"Team America:World Police" -- Come anticipate the return of Supermarionation, thanks to Trey Parker & Matt Stone!

oh i can't WAIT to see who adopts this for their own purposes...

apparently, Kim Jong Il will be the bad guy, and there will be musical numbers and a sex scene.

Seriously, this might be lame, Super Marionation was cool because it kept a very straight face which kept the uncanny factor maxed out for the duration of the movies. God, when those puppets would chuckle I would almost have to leave the room.

”They were actually too good,” Matt said. “These guys are amazing, and they made the puppets so they could articulate their mouths completely. Problem is, it just looks creepy when there’s that much motion going on. It was like a whole movie filled with Chucky. We found just the right balance. They can move their mouths very simply. Open. Closed. Smile. Frown. And they can move their eyebrows. Anything more than that gets really distracting.”

[...]

It’s not overtly silly or jampacked with obvious jokes. “We figured out pretty quickly that the more straight you play it, the funnier everything gets,” said Matt. “Watching puppets discuss life and death issues is just funny. Period.”

HAHAHAHAHAHAHA

the pacing of the shows are...a little off.

clack-clack-clack-clack-clack-clack-clak

http://mediaservice.photoisland.com/auction/Jul/20047303058656322028112.jpg

Orgazmo rocked. New super-expanded DVD coming out soon!

and you should be able to find "TMB" thru p2p networks

Beautiful, I'm glad I held off on getting it.

What was the name of that expensive web project thing they did that got canned because it was so obscene?

i think there's two episodes of it on the Trio channel page.

That's a bold statement for an official to make anonymously. Does he also like little birds as well?

yay! drudge is projecting again!

Now I'm worried this film won't be offensive ENOUGH! Also, no Bush puppet?

that's the thing i worry about; that they'll spend the rest of the time harping on certain celebrities(note that the ones they list are all outspoken liberal activist-types) that the thing winds up being used by conservative fuckheads as proving their point.

I understand your concern and all, but correct me if I'm wrong, this IS the same Parker/Stone combination that has not exactly been kindly towards our belov'd president in not one but two TV series so far for some time now?

Given their track record I have faith that this will be sufficiently offensive.

Holy shit

Apparently they're both Republican, but they still wanted to depict the Bush daughters as incestuous lesbians in that Bush sitcom, bless em.

http://freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1177161/posts?q=1&&page=51

and the Ping Pong Ball trick...

Meanwhile, some Fox News flack had this to say:

I saw this film over the weekend, quite by accident, although it is not nearly ready yet to be seen. And believe it or not, "Team America" opens next Friday.

I'm told that at this weekend's press junket in Los Angeles, writers were shown only a 20-minute reel of highlights because there was no finished print.

I knew it! I'm still positive there's at least going to be some reference to the presidential debate in there somehow.

Further reports (and yeah, the writing of the review sucks, I said this was a flack):

Still, in the first few minutes, we get Gary, our Broadway star, performing a song called "Everyone Has AIDS" in a musical named "Lease." (That's a parody of "Rent," wink wink.)

When you realize the refrain is "Everyone has AIDS, white folks and also spades," you see the direction we're headed in.

Before long, Gary is recruited by the CIA to join Team America, a sort of "Mission: Impossible" squad designed to thwart terrorists. Gary (who would be played by Keanu Reeves if he weren't a puppet) falls for the female leader of Team America, a saucy blonde.

The two puppets have a wild sex scene set, in the version I saw, to Aerosmith's "I Don't Want to Miss a Thing" — the love theme of Bruckheimer's "Armageddon" — in which full androgynous plastic nudity is unbound. But so are the lovemakers' positions. It's an astounding use of inanimate objects.

Scene after scene, "Team America" goes over the top. Whether it's language or just simple suggestion of vulgar acts, "Team America" never hesitates to outdo its preceding scene.

I can't repeat all the words to the theme song that spoofs patriotism, "America [Expletive], Yeah!," but you get the gist of it. Needless to say, teenage boys will be enthralled by the endless graphic references to oral sex and the scatological.

