How The Gringo Stole Christmas (2023)
It happens very rarely, this is probably the third movie review I've written on IMDB that was rejected within the fifteen years I have been reviewing movies. Sadly, it seems I may have gotten one of the "woke" IMDB submission reviewers this time, as my review was rejected without a reason. More about the reason of rejection later.
It reminded me of hints of the famous Steve Martin movie, "Father of the Bride"
The story is solid and the movie flows from beginning to end, without distraction. That is what makes a good movie, a good movie.
Throughout the movie, I was waiting for the "Ah ha - got you" moment of racism to pop up, especially since George Lopez co-stars in this movie, but it never came, in fact it was the complete opposite.
One just assumes that anything with George Lopez who is historically known for his comedic racism, is going to fall through that rabbit hole, but it really doesn't reach into that place, any more than you would expect if your child brought home someone of a different race, religion or gender than you had expected as a father. What you have here, is a movie about classic protective Dad-ism.
While this movie does include a gay character, unlike other movies, its not a highlighted theme, nor propagandizing that agenda in my opinion. I write this as a Faith Based movie reviewer who is not afraid to call out propaganda when its present.
Instead, the gay character is just another character being interacted with, if it had not been mentioned in the movie at one point that the character were gay, it would not have been known. This character's roll in the story resolves a question that arises a little earlier within the movie.
I recommend watching How the Gringo Stole Christmas, if you are in the mood for a very California style Christmas movie. It's pleasantly funny, sometimes exaggerated in its presentation of California Chicano culture, but a surprisingly good movie.A surprisingly good, "Father of the Bride" style movie about a latina and her white boyfriend."
One could argue that perhaps I am just being sensitive because my review was declined, but it only bothered me, because the two reviews that IMDB has as top rated gave it a one star, and are merely rants. Take a quick look at the two reviews of this movie that IMDB has accepted at the time of my submission.
Here are the two IMDB approved reviews for the movie.
In comparison, here is my initially rejected review, in which I gave the movie 6 stars and recommended seeing it. It's the same review that I quoted above, other than being the declined notification and reason for being declined that I received.
I did a complete new review for IMDB that I will provide a link to here, once it is approved, assuming it is accepted. (UPDATE: Read below about the second IMDB review rejected for How The Gringo Stole Christmas.)
To be clear, I was being generous in rating it a 6 star movie, it's not the best movie I have ever reviewed, but it's not the worst either. I have to make this qualifying statement, because regardless of IMDB censoring, many people are simply never going to watch this movie because of it's racially toned titled along with co-staring George Lopez. Traditionally, I may have rated it one star lower for several of its subject matters, but I didn't feel it necessary with How The Gringo Stole Christmas, because I didn't believe and do not believe this movie was intentionally propagandizing the audience, and that makes the difference.
If you look at the bottom of the declined IMDB Movie review notification for the reason, it only shows as "Reason Other". This means that the IMDB person who read my review refused to give a reason. Why would they refuse to provide a reason? IMDB always gives a reason, except when there is no legitimate reason for it to be declined, especially considering the two reviews that were approved.
At best guess, the IMDB processor either didn't like my mentioning George Lopez's history of comedic racism or that the movie includes a gay character.
However, as a fifteen year IMDB "Faith Based" University educated filmmaker, and trained movie reviewer, I have always called it the way I see it for both Faith Based movies and non-faith based movies. I watch movies so that non-woke people that make up the mass majority on non-California America, know what to expect before watching a movie to better determine if they actually should support or expose themselves to a movie that they may find morally offensive.
I of course can not, and do not watch every movie. I have particular genre's of movies I enjoy and you can view my lists of rated movies on my IMDB profile page (HERE) The only difference honestly is, I am one of the few Faith Based reviewers on IMDB. If you view my IMDB movie ratings, you will observe that I am a big fan of Sci-fi movies, global catastrophe movies and ned time movies.
