AN AMERICAN CAROL

The tagline for An American Carol goes like this...

"WARNING! This movie may be offensive to children, young people, old people, in-the-middle people, some people on the right, all people on the left, terrorists, pacifists, war-mongers, fish mongers, Christians, Jews, Muslims, atheists, agnostics (though you'd have to prove it to them), the ACLU, liberals, conservatives, neo-cons, ex-cons, future cons, Republicans, Democrats, Libertarian, people of color, people of no color, English speakers, English-as-a-second language speakers, non-speakers, men, women, more women, & Ivy League professors. Native Americans should be okay."

I've just watched it and.... WOW.... just WOW! What the hell have I just witnessed? An American Carol is a slapstick comedy from David Zucker, the legendary director of Airplane, Top Secret and The Naked Gun. The last decade has not been so good to him and his movies have been terrible. In fact the slapstick style that he helped define has been reduced to crap like Superhero Movie, Epic Movie and other shit-house flicks like that... and so his return with An American Carol is in some ways a return to form. There's a lot of gags and I did find myself laughing aloud at a lot of them... BUT.... BUT... the politics of this movie is so extreme that I felt really uncomfortable watching it. My own personal politics sit comfortably between the fence and slightly to the right but THIS movie is extremely right-winged to say the least. It parodies Michael Moore as a guy who hates America and uses the Christmas Carol set-up to tell it's story. He is visited by three spirits who show him how wonderful America is and that war is good... but I just saw a whole lot of chest beating and arrogance. I tried to keep reminding myself how our television (and films) is riddled with left-wing opinions and a general anti-right sentiment but two wrongs don't make a right and I think that extremities of either side is ugly business. Surprising is the quality of the cast Zucker has pulled together. James Woods, Kelsey Grammar and Jon Voight star (amongst others) and Dennis Hopper offers an amusing yet bemusing performance. When I think of Dennis Hopper I think of that hippy from Easy Rider and Apocalypse Now but I was surprised to read that in his later years he converted to Republican... it's funny how so many old folks do that. The greatest disservice Zucker does to his agenda is to include a seriously unfunny cameo by Bill O'reilly. If there's one thing the world does not need it's more O'reilly air time. He's is not parodied and his ignorant, arrogant and dimwitted garbage is given credence. I can't swallow that! And so I was really torn by An American Carol. It's so disappointing to see great gags and a revived style of comedy being completely shat on by an extreme right-winged sentiment. David Zucker has his opinions and he has a right to make a movie out of them. It's nothing Michael Moore and other filmmakers aren't doing constantly, but this takes it way too far for my liking. Bugger!

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