The film is tailor-made for the vast audience that can't wait to watch Fox's Idol each week while still intellectually grasping what a glossy hunk of junk it is.
American Dreamz (2006)
Tomatometer
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Reviews Counted:152
Fresh:61
Rotten:91
Average Rating:5.2/10
Consensus: This overly silly satire aims at too many targets with arrows too dull to make relevant social commentary.
Rated: 12A [See Full Rating] for brief strong language and some sexual references
Runtime: 1 hr 48 mins
Genre: Comedies
Theatrical Release:21-04-2006
Synopsis: Filmmaker Paul Weitz -- whose comic explorations have ventured into the synergistic halls of corporate culture (In Good Company), the perils of psychological isolationism (About a Boy) and the... Filmmaker Paul Weitz -- whose comic explorations have ventured into the synergistic halls of corporate culture (In Good Company), the perils of psychological isolationism (About a Boy) and the vicissitudes of losing one's virginity (American Pie)-- now delivers a comedy yanked from right-now popular culture...where the nation's shrinking attention span is more focused on "what's hot" than on hot-button headlines: American Dreamz. On the morning of his re-election, the President (Quaid) decides to read the newspaper for the first time in four years. This starts him down a slippery slope. He begins reading obsessively, reexamining his black and white view of the world, holing up in his bedroom in his pajamas. Frightened by the President's apparent nervous breakdown, his Chief of Staff (Dafoe) pushes him back into the spotlight, booking him as a guest judge on the television ratings juggernaut (and the President's personal fave), the weekly talent show American Dreamz. America can't seem to get enough of American Dreamz, hosted by self-aggrandizing, self-loathing Martin Tweed (Grant), ever on the lookout for the next insta-celebrity. His latest crop of hopefuls includes Sally (Moore), a conniving steel magnolia with a devoted, dopey veteran boyfriend (Klein), and Omer, a recent Southern Californian immigrant (who just happens to be a bumbling, show tune singing, would-be terrorist awaiting activation). When both Sally and Omer make it to the final round of Dreamz--where the President will be judging along with Tweed--the stage is set for a show the nation will never forget. American Dreamz is written, produced and directed by Paul Weitz (writer/director of In Good Company, co-director/Academy AwardŽ-nominated co-screenwriter of About A Boy and co-director of American Pie). Rodney Liber and Andrew Miano also produce; Chris Weitz and Kerry Kohansky serve as executive producers. --© Universal Pictures [More]
Starring: Mandy Moore, Hugh Grant, Willem Dafoe, Dennis Quaid
Starring: Mandy Moore, Hugh Grant, Willem Dafoe, Dennis Quaid, Chris Klein, Marcia Gay Harden, Jennifer Coolidge, Shohreh Aghdashloo, Judy Greer, John Cho, Bernard White, Sam Golzari, Tony Yalda, Noureen DeWulf
Director: Paul Weitz
Director: Paul Weitz
Screenwriter: Paul Weitz
Producer: Rodney Liber, Paul Weitz, Chris Weitz
Composer: Stephen Trask
Studio: Universal Pictures
Reviews for American Dreamz
Not everything works in this semi-audacious challenge to the American Dream, but Weitz consistently and amusingly hits the broad side of the barn.
The talented cast is left high and dry by writer/director [Paul] Weitz.
Politically incorrect to a broad spectrum of social cliques, "Dreamz" makes a statement and has some fun at the same time.
Watching... viewers reacting to an... attack on the president as just another reality show... suggests that 9/11 didn't change things as much as some people have claimed.
American Dreamz struggles so mightily to be clever it forgets to be competent.
Fortunately, when the movie does remember to be funny, it's very, very funny.
The jokes in American Dreamz whiz by with speed and grace, and Weitz maintains control of the material every minute.
I doubt that American Dreamz is much smarter than what it's satirizing. It hasn't earned the right to scorn.
If the comedy didn't have its fair share of moments, it could easily be seen as failure; fortunately, a handful of game actors ... saves it as something that's mostly enjoyable.
If its opening scenes are like an asthma attack within an iron lung, Weitz stabilizes the material and begins massaging the satire with the brand of human interest that made his other works so distinctive.
[Grant] is a brilliant comedian, with an ability to be hilariously selfish and egocentric without turning off the audience.
The story, while no Dr. Strangelove, is very poignant as a satire on politics and modern culture.
It's not really a cynical or outrageous point of view, but just a really lazy one, and offensively, exploitatively so.
...a sharp satire in a time when we need as many laughs as we can get at our own expense.
American Dreamz lampoons the public's appetite for mindless entertainment and easy distraction from serious concerns.
Paul Weitz's film is a seriously unfunny comedy about that intersection where politics meets entertainment.
It's an enjoyable and frequently hilarious lampoon of easy targets, but a stinging satire would be so much more satisfying.
The movie is a spirited exercise in caricature rather than a cohesive comedy. Everybody's playing somebody real, but the movie never approaches reality.
What really hurts is Quaid's ridiculous idiot persona as the prez. It is simply too off center--even with a Texas twang.
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