Al Franken is usually described as a polarizing figure, hero to liberals and anti-Christ to conservatives, but I have always felt fairly indifferent about him. Some of his "Saturday Night Live" spots were hilarious, especially when he played the intrepid globe-trotting reporter who wore his own satellite dish, and Stuart Smalley was good for occasional laughs, but his more performance art-oriented pieces (such as declaring the 1980s "The Al Franken decade") fell flat.
Franken reinvented, or at least refocused, himself as a political pundit in the 90s, writing lefty-pleasing, righty-bashing books such as "Rush Limbaugh is a Big Fat Idiot" and the brilliantly-titled "Lies and the Lying Liars who Tell Them: A Fair and Balanced Look at the Right," the latter of which prompted a hilariously misguided lawsuit from Fox News and provoked Bill O´Reilly to one of his most embarrassing PDAs (public displays of assholery) of all-time. Franken´s political shtick is well-intentioned but pretty one-dimensional, taking potshots at easy targets like O´Reilly, Ann Coulter and other media figures so shrill and ludicrous that the best way to mock them is simply to quote them. Preaching to the choir isn´t a bad thing (Dubyah got elected in 2004 by motivating his base) but it also has a limited shelf life.
In "Al Franken: God Spoke" (2006), directors Nick Doob and Chris Hegedus follow Al Franken over a few years, from the aforementioned dust-up with O´Reilly through the launch of Air America radio, the 2004 Republican national convention and the 2004 election. The film depicts Franken as an industrious everyman who has taken on an admittedly fabricated mission from God (thus the title of the doc) to confront and deflate right-wing schmucks at all possible opportunities. The best scenes feature Sir Franken dueling in close quarters with the likes of Coulter, Michael Medved and Sean Hannity. Franken doesn´t shrink from a challenge, and has no trouble making the same accusations face-to-face as he does from the safety of his radio booth.
Doob and Hegedus also use footage from Fox News to highlight the lies of those lying liars. Most jaw-dropping of all is Britt Hume´s dishonest and demeaning attempt to claim that Iraq was safer than California because fewer Americans died in Iraq despite the fact that both are of roughly the same area. In an amusing sequence involving pretty simple math, Franken points out the "subtle" flaw in this argument, an argument that is as insulting to the troops as anything liberals have ever been accused of. In another highlight, Franken shows off his Henry Kissinger impersonation to a decidedly unimpressed Henry Kissinger at a press function.
there are other laughs too, but the humor is spread too thinly to sustain even an 84 minute running length. We can only watch Franken fillet "big fat idiots" so many times before it becomes old hat. Though much of the documentary can be labeled as "liberal porn," conservatives will get their own perverse kick out of watching a snickering and overconfident Franken devolve into a stunned, helpless onlooker when the 2004 election doesn´t pan out quite the way he (and nearly every pollster in America) expected it to. Said conservatives will likely have to suppress their gag reflexes when Franken makes kissy-face with Hillary Clinton.
The film´s greatest value might be the way it captures the transparent stupidity of mainstream right-wing pundits in their own words, but then again Fox News serves that up 24 hours of day, so this is hardly time capsule material.
Franken reinvented, or at least refocused, himself as a political pundit in the 90s, writing lefty-pleasing, righty-bashing books such as "Rush Limbaugh is a Big Fat Idiot" and the brilliantly-titled "Lies and the Lying Liars who Tell Them: A Fair and Balanced Look at the Right," the latter of which prompted a hilariously misguided lawsuit from Fox News and provoked Bill O´Reilly to one of his most embarrassing PDAs (public displays of assholery) of all-time. Franken´s political shtick is well-intentioned but pretty one-dimensional, taking potshots at easy targets like O´Reilly, Ann Coulter and other media figures so shrill and ludicrous that the best way to mock them is simply to quote them. Preaching to the choir isn´t a bad thing (Dubyah got elected in 2004 by motivating his base) but it also has a limited shelf life.