But the comedy's probably going to be really funny.

*) If you like and/or love South Park. you'll like and/or love this movie
*) If you are not a fan of South Park, you will not be a fan of this movie

As this was about what I expected and I am a fan of South Park, I am content.

don't like south park, but kinda liked it.

the kim jong-il part, anyway. cf. matt damon.

otherwise, 'oh.'

No, but that's part of the charm. It's more pagentry than anything else, but it's well-made pagentry.

Also, milo, OTM.

Milo OTM (again). I was wondering about this. Is it going to be like a feature length version of one of the episodes of South Park that touch on affirmative action or hate crime legislation etc., and make me want to scream at the TV? South Park is funny, but sometimes all it does is set up straw man versions of politics Trey and Matt oppose, then have the characters admit that the writers' views are right at the end, in an odd megalomaniacal fashion.

anyhow one fave moment - thruout the flick there's a running joke where spotswood will describe an event as like 'nine eleven times a thousand' and someone else will go 'dear god, that's - ' and he'll go 'that's right - nine hundred and eleven thousand'. anyhow kim jong-il has captured most of team america and is torturing them (martin sheen and tim robbins are the guards) and he reveals his plot of course...

kji: 'it'll be like nine eleven times two thousand three hundred and fifty six'

team america guy: 'dear god, that's...that's...i don't even know what that is'

kji: (spins around) 'NOBODY DOES'

this has been making a funny joke unfunny be repeating it in a different medium with james blount.

you know, that's not exactly new in the world of ocmedy
-- s1ocki (slytus...), October 12th, 2004 10:13 PM.

Paging Jerry Lewis.

you mean that's not what it says? ohh.. i see now. i do.

-- Kevin Gilchrist (KevinGil14...), October 12th, 2004.

OTM

I do find the moralising at the end of SP a bit irritating. That said, there have been some hilarious episodes in the last couple of years - The Russel Crowe Show and Death Camp Of Intolerance spring to mind.

I suppose it's difficult to accept satire aimed at the left, particularly when the stakes are so high just now. It can be a bit annoying though - the Simpsons made much more fun of Clinton than it has of Bush. Sure, there is a whole industry built on lame Bush is Dumb humour, but the Simpsons surely has good enough writers to really nail those bastards in they way they have war criminals like Nixon and Kissinger.

Also, the reviews seem to prioritize "offensive" over "funny", but I guess this is the 2000s so it's to be expected.

Switch the words 'conservatives' and 'liberals' in this statement and you've got a sentiment equally as common from the other side of the fence.

Yeah, except that it's basically baloney from the other side of the fence.

And they'll say that too about your side.

Haha Kevin, because you know, I've NEVER heard a conservative make that exact same argument about the way liberals criticize the conservative agenda/viewpoint!

Also, do you understand that satire is not about presenting a viewpoint in a well-reasoned, fair light but rather in an extreme, ridiculous, exaggerated manner?

I hate to say it but you can switch this AGAIN. I'm not trying to specifically rubbish you, Kevin, and I'm sorry if I am coming across this way, but this is all boiling down to the completely unshocking realization that someone will argue their ideological side by pointing out their logic, consideration and care while saying the other side is based on unsupportable conclusions and random feelings.

X-post - I think satire is about using exagerating to show positions you disagree for the nonsense they are.

SERIOUSLY does this not strike ANYONE ELSE as intentionally ludicrous? People really think they're arguing that a global stance that they're portraying as "be a dick" as a positive course of action?

(xpost: I see something that is a gigantic lampoon of the "national mood" that is going to go completely over people's heads because everyone seems more than willing to jump right into whatever stereotype is laid out for them.)

This is going to be like "Natural Born Killers" all over again.

