Americathon

It's 1998, America is out of gas both literally and figuratively. People live in permanently parked cars, walking, jogging and biking to work.

When a Native American billionaire who loaned money to the government to cover the national debt threatens to foreclose on the nation, a telethon is held to raise the money to save the country.

An early work from Neal Israel, the man who would later create such classics as the *original* "Police Academy" and "Real Genius," the movie brims with humorous high-concept jokes. For example, in schemes to raise money, San Diego is sold to Mexico and a daredevil (played by Meatloaf) battles a car.

Aside from the comedy, there's a great soundtrack with songs by the Beach Boys and Elvis Costello (who makes a cameo appearance). One of my favorite films of the late 70's, this is a great addition to anyone's video collection.

Although the politics of this film is firmly rooted in the seventies, the sexuality is firmly rooted in the nineties. Bill Clinton was supposedly a knock off of Jack Kennedy, but he seems to have taken more lessons for John Ritter in this movie.

The mistress, the sleazy show business connections and scandals. This movie is almost scary.

This is a move that has never got the respect it deserves. I loved it the first time I saw it — its creators were previously involved in the Firesign Theatre comedy troupe and they brought the same envelope-pushing irreverent spirit to it that they had to their great records — and ever since I've never forgiven the critics for savaging it on its initial release. It's the late John Ritter's finest big-screen performance, it contains the last truly great song recorded by the original Beach Boys, Elvis Costello's music video is an added bonus, and though some of the satire is a bit dated, much of it — particularly the idea of how drastically life in this country will change when we inevitably run out of oil — holds up beautifully. I haven't seen this in years but I wanted to post this to defend this marvelous film and demand a DVD release pronto. (Put me down as mgconlan from Tijuana Heights.)

I will give the film points for being extremely prescient. The year is 1998. The world is completely out of oil and America is deep in debt thanks to dimwit President Chet Roosevelt (Ritter) who was elected by a TV worshiping public merely because of the family name. Sound familiar? Scary! Anyway, Chet and media specialist Riegert decide to hold a 30 day telethon to save America (home to the first gay state North Dakota!). To host it they choose washed up actor Monty Rushmore (Korman), who is now the pill popping star of a cross dressing sitcom called "Both Mother and Father." But sneaky Presidential aide Vincent Vanderhoff (Willard) wants this to fail so the Hebarabs (the Jews and Arabs have joined forces) can take over America. His plan? Booking only ventriloquist acts. Whew!

Wow, how can a film starring Peter Riegert, Harvey Korman, Fred Willard and John Ritter be so painfully unfunny? I only laughed once during this futuristic comedy (at a joke involving Peter Marshall!). Director Neal Israel really blows it here. He has no idea how to set up a proper sight gag and everyone seems so subdued. The whole time I kept thinking how much better it would be if Mel Brooks had directed it. The only lively performance is by Zane Busby as Vietnamese "puke rock" sensation Mouling Jackson. Bizarre cameos include Meat Loaf, Elvis Costello and Jay Leno.

"Americathon" is about the future (1998) where the state of the USA is so bad that it's incompetent president holds a telethon to raise 400 billion dollars. The movie has surprisingly high production values, and the idea sounds good on paper. It's the script and acting that mess things up a bit.

The movie takes a while to start, mostly to squeeze in some future predictions and hit or miss jokes, but once the telethon does start, it is, yet again, mainly hit or miss jokes (mostly miss, but it did get some laughter out of me). The soundtrack was pretty good though.

Now for the acting: In my opinion, it was one of Harvey Norman's weaker performances, and Zane buzby had a really annoying fake accent (that won her "worst fake female accent" in the Stinkers Awards), but other than those and a few other smaller parts, the acting was pretty average.

Overall, it had average to weak acting, and not that good of a script. Although a neat thing about it is that some of the movie's predictions did come true later on (the collapse of the USSR and cellphones for example). 4/10.