In "Al Franken: God Spoke" (2006), directors Nick Doob and Chris Hegedus follow Al Franken over a few years, from the aforementioned dust-up with O´Reilly through the launch of Air America radio, the 2004 Republican national convention and the 2004 election. The film depicts Franken as an industrious everyman who has taken on an admittedly fabricated mission from God (thus the title of the doc) to confront and deflate right-wing schmucks at all possible opportunities. The best scenes feature Sir Franken dueling in close quarters with the likes of Coulter, Michael Medved and Sean Hannity. Franken doesn´t shrink from a challenge, and has no trouble making the same accusations face-to-face as he does from the safety of his radio booth.
Doob and Hegedus also use footage from Fox News to highlight the lies of those lying liars. Most jaw-dropping of all is Britt Hume´s dishonest and demeaning attempt to claim that Iraq was safer than California because fewer Americans died in Iraq despite the fact that both are of roughly the same area. In an amusing sequence involving pretty simple math, Franken points out the "subtle" flaw in this argument, an argument that is as insulting to the troops as anything liberals have ever been accused of. In another highlight, Franken shows off his Henry Kissinger impersonation to a decidedly unimpressed Henry Kissinger at a press function.
there are other laughs too, but the humor is spread too thinly to sustain even an 84 minute running length. We can only watch Franken fillet "big fat idiots" so many times before it becomes old hat. Though much of the documentary can be labeled as "liberal porn," conservatives will get their own perverse kick out of watching a snickering and overconfident Franken devolve into a stunned, helpless onlooker when the 2004 election doesn´t pan out quite the way he (and nearly every pollster in America) expected it to. Said conservatives will likely have to suppress their gag reflexes when Franken makes kissy-face with Hillary Clinton.
The film´s greatest value might be the way it captures the transparent stupidity of mainstream right-wing pundits in their own words, but then again Fox News serves that up 24 hours of day, so this is hardly time capsule material.
Al Franken is usually described as a polarizing figure, hero to liberals and anti-Christ to conservatives, but I have always felt fairly indifferent about him. Some of his "Saturday Night Live" spots were hilarious, especially when he played the intrepid globe-trotting reporter who wore his own satellite dish, and Stuart Smalley was good for occasional laughs, but his more performance art-oriented pieces (such as declaring the 1980s "The Al Franken decade") fell flat.
Franken reinvented, or at least refocused, himself as a political pundit in the 90s, writing lefty-pleasing, righty-bashing books such as "Rush Limbaugh is a Big Fat Idiot" and the brilliantly-titled "Lies and the Lying Liars who Tell Them: A Fair and Balanced Look at the Right," the latter of which prompted a hilariously misguided lawsuit from Fox News and provoked Bill O´Reilly to one of his most embarrassing PDAs (public displays of assholery) of all-time. Franken´s political shtick is well-intentioned but pretty one-dimensional, taking potshots at easy targets like O´Reilly, Ann Coulter and other media figures so shrill and ludicrous that the best way to mock them is simply to quote them. Preaching to the choir isn´t a bad thing (Dubyah got elected in 2004 by motivating his base) but it also has a limited shelf life.
In "Al Franken: God Spoke" (2006), directors Nick Doob and Chris Hegedus follow Al Franken over a few years, from the aforementioned dust-up with O´Reilly through the launch of Air America radio, the 2004 Republican national convention and the 2004 election. The film depicts Franken as an industrious everyman who has taken on an admittedly fabricated mission from God (thus the title of the doc) to confront and deflate right-wing schmucks at all possible opportunities. The best scenes feature Sir Franken dueling in close quarters with the likes of Coulter, Michael Medved and Sean Hannity. Franken doesn´t shrink from a challenge, and has no trouble making the same accusations face-to-face as he does from the safety of his radio booth.
