'Bye-Bye, Mr. American Pie: Paul Weitz Tries Sharp Satire'

article by SHARON WAXMAN here.

 

LATE last year, the writer and director Paul Weitz set out to create a political satire about President George W. Bush and the war in Iraq.

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The movie stars Dennis Quaid as the clueless, if good-hearted head of state named Staton. Marcia Gay Harden plays his Laura-like wife who calls him "Poopie." Willem Dafoe, a senior presidential adviser of the Karl Rove kind, gives the president "happy pills," and fits him with an earpiece. Hugh Grant stars as the gratuitously nasty host of a popular television singing contest called "American Dreamz." And a novice actor, Sam Golzari, plays Omer, a suicide bomber with a penchant for American show tunes.