Thank Satan that those
scum-sucking liberals run Hollywood.
If creative feats were left to righties, then there might be more flicks like An
American Carol, which I saw last night. You might ask why I would endure such
pain – especially since The Phoenix already reviewed the unanimously (although
conspiratorially) panned conservative comedy. The answer is twofold: 1 – I was
called out yesterday for alleging that the David Zucker (of Airplane! fame) film
wasn’t funny even though I hadn’t seen it; and 2 – a quick Google search
revealed that Boston's Young Republicans were congregating at Loews for a screening.
On my way down I was hoping that the film had already
been exiled to DVD; not because I think it can swing voters, or because I didn’t
genuinely want to see it, but because buying tickets promised to be more embarrassing
than purchasing that Coldplay disc for mom last Christmas. But upon arrival I
realized that the trip was worthwhile; where else in Boston could I spy on a herd of nerds whose
high school rejection inspired them to loathe those of us who think, drink and
fornicate liberally.
I spotted the awkward looking persecuted
neo-cons as soon as I walked in, which forced me to conceal my pad and pen;
these people don’t much like press these days, and I’ll eat shit before I get
beaten by a swarm of preppies on my own turf. That said; there was one uncharacteristically
wicked hot chick with the
group who I presume is a talking head in training. One overweight couple also
walked in with armfuls of candy, but, while they appeared to be generic couch
potato rednecks, they left after the first 15 minutes.
Once inside the theater, the
audio cut out for a minute during a snack bar commercial, which fueled the
first round of forced laughs when one attendee suggested: “They’re censoring our
sound.” That one got the kind of “Ha” chuckle that simply indicates one’s understanding
of a joke’s intention; not the sort of “Yee-Has” that express sheer enjoyment.
This continued through the entire evening.
Carol is stocked with conservative
Hollywood heavyweights including Jon Voight, Dennis Hopper, and Kelsey Grammer,
as well as crack house leftovers who would take gigs fluffing for Monsters of
Cock (I would provide the link, but it’s pretty awful stuff). Among the
Z-listers: David Alan Grier, Paris Hilton, some guy who does a deplorable JFK
accent, Gary Coleman (no joke), that guy who played Shooter McGavin in Happy Gilmore,
and Chris Farley’s brother, Kevin, who plays the cleverly named Michael Moore
caricature, Michael Malone.
Of course there’s some hilarity;
one rip at the beginning suggests that too many Arabs are named “Muhammad;” that’s
when Carol is at its best – when it’s deliberately anti-intellectual and even hateful.
Farley also plays a decent Moore,
even though at times it seems like he’s playing his big brother. Beyond those
merits, this is a remarkable hack job; even the absurd premise – that
documentary filmmaker Malone wants to abolish the 4th of July
because he hates America
– was likely jacked from Mr. Show with Bob and David’s classic “America Will
Blow up the Moon” sketch.
In order to save you the long-winded
synopsis of this Pro-Life abortion, which you can get here in Ty Burr’s excellent
review if you’re interested, I’ll instead identify the underlying themes and
lessons in An American Carol:
-Michael Moore is a fat shit who can’t
go eight minutes without inhaling pizza.
-Documentary filmmaking as a
genre is a complete joke; especially ones that are about Nazism,
McCarthyism, or any other topics for which the verdict has clearly been decided on.
-If it were up to Michael Moore –
and everyone else who believes that Iraq
was and is the wrong war – America
would have never fought the Civil War or World War II.
-Foreign dictators only
understand strength.
-Columbia University
professors are hippies in disguise who are bent on “indoctrinating an entire
generation to hate their own country.”
-Michael Moore is a complete
failure; such a failure, in fact, that Zucker made a feature film to ridicule
him.
-Bill O’Reilly is fantastic at
playing himself playing that bigot-bating rabble rouser who he plays on air.
If Dennis Miller wasn’t proof
enough that even funny dudes lose comic steam once they turn right, then Zucker
is the deciding factor. Homeboy deployed every brand of comedy to hammer home
his point – from slapstick and satire to musical numbers and flagrant mockery –
yet few succeeded (apparently some maverick producers are calling for a costly
humor surge in the sequel).
I’m sick with curiosity about whether notable screen heroes such as Hopper, Grammer, and James Woods (yeah –
him too, sorry) would be useless if not constantly surrounded by
Tinsel Town semi-rationalists. In the end, the most chuckle-worthy thing about this debacle
(at least for me, since I didn’t know that Voight is a Republican) was
realizing that even Brad Pitt has a conservative asshole for a father-in-law.
The only other highlight that I enjoyed was how, near the end, when faced with the
choice between death and patriotism, Michael Moore finds his conscience and
seeks redemption from the true Americans who he regrettably smeared en route to
notoriety. The crowd seemed to like that one too; probably because it reminded the Reaganites of the real-life Lee Atwater story.
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