It feels less like they are being "evenhanded" than like they are going out of their way to not sound cliched or pandering. I wish they would stay out of politics, it brings down the quality of the show.

that was an xpost...also I think I was supposed to put that on the 'let's make up a disgusting sexual food item' thread

B2D OTM

X-post Swift didn't make fun of people who wanted to give people higher wages, or prevent poverty among Irish children. He attacked the people in power who were greedy, selfish, and just plain wrong.

Ryan's point very good too. And Michael's.

Trey Parker kept threatening to take the entire cast and do a feature film, "George Bush & the Secret of the Glass Tiger."

South Park may occasionally rip on conservatives, but there was none of that in TA: WP. Vice magazine Republicans who are in touch with their inner adolescent boys are going to love this movie.

However, I do see one way of using this movie to piss off the religious right: explaing to them that to accept Team America's mission is to accept sodomy.

M*mus to thread? *hides*

"Matt Da-mon."

Much less of a crowd than I expected, somehow I thought it would be in the big theater at the complex it was showing at, but it was the side theater and was only about 2/3 full on an opening night.

And yes I did enjoy it, as I said Mr. Blount called my feelings on it, so I'll quote the post here:

neither kerry or bush are in it or mentioned. any average south park is gonna be much much more topical. it's not as funny as south park: bigger longer uncut, doesn't have as much 'heart' as orgazmo, and didn't drop my jaw nearly as much as 'the passion of the jew' (still their best work for this year), but it's still very very funny. i was a little taken aback that the montage song from the 80s skiflick episode of south park was used again here, i laffed again anyhow. lots of dialogue lifted straight from bruckheimer flicks.

As noted, this isn't as 'topical' as it might seem -- you could probably have used the core plot and the basic all around stereotypes for True Lies ten years back. Or maybe the Lethal Weapon films or any number of James Bond films or that Peacemaker thing or...

“We figured out pretty quickly that the more straight you play it, the funnier everything gets,” said Matt. “Watching puppets discuss life and death issues is just funny. Period.”

"...I'm a smoker." *flick*

That said, I'm curious why Stone appeared in Bowling for Columbine, and contributed an animated sequence. Even before Fahrenheit 9/11, Michael Moore's politics were pretty obvious.

actually, why are they to be taken seriously in their political beliefs? they are quite likely aiming for just this type of confusion.

J.Lu's point about Michael Moore is of course all the more interesting given what happens to him in the film -- but at the same time, what DOES happen to him in the film seems like a classic riff on what he would love to do anyway. "Get the chance to knock off a tool of this government? Sure!" Has he complained at all about it?

Which also, more or less, epitomizes Parker & Stone's level of committment to political argumentation. (i.e. it has nothing to do with politics)

OTM

And I LOVED the South Park movie, too.

Political agenda? Who knows? Who cares? It didn't feel like it was pushing any real agenda. I wasn't getting any sort of vibe except an anti-Hollywood vibe, and even then it was as broad and stupid (but sadly not in a prime Mel Brooks sort of way) as possible. Really, who needs a feature length film reminding me that Michael Bay sucks ass by embracing and overplaying (if that's possible) the very things that make his movies unwatchable?

Given the timeline behind this - didn't Trey Parker conceive of it as recently as April? - I'm impressed they were able to turn around anything this quickly. But what an empty achievement. I'll wait for this to hit DVD before I try to sit through it again.

Their praise of naive optimism (which I can't help but read as 'ignorance is bliss') and "I got mine, fuck everybody else" is a nice summation of everything disgusting about American libertarianism.
But the comedy's probably going to be really funny.

-- milozauckerman (wooderso...), October 12th, 2004.

You don't know a goddamn thing about american libertarianism, do you?

(xpost obv)

I laughed, but I am not proud.

J.Lu was painfully OTM at South Park may occasionally rip on conservatives, but there was none of that in TA: WP. Vice magazine Republicans who are in touch with their inner adolescent boys are going to love this movie.

