Ed Morrissey: Not Thrilled With ‘An American Carol’
Posted by Dirty Harry on Monday, September 1st, 2008
When looking at a rough cut, one has to take into consideration the fact that the finished product may look significantly different. From what I saw, the timing will need to get tightened, and some dialogue spaced out better in order to keep laughter from stepping on punch lines. With that said, the movie seemed to go over well enough with the audience, but significant laugh gaps remain, even with an audience as sympathetic as yesterday’s. …
Conservatives get some red-meat lines in the movie, which prompted cheers from the audience. Leslie Nielsen defines a college protest as “students who don’t know anything, repeating it loudly”. Malone gets slapped repeatedly by Patton, as well as by JFK and Bill O’Reilly. When JFK exasperatedly calls Malone “a douchebag”, it brought the house down. Inter-service rivalry provided a series of laughs at the finale.
However, Zucker’s joke that the unfinished movie didn’t yet have the jokes put it at times appeared true. The wraparound for the movie is Leslie Nielsen telling the story to his grandchildren, but that didn’t really seem to work well. The ACLU sequence seemed over the top with violence, and I imagine it will get a lot of protests … from the ACLU, so the intended audience probably won’t care. Dennis Hopper had a lot of fun in a cameo for that bit, but the funniest moment was a throwaway background shot immediately afterwards.
Obviously this kind of lukewarm review coming from a friendly is not good. I must say, however, that I think Ed missed a number of themes and moments in the film that work strongly to its benefit.
Filed in General |
Stephanieon 01 Sep 2008 at 7:26 am 1Eh he saw a rough cut. I shrug. So should he have.
Mighty Skipon 01 Sep 2008 at 8:01 am 2I don’t know. The clip at the HotAir link had me laughing. I guess we’ll see.
StevefromMKEon 01 Sep 2008 at 8:04 am 3Hot-Air has a tendency to go wobbly sometimes when it comes to Conservatives.
JohnLockeon 01 Sep 2008 at 8:14 am 4Hmm…did anyone else notice Travis Schuldt playing Michael Malone’s nephew at the end of that clip segment? He also plays a Republican character on Scrubs:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dwBx43_5bt8
Now I’m starting to wonder what his politics are…
Johnny Ed's Babyon 01 Sep 2008 at 9:15 am 5I still plan on seeing it.
PerfectTommyon 01 Sep 2008 at 9:35 am 6I plan on seeing it, but the trailers have struck me as a little lame.
Father Caligarion 01 Sep 2008 at 9:36 am 7They don’t call ‘em “rough cuts” for nothing, Ed.
Mr24pon 01 Sep 2008 at 10:13 am 8It sounded like he kind of liked it to me but said it just needs a little more work. Maybe I’m just being too optimistic. lol
soulpileon 01 Sep 2008 at 10:18 am 9I can’t wait to see this film. If only because I’m tired of going to comedies and finding conservatives the butt of tired, nasty jokes. Finally a film I can laugh with!
I stopped reading Hot Air a long time ago because I found a lot of the articles and comments too vitriolic for my taste (right around when they started constantly attacking Ann Coulter, but not soley based on that).
(Re: the clip from Scrubs posted above - thank you! That was great.)
Kenn Christensonon 01 Sep 2008 at 10:31 am 10This is why I never show people my work until I’m happy with it. Because, I ALWAYS hear about “things that need to be fixed” - to which, I reply: They would have been fixed if you hadn’t wanted to see it before it was FINISHED! - Did that sound bitter?
RESon 01 Sep 2008 at 11:02 am 11Soulpile -
I share your weariness over jokes premised on the stereotypes of conservatives. Case in point is the Gene Hackman character in The Birdcage.
Having previously seen La Cage aux folles I found the cardboard character Hackman was given vitiated the thrust of The Birdcage. How ironic that a film advocating gays be respected and their innate human dignity recognized failed to accord those qualities to the film’s conservative. Had they engaged in such stereotypic presentation of any of the films other characters — gays, blacks, hiaspanics — the filmmakers would have been denounced as the bigoted hacks they are.
By refusing to present Hackman’s character as a whole (albeit misguided) being, they deny the audience the pleasure of seeing his growing enlightenment. Instead they present him as a boob, an ignorant and prejudiced cartoon in an otherwise fine film.
Where we should have had a Major Strasser they gave us Col. Klink.
Johnon 01 Sep 2008 at 11:38 am 12I think part of Ed’s negativity is based on the fact that, knowing the reaction of the reviewers that’s to come, he feels that Zucker really has to hit it out of the park of the level of the non-stop gags in “Airplane!” for “An American Carol” to overcome the hostility directed towards it. That means no extended dead spots, no gags that might be too over-the-top for non-conservatives to laugh at and no forced scenes/story lines that take the viewer out of the film.
It’s hard to find any comedies nowadays that don’t suffer from at least two of those three problems. But those comedies don’t have to deal with the political ill-will from the media that’s already marked “An American Carol” down in the 1/2-star category. Like “The Passion of Christ”, this movie will live or die based on word-of-mouth, both to attract people to the opening weekend and by the people who go there and tell their friends whether it’s funny or not. If there are any weak spots, don’t expect the reviwers to gloss over or totally ignore them, the way they do with films that are ideologically more to their liking.
Glennon 01 Sep 2008 at 8:09 pm 13Zucker’s humor does not sit well with some folks - ya gotta either love it or hate it. I saw Airplane! in the theater as a 19-year-old college student and I laughed so hard I almost hurt myself - and yet, some of my buddies, who were otherwise quite fun-loving, were not impressed. I also remember reading a newspaper review of Airplane! that put it on the two-star level, something that baffled me at the time.
