Anyway, I wasn't at all inspired to write about An American Carol and I didn't have to as several other sites did it for me. I particularly liked the two part smackdown at YouAreDumb.net (part 1 is here, part 2 is here). So I figured, "That's all taken care of, now to write some one-liners about how I learned from The House Bunny that it's possible for a guy who has clearly never been laid to still somehow find he's able to resist the advances of a Playboy model."
That was all well and good until I read David Weigel's post about the movie at Reason.com. This confirmed that The Weekly Standard article only hinted at the depths of horror that are plumbed by An American Carol. This post was just the catalyst I needed to sit down and do something I haven't done for months. Thus, I present to you:
MOVIES I HAVEN'T SEEN: AN AMERICAN CAROL
Oh my freaking God, this movie is going to suck. There is no chance, none, that it will be good. Some of you may be shocked that David Zucker, a man whose film making career stretches back over 30 years, made such a horrible film. Then some of you will remember that Zucker's last good movie was 1988's The Naked Gun and that, since then, his career highlights have included Baseketball and My Boss's Daughter and won't be shocked at all.
Weigel begins by telling us how, at a Heritage Foundation rally for the movie, he was handed a card.
If I fill out the card, I can take one of four pledges, such as "Yes, I will send the trailer to my contacts" and "Yes, I want to be AN AMERICAN CAROLER or THEATER CAPTAIN." It's an induction to a movement, as the slogan on the card makes clear: "Finally, a movie for us."
First off, to all you College Republicans out there, and particularly to the male ones, you may think that being a Theater Captain or An American Caroler sounds cool. Let me assure you that wearing tags like this sends to every girl who sees it the message, "No thanks, I am not now nor will I ever be even slightly interested in receiving oral sex from you, but thanks anyway." You may as well try to impress them with your elaborate knowledge of Monty Python and I can personally assure you that girls suddenly find a reason to stand on the other side of the room when you demand that they bring you a shrubbery or yell, "THIS IS AN EX PARROT," in their faces.
We learn a bit more about the movie's plot than we did in the Stephen Hayes piece. It centers around a Michael Moore clone called Michael Malone played here by Kevin Farley, brother of the late comedian Chris Farley whose strengths as an actor included screaming, running his hands through his hair and falling face down in cow flop so you know there's going to be some quality acting there. Apparently there is a scene where Malone grabs a woman's boobs and, out of nowhere, Bill O'Reilly appears and slaps him for sexually harassing an innocent woman and then says, "I just like doing that." This would be the same Bill O'Reilly who was once forced to pay out millions of dollars to a woman in order to settle a sexual harassment lawsuit. Part of the harassment included a taped phone conversation where he talked dirty to the woman while masturbating with a vibrator. I could have left that part out, but I just liked doing that.
We also get scenes of the ghost of General Patton in a gun battle against, well, read the quote:
In a scene that Sokoloff described, but didn't bring, Patton and his soldiers storm a courthouse that's about to remove the Ten Commandments and start opening fire on the people trying to stop them. "You can't shoot these people!" Malone says. "They're not people!" says Patton. "They're the ACLU!" At this point we see that the ACLU members are unkillable George Romero zombies.
I hope that none of you wet yourselves from laughing at that. I'm sure the description of this scene killed at the Heritage Foundation, a place where they still get laughs from Billary jokes. And then we get the money scene where Michael Malone is confronted by the ghost of George Washington. That's where...this happens:
In a clip we saw, Washington takes Malone to St. Paul's Cathedral to lecture him on freedom of religion and "freedom of speech, which you abuse." Malone is grossed out by dust in the priest's box, so the doors open onto the smoldering ruins of the World Trade Center. "This is the dust of 3000 innocent human beings!" bellows Washington. Malone whimpers that he's just making movies. Washington won't have it. "Is that what you plan to say on Judgment Day?"
"That scene," said Sokoloff, "is hard to put in a comedy. But we had to do it."
That's producer Myrna Sokoloff stating the obvious to which I would like to add a hearty, "DUUUUUUUUH!" That line about the World Trade Center would have been hard to put into the movie World Trade Center.
All this reminded me of a couple of things. First, this is not the first time an outrageous comedy has been made about the post-9/11 world. The first one was Uwe Boll's Postal which I talked about back in May. This movie, especially the scene in which crashing a plane into the World Trade Center was played for laughs, was roundly trashed by the right wing. They wondered what sort of soulless bastard would do something so insensitive as to make light of something as serious and perilous as global terrorism. Now we find out that they meant, "How could you do something like that without advancing the conservative movement?" I was also reminded of the last time that conservatives tried to make something funny. It was conceived as "The right wing Daily Show" and was called The 1/2 Hour News Hour. It was produced by 24 executive producer Joel Surnow who said he wanted to make something that would make Michael Moore's hair stand on end and, as you can see from the YouTube link, not only was it not funny but it was so densely unfunny that light can't possibly escape it. It also shows that conservatives have no idea about what Jon Stewart does. Jon Stewart is a liberal and often fiercely and brilliantly takes conservatives to task on his show. What he does not do is sit with his writers and say, "Ok, how do we use this show to advance the liberal agenda?" Jon Stewart does not try to make a LIBERAL show, he tries to make a FUNNY show. In fact, anyone who's ever seen The Daily Show knows that they show no mercy to Democrats or liberals. Why do they do this? Because it's funny and therein lies the difference between him and Joel Surnow.
Stewart tries to make people laugh while Joel Surnow tried to make Michael Moore's hair stand on end. That's why he failed and that's also why David Zucker has failed so miserably in his attempt at conservative comedy. When he made The Naked Gun, Zucker was trying to make a funny movie. When he made An American Carol, the comedy came second to advancing his agenda. Zucker more or less says this himself in the Weekly Standard article:
He adds: "I don't have any desire to be taken seriously. Really, I really don't. But having said that, I really believe this stuff. Why can't I put it out there? And I'm scared to death of Obama. If I didn't do something about it I would feel--My kids would ask: 'What did you do in the war Daddy?'"
"I donated my career to stop this s--."
Yep, nothing says "laugh riot" like imagining yourself to be the equal of the people who are actually fighting and dying on the front lines. Surely, he can't be serious.
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2 comments:
Baseketball rules.
I and, apparently, most of the planet disagree with you about Baseketball, sir, but at least you came here to say that instead of inflicting it on society at large and for that, I thank you.
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