This was pretty bad - the 'panthers,' AMERICA FUCK YEAH! and occasional other moments not withstanding. The 'satire' of the liberals was a failure, both as funny (same gag repeated over and over) and as satire (which demands some honesty about the target - you blow their actions up, not just make random 'fag' jokes). I don't know how anyone could claim they gave equal time to their targets - the 'dick' worldview is never impugned, the most they get is some cheesy stuff on American action movies, hoo-ha. The one shot at that crowd you kind of have is blowing up landmarks, but that just gets turned into the pussies BLAMING AMERICA.

But you know what, if somebody makes decisions about the world based on some puppets they're a fucking idiot anyway.

Except, you know, for the fact that the fist-pumping theme song ends with "Slavery! FUCK YEAH!" and everywhere they go people stare at them shellshocked after their rampages and they're completely fucking ridiculous throughout the entire movie.

Also, the Team America team was helpless without an ACTOR, who had an act-off as the final confrontation which included the critical line of dialogue "the dicks need the pussies to tell them when they've gone too far".

The actors came across to me not as an indictment of liberal Hollywood as much as a gigantic strawman for the fist-pumping jingoistic Team America agents to react against. Look at how they were used; Helen Hunt is suddenly an action hero? Matt Damon is a monosyllabic gruntbot? Alec Baldwin is the greatest actor of all time? Also, in reaction to some of the comments above, in the movie the actors resort to violence in order to reflect TA's methods back at them, NOT because Kim Il Jong told them to; they aren't "willing lackeys of terrorism" as much as they are "confused dupes", not that it really matters too much because a few obvious targets aside they just needed some famous names for people to laugh at.

But whatever, people have made up their minds, even if I think they're staggeringly, laughably wrong.

plus, the little deliberate fuck-ups they put in, as well as Kim Jog-Il actually saying "YES! The Ticking Clock!"

I referred to that. It's a cheap gag that gets tossed off and then becomes fodder for 'lib'ruls hate/blame America.' Of course they didn't make a Bush propaganda film through and through, but in no way is the dick viewpoint lampooned as harshly as the pussy POV or as reasonably. They were actually echoing common center-right/right attacks on the 'pussies,' but the counterarguments were fun-poking jest.

The famous names to laugh at was (politics aside) the biggest failure of the movie. Alec Baldwin the puppet isn't funny in and of himself, using that type of gag is a cheap, lazy attempt at humor.

The 'Slavery FUCK YEAH' was a throwaway line in a parody song. I never said that there were no criticisms of 'America' or even funny parts in the film. But one line (included with Fake Tits FUCK YEAH) doesn't really make the movie critical of anything.

I actually said that the entire point of the movie was to criticize the dick POV, which is not actually the same thing as championing the pussy POV since that came under a ton of fire as well.

Also, I have lately been thinking that most of the people who post here are thicker than shit, so saying "Why did you see this when no one else did?" feeds into an already dangerously overinflated ego.

I thought I had heard that Matt & Trey were a couple - am I insane? OK, never mind that question.

I tend to think that if I see something that no one else on Earth saw, maybe it's time to examine my perception. Maybe I'm just not interested in finding ways to make it funny and harmless.

If Bush wins the election, are you going to blame it on Team America?

It probably would have been better if they hadn't bothered to shadowbox with the dick POV, instead of the muddled outcome.

Always a tender area.

Whatever, I got out of the movie what I wanted (ie a whole bunch of laughs).

(quite surprising, i know...)

I was about to say, this fits in with my world view. And there's stuff to satirize everywhere -- personally I found the whole idea of Alec Baldwin as some sort of evil overlord to be brilliant.

Notice that, despite it being the eighth draft of what eventually became an excellent movie, it kinda sucks. The jokes mostly fall flat, "Blame Canada" is "Something Must Be Done," (why didn't they just call it "Durp Durp Durp Durp Durp," or perhaps the catchy "Title TK"?), and (as I recall from reading the whole thing about a year ago) there's about an extra 15 minutes of pure fat. I'm not picking on them for this -- in fact, it makes me admire the end product even more. But how many drafts do you think Team America went through? Four? Five? If they didn't try to rush it out in time for the election, which was pure hubris, it could've been great. As it is, I'll still buy the DVD, but I doubt I'll ever bother to watch the entire movie straight through again.

