| An American Carol | |
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Theatrical release poster |
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| Directed by | David Zucker |
| Produced by | David Zucker Stephen McEveety John Shepherd Todd Matthew Burns |
| Written by | David Zucker Myrna Sokoloff |
| Starring | Kevin Farley Kelsey Grammer Jon Voight Dennis Hopper Leslie Nielsen Jillian Murray Sammy Sheik |
| Music by | James L. Venable |
| Cinematography | Brian Baugh |
| Editing by | Vashi Nedomansky |
| Distributed by | Vivendi Entertainment |
| Release date(s) | October 3, 2008 |
| Running time | 83 minutes[1] |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $20 million[2] |
| Box office | $7,013,191 |
An American Carol is a 2008 American comedy film directed by David Zucker and starring Kevin Farley. In some other countries the film is known as Big Fat Important Movie.[3][4] Presented from a conservative-leaning perspective but more about the concept of loving America instead of hating it, the film is a parody of liberal filmmaker Michael Moore that "lampoons contemporary American culture, particularly Hollywood."[5] It uses the framework of A Christmas Carol but moves the setting of the story from Christmas to Independence Day. The screenplay is written by Myrna Sokoloff and Zucker. The supporting cast includes Kelsey Grammer, Jon Voight, Dennis Hopper, Trace Adkins, Gary Coleman, Jillian Murray and Leslie Nielsen.[6] The film was released on October 3, 2008.
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Left-wing activist and filmmaker Michael Malone (Kevin Farley), a parody of Michael Moore, is campaigning to end the celebration of the Fourth of July. Malone holds pronounced anti-American views and truculently argues that America's past and present are both offensive, and therefore should not be celebrated. Josh Malone, Michael's nephew, is an officer in the United States Navy and is about to deploy to the Persian Gulf. His uncle, however, regards him with disgust. At an awards ceremony hosted by Paris Hilton, Malone receives the Leni Riefenstahl Award for his documentary Die, You American Pigs.
The film starts off with Michael at a special premier in Cuba for his new documentary about health care in the United States and how it is far inferior to the health care system in communist Cuba, which he declares to be an "island paradise" As his film closes, he informs those waiting in the long line to a Cuban medical clinic that he is "off to America," causing many, if not all, to flock to his tiny boat, causing an annoyed Michael to shoo and beat them with a paddle. Michael narrates saying that the masses were thanking him (not trying to board his boat).
On the evening of July 3, Malone is watching a speech from President John F. Kennedy. However, when Malone accidentally takes part of his speech to mean avoiding war at all costs, the disgruntled long-dead President steps out of a television set, corrects Malone, and tells him that he will be visited by three spirits.
The next morning, Malone is then visited by General George S. Patton (Kelsey Grammer), who tries to make him rethink his view of America. Arguing that sometimes war is necessary for the greater cause, Patton shows him an alternate world where slavery still exists because Abraham Lincoln chose not to fight the Civil War. He then shows the filmmaker how British Prime Minister Chamberlain (Oliver Muirhead) appeased Adolf Hitler (Benton Jennings), even allowing Malone to attempt to communicate with Hitler, who blatantly ignores him. After this, Patton shows a college classroom, setting it to a musical tune and having the professors sing about how their views on peace and life have not changed since when they were hippies in 1968, and will give good grades to students who agree with their views. The students openly admit to Patton that their parents merely are 'glad that they were out of the house". Calling it 'indoctrination' rather than 'education', Patton leaves after making a comment to some parents who walked in the room that this was "what you (the parents) spent your life savings on".
However, Michael refuses to even reconsider his extremely leftist views and a despondent Patton apologizes for his failure before the altar of a Manhattan church to his 'father'. To Malone's shock, he learns that the General was addressing not God, but the ghost of George Washington (Jon Voight), who reveals that this is the very church where he prayed for his country every day of his Presidency. When Michael comments about the large amount of dust there, Washington opens a door and reveals that it comes from the destruction of the World Trade Center in the September 11 attacks in 2001.
Shaken but still unmoved, Malone is visited by the angel of death (Trace Adkins), who takes him to a future Los Angeles which has been taken over by radical Islamists. Victoria's Secret has switched to selling burqas and the Hollywood Sign now reads Allahu akbar.[7] Later, he is taken to the ruins of his hometown in Michigan, which has been destroyed by a nuclear bomb planted by Al Qaeda. In a makeshift morgue, Malone learns that he will be killed in this attack, leaving nothing behind but his trademark hat and "big ass". Malone pleads for his life with the Angel, promising to change.
Later, Malone arrives at an anti-Fourth of July protest rally and publicly renounces his former views. The outraged protesters call him a traitor and charge the podium intending to murder him. He is rescued, however, by American servicemen and pulled inside of a country music concert where he is formally welcomed to "the real America". After barely preventing a terrorist bombing there, he runs to the docks in time to see his nephew Josh off to the Persian Gulf. He tells Josh how very proud he is of him and promises to look in on his wife and family during his deployment. Even then Malone can't help but to cause the disabled children on the dock to fall overboard.
As the film concludes, Malone is a changed man who loves his country and realizes how precious freedom is while sticking to his liberal views. Taking Patton's advice to advocate American values in film, he begins filming a JFK biopic, which he intends to be more accurate than Oliver Stone's movie.