Likewise, the Scary Movie series shows up on my Time-Warner Cable guide with a single star (”poor”), yet, I find them quite watchable. Once.
SweetBubbaon 01 Sep 2008 at 9:44 pm 14I feel the need to see this movie because I’m just so amazed it actually got made, and it definitely needs the support of conservative filmmakers…..that said, Hotair’s review is completely consistent with my impression of the film from the extended clips that have been circulating. I enjoy virtually everything being said, and occasionally a joke works well, but for the most part it seems to be ineffective as a comedy.
Jack Marinoon 02 Sep 2008 at 1:12 am 15SweetBubba, let me explain to you the life of a conservative filmmaker. There are two types, one is like Zucker who is in the loop. He can get anything made. Remember, Zucker was a lib years ago, he grew up and on 9/11 he got a wake up call, like Ron Silver. Zucker has tons of money and can get anything done. He isn’t an actor, he is a producer. Produces get things made. When you have the dough, anything is possible. Mel Gibson proved this.
I do believe that we all MUST support Zucker and his film, because he is now standing up in harms way by making this film. However, he has his deflector screens up on high. He will come out of this, very well and get a hell of a lot of PR for him to make another film that makes fun of the liberals. They can’t really hurt him. All conservative critics on blogs or in the news should promote this film, even if they don’t like it. Why? Because it is the only film out there that is giving the left a black-eye. Who cares if the film is great or bad. There isn’t a 1000 conservative films out there doing this. Only Zucker’s and he is in with the big boys. It is bad enough that the mad dogs liberals are going to come out and attack this film, attack the people that like it and attack conservatives who support it. When a conservatives attacks the film, its bad for our ‘business’ , conservative have a tendency to eat their own and I know this for a fact.
Now, we come to the level of the unknown conservative filmmaker. There are only a few and all but a few are making documentaries and these have played at the two conservative film festivals. As far as I know, or did know a few years ago, I was the only independent filmmaker that OWNED his own 35 mm feature length film. I have had only a few conservatives support me and my film. Most of them have ignore me or made sure I could not be a part of any conservative filmmaking movement. I have been doing this for over 28 years now and I have seen it all and heard it all. It is my belief we are up against this huge mafia like liberal film business, that will never allow conservative unknown filmmakers into the system. It dosen’t matter how good your film is, they will never allow you up at bat. It is a closed system of unknown conservative filmmakers.
I am selling my film (DVD) over my website. I have been selling steady since March 1. I thought I would get a huge support by the conservatives on all these blogs, but I have only sold a few at these republican events, who all profess to support conservative films. Only if you have a name out there. The two film festivals turned me down, which one promised me I would be in his festival for two years in a row.
None of this matters to me, because this has been the road I have been on since the mid 90s. In the meantime, I am blogging all over the place to get conservatives to buy my DVD.
I even got a letter from the President of the United States, it sent a few waves in certain circles and things are be worked on to get me national exposure. http://forgottenheroesthemovie.com/letter/
I recently got my latest review in BIG REEL magazine. http://forgottenheroesthemovie.com/reviews/bigreel.html
Every so often, someone like you makes a statement like you did and I feel I have to respond to let you know that I agree with your feelings about we MUST all support conservative filmmakers, known and unknown, good film or bad film. Its not like we conservatives had a slew of films out there that speak for what we believe in or want to see.
Most of the conservative filmmakers I have met, or read about are all working on digital, on documentaries. I have had a pro vietnam film, that I feel, speaks what we all talk about here and on other sites, yet I am politely ignored. I feel most conservatives want to see A level films with big names, these films are easy to support. Its the little guy like me, who for the past 20 years is averging 75% in favor of the film and a few people but liberal and conservative have dumped on me and the film. Well this is normal for any filmmaker. I don’t know of anyone that loves the Godfather III. My point is, that my film is what it is, the theme is about heros and I show a generation of Vietnam vets in a way that Hollywood refuses to show them as heroes. As a small businessman, all I can do is promote my film on conservative blogs that support conservative filmmakers. I need every conservative to buy my DVD, because if you don’t you will never see conservative filmmakers get out there in the big time to make the kind of films you want to see.
If one of us breaks out, it is a victory for all of us. Zucker’s success won’t help us, he won’t help us, we help him, so he can get more work to do this again. But it allows him to make more films to break that cement ceiling we conservative filmmakers have to deal with.
I am doing this all alone, I have been since I walked out of Deluxe in 1990. I haven’t really gotten any help from conservatives, except from a few here and for that I am very grateful. It needs a group effort from all conservatives everywhere or we conservative filmmakers will be as rare out in Hollywood as spats at an Iowa picnic.
Jillon 02 Sep 2008 at 10:44 pm 16Well said Jack and I agree completely. By the way I’m going to buy your DVD.
Everyone go to the movie and support it. Who says it has to be Oscar material? I haven’t seen a really great movie in years. Conservatives must show our support for these brave guys.
Everyone go buy Jack’s DVD!!!
Jack Marinoon 02 Sep 2008 at 11:37 pm 17Jill, Thank you so very much and God Bless you for your support.
For every DVD purchased by a conservative off the internet, is a victory for all of us.
Dirty Harry’s Place… » Dr. Hfuhruhurr Reviews ‘An American Carol’on 05 Sep 2008 at 7:52 am 18[…] of all — and this is what I meant when I wrote the other day that Ed Morrisey had missed key aspects of the film – the good Dr. Hfuhruhurr talks about the most important and […]