Friday, October 3, 2008

An American Carol

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I’m resisting right-left political combative urges until November — and neutrally hosting a debate on term limits next Tuesday — but I’m allowed to comment on a ghost story, this being the Month of Horror on the blog and all, right?

And so it is that I note today brings An American Carol to theatres, the David Zucker (of Airplane fame) comedy about a leftist, Michael Moore-like film director taken on a tour of American history and politics by ghosts who instill a newfound conservatism in him.

I will have to see this rare thing even if it proves to be awful — but the Zuckers have been good to us in the past, and we should respect that comedic inheritance.

ADDENDUM: On another quasi-political note, today, the very day that the House may vote in favor of a Wall Street bailout, my alarm clock radio woke me with an odd reminder of how we got here. The first three ads in a row praised WaMu (“WaMu savings — woo-hoo!”), finessing your bad credit rating (“Turn your bad credit into wealth” or words to that effect), and big zero-money-down purchases (for a Toyota, featuring a cover of the Fixx’s “Saved by Zero,” perhaps the first time I’ve heard anyone covering the Fixx, unless you count me in karaoke). Mainly, though, I was just happy to hear a Fixx song. Also happy this week to learn that UK Conservative Party leader David Cameron says his favorite band is the Jam.

4 comments:

American Carol Michael Moore | Celebrity Moments said...

[...] An American Carol [...]

Gerard said...

I generally detest slapstick humor, to say nothing of recurring sight gags, which probably explains my indifference to oeuvre of The Three Stooges. That being said, I thought this film was absolutely brilliant.

I don’t know how you can watch the scene with David Alan Grier and not be gripped by convulsions of hysterical laughter. I have to give DAG props for doing this role, which probably turned his stomach, because he brought it.

And Robert Davi is simply amazing! Rest assured, Beitullah Mehsud is probably somewhere in a well-stocked mud-hut, located in in the FATA, watching a bootlegged copy of this film, thinking to himself: “you sure this guy isn’t one of ours?”

I have little hope that there will be a Hollywood-financed production that depicts Moslems as genocidal, terror-spreading zealots in the near future, but if they do decide to bankroll The Imad Mugniyeh Story this guy needs to be cast as the lead!

Todd Seavey said...

Ironically, the only name you mention that I recognize is David Ogden Stiers, and I did not notice him in the film, which I thought was so awful as to be embarrassing and uncomfortable to watch — much the way I would hope a thoughtful leftist would feel while watching the terrible left-propaganda play _Sex and Longing_ by Christopher Durang, which featured nothing but the most cartoonishly and broadly-drawn stereotypes of evil conservatives, as if designed to ready hate-fueled eight-year-olds for war against a subhuman enemy.

Todd Seavey said...

Oh, right — David Allen Grier, not David Ogden Stiers. Totally on top of the situation now.