Not interested any Moore?

So what's happened to Michael Moore in the last two years that makes me not very interested in seeing his latest movie?

When Sicko came out in 2007, I saw it in the theater, and was incredibly moved by it, even if Moore was certainly manipulating my emotions with that whole "taking patients to Cuba to get treatment" scene. I liked the film a lot better than Fahrenheit 9/11, which I thought gave too much ammunition to Moore's critics, and I ended up ranking it in my top 10 for the year.

If anything, Moore's profile should have only improved since then, as Sicko can probably be viewed as some kind of catalyst for the health care debate that's currently dividing the country. Certainly, the election of a progressive Democrat to the White House plays a larger role, but let it not be said that Moore's movie played no role in getting this discussion going.

But maybe I've put my finger on it in that last paragraph. Maybe the election of a progressive Democrat to the White House has reduced Moore's relevance. Maybe his primary function was as a fly in Bush's ointment, as a rallying cry on the liberal side. After all, Moore's last three films -- the period when he gained international celebrity/notoriety -- all came during the Bush administration. Now that the liberals have rallied, and elected Barack Obama, maybe there's just not as much room for Michael Moore (no size jokes please) as there once was.

Then again, today's release of Capitalism: A Love Story is also well timed, in a way. After Obama got an initial honeymoon of about three to four months, the Republican backlash has hit him hard. All those people who called him Barack Hussein Obama last fall have come back out of the woodwork, their thinly veiled racism as thinly veiled as ever. They've poured into town hall meetings to throw the world "socialism" around, and basically created the appearance that the vast majority of Americans do not want the health care reform that would benefit most of those making the protests.

So is this a deceptively appropriate moment for Moore to rise again?

Well, it's hard to say, especially when Moore himself doesn't think so. In fact, the man has gone on record recently saying he may be finished with documentaries, at least for now. Before Glenn Beck and Bill O'Reilly go doing a victory dance on their anchor desks, they should know that Moore will probably touch on his familiar liberal concerns in the fiction films he's discussed making after his documentary career ends.

And maybe that's part of why Capitalism doesn't interest me that much, either: Even the man considers himself done, and wants to leave the scene before he becomes a parody of himself, if he hasn't already. I think when I saw the first trailers for Capitalism, I thought, "Oh here we go again -- Michael Moore and his microphone doing something outrageous." And this reaction is from one of his ideological soul mates, mind you. However effective your gimmick -- and I don't really mean to insult Moore by calling it a gimmick -- is, it always gets tired eventually. Like if we see Sacha Baron Cohen haul out yet another character he wants to send out to shock and offend people, we'll probably react to it even more negatively than we reacted to Bruno (which I still haven't seen).

But then there's the part of me that worries about that Beck/O'Reilly victory dance. Any tendency to recede from the public eye on Moore's part could easily be viewed as Moore "giving up," as a victory for conservatives. The last thing I want to do is let the conservatives think they fatally wounded their target last year when the execrable An American Carol was released. You may remember me discussing it here, but if not, I'll synopsize: A thinly-veiled -- okay, not veiled -- Michael Moore clone named Michael Malone wants to boycott the 4th of July because of his rampant anti-Americanism. (See, Moore is always accused by his critics of being unAmerican). What results is a sort of Naked Gun-style, heavily conservative spoof of A Christmas Carol, in which Malone receives his comeuppance (and numerous physical pratfalls) in the course of being visited by three ghosts, all played by famous conservatives (Kelsey Grammer, Jon Voight, Trace Adkins, etc.). The movie was downright terrible -- I'd like to think I would have ranked it last for the year on execution alone, even if I hadn't disagreed with its politics. But with Moore announcing that he's getting out of the game less than a year after its release, both the filmmakers and the film's ideological supporters will probably think An American Carol had something to do with it. Conveniently ignoring, of course, the massive victory Moore scored over them when Obama was elected president.

So I'd like nothing more than to contribute to a large box office haul for Capitalism: A Love Story this weekend, the same way I wanted to stick it to the religious people who boycotted The Golden Compass by boosting that film's box office.

But I just don't think I will, and I don't think I'll be the only one of Moore's former flock to make that decision. I've got too many other movies I'd like to see first -- Zombieland, Paranormal Activity, Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, Big Fan, Whip It, The Informant! ... the list staggers me without even including Capitalism. If other liberal movie fans are in my camp, and feel barraged by a surprising number of September releases they need to see, the movie may struggle to make $5 million.

Well, I guess we'll just have to be satisfied with our Democratic president and our Democratic majorities in the House and Senate. If we're still measuring our successes by the zingers Moore scores, and are so easily agitated by the conservative windbags who try to get under our skin, then we're just dropping down to their level.

And I for one am interested to see Moore's next attempt at a fiction film. I haven't actually seen the much-maligned John Candy vehicle Canadian Bacon, but it can't be the best he has to offer, can it?