Two things:

We all have our blind spots. But anyone calling Dan 'obtuse' -- *shakes head*

I didn't 'love' Team America the characters. There are such things as protagonists that one does not adore.

Perry so OTM it hurts.

I can't see how anyone can think that 'Dicks' and Team America aren't being criticised throughout the entire movie. Haven't you noticed that in order to save places from attacks they are pratically destroying them? In the opening scene the Louvre and The Eiffel Tower are completey destoryed! What more of a comment on Bush's foreign policy do you need?

Anyway the thing I laughed at most in the film was probably also the most stupid...

- A flying Limosine? Now I have seen everything!
- Have you every seen a man eat his own head?
- What? Well... no.
- So you haven’t seen everything, and neither have I...

This is amazingly stupid.

Would have been much better as a half-hour short on Comedy Central.

(lyrics shouted in comically gruff hard rock voice)

Artist: Trey Parker Lyrics
Song: America, Fuck Yeah Lyrics
America...
America...
America, FUCK YEAH!
Coming again, to save the mother fucking day yeah,
America, FUCK YEAH!
Freedom is the only way yeah,
Terrorist your game is through cause now you have to answer too,
America, FUCK YEAH!
So lick my butt, and suck on my balls,
America, FUCK YEAH!
What you going to do when we come for you now,
it’s the dream that we all share; it’s the hope for tomorrow

for example: what Dan keeps obtusely missing is that all the supposed anti-conservative jokes are centered around Team America itself, whom it is impossible not to love, while the anti-liberal jokes are all centered around grotesque caricatures of celebrities who all sound like Eminem doing an impression of his mom is pretty much OTM. The jingoist viewpoint is never attacked with the vigor or anger of their attacks on "Hollywood lib'rul elites!"

Worse than lazy politics, though, was that the movie just wasn't funny.

Easily the best bit of the whole thing.

I didn't miss that comment. You're saying that we're meant to look past Team America's faults and love them anyway even though they blow up everything in sight, invade other countries on a whim, their slogan is "AMERICA, FUCK YEAH!!!", and their theme song plainly states that anyone who disagrees with how they fight terrorism can suck their balls.

Uh, as for the politics of it, if anyone saw the election special where everyone had to vote for a giant douche vs. a turd sandwich, that's pretty much what it is. That doesn't mean Parker/Stone think the answer is "fuck it, nothing matters, everyone sucks" it just means Parker/Stone hate shitty movies that mythologize & pretend the real world = some epic of good vs evil in which one guy can really make a difference in the grand scheme of things if he only believes in himself & the whole mythology of, you know, America! fuck yeah!

Team America is clearly a bunch of walking cliches and their theme song is hilarious! Why do you hate fun?

What I am saying is, the attacks on Hollywood liberals are not to be taken any more or less seriously than the Louvre getting destroyed in the first scene. Anyway, Hollywood liberals are not really doing a lot to help liberalism, you know. Aside from the $$$$$$$. Next election cycle, the DNC should raise money from Hollywood liberals solely for the purpose of bribing other Hollywood liberals to STFU.

It's alright, though.

"We've lost intelligence, I repeat, we have no intelligence!"

The jabs at the dicks/right wing/Team America in the film were pretty numerous. I didn't find the team themselves all that lovable as characters either although, lovable or not, their personalities seemed to be more down to parodies of action film characters than a political statement, and if that's the case then their lovability can't really be used to say they were criticising or promoting anything political.

Sure, the gross-out jokes were funny, puppets having sex is funny, and every time you get drawn into the story, along comes another illustration of the puppets' limitations (walking, for example, or even any time you see a puppet walking) to jolt you back into the real world. It even works as a take-off of the Hollywood film system. All the lazy writing, lazy acting and lazy directing is hilarious and intentional - a puppet has no facial expressions after all, and so getting a puppet to act badly is a tremendous feat and very very funny indeed.

