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Last updated: 2:09 am
October 4, 2008
Posted: 1:51 am
October 4, 2008
A Michael Moore-like film maker shares a portable toi let with JFK, Gen. George Patton and Bill O'Reilly (as himself) in "An American Carol," which surely has two of them - not to mention Charles Dickens - rolling in their graves.
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 ("Scary Movie 3").
There is, however, a spectacularly tasteless scene in which George Washington (a waxworks Jon Voight) gives "Michael Malone" a tour of the World Trade Center ruins - which I don't think was intentionally supposed to be funny.
There are many fat jokes centering around Malone, who is being duped by al Qaeda agents in a plot to blow up Madison Square Garden on July 4. That's when JFK enlists Patton (Kelsey Grammer) to slap some conservative talking points into our hero.
Also embarrassing themselves in "An American Carol" are Leslie Nielsen, Dennis Hopper, James Woods and Paris Hilton - the latter as herself, struggling to deliver a joke involving Nazi filmmaker Leni Riefenstahl.
While it's unusual to see a Hollywood comedy aimed at conservatives, O'Reilly pretty well sums up the movie's mission: "You tell the audience what it wants to hear." Toilet humor and the jokes about gays, Muslims and the handicapped are just gravy.
AN AMERICAN CAROL
Singing to the choir.
Running time: 82 minutes. Rated PG-13 (rude humor). At the E- Walk, the Harlem USA, the 62nd and Broadway, others.
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