comedically, this movie i'm sure was hysterical to right wingers. i only really found one or two scenes funny. i got a kick out of the scene w/bill o'reilly, where michael "malone" distances himself from the 911 truthers and other kind of wacko ideas proposed by rosie "o'connell". also the professor musical would have been somewhat humorous had zucker not summoned forth fox news and declared a college education as "indoctrination". but other than that, for its production value, and as a moderate on most issues, i found it pretty unfunny. In fact, this is the MOST unfunny thing david zucker has ever done. at least the production and the acting were ok.
but politically... come on - the whole "real america" palin quote was actually repeated IN THE MOVIE. seriously? apparently having a differing opinion than the far right, not liking country music, going to college, and producing documentaries automatically makes you unamerican.
other points:
i'm not sure that zucker realized the hypocrisy in the scene w/michael's nephew's kids needing all kinds of medical treatments -- what with the nephew being in the military-- and poking fun of moore's sicko earlier in the film. i.e. all those kids who should have the best medical care in the world (being under the wing of the american military) come up short on medical care, yet this is somehow moore's fault? or maybe he agrees with moore but is too convicted to his cause to admit it.
also it's pretty clear that david zucker is jealous of moore, pointing out over and over again that "no one watches documentaries" and he only won an oscar for "a documentary". and thinking that michael moore's one big dream is to produce a hollywood feature. Zucker is clearly still bitter that BASEketball didn't win best picture.
it would have been funnier if had gone way overboard w/the right wing propaganda in my opinion. but the film couldn't seem to decide whether it was satire/comedy/or political opinion. poking fun at moore's "lies in documentaries" almost seems like a cop out by not calling itself a comedy, and not right-wing/conservative/GOP satire -- or just doing a documentary himself. of course even fewer people would have seen it had it been a documentary -- as pointed out by zucker himself, stating that "no one watches documentaries in theaters" - well certainly no one who would go to see this movie.
i lost a great deal of respect for david alan grier for appearing in this film. although the few lines they gave a black man were well acted, and funny.
of course, the whole "war never solved anything LLOLOLOLOL" argument is brought into play by general patton via WW2 and the US civil war, which of course, is a gross oversimplification of what diplomacy is about.
zucker's understanding of JFK is way the hell off - anyone that has studied the Cuban Missile Crisis will tell you that had the president not have been willing to negotiate w/our enemies and had been as cynical of the UN as zucker(as zucker suggests the president SHOULD be), the world probably would have been sent into nuclear war, and I wouldn't be able to express my right to free speech right now.
McCarthy as pictured as just "a drunk guy from wisconsin", and not the true bastard that he was. do some research for Christ's sake (and yes, I'm a Christian - not that should matter).
the ACLU lawyers as zombies was funny. though the ten commandments are nowhere in US law. not that they aren't a good bunch of laws themselves. however, zucker does portray the removal of the ten commandments from a courtroom as somehow the destruction of the US judicial system (wtf?). i know some people think this way, but really???
the worst point this movie tries to make of course, is that having a certain opinion means you are A)unamerican B)You HATE american C) you are somehow a mindless zombie who just shouts phrases you heard from someone over and over (aka "the real america") D)you are anti-(US)military E) you love terrorists F) you hate your heritage G) you are somehow ungrateful H) a bigot who hates jews and black-americans I) indoctrinated via "education". Did I miss anything? probably. oh yeah - and if you don't like country music, you're unamerican.
those who portray this type of propaganda on both sides are only making things worse. we're all americans. we have different opinions on different issues. calling someone "unamerican" for having a certain opinion on an issue is not only unamerican itself, but un-democratic in refusing to acknowledge that the real problem is corporate lobbies corrupting our political institutions, most notably, Congress (especially the senate). Looking in from the outside, imagine if you saw a law get passed in france that gave government subsidies to snail farmers, and was itself, written by snail farmers. In exchange the french representative that "sponsored" the bill/law, was given all he can eat escargot for the rest of his life. We would say that's political corruption wouldn't we? Congress is corrupt as all hell. Get rid of corporate campaign contributions, for-profit corporation lobbyists, ban the writing of bills by anyone but a senator or representative him/herself, and then maybe we'll have something closer to democracy in america.
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BlackJAC
14 years ago
Technically only two of the Ten Commandments are covered by any nation's law: Thou Shalt Not Kill and Thou Shalt Not Steal. And music taste is thoroughly subjective--I'll bet there are gops who prefer classical over country.
Let's always remember that Zucker defected to the gops in 2004 because he just wanted to be on the winning team regardless of what team that was, and there's no greater zealot than a recent convert. Let's also remember that Phone Booth was the last profitable movie Zucker did.
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