However, it goes further than that. This film works as a high-level satire of a plethora of subjects. Obviously the US foreign policy is ridiculed, as is the anti-war movement, but there's more. Having actors as the most potent instrument of political change is a masterstroke of satirical commentary, and by reducing all the characters to simply drawn caricatures (racial or not) highlights how far lies that life is black and white have infiltrated worldwide politics, on both sides of the socio-political divide.

No, this is a great film, and worth certainly worth a visit to the cinema. It's the LACK of preaching that makes me like it - instead of taking the easy option of being for-or-against, it comes across as disliking everybody, which as far as I'm concerned is a far more likeable position.

I haven't seen that SP episode - maybe I should.

And the fact that Team America are off chasing lost causes around the world and don't notice where the real threat is? So while they're drinking cocktails and patting themselves on the back in a "job done" way the Panama attack takes them all by complete surprise ("BAD INTELLIGENCE!") And it is EXPLICITLY ADMITTED that the Panama attack (which is really nasty and disturbing even with puppets in the aftermath of the tsunami) is an act of revenge from Team America's trashing of Cairo?

In what way is this not clearly and bluntly critical of American foreign policy?

Xpost - I didn't actually say I thought it wasn't anti-liberal because obviously it is, clearly and bluntly, as well. Also the "real threat is North Korea" bit is part of my point but it doesn't even occur to them that Kim Jong-Il is involved until they've been kidnapped and their entire HQ destroyed.

Basically what I'm saying is being pro-war and being critical of the war = not mutually exclusive.

Obviously this is more 'conventions of dumb action movie' than 'nuanced socio-political statement' but hey.

Also Kim Jong-Il as Cartmanesque uber-baby = awesome.

Have you considered responding to what people are actually saying?

My response is to the various assertions that they treat left and right the same (Blount OTM with his recent posts). They clearly privilege the right-wing/libertarian viewpoint and throw in some "but hey they're not ALWAYS right..." for 'balance.'

I don't even know why people are so eager to excuse the film as balanced - Blount found it imbalanced and funny, I found it imbalanced and not funny (presumably for the same reasons I find South Park occasionally funny but not as funny as it thinks), so apparently you can separate the comedy from the politics.

Parker and Stone are clearly way above their stations in trying to make a political satire. I cannot blame Ned and Blount for laughing at it - they are sad. I understand that.

But my girlfriend and I were half asleep. It has a couple of funny moments - but the problem is that their satire is shit. In order to satirise something there surely needs to be some grain of truth in there? So depicting some Hollywood actors are gun crazed, torture friendly sadists is just stupid, yes?

At the end of the film Team America wrap everything up, anyway. Sure their methods have been extreme but the point of the film is: THEY GET THE JOB DONE.

Nice on Matt and Trey.

Funnily enough, by the way, I felt these guys were tits the moment I saw the South Park where the kids go to Kabul post 9/11 and it is all played out as a God Bless America episode with no apparent irony at all. Why? Because these are middle class kids who never wanted for anything.

Matt Stone was doing press in London last week and only the lack of a lead-up time to get an interview published stopped me from doing a one on one with him, but after Team America I'd likely just want to ignore the guy.

And their ignorance of world politics is proven by one Tony Blair representing ENGLAND.

The film clearly says more about America's grasp on the world than it should...

I believe you misspelled "In my desperate desire to introduce Matt Stone to my imaginary girlfriend Ms. Hand, named in homage to Mr. Hand, I tripped over my shoelaces again." You should update your version of MS Word.

Perhaps it's a distaff relative. Wrong side of the tracks.

I loosed my umbrella last week.

Did it ride away like a bucking bronco?