I also break the movies down into rating categories, so you can see my 9 and 10 rated movies for example, without having to view my lowest rated movies. At the time of this article about my declined How The Gringo Stole Christmas Movie review, I have rated over 520 movies. That does not include the movies I watched and still need to rate, that I viewed prior to graduating film school.
How the Gringo Stole Christmas @IMDb Movie Review
— Randy Dreammaker (@randydreammaker) December 25, 2023
Feliz Navidad, Merry Christmas, Merry Xmas #randydreammaker pic.twitter.com/vbnneo9xhq
IMDB Rejected Review 2 Update
Well, I went ahead a wrote a complete new review for How The Gringo Stole Christmas for IMDB.
I honed in all of my 14 years writing movie reviews, and another 14 years as a top rated product reviewer for the former Epinions review website, and submitted an even better, more fair review only to have it rejected also.
Another sketchy reason given, but at least a reason of some kind was provided.
As of January 2024 I will have been writing reviews on IMDB for fourteen years, and I'd never seen this before, so I decided to investigate, and it turns out, other IMDB reviewers are encountering the same kinds of review rejections.
Those of us who write IMDB reviews on and for Amazon's movie website do not make any kind of money or profit, we are volunteer contributors who enjoy discussing movies. So when a review that we spend a half hour or more writing and refining is rejected, it's kind of a slap in the face. Especially those of us who actively write reviews.
If we bother to rewrite or compose an entirely new review, it is only because we believe the movie deserves it, and that is why I took the time to submit a more refined review for IMDB on "How The Gringo Stole Christmas".
IMDB does not have an appeal feature. Whoever it has reviewing the submitted reviews is the gatekeeper. If the gatekeeper on watch is woke, or bias, then they can kill your review on the spot.
I decided to do something I've avoided for years, and joined the IMDB contributors forum to let it be known that I disagree with the two rejected reviews, especially considering it has allowed three negative reviews for the movie, as the only three approved reviews. All three of those reviews have little factual details about the movie, and are focused entirely on George Lopez.
I really have enjoyed writing for IMDB, but in recent years several similar non-Amazon owned alternatives have launched that I have not written for. If IMDB is censoring movie reviewers as I have suspected for a year or more, then I reject that kind of exclusion, bias and anti-diverse stance and will have to look elsewhere. Hope I am wrong, but there is 100% a bias for whatever reason on IMDB's website for the movie, How The Gringo Stole Christmas. I just do not know why yet.
Make sure to read my review above before watching How The Gringo Stole Christmas, movie. I do recommend it, though you should go into this movie knowing what to expect.
Where you can Watch the Randy Dreammaker Review of "How The Gringo Stole Christmas"
@randydreammaker How The Gringo Stole Chrismas 2023 Movie Review. #RandyDreammaker #MovieReview #MoveReviews #ChrismasMovies #georgelopez #Gringo#Movies #Chicano #Latino #Mexican #losangeles ♬ original sound - Randy Dreammaker
IMDB Censorship of How The Gringo Stole Christmas 2023 Movie Review Update 3 Explained
Anddddddd.... so the drama continues.
After supposedly being cleared for my How The Gringo Stole Christmas 2023 Movie Review to appear after two rejections. I followed the advice of the IMDB staff and resubmitted it only to be rejected for a third time.
This time, similar to the first review, no reason or policy was provided with the third review submission. On the third submission, I tweaked only the ending final sentence, Opps! and it has a spelling mistake I missed, which I could have fixed had it also not have been rejected like the first two.
I was told, along with the plethora of other IMDB reviews currently being rejected at the end of 2023, that it was a "Processing Error".
In my reply I stated, "I think you have hit the nail on the head. IMDB appears to be censoring IMDB reviews that mention the word gay. Which is ironic, since faith based and conservative movie watchers want to know what kind of content is being included in a movie they are considering watching. My reviews also mentioned that the movie has a gay character and my thoughts about why it was introduced"
After providing the information IMDB requested about the second rejected review, I received a notification similar to this one, which has since disappeared.