Republican roll call

You know when you fall asleep watching Saturday Night Live, and you wake up all befuddled, and Showtime at the Apollo is on? And you have this moment where you think "Wow, this program really isn't intended for me?" (Forgive me, my readers of color -- I'm working a bit about white people here.)

That's how it is for a liberal to watch David Zucker's disasterpiece An American Carol.

It's really rare to see fringe ideology -- let's face it, neo-con thinking is pretty fringe in Hollywood -- appear in a mainstream product that gets a theatrical release. And so as you watch An American Carol -- a jingoistic, mean-spirited screed against liberals, their documentaries, and Michael Moore -- there's a weird sensation of watching a piece of Republican propaganda break past all the invisible barriers Hollywood usually constructs against it. It's not that this movie shouldn't have the right to exist -- it's that this movie is just so downright different that it calls attention to itself.

It's kind of like liberal and conservative media. The liberal media is only liberally biased -- it's a totally subtextual thing, else it would really would be unavoidably scandalous. But to counteract that bias, conservative media has to be openly, blatantaly, unquestionably conservative. The way the public debate has been couched, that's an acceptable response to even a hint of liberal bias.

And so it is with movies. While movies with a liberal agenda are usually as subliminal as they can be about it (with the notable exception of Moore's movies themselves), movies with a conservative agenda are ... well ... An American Carol. And to think this man, David Zucker, once directed the first really great spoof -- Airplane! Someone who's dead from that movie rolls over in his/her grave.

The only thing that's fun about watching An American Carol (because it sure as hell ain't the least bit funny) is the conversation you get to have with yourself while watching it. And that conversation basically boils down to looking at the participants in this movie and thinking:

"Is he a crazy Republican, or is he just doing this for the money?"

So to save you the trouble -- and believe me, you don't want this kind of trouble -- I'm going to run down the cast for you:

Kelsey Grammer (as General Patton): Kook. Says he got screwed on an attempt to donate money to the Democrats years ago, and is now a card-carrying Republican. Ah Fraser, I thought people who spoke like Brits were supposed to be enlightened.

Kevin Farley (as Micheal Malone): Paycheck. Although Farley has supposedly told people he's been a life-long conservative, my guess is that he's trying to play along. He looked kind of like Michael Moore, and this was his chance for the "leading man" role once occupied so regularly by his brother Chris. So let's call it Paycheck combined with Stepping Out of Sibling's Shadow.

James Woods (as Agent Grosslight): Kook. He gets to tell Farley's Malone "Save it for your crazies" with a dismissive wave of his hand, and he means it. Besides, Woods is the guy who claimed he saw some of the 9/11 terrorists on a flight a month earlier and notified a flight attendant about them. Racial profiling to the rescue once again!

Robert Davi (as Aziz): Kook. That's right, the key Islamist extremists are all played by Americans. I was tempted to put Paycheck there just because Davi's career has been so bad, but he's supposedly pretty outspoken. (You're going to notice a pattern here.)

Jon Voight (as George Washington): Kook. Yep, Voight's politics differ significantly from those of daughter Angelina. Hey, he accused Barack Obama of "sowing socialist seeds in young people." What more do you need?

David Alan Grier (as Rastus Malone): Paycheck. This was before his surprisingly funny talk show on Comedy Central, Chocolate News, had proved to be as surprisingly funny as it is. If that show weren't enough to indicate Grier's political alliances, we have Zucker's comment about the very brief appearance (brief enough not to really know what the movie was about?) by the comic: "I'm sure David Alan Grier was appalled."

Trace Adkins (as the Angel of Death): Kook. Trace Adkins is a country singer. Nuff said. (The Dixie Chicks notwithstanding.)

Bill O'Reilly (as Bill O'Reilly): Total Kook. Dead giveaway of what kind of movie this is, if you ever had a doubt.

Dennis Hopper (as Judge): And this is the really sad one ... Kook. Dennis, what happened to the drug-loving hippie we used to know? Perhaps most dispiritingly, Hopper plays a gun-loving judge who starts blowing away zombified versions of ACLU lawyers. And there's no irony.

Leslie Nielsen (as Osama bin Nielsen/Grandpa): Paycheck. Favor to Zucker, and vice versa.

Notably absent: Patricia Heaton, Jim Caviezel, Clint Eastwood, the corpse of Charlton Heston, God

If you have a healthy skepticism, you're probably thinking I hate this movie because of its politics, not because it's mind-numbingly unfunny. But just to show you that's not the case -- or not totally the case -- I think there's a very funny idea somewhere hidden beneath the American flags and hateful jabs at Rosie O'Donnell. A guy -- and why not have him be based on the flawed liberal icon Michael Moore -- who wants to abolish the 4th of July is a funny idea. But what they do with it ... garbage. Absolute garbage.

In any case, now we also have a clearer idea of who the enemy is. Kelsey, Jon, James, even you Dennis ... watch your backs.