I hated, HATED, "Team America: World Police"

[Pale Blue Dot]

Ok, besides the fact that Parker and Stone saved their most vicious and unfair attacks for outspoken liberal celebrities, they committed the worst sin of comedy:

They forgot to be funny.

I don't mind offensive humor. I loved the first couple of seasons of South Park, and I loved the South Park movie. But you can be offensive and still be creative, which is what the two of them have forgotten.

Yes, it's offensive to have Kim Jong Il pronounce all of his "r"'s as "l"'s. It's also a tired, old joke. Michael Moore? He's fat! See, he's eating a hot dog; isn't that hilarious? And if you know a Parker/Stone puppet film has a sex scene, what are you expecting? That's exactly what you get.

There were no surprises, and therefore no laughs. And to top it all off, their self-righteous attacks on self-righteous liberal celebrities are hypocritical and ill-informed.

Do NOT waste your hard-earned money to see this one.

[JohnKleeb]

1. Thanks

I was gonna see Friday Night Lights preferably anyway though.