Doob and Hegedus also use footage from Fox News to highlight the lies of those lying liars. Most jaw-dropping of all is Britt Hume´s dishonest and demeaning attempt to claim that Iraq was safer than California because fewer Americans died in Iraq despite the fact that both are of roughly the same area. In an amusing sequence involving pretty simple math, Franken points out the "subtle" flaw in this argument, an argument that is as insulting to the troops as anything liberals have ever been accused of. In another highlight, Franken shows off his Henry Kissinger impersonation to a decidedly unimpressed Henry Kissinger at a press function.
there are other laughs too, but the humor is spread too thinly to sustain even an 84 minute running length. We can only watch Franken fillet "big fat idiots" so many times before it becomes old hat. Though much of the documentary can be labeled as "liberal porn," conservatives will get their own perverse kick out of watching a snickering and overconfident Franken devolve into a stunned, helpless onlooker when the 2004 election doesn´t pan out quite the way he (and nearly every pollster in America) expected it to. Said conservatives will likely have to suppress their gag reflexes when Franken makes kissy-face with Hillary Clinton.
The film´s greatest value might be the way it captures the transparent stupidity of mainstream right-wing pundits in their own words, but then again Fox News serves that up 24 hours of day, so this is hardly time capsule material.
Franken reinvented, or at least refocused, himself as a political pundit in the 90s, writing lefty-pleasing, righty-bashing books such as "Rush Limbaugh is a Big Fat Idiot" and the brilliantly-titled "Lies and the Lying Liars who Tell Them: A Fair and Balanced Look at the Right," the latter of which prompted a hilariously misguided lawsuit from Fox News and provoked Bill O´Reilly to one of his most embarrassing PDAs (public displays of assholery) of all-time. Franken´s political shtick is well-intentioned but pretty one-dimensional, taking potshots at easy targets like O´Reilly, Ann Coulter and other media figures so shrill and ludicrous that the best way to mock them is simply to quote them. Preaching to the choir isn´t a bad thing (Dubyah got elected in 2004 by motivating his base) but it also has a limited shelf life.
In "Al Franken: God Spoke" (2006), directors Nick Doob and Chris Hegedus follow Al Franken over a few years, from the aforementioned dust-up with O´Reilly through the launch of Air America radio, the 2004 Republican national convention and the 2004 election. The film depicts Franken as an industrious everyman who has taken on an admittedly fabricated mission from God (thus the title of the doc) to confront and deflate right-wing schmucks at all possible opportunities. The best scenes feature Sir Franken dueling in close quarters with the likes of Coulter, Michael Medved and Sean Hannity. Franken doesn´t shrink from a challenge, and has no trouble making the same accusations face-to-face as he does from the safety of his radio booth.
Doob and Hegedus also use footage from Fox News to highlight the lies of those lying liars. Most jaw-dropping of all is Britt Hume´s dishonest and demeaning attempt to claim that Iraq was safer than California because fewer Americans died in Iraq despite the fact that both are of roughly the same area. In an amusing sequence involving pretty simple math, Franken points out the "subtle" flaw in this argument, an argument that is as insulting to the troops as anything liberals have ever been accused of. In another highlight, Franken shows off his Henry Kissinger impersonation to a decidedly unimpressed Henry Kissinger at a press function.
there are other laughs too, but the humor is spread too thinly to sustain even an 84 minute running length. We can only watch Franken fillet "big fat idiots" so many times before it becomes old hat. Though much of the documentary can be labeled as "liberal porn," conservatives will get their own perverse kick out of watching a snickering and overconfident Franken devolve into a stunned, helpless onlooker when the 2004 election doesn´t pan out quite the way he (and nearly every pollster in America) expected it to. Said conservatives will likely have to suppress their gag reflexes when Franken makes kissy-face with Hillary Clinton.
The film´s greatest value might be the way it captures the transparent stupidity of mainstream right-wing pundits in their own words, but then again Fox News serves that up 24 hours of day, so this is hardly time capsule material.
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