An American Carol was strongly advertised by notable Republicans and conservative personalities such as Rush Limbaugh,[8] Sean Hannity, Glenn Beck and Mark Levin. On October 3, 2008, actors Kevin Farley and Kelsey Grammer appeared on the Fox News program The O'Reilly Factor to promote their film, in which show host Bill O'Reilly made a guest appearance. An American Carol has also been described by newspapers such as the Dallas Morning News as being "for the right wing".[9] The American Conservative reported, "The movie has been promoted by bloggers on National Review Online. The Leadership Institute, an activist group that maintains contact with College Republicans nationwide, urged its charges to see the movie on opening weekend, even handing out tickets to its interns."[10]
The film was not screened for critics, as director David Zucker said the studio did not believe it would get a fair hearing due to its conservative political viewpoint.[11]
Based on 40 reviews collected by Rotten Tomatoes, An American Carol currently has a 11% approval rating from critics, with an average score of 3/10.[12] Among Rotten Tomatoes' Top Critics, which consists of popular and notable critics from the top newspapers, websites, television and radio programs,[13] the film holds an overall approval rating of 0%.[14] Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the film has received an average score of 20, based on 12 reviews.[15] An openly Conservative contributor to Ain't it Cool News said the film featured "ingenious comedy that we remember from Airplane!" as well as "funny and inventive."[16] Kathleen Parker of Washington Post Writers Group called the film "'An American Carol' may not be The Best Movie You Ever Saw, but it’s something. It’s radical in its assault on the left wing; it’s brave given the risk of peer ridicule and the potential for career suicide. And it’s funny — if you like that sort of thing. Generally, I don’t."[17]
However, the film did have detractors, even among conservatives. Michael Brendan Doherty of The American Conservative wrote that:
| “ | Is “An American Carol” funny? In parts. There is some mildly amusing ethnic humor and a bravura film-within-a-film about Christian terrorists. Nuns perform the sign of the cross before blowing up buses, priests hijack flights, and Americans are forced to go through a humiliating new security procedure at airports because of “that Episcopalian suppository bomber.”
But the rest is a series of tiresome gags hastily tied together. Adorable children curse out their liberal relatives, Dennis Hopper blows away ACLU zombies with a shotgun, soldiers and sailors are hailed for their prowess in the sack. Of course, antiwar activists are smeared as pro-slavery Nazi-appeasers. Some scenes are recycled from Zucker’s campaign work. In one of his unaired 2004 spots, Arab terrorists fool Madeleine Albright by singing “Kumbaya.”In “Carol,” Hitler and his friends reach for their six-strings to serenade Neville Chamberlain, the Michael Moore stand-in, and a displeased Patton. Bill O’Reilly makes a cringe-inducing cameo. Far from lampooning the Left, “Carol” insults conservatives by presuming that they are so simple as to be won over by fat jokes and flatulence. But the audience, imagining itself to be persecuted by Hollywood, is so grateful to be flattered by Zucker and company that they chuckle obediently at every cheap laff. Conservatives, once the scourge of coarsening culture, are happy to play crass as long as the joke is on liberals.[10] |
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Finally, Steven Rea of The Philadelphia Inquirer gave the movie one star out of five, called it "jaw-droppingly awful," and "about as not-funny as a comedy can get."[18] Lou Lumenick of the New York Post wrote, "Even if it weren't three years too late to parody Moore (ineptly played by Kevin Farley), Moore's ridiculous tribute to Cuban health care in Sicko is far funnier than anything in this desperately laughless farce from David Zucker."[19]
On September 5, 2008, Michael Moore was a guest on Larry King Live and was shown a clip from the film where Malone (while lying down on his bed, drinking a Big Gulp and watching archival footage of JFK's inaugural address) is startled by Kennedy, who materializes out of Malone's television screen, and confronts him on his misguided views of American history. Moore said that he was vaguely familiar with the film, and then jokingly said he thought it was Viggo Mortensen that would be portraying him. When King asked him his opinion, Moore shrugged and said, "I hope it's funny."
An American Carol which opened on 1,639 screens nationwide, finished ninth at the box office that week, with a gross of $3.8 million, or a per-screen average of $2,325. For its second weekend, An American Carol had a 58.8 percent drop in box office receipts and dropped to #15, grossing $1,505,000 at 1,621 theaters or $928 per screen.[20]
The film faded in the box office in its third weekend dropping 73.8 percent and finishing #21 at 599 theaters grossing $365,000 or $609 per screen.[21] In its fourth weekend, it dropped to #41 at 109 theaters grossing $60,000 or $550 per screen.[22]
As of October 2009, An American Carol has grossed $7 million after having a production budget of $20 million.[23]
Zucker, in an interview with National Review Online, had suggested a sequel as his next possible project, but now says he is done making conservative comedies.[24][25] Zucker stated that the audience for this type of film is one who waits for it to be available on DVD.[24]
This film was released on DVD and Blu-ray Disc on December 30, 2008 by Vivendi Entertainment.[26]
It includes a full length audio commentary by David Zucker and Kevin Farley along with several scenes and footage cut from the theatrical release. Some of these included:
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