The December 6 issue of Newsweek pitched its Holiday Movie Preview with cutesy headlines -- like the new Natalie Portman ballerina film Black Swan is "The One...Ballet Movie Even Straight Guys Might Like." (That's a reference to the scandalous Portman-Mila Kunis lesbian sex scene.) But the new Kevin Spacey movie about conservative lobbyist and convicted felon Jack Abramoff is "The One...for Tea Party Members." Reviewer Caryn James wrote:
George Hickenlooper’s fact-based satire, starring Kevin Spacey and his ever-sharp comic timing, offers an antic version of the wheeler-dealer whose ambition and blinkered morality were close to caricature all along. The film follows Abramoff’s glib, high-energy act as he takes parties of congressmen on sunny vacations and persuades them that sweatshops in the Mariana Islands are good for the American economy. Droll and straight-faced, Spacey lets us see Abramoff’s absurdities: an observant Jew, Abramoff reminds an interfaith Bible-study group, “In Biblical times, taxes never rose above 20 percent”—the old “if it was good enough for Moses” economic plan....
Although Abramoff’s closest allies were House Majority Leader Tom DeLay and other conservatives, the film’s real target is the one-hand-dirties-the-other business of government. Washington is full of weasels, Hickenlooper mordantly suggests, and it’s amusing to watch them squirm, as Abramoff’s empire (Barry Pepper plays his even slimier partner) collapses under the weight of its own sleaze.
By contrast, the new Jim Carrey movie/Oscar bid playing a gay prisoner "I Love You, Phillip Morris" has a Newsweek review headlined "The One...for Grown-Up Jim Carrey Fans."
