By Matt Singer

According to the trailer of David Zucker's new comedy, "An American Carol," "America's most infamous filmmaker -- totally arrogant, completely clueless -- [has] finally gone too far." Of course, Zucker, a former liberal activist who became a "9/11 Republican," is referring to Michael Moore, the inspiration for the central character in "An American Carol," one Michael Malone (Kevin Farley), a filmmaker who's visited by three Dickensian ghosts after he demands that July 4th be abolished ("I love America. That's why it needs to be destroyed!").

Zucker's spoof is perhaps the most high-profile film to take on Moore, but it's by no means the first. In fact, in the last four years, Moore's work has inadvertently given birth to an entirely new strain of conservative filmmaking whose sole mission is to discredit him by taking issue with his documentary aesthetic, his politics, his personal success, even his physical appearance. Here are some notable examples:

"Michael Moore Hates America" (2004)
Directed by Michael Wilson
Made in Response to: "Fahrenheit 9/11" (2004)

The Beef: "Michael Moore has pissed me off," intones Michael Wilson in the opening lines of the voiceover for his film. "This guy has painted a picture of my country as a place where nobody can succeed." To counteract that picture, Wilson interviews experts on the documentary form (Albert Maysles) as well as people who aren't pleased with how they were portrayed in Moore's films, such as Peter Damon, an injured Iraq war veteran who took issue with the way Moore used recycled news footage of him to assert that veterans were being forgotten by the Bush administration. Wilson also tries repeatedly to secure an interview with Moore, à la Moore's own attempts to speak with General Motors CEO Roger Smith in his film "Roger & Me."

Does the filmmaker appear on camera? Yes, intentionally or not, wearing the same sort of ratty jeans and hoodie sweatshirts that Michael Moore wore in "Roger & Me."

Does Michael Moore? Yes, via an impressive array of stock footage. Wilson unearths all kinds of embarrassing clips of Moore, including a particularly shortsighted one where Moore, circa 1992, declares that Bill Clinton has absolutely no chance of beating George Bush in an election. Wilson's only direct contact with Moore comes right at the top of the film, when he takes the microphone during a Q&A at a Moore lecture, announces his film's title and asks the filmmaker for an interview. Moore's angry response -- "Everything I do is because I love America! It's people like YOU that hate America!" -- cuts to a shot of Moore telling a British audience, "Americans are the dumbest people on the planet!" Wilson also includes several other pieces of television footage of Moore alternately bashing the making of "MMHA" or pretending he doesn't know anything about it.

Targets Besides Michael Moore: Wilson himself -- after an awkward interview with Joe Scarborough for MSNBC, he admits that he did "horrible."

Strangest Moment: When Wilson claims that the impetus for this project came when he realized that Moore's work was having a negative impact on his daughter. Wilson, a new father, believes that his daughter can become anything she wants to be. "But Michael Moore," he says, "through his films and books, had told [my daughter] that she couldn't." But Wilson's daughter, as seen in the film, is a newborn baby. Moore's expanded the audience for documentaries, but he hasn't tapped into the pre-teethers yet.

A Filmmaking Lesson: If you want to get an interview with somebody, don't put his name in the title along with the phrase "Hates America." Why is Wilson so surprised that Moore won't speak to him when he himself is so embarrassed by the film's title that he's hesitant to even tell people what it is when he's asked about it on camera?

"Michael & Me" (2004)
Directed by Larry Elder
Made in Response to: "Bowling for Columbine" (2002)

The Beef... is not necessarily with any of the filmmaker's techniques, just his point of view, namely that guns are dangerous and should be carefully controlled and regulated. This stance, according to Elder, is "anti-gun, anti-self defense...anti-personal responsibility and ultimately anti-American." While only occasionally addressing Moore or "Bowling for Columbine" directly, Elder makes a two-pronged case for guns. Firstly, criminals will always be able to get guns, so honest citizens need to have their own guns to protect themselves (the notion of trying to crack down on the illegal flow of weapons is literally laughed at and never seriously discussed). Secondly, even without guns people will murder each other anyway, so why bother trying to control them?

Does the filmmaker appear on camera? Yes. Elder, who once had a syndicated TV talk show and continues to work in radio, shows up next to almost every interview subject and even addresses the camera directly with his own personal comments, folding his arms sternly while saying things like, "To use the Columbine tragedy to drive that agenda -- that's just wrong. And it looks like I'm not the only one who thinks so!"

Does Michael Moore? Briefly, in a Mooreian ambush outside of a movie theater. In a 30-second clip that "Michael & Me" recycles several times, Elder asks Moore to defend his film then repeatedly screams "ANSWER THE QUESTION!" at him so he has no chance to actually do so.

Targets Besides Michael Moore: Rosie O'Donnell, Oprah Winfrey, Adolf Hitler and assorted "dirtbags" and "bad guys."