Conan: Michael Moore is depicted in this film (Team America) along with a lot of other celebrities. And I talked about it with one of our producers after we saw the movie because you guys sort of go after Michael Moore. And it thought, “That’s surprising,” because Michael Moore was in Bowling for Columbine, it’s his movie, he interviewed you (points to Matt) on Bowling for Columbine and I remember thinking I thought those guys were friends with Michael Moore. Did you have a falling out?

Matt: It wasn’t so much a falling out. He asked me to do the interview for Bowling for Columbine because I grew up in Littleton, Colorado. So I thought, okay, I’ll talk about growing up in Littleton, Colorado. What he did that made us a little angry is he put an animation in right after my piece in Bowling in Columbine that is very South Park-esque in its look. And I think 99% of the people who saw Bowling for Columbine think Trey and I did that animation.

Conan: I thought it was yours until my producer told me that he talked to you guys. I thought that you had done that animation.

Trey: No no. He asked us if we would do an animated thing for him, and we’re like, “You know, we grew up in Colorado, our parents have guns, it’s just, you know, whatever.”

this is really the essence of the argument, isn't it?

it's REALLY NSFW. contains salad-tossing.

But seriously, Kim Jong Il in this movie was the most childish, idiotic, obvious send up you could imagine. 'He can't pronounce his Rs! cos he's Asian! and he is a dictator out of simple loneliness!'

what a stupid cliché, I cringed every time he was on screen.

Visually stunning, though. And one of the few jokes in the movie that I actually laughed at was a visual one (the panthers). So at least it was eye candy. At least they hired good people.

But it would have been nice if they'd spent more than a weekend writing the script.

Plus they run a non-union shop. Fuck that shit.

Getting actual actors in wouldn't really work.

the real message behind that speech/"analogy" (its not really a proper analogy because it DOES NOT MAKE ANY SENSE if you parse it) - its Parker and Stone that NEED assholes, pussies, and dicks. Without them, they would have no jokes.

(and really, what separates their soapbox from Alec Baldwin's or Michael Moore's? Aren't they guilty of the exact same kind of behavior and hubris? Why is their movie okay and Moore's are not? such stupidity...)

Talk about not seeing the forest for the trees!

-- mark grout (), January 24th, 2005 6:51 AM.

etc.

x-post. I WISH this movie had no 'pro' but the climax of the film clearly posited Team America over Baldwin et al.

x-post

- all the songs were pretty great (tho I think Bigger, Longer, and Uncut had better ones). Gonna need a MONTAGE!
- sex scene
- panthers
- all the camera-work and set-design were top notch
- all the dick jokes, scatalogical one liners, etc.

But the rest = crap.

I like my lowbrow humor in the Jackass: The Movie vein.

one of the things that I found odd was that they would bother to make a film relying so heavily on such a specific parody (ie, Thunderbirds are Go). I mean, would anybody under the age of 20 even *recognize* Supermarionation? I can't see it having too wide an appeal, it seems like a joke only a tiny portion of the movie-going public would be likely to get.

x-post

Still, it predicts something that had been mumbled about in various corners for years and is starting to find a greater articulation. And we're about to see more of it in the Supreme Court wars.

did kids see this movie? did it do well at the box office?

A few kids saw the film when I did, I remember -- early teens, etc. They larfed and had a good time. But the film itself was no major hit -- as I mumbled above, the week it came out, the number one film was in fact Shark Tale. Eurgh.

I think you are overestimating how much of the joke was Thunderbirds related vs. just plain puppet related.

But it's also a parody of big-budget Michael Bay summer blockbusters. Team American have to win in the end -- there is no other possible ending.

I'm curious about what you're talking about, Ned.

(x-post)

okay never mind.

which, JUST COINCIDENTALLY, happens to mirror the particular political opinions of the filmmakers as laid out in print interviews. gimme a break.

If you set out to satirize such a broad and all encompassing issue as the America's "War on Terror," you can't really neglect certain factors, so it seems really weak and weasily for Parker and Stone to ignore the political right's shrill media manipulation as a target.

