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It is hard to believe that a comedy as singularly inept and downright unfunny as An American Carol came from one of the three minds behind one of the funniest comedies of all time, Airplane! (I'd argue THE funniest, but that's for another place and time), and harder yet to believe that it somehow weaseled its way onto 1,600+ screens this weekend. But here it is, as witless and tactless as anything 2008 has offered up to date, and in a year where the wonder duo that is Friedberg and Seltzer has shat out not one, but two similarly dreadful offerings, that's saying a lot.

You may have heard that spoof veteran David Zucker's newest project, An American Carol, is a takedown of Michael Moore. You can now have a look at the trailer, online at Yahoo!. And then you can riddle me this: Does An American Carol look like a clever parody of Moore's documentaries, or just a partisan attack on the filmmaker? Or, put another way, is the clip of Bill O'Reilly slapping around Kevin Farley's "Michael Malone" a commentary on the rivalry between the two, or right-wing wish fulfillment? One thing to note before answering is that O'Reilly appears in the film himself, while Moore does not.

Moore is obviously fair game; I've enjoyed his films, and sympathize with (some of) his politics, but I'd eagerly watch a skillful spoof of the pudgy, faux-working-class provocateur. I think parts of the trailer are pretty funny ("Here I am on the island paradise Cuba!"). But if the point is just to pile on the guy, with a rah-rah patriotic, stop-hating-America message at the end, then I'm significantly less interested.

The thing is, the trailer really doesn't make clear what's going on. On one hand, prominent conservatives like O'Reilly and James Woods appear to deliver literal and figurative blows. On the other, "Michael Malone" gets accused of being a slaveowner, which sounds more like a parody of conservative attacks on Moore than of Moore himself. And is Trace Adkins poking fun at his image here, or is he for real?

We know that Zucker is himself conservative, and that the movie is political -- which is fine. But is it political in an incisive, worthwhile way, or in the brainless beatdown mode of Ann Coulter et al? What do you think?

• Rosario Prestopino (1950-2008) - Makeup Artist, Special Effects Artist. Worked on Italian horror filmmaker Lucio Fuci's Zombie, City of the Living Dead, The Black Cat, The New York Ripper and The New Gladiators, as well as Lamberto Bava's DemonsDemons 2, Dario Argento's Terror at the Opera, Michele Soavi's The Church, Philip Haas' Up at the Villa and Mario Girolami's Zombie Holocaust. He died of a heart attack May 13, in Rome. (IMDb)

• Danton Burroughs (1944-2008) - Chairman of Edgar Rice Burroughs, Inc. Handled licensing of properties created by his grandfather, Edgar Rice Burroughs, to films, television and other media. We can probably thank him for such adaptations as Disney's animated Tarzan and the studio's upcoming John Carter of Mars. He died of heart failure May 1, in Tarzana, California. (Variety)
• Carlo Colombaioni (c.1933-2008) - Clown. A favorite of Federico Fellini's, he acted in and advised on circus sequences directed by the filmmaker. He contributed to Fellini's La Strada, The Clowns, Amarcord, Roma and Casanova. He also appears in Claude Goretta's The Wonderful Crook and Yvan Le Moine's The Red Dwarf. He died May 16 in France. (Telegraph)
• Warren Cowan (1921-2008) - Publicist. Legendary in Hollywood, he co-founded PR firm Rogers & Cowan and represented Kirk Douglas, Frank Sinatra, Tony Curtis, Lucille Ball, Judy Garland, Steve McQueen, Natalie Wood, Cary Grant, Audrey Hepburn and the Doors, among others. He also pioneered the idea of independent Oscar campaigns, beginning with the push for Joan Crawford's performance in Mildred Pierce, for which she ended up winning the Best Actress trophy. Recent films for which he's credited as unit publicist include The Secret Agent, Shade, Metroland and One Man's Hero. He died of cancer May 14, in Los Angeles. Read Valerie Van Galder's (President of Marketing at Sony) moving tribute to Cowan over at MCN. (LA Times)

With this latest bit of information, I can't say that my hopes are any higher for the indie satire, An American Carol, which seems to now be called, simply, American Carol. In February, I posted about the film that's coming our way from David Zucker and Myrna Sokoloff. I noted that Zucker has classics like Airplane! under his belt, as well as stinkers like some Scary Movie sequels.

Kelsey Grammer is starring as a different sort of Scrooge -- one entrenched in current American culture. Now The Hollywood Reporter posts that country star Trace Adkins has signed on to get ghostly in the project, which is also boasting cameos by Jon Voight, Leslie Nielsen, and Dennis Hopper. It's not Trace's involvement that has me unimpressed. It's this description: "The singer will play the Spirit of Christmas Future (aka the Grim Reaper), who uses his musical abilities to help Scrooge avoid a tragic end."

