Politics meets showbiz and 21st-century pop culture in director Paul Weitz's mordant comedy. For the first time in four years, President Staton (Dennis Quaid) picks up a newspaper and soon becomes a virtual hermit as he begins questioning his narrow worldview. Unnerved by the president's behavior -- and to get him back in the limelight -- his chief of staff (Willem Dafoe) books him as a guest judge on the hit talent show "American Dreamz."