Line Of The Day

Dave Weigel on David Zucker's American Carol, and the difficulties involved in making a slapstick comedy that doesn't mock authority, but reveres it:

If you transported Zucker back to 1978 and pitched him Animal House, he'd direct Niedermeyer: Man of Iron.

Weigel also suggests that the time to make a right-wing comedy spoofing Michael Moore was probably, oh, 2004 or so, back in the Fahrenheit 9/11 days when his celebrity was at its height. Coincidentally, back in '04 I wrote a piece for NR about the (conservative) American Renaissance Film Festival, in which I took note of the "almost pathological obsession with Michael Moore among filmmakers and audience members alike." But at least then it made a certain sense. Now, though - well, just read Weigel.