handyfloss

Terrific movie! My weekly dose of cinema consisted this week on American Dreamz, a wild satire of some aspects of the western society (specially USA), but not forgetting to poke some fun at muslim fanatics, and everything in between.

The whole movie is a compilation of surrealist realism, incredibly believeable. The plot is a brutal parody of the reality shows like the Idol series, Popstars series, and Star Academy series (“our” pitiful Operación Triunfo is the Spanish branch of the latter), and also of the North-American government.

The president is played by Dennis Quaid, being portrayed as quite stupid a man, with an alcoholic past, a puppet of his Chief of Staff (Willem Dafoe), knowing little of international affairs, with verbal communication problems and a childish attitude with rapidly changing moods (rings a bell?).

The Chief of Staff (Willem Dafoe), is a 99% clon (or was it “clown”) of vice-president Cheney (who also was Chief of Staff under Ford, in the 75-77 period): egomaniac, manipulative, tyranical with this supposed boss, with bad temper and a foul vocabulary, and up to anything to stay in a power position. On top of that, he was also physically similar to our beloved friend-shooter (see Wikipedia).

The portrait of the acute hypocrisy of the show biz is not new, but this movie has it spot on. Specially interesting is Hugh Grant‘s character, the conductor of the American Dreamz show: selfish, shallow, slave to his job, which at the same time he hates and as hypocritical as famous.

Very funny, highly parodical, enjoyable but with a message of brutal criticism… watch it, have fun, and then make your considerations.