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"An American Carol" -- directed and co-written by Hollywood veteran David Zucker -- is the story of an anti-American filmmaker who tries to abolish the July Fourth holiday, and is visited by the ghosts of famous Americans who try to get him to drop his plan.

The central character is a thinly veiled version of liberal filmmaker Michael Moore, and the cast of "An American Carol" features such Hollywood conservatives as Kelsey Grammer, Jon Voight and Dennis Hopper.

Distributors often open movies without screening them for critics -- usually as a way of insulating them from bad reviews. Zucker told the Los Angeles Times in an e-mail the reason "An American Carol" was not screened for critics is that its distributor, Vivendi Entertainment, thinks most critics are liberal and would not treat it fairly.

"The educated guess is that those that don't like the politics will tend to label the film as 'not funny,'" Zucker said. "Those audience members who don't care about, or do in fact agree with the politics, find the film 'hilarious.' We were advised that most reviewers don't agree with the politics, which put the movie at risk."

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