Checking today's review status showed it had been rejected a third time, no reason provided again on the actual decline reason. Though upon checking into the IMDB community support, I found this new post un-reinstating the reinstatement.
Why is IMDB Censoring movie reviews at the beginning of 2024?
The reason for being declined a third time? Because IMDB says that "Note: that while this movie does include a gay character, this is not the typical in your face theme" sentence is an "Expression of hatred or intolerance on the basis of sexual orientation". or in other words, IMDB is censoring honest discussion and reflection of the movie industries propagandizing for homosexuality.
Don't blame me IMDB, blame the California University Film School system that forced me to take a class on understanding and spotting propaganda in movies and movie related industries.
Another irony, is that IMDB changed the discussion on its community forum from Public to PRIVATE.
This review has turned from being a discussion about about trying to discover why IMDB rejected three honest and positive reviews of How the Gringo Stole Christmas, to why IMDB is censoring movie reviews that mention or include it having a gay character.
Criticism of having homosexuality in a movie when it is out of place and adds no value to the story is legitimate criticism. So is acknowledging a film that contains a gay character that is not being explicitly used for propagandizing homosexuality and explaining a characters reason for existing in a story. Both are fair and legitimate transparency for a movie review.
Parents are concerned with the push of homosexuality in elementary schools, movies, culture. People of faith whether Christian, Catholic, Muslim want to know what a movie contains before they watch it. That represents a large of the population coming to IMDB for legitimate un-bias, uncensored reviews who apparently can no longer depend on the objectivity of Amazon's IMDB.
While the Gallup polls do not indicated what percentage of the 95% still retains traditional family values, religious values or believe in scientific biological gender science. It does suggest that there may be people who want to have the freedom to decide what kind of content a movie they intend to watch contains. Those people turn to trusted and reliable movie reviewers, many of whom are on IMDB.
Conclusion:
There isn't much farther I can take this discussion. IMDB rejected three legitimate reviews of How The Gringo Stole Christmas. Why, because the reviews mentioned it containing a gay character in context to other movies that have contained gay characters prior to 2024. Then for mentioning it having a gay character? Which apparently is prohibited going forward.
Believe it or not, I submitted a fourth review to IMDB, because I really believe How The Gringo Stole Christmas (2023) needs a positive and subjective review compared to the current three 1 star reviews.
Let's see how this fourth review does. It is a 100% rewrite. What can I tell you, I like to win. (Link to PDF of review 4 on Drop box)
At this point, I am mainly interested in how much IMDB is going to force me to self-censor this review before they approve it.
Final Update
Well, my fourth full rewrite for IMDB and the movie "How The Gringo Stole Christmas 2023 movie was rejected like the other three, and as much as I enjoyed this movie and believe it deserves a positive review on IMDB, I have grown weary of IMDB's new wokeness and censorship. A high quantity of other IMDB reviewers have been posting to the IMDB community support forums questioning why their new are being censored and even older reviews have disappeared off Amazon's IMDB at the end of 2023, so far the staff responses have been either to give mediocre replies, implying it was a computer error and to try again, only to get censored again, or to turn those posts to private so only IMDB and the reviewer confused about these actions can see it.I apologize kinda to the creators of this movie, because it looks like you're movie is just going to be stuck with the sucky reviews stoked with racist comments that IMDB has approved for appearing under your movie's page.
My video review of How The Gringo Stole Christmas, is available on many video networks. I believe it is authentic and honest, and is receiving positive reception by those who have watched it
My video review of How The Gringo Stole Christmas (2023) is syndicated on X (Twitter), TikTok, YouTube, Instagram Reels, Rumble, Reddit and elsewhere and provides you with the information I am not being allowed to mention on IMDB.
By silencing IMDB reviewers that provide relevant context about a movie, whether it appear bias or not, IMDB is doing its movie reviewers and those who trust them for being transparent and honest, a great disservice. IMDB reviews do not make any money or receive any financial or other benefits for authoring or contributing to their review site. Without us, they would have to hire reviewers, and that would of course provide them with the full ability to provide whatever bias they desire.