Strangest Moment: In the montage that takes down Hitler (who was for gun control), Elder also includes other quotes on the subject from prominent historical figures. The comment from George Washington ("A free people ought to be armed") works, but giving props to Mao Zedong ("Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun") is an odd tact to take for a guy who uses treats the word "socialist" like an insult of the highest order.

A Filmmaking Lesson: If you're going to interview a gun advocate, don't do it on a busy shooting range. It's difficult to hear a conversation over the deafening blasts of shotguns.

"Me & Michael" (2006)
Directed by Willard Morgan
Made in Response to: "Roger & Me" (1989)

The Beef... starts when Moore won't watch Morgan's short film "Festival Fever," even though he allegedly requested a copy at a festival he attended. Morgan isn't a political activist of any kind; he's a struggling actor and comedian who's looking for a mentor in the film business and settles on Moore because "he stands for the things I always thought important. Caring for people, the little guy, the underdog, the worker, the unemployed masses." So in an effort to convince him to take him under his wing, Morgan spends his movie stalking him all over the Los Angeles area. Shockingly, it does not work.

Does the filmmaker appear on camera? Incessantly. Morgan is, by his own admission, a compulsive videographer (one scene imagines him getting laughed out of a meeting of "Filmmakers Anonymous"). He can't stop shooting even when he's being forcefully removed from the premises of health clubs, office buildings, restaurants and various other places he wanders into looking for Moore.

Does Michael Moore? Surprisingly, yes. Morgan does manage to corner Moore at a few of his book signings and lectures and captures a series of increasingly awkward interactions with the filmmaker, who indulges him for a while before he starts to call security on him.

Targets Besides Michael Moore: CAA, security guards, singing auto mechanics and Barnes & Noble, whose corporate policy does not allow unauthorized filming on the premises.

Strangest Moment: When Morgan decides he needs to actually announce that "it was getting as difficult for me to reach Michael as it was for him to reach Roger Smith!" in order to make that point clear to us.

A Filmmaking Lesson: If your entire movie is about your futile attempt to make contact with someone, and you manage to get footage of that guy shaking hands with you, laughing with you, taking your film and your business card while patting you on the back, don't place it, context-free, as a cookie in your end credits.

"FahrenHYPE 9/11" (2004)
Directed by Alan Peterson
Made in Response to: "Fahrenheit 9/11" (2004)

The Beef: That Moore's "Fahrenheit 9/11" is full of inaccuracies, falsehoods and lies about the nature and scope of the threat posed to this country by terrorists, and that it smears the good name of President George W. Bush while ignoring the real problem, his predecessor Bill Clinton.

Does the filmmaker appear on camera? Director Alan Peterson doesn't, but Ron Silver, the film's narrator, makes an appearance onscreen as a talking head, and Dick Morris, a credited co-writer on the film, shows up as on camera as both an interviewee and an interviewer, a clever trick even Michael Moore hasn't attempted yet.

Does Michael Moore? Barely. A single, grainy shot of Moore intoning "there is no terrorist threat" is repeated a dozen times, either for dramatic effect or to mask the fact that the filmmakers don't have the rights to much other footage of him.

Targets Besides Michael Moore: Former President Bill Clinton. Morris, a former Clinton advisor, has carved out a nice career as a political commentator in recent years as a particularly vocal critic of Clinton, who he holds responsible for the failures in aircraft safety that led to 9/11, for refusing to recognize the bin Laden threat on numerous occasions, for ignoring evidence that an attack was imminent, for being involved in the same Carlyle Group that Moore believes ties Bush with terrorists, for being in bed with the Saudis and so on.

Strangest Moment: When Zell Miller, former Democratic senator from Georgia, compares invading Iraq to look for weapons of mass destruction to chopping the heads off of copperhead snakes he found in his garden.

A Filmmaking Lesson: If you're going to take a filmmaker to task for using embarrassing footage of people to discredit them (i.e. John Ashcroft singing "Let the Eagle Soar"), don't try to get a cheap laugh by showing the same footage yourself.

Of course, not all of the films that take aim at Moore come at him from the right. 2007's "Manufacturing Dissent," which is directed by and features liberal Canadian filmmakers Debbie Melnyk and Rick Caine, started out as a work of Moore admiration that became a critique of his filmmaking tactics and of "Fahrenheit 9/11." Like most of the films above, it's built around a series of failed attempts to secure an interview with Moore, as well as on claims that Moore actually did get to talk with Roger Smith while making "Roger & Me," and chose to suppress the fact. There's a review of "Manufacturing Dissent" from the 2007 SXSW Film Festival at our own Indie Eye blog, here.

[Photos: "An American Carol," Vivendi Entertainment, 2008; "Michael Moore Hates America," Allumination Filmworks, 2004; "Michael & Me," Wellspring Media, 2005; "Me & Michael," Cinema Epoch, 2006; "FahrenHYPE 9/11," Trinity Home Entertainment, 2004]