Political movies in october of an election year? what a surprise!
In weeks like this, going to the movies is an imperative. Getting out of the house and seeing a silly comedy or five-hanky weepy is an excellent antidote to all politics all the time that we are being bombarded with. Unfortunately two of the films that are opening in wide release this weekend are attempts at political polemic, one a documentary and one a satirical comedy…or so they would have us believe.
David Zucker’s An American Carol and Larry Charles’ Religulous are both ambitious failures., The latter is far more successful, but it ultimately fails because Charles and writer/star Bill Maher are two clever by half.
Religulous follows Bill Maher as he travels around the globe interviewing people about God and religion…or at least pretends to. He spends most of his vitriol for easy targets, such as Scientology®, Jews for Jesus, a creationist museum and Christian theme park, where Bill his defeated by a Jesus impersonator. He then takes on Muslim fundamentalism by making up phony subtitles, and gets run off the property of the Mormon temple in Salt Lake City, and the Vatican before addressing the audience on how atheism is the only genuine world view and to convert. Immediately.
The use of old movie clips is used to great effect, as is the editing, but ultimately, Maher is preaching to the choir, and unless one’s a fan, it’s pretty much a bore.
Zucker’s An American Carol is the weekend’s really big disappointment. Zucker has done some of the funniest films ever done, and despite the Republican taint, I had high hopes for it. Unfortunately, it was pure polemic, coated in badly done slapstick.
In the film, Michael Moore clone Michael Malone(Kevin Farley) is organizing a “stop the 4th of July” rally in front of Madison Square Garden, where inside there’s a free concert for the troops.. But then the ghosts of JFK, George Washington and General Patten, who teach him the real meaning of America just in time to save MSG from the Taliban, pay him a visit and everybody lives happily ever after except for Malone’s crippled nieces and nephews. (This is the guy who did “Airplane”)
With the exception of Michael Moore’s “Fahrenheit 9/11” propaganda films have never done well at the box office. The reason why, besides the fact that usually they stink, is that most of them portray the audience as generally evil people who are the enemy. Comedies have no humor and most of the dramas have no drama. It’s all the same old arguments with a paper-thin veneer, a very tricky proposition to begin with and almost impossible to pull off. These films are too earnest to be entertaining