I’m going to have to disagree with my comrade in arms, Mike Ewens, regarding Team America: World Police. I really didn’t find it that funny, it was even borderline suckage.
It reminded me of Will Ferrell movies, where there is a bunch of top-notch talent on the screen at the same time, but for whatever ill-advised reason, each joke can be boiled down to some half-witted slapstick formula. And that’s the way TA turned out to be.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m a fan of South Park (Timmeyh!), but this was like the last episode of Seinfeld – hit and miss.
It could be that the jokes got old after the first time they were used, like the acronym for the Film Actors Guild — just like the For Me To Poop On Dog was funny for all of two seconds (I mean, it was rather droll to see a sock puppet interupt, in Ali G fashion, a conversation with something as tangental as feces). The theme song was great when it was first played, but then you realized it didn’t go anywhere and sounded like a song you’d hear at a NASCAR race, redneck and jingoistic. Marionette sex? That was retarded… sex requires penetration and juices, right? Stereotypical Hollywood liberals? AM Talk Radio has made it a little old at this point.
What I would have liked to have seen was lots of neocon bashing, because for all the hoopla surrounding how both “liberals” and “conservatives” alike would be offended, I found it lacking in that area. All they had to do was get a handful of hawks like O’Reilly, Coulter, Feith, Rove, Krauthammer and Kristol, spread eagle in one gigantic clusterfuck in Ariel Sharon’s office. Then out of nowhere and without any real reason, they commit mass suicide a la Jonestown style, by drinking the kosher blood of Dubya.
Though even a party pooper like me enjoyed at least two antics, the Matt Damon schtick (reminded me of Brick from Anchorman) and the Islamofascist lingo filled with dirka dirka.
In summation, as I consider Dr. Strangelove to be the bar by which satires are made, this one didn’t even come close.
I haven’t seen the movie yet, but I’m not altogether impressed with what I’ve seen and read, so I probably never will see the movie.
Comment by Brandon Wardlaw — October 18, 2004 @ 8:55 pm
What I liked most was the clear criticism of both sides: the “America-right-or-wrongers” and the “America(when run by a Republican)-wrongers.” Of course, a lot of the humor was just plain stupid (puking scene, etc), but the “world police” theme really rang true for me. I think that this stems from the mass of hate mail that I recieved during the build-up to the war. The “arguments” supporting the war were baseless and naive. Moreover, those non-libertarian antiwar types (read: Michael Moore, et al) have an unprincipled opposition to war (where were they during Kosovo?).
I knew going in that Trey and Matt — the writers — were libertarians and this made me focus on any message that they attempted to portray. Perhaps this also made me less sensitive the “Will Ferrell” type humor.
Comment by Mike — October 18, 2004 @ 11:35 pm
There is plenty of NEOCON bashing as is. In this country bashers should be equal opportunity offenders; it was time for the Libs to get “f*cked by the dicks”. (I found that analogy very entertaining, btw, as much as I disagree with the implications). I enjoyed seeing Lib movie stars die gruesome deaths (although I regret that they dragged Samuel Jackson into fray) – and I’m happy that Moore was acknowledged for the “socialist weasel” that he is. I think that Tim, as a resident of TX might miss out an all the NEOCON bashing… but I, living in the Red State (NY, not CA) but I hear plenty of it.
Comment by Gene — October 23, 2004 @ 4:06 am
I thought practically the entire film was neocon bashing. The entire concept of the plot of the film – America functioning as world police – is a sendup of right-wing ideology. The film took a conservative viewpoint and exaggerated it to such an extent that it parodies the neocons themselves throughout, even if it’s not as blatantly obvious as Michael Moore blowing himself up.
Comment by Mark — October 30, 2004 @ 12:52 am