It's a shame though, for at least the 1st half the straight faced use of blockbuster action devices applied to current symbols of "terrorism" gave the film an energized sense of danger. The opening sequence of the little boy walking into a shadowy terrorist had a weirdly fun sense of manifesting peoples worst fears w/r/t terrorism. The exploding titles credit sequence that preceded this was also a nice gesture of mocking such spectacle while respecting the fun power of the form.

yeah, and not too surprisingly, this stumbling block also has to do with the very public sentiments Parker and Stone express re: actors and acting in general. Which is to say Parker and Stone hate actors with a passion, they have no use for them, etc. They make a clumsy shot in the service of their own beliefs, rather than in the service of filmic satire.

The cynical part of me suspects that this hatred of actors stems from the same reasons they run a closed, non-union shop - ie, they hate dealing with people who want to be paid for their work and have opinions of their own (some of which may be better thought out than their own half-assed libertarian balonium).

No such thing.

I can't see how you can bracket out the dumbing-down effect of Michael Bay type of movies on the general public, and to my mind, that's political - making people buy into these incredibly simple minded stories. The real message behind that speech/"analogy" at the end? It goes directly to those summer blockbusters, which are always drenched in romantic and patriotic nonsense but ultimately, they are just that dumb and reactionary - and completely Puritanical - so Parker/Stone give you the obscene version. Just like they replace the grand inspirational epic theme song with "America, Fuck Yeah!"

That's the politics of it: epic rah-rah patriotic blockbuster movies make people really.. stupid. (And Hollywood liberals messing in politics are treating people like they're stupid.) So trying to kill off summer blockbusters with this parody is a political act, I suppose.

FUCK YEAH!

McDonalds, FUCK YEAH!
Wal-Mart, FUCK YEAH!
The Gap, FUCK YEAH!
Baseball, FUCK YEAH!
NFL, FUCK, YEAH!
Rock and roll, FUCK YEAH!
The Internet, FUCK YEAH!
Slavery, FUCK YEAH!

FUCK YEAH!

Starbucks, FUCK YEAH!
Disney world, FUCK YEAH!
Porno, FUCK YEAH!
Valium, FUCK YEAH!
Reeboks, FUCK YEAH!
Fake Tits, FUCK YEAH!
Sushi, FUCK YEAH!
Taco Bell, FUCK YEAH!
Rodeos, FUCK YEAH!
Bed bath and beyond (Fuck yeah, Fuck yeah)

Liberty, FUCK YEAH!
White Slips, FUCK YEAH!
The Alamo, FUCK YEAH!
Band-aids, FUCK YEAH!
Las Vegas, FUCK YEAH!
Christmas, FUCK YEAH!
Immigrants, FUCK YEAH!
Popeye, FUCK YEAH!
Demarcates, FUCK YEAH!
Republicans (republicans)
(fuck yeah, fuck yeah)
Sportsmanship
Books

fuck that. wonderful, hate two of the smartest people on television because you cant get a sense of humor and look beyond conservative/liberal distinctions. jesus, that sucks.

"seems like people really have a [problem with ypoung people being conservative. why should trey and matt not be liberals? i dont really understand why theres an expectation that they should follow a liberal agenda. "

are you two really as fucking moronic as you're trying to make yrselves out to be? what the fuck.

can one of you send me the "asshole/pussy/dick" speech? while i know that not all of you enjoyed that speech, i thought it was hilarious and intend to use it (i'm a dick & asshole and my coworker's a pussy). haha if you don't mind, pls send to: me_bikeguy@hotmail.com

*©2006 Thermo Thinwall

http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5273/5906303427_d8b782ab75.jpg

The Loft in Tucson had a July 4th Team America "sing-a-long." Packed theater too, and to state the obvious: having a theater full of drunk/high folks singing and shouting at all the ridiculousness made it a heck of lot more enjoyable. Twenty years from now, I suspect this will age about as well as a Mark Russell routine. Hell, I (along with the rest of the world) had completely forgot about Helen Hunt.

The vomit and panthers scenes are still really fucking funny.