This slipped under my radar: A famous Hollywood director from Wisconsin goes from Democrat to Republican, and makes an "Airplane" like movie about Michael Moore and all those dangerous liberals, with a release date of tomorrow.
DUANE DUDEK, the Journal Sentinel film critic wrote:
Shorewood native David Zucker has made a career out of skewering the powerful in film spoofs like “Airplane!”, “The Naked Gun” and the “Scary Movie” series. That principle remains intact with his new film “An American Carol,” opening Friday, but his definition of the powerful has shifted.
Zucker had a political epiphany after Sept. 11, and his new film is the public manifestation of it. Zucker is one of a group of conservative Republicans — 40 or so — who meet to discuss politics, policy and filmmaking in a proudly liberal Hollywood.
In the spoof of liberal politics — which was not available for preview — Madison native Kevin Farley, brother of the late comedian Chris Farley, plays a Michael Moore-type, left-leaning filmmaker who is visited by three ghosts who help him discover the meaning of America.
“I met Jon Voight at these meetings. And Kelsey I knew. (Dennis) Hopper we just got because he was conservative. And some of them aren’t conservative at all, like my co-writer . . . and Leslie Nielsen and David Alan Grier,” Zucker said. “Basically, a bunch of people came together because they knew me, liked me and wanted to work with me or because they thought the script was funny.”
Zucker could have kept making “Scary Movie” sequels, “but you have to do what animates you and what you’re interested in.” At the University of Wisconsin-Madison — where he and his brother Jerry Zucker met partner Jim Abrahams — Zucker said he “was on the left, like everyone else. We were all against the Vietnam War. And into the protests. And I voted for Democrats right through the 2000 election. I voted for Al Gore.” And he has two hybrid cars and solar panels on the roof of his home. “I’m in a bunch of environmental groups,” he said, including Tree People. “I think you can be a Republican and still be into these other fine things.”
But he found questions on the left about “what our foreign policy had done to provoke” the Sept. 11 attacks “ridiculous.” He produced anti-John Kerry ads and others against the Democrats for what he perceived as appeasement. A parody of President Clinton’s Secretary of State Madeleine Albright giving a basketball signed by Michael Jordan to North Korean president Kim Jong Il carried the tag line: “Making nice to our enemies will not make them nice to us.” Another ad compared a Sept. 11 study group recommendation of diplomacy with Iran with Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain’s peace agreement with Adolf Hitler.
Noting that the Republican Party is imperfect as well, he added “that somebody once said there were two political parties. The stupid party and the dangerous party. I’m a proud member of the stupid party.”
Zucker’s brother, Jerry, “is appalled” by his political positions and the new film. “He couldn’t be more against this. But we still love each other.”
Had renegade Democrat Joe Lieberman run for president, Zucker said, “I never would have done this movie. Or had Clinton run again. Or maybe even Hilary.” But he described Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama an “extreme left-wing candidate who doesn’t represent the country.”
And he praised Republican presidential nominee John McCain for being “ecumenical” about “reaching across the aisle.”
An American Carol:
No comments:
Post a Comment