EDGE: Partisanship at the theaters

This means a lot was at stake for those involved with "An American Carol." A fiercely conservative film taking broad swipes at liberal icons such as Michael Moore and the American Civil Liberties Union, David Zucker's zany comedy was supposed to strike a blow for all right-thinking members of the Hollywood community. Stars Jon Voight and Kelsey Grammer, as well as Mr. Zucker, all seemed very eager to put themselves on the line for this movie, to stake their reputations, relationships and careers on its success.

KEVIN FARLEY (Michael Malone) and JON VOIGHT (George Washington) star in AN AMERICAN CAROL.

Maybe they should have waited a little longer.

"An American Carol" feels more like decades of frustration thrown up against the screen than great (or even mediocre) cinema. It's an awkward mix of genres, veering drunkenly between schlocky slapstick and heartfelt earnestness. You don't see too many comedies invoke the 3,000 killed on Sept. 11 to make a point, however important that point may be.

You don't see it because it's not funny. It's jarring. It takes you out of the moment. It reminds you that you're seeing a "message movie," not a movie.

(Top left) KEVIN FARLEY (Michael Malone) and KELSEY GRAMMER (Gen. George Patton) star in AN AMERICAN CAROL.

The problem seems to be that Mr. Zucker and company have fallen into the same trap their enemies on the left have embraced: message over movie. It's just another symptom of the balkanization of our times.

You see it on the World Wide Web (Red State vs. Daily Kos); you see it on cable (MSNBC vs. Fox News Channel); you see it in print (the New Republic vs. the National Review). And, unfortunately, you've started to see it in the movies.

We've gotten to the point where going to the cineplex has become almost as politicized as pulling a lever in the voting booth.

Rush Limbaugh took to the airwaves to rally the dittoheads, saying that "American Carol" "is up against the usual obstacles conservative movies have. ... It's not getting a whole lot of support from the usual Hollywood sources that big movies do, simply because it's conservative."

Also, don't you dare go to a movie like "Religulous" if you want to stay in the movement's good graces. Never mind that Bill Maher's broadside against religion is cowardly, hectoring and unfunny: Putting money in Mr. Maher's coffers is verboten because, well, this is the Culture War, people, and don't you want your side to win the battle of the box office?

"American Carol" didn't pull in the big audiences conservative talk-show hosts were hoping it would attract - in fact, it got stomped (when looking at the per-screen average) by "Religulous." There's no blaming liberal Hollywood this time: The goods simply weren't there.

Its failure at the box office is going to do serious damage to the conservative movement in Hollywood - studio execs will be justified in arguing, "Conservative doesn't sell."

Worse, it signifies seriously misaligned priorities. What good does it do conservatives to have a right-leaning ghetto of their own churning out annoyingly bad films to accompany the liberal ghetto that already exists?

Instead of making features like this one - tantrums produced as a reaction to the sillier indulgences of the American left - conservatives should focus on what's been working in recent years: sticking conservative messages into entertaining, popular films.

Bill Maher outside the Vatican City in RELIGULOUS.

Consider a movie such as "The Pursuit of Happyness," the Will Smith vehicle that emphasizes American can-do and celebrates the rags-to-riches mentality that makes our country so great. That movie made nearly as much as every film with an anti-Wall Street, anti-capitalism sensibility produced in the past decade combined.

Instead of stewing about the antiwar mentality in Los Angeles, take heart in the fact that the rousing, martial, pro-democracy, West-vs.-East action flick "300" made more in one weekend than every antiwar film produced since Sept. 11 put together. Who cares if Hollywood doesn't support the war on terror? No one is watching those movies anyway.

Sneak simpatico people - preferably those with talent - into positions of prominence within the industry instead of rubbing your ideological opponents' faces in the fact that you disagree with them. Take the $20 million used to finance pictures like Mr. Zucker's and pour it into training a generation of filmmakers with an ideology similar to your own.

It's not enough to sneer, "Nyah nyah, we can make a movie you hate just as much as the tripe you produce that we hate." It doesn't affect the culture, but it does hurt your ideas - and your ability to get a job - in a town where so many deals are made through personal relationships.

Even worse, it makes for bad, boring movies. That's the most inexcusable sin of all.

Lose the Christian pretense. You don't need to be a Christian or religious at all to be a good, ethical, responsible, kind, self-critical person. The Leftist jackasses use the God-talk against you left and right (pun intended).

The Left's own religions of Atheism (in the sense of the kind epitomized by Richard Dawkins), Environmentalism, and Socialism have all built many temples that need to be torn down. "Lucifer" is merely a metaphor of rebellion to them. If you took away their fuel for rebellion, you would put out that fire and their temples would crumble; but as it is, you fight the fire while you're feeding the flames. There are a few neo-pagans who are Demoncats, yes; but even they would come to understand the wisdom of conservatives if you would put away your own sin of flaunting your religion.

The Founding Fathers by and large were not Christians (though, yes, some were). They were Deists. They saw a spiritual nature at work in Nature, they saw (for lack of a better word) intelligence in Nature and the elementals of the human mind. But they would be appalled by this neo-Puritan God-talk and the sexual fear mongering that conservatives use just as childishly as the Left uses its myriad forms of fear mongering. The Founding Fathers were humanists (which the Left decidedly are NOT). They had serious issues with "original sin". The Puritans paved the way for this nation materially, but the Deists separated church from state and built this nation. And even those Founders who would call themselves Christians were much more philosophical than most conservatives seem to be today; they were still foremostly humanists.

There is truly no excuse for an educated person of the 21st century to be a literal Christian. However, in this great Republic of ours (fast crumbling as it is), that is each person's right to privately discover for oneself. It's also your right not to discover it, and to continue (in private) with really quite mentally bankrupt and/or underdeveloped beliefs such as Creationism or any other form of Christianity (or any other religion). Yes, you also do have the right to speak of it publicly. But rights don't make something right, necessarily (the Left prove this beyond the shadow of a doubt). What you do is unwise. Read your Proverbs more thoroughly.

The world is sick with the God-talk. Get rid of it.

You need to pull out the rug from under and pull out the plug on the Lefties. You fail to do this. But you wonder at their takeover.