As Scott pointed out in his review, you need not fear that this week's Superhero Movie is another brainchild of Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer, whose satanic perversions of the parody genre -- Date Movie, Epic Movie, Meet the Spartans -- have been terrorizing unsuspecting audiences every year since 2006. Superhero Movie was actually directed by Craig Mazin, a protégé of the Zucker-Abrahams-Zucker dream team responsible for Airplane! and The Naked Gun, and produced by David Zucker himself. But it, too, is plagued -- albeit to a much lesser degree -- by what's turning out to be the problem with the entire modern generation of spoofs going back to Scary Movie: relentless pop culture specificity.

The basest incarnations of this, of course, are the Friedberg-Seltzer monstrosities, which may be worthless as comedies but which could prove valuable to historians because they indicate precisely what dominated the American zeitgeist in the few months before their release. It's too generous to call these films' vulgar spasms "jokes," but to the extent that's what they are, they depend entirely on either audience members' awareness of US Weekly-type factoids such as Britney Spears' shaving her head or their recall of particular scenes and characters in recent box-office hits. That's not to say that these kinds of jokes can't be funny -- the problem with Friedberg and Seltzer, as others have pointed out, is that they think throwing something current on the screen ("Look, Paris Hilton!") constitutes humor. But they do limit comedies' universal appeal and staying power.

Yes -- once again, Kelsey Grammer will play Scrooge. And no, I'm not talking about Frasier, but rather the bonafide holiday sourpuss. However, it's not going to be your everyday Dickens. Variety reports that the actor has signed on to play a modern-day Ebenezer Scrooge in the indie satire An American Carol, which will take on current American culture -- "particularly Hollywood." (Will menace-to-the-road Britney run over Tiny Tim or something?) The man behind all of this is David Zucker; he will direct the comedy from a script written with Myrna Sokoloff.

Production is scheduled to begin on the 28th, which might have made me giddy for casting announcements and details 15 years ago, but not so much now. Zucker is one of those guys who makes me buy into that whole "selling your soul for success" idea. Now, I'm not trying to insinuate that he's some devil worshipper or anything, but it's amazing how many directors of funny, classic films take nosedives or head down failing comedic mountains. How do you lose that much of your funny? Is it just that comedy success is luck rather than having a firm grip on how to be funny and satirical?

Zucker had some biggies at the beginning -- like the classic, Airplane! In the next decade, he had the Naked Guns, and now we get My Boss's Daughter and some Scary Movie sequels. So far, it sounds like a crapshoot.

At the very least, it can spawn a sequel: An American Carol: Scrooge Goes West.

Starting tonight and running through December 17th, Edgar Wright is taking control of the New Beverly Cinema in Los Angeles. Wright, director of Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz, is programming a festival of his favorite movies, and it's a wonderful and eclectic bunch. He's calling the fest "The Wright Stuff," (also the name of a universally beloved screenwriting column on this very site), and he will be on hand to introduce several screenings with special guests. As always at the New Beverly, one of Los Angeles' absolute treasures, every screening is a double feature.

I'll just tell you about the screenings with special guests, all of which start at 7:30. But don't forget to check the website for all show dates and times. Tonight, Edgar and songwriter Paul Williams will kick off the event with two musicals -- Bugsy Malone and Brian DePalma's Phantom of the Paradise. December 5th, the first feature is Flash Gordon, with special guest (and ex-Bond) Timothy Dalton. The second feature is Mario Bava's Danger Diabolik, introduced by Edgar and the great Joe Dante. On December 7th, Edgar will introduce The Last Boy Scout and Kiss Kiss Bang Bang with one of the finest action screenplay writers of our time -- Shane Black. December 10 is John Landis' An American Werewolf in London and Tremors (which I spouted my love for here). Landis will help Wright introduce his film. December 12th is Top Secret! (almost as funny as Airplane and The Naked Gun, in my opinion) and Woody Allen's Bananas, with David Zucker on hand. December 14th is the Roger Ebert - penned Beyond the Valley of the Dolls, and Head, hosted by Wright and Micky Dolenz of The Monkees. And on December 16th, Wright will introduce Evil Dead 2 and an all time favorite of mine -- the Coen Brothers' Raising Arizona.

Here is a press release from Edgar with his thoughts on the included films. If you live in the Los Angeles area, there's really no excuse to miss this. See you there!

If you're a true movie geek, you probably refuse to dress up at Halloween in anything but a movie-related costume. I guess I'm not a true movie geek, because two years ago I went as Family Guy's Quagmire, who as of yet is not in any movies. Last year, though, I was Harpo Marx. I haven't decided what to be this year yet, but it isn't definite that I'll be something with cinematic reference.

Of course, if I was a real, hardcore movie geek, I wouldn't just settle for the basic, predictable movie-themed outfit. I'd go for the gold, and be an uber-geek. How? I would doubly dress up as a movie character who is dressed up as somebody or something else. To do so, I would pick one of my favorite non-Halloween costumes and disguises depicted on film (it isn't as fun dressing as a character who is dressed up for Halloween). However, most of these would be difficult to achieve -- or at least too obscure to wear to a common party, where the crowd isn't as film familiar as you. If you attempt any of these, good luck! And please, please send me a photo.

1. Harpo Marx and Chico Marx as Groucho Marx in Duck Soup (1933, Leo McCarey)

See, now if I had really wanted to be geeky (or pretentious), I would have not just dressed as Harpo last Halloween; I would have dressed as Harpo dressed as Groucho. In one of the most famous sequences in any Marx Brothers film, Pinky (Harpo) and Chicolini (Chico) each disguises himself as Rufus T. Firefly (Groucho) in order to steal some war plans. The real gem of the sequence, of course, is the "mirror scene" (watch it if you've never seen it before, please), where Pinky pretends to be the reflection of Rufus until Chicolini appears and ruins everything. Although historically it was only Harpo and Chico who were often mistaken for each other, or for twins, all three brothers look so alike here, that when they're all together, it is almost difficult to tell who is who. If you want to pull this double-costume off, it won't be hard -- Grouch faces are easy to do, and then you just need a sleeping cap and gown -- but I doubt you'll get much tolerance when you constantly correct everyone who thinks you're simply Groucho.

I guess David Zucker wasn't satisfied with the quality of the superhero jokes in Jason Friedberg's Epic Movie, so he felt the need to make his own. Variety reports that Dimension films has finalized casting for their spoof flick, Superhero! Dimension had already cast Josh Bell (Drake and Josh), Sara Paxton (Aquamarine), Ryan Hansen (Veronica Mars) and Kevin Hart (All About Polly), but the latest additions are comedy vets. Variety reports that Naked Gun icon, Leslie Nielsen, Jeffrey Tambor (Arrested Development), Brent Spiner (Star Trek: TNG), and Marion Ross (that's right, Mrs. Cunningham herself) have all signed on for unnamed roles.

Back in 2006, while doing press for his other satirical masterpiece, Scary Movie 4, Zucker told JoBlo.com that, "Craig Mazin [SCARY MOVIE 4 writer] has written a script, and it's a...You know, we've identified about a dozen characteristics that are common to all these superhero movies, like Batman, Spider-Man, X-Men...and if you can get those common characteristics, there's a pretty good chance that the audience will share those references and you can poke fun at the cliches. So it's going to be pretty interesting." Mazin has also been signed to direct the film, and David Zucker and Robert K. Weiss will produce. Zucker and Weiss were the team behind Scary Movie 3 and 4, as well as some of the later films in the Naked Gun franchise. So it probably doesn't take much imagination to guess what the film will be about. If you have ever seen a Scary Movie, then you just switch the low-brow gags to a man in tights rather than wielding an ax. Superhero! is set for release on March 28th, 2008.

It all started, more or less, with a kooky little movie released way back in 1980. It was called Airplane!, and I think it's one of the finest American comedies ever made. (Yes, I'm serious ... and don't call me Shirley.) Not many young filmmakers can rightfully claim to have created an entirely new sub-genre, but the goofball team of Jim Abrahams, David Zucker, and Jerry Zucker were just silly enough to chance upon a comedy gold-mine: straight-faced, yet unequivocably outlandish satire that could effectively skewer a convention as readily as embrace it. (Let's face it: Airplane! poked a lot of fun at Zero Hour and the four Airport movies, but I bet you the ZAZ boys really like those flicks.)

With the disaster genre well and duly spooferized, the trio went on to lampoon spy movies (1984's hilarious Top Secret!) and police procedurals (Police Squad! on television and The Naked Gun trilogy in theaters) before mounting their first "straight" farce -- a rather brilliant kidnapping comedy called Ruthless People. After that, the boys amicably chose to go their separate ways: Jim Abrahams would go on to direct Big Business (1988) and Welcome Home Roxy Carmichael (1990) before heading back to spoofsville with Hot Shots! (1991), Hot Shots! Part Deux (1993), and Jane Austen's Mafia! (1998); Jerry Zucker would move on to direct Ghost (1990), First Knight (1995), and Rat Race (2001); his brother Dave would solo-helm the first two Naked Gun flicks, as well as BASEketball (1998) and My Boss's Daughter (2003). So clearly these are the guys to talk to when the topic of conversation is "movie spoofs."