to the election. He described himself as a conservative who thinks Republicans are becoming too much like Democrats, but he did vote in the GOP primary this summer.
Among the film’s featured interviews are John Stossel, Club for Growth’s Stephen Moore, former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, Ohio’s Kenneth Blackwell, Rep. Thad McCotter, Newt Gingrich, Steve Forbes and Andrew Breitbart.
“The problem with socialism is that sooner or later you run out of other people’s money,” Huckabee says in the trailer. Portions of the film will showcase tea party activists to show they “are just every day people.”
FreeRepublic types seem to be excited about it. Watch the trailer:
To see the Griggs anti-health care ad, check out Maddow’s segment around the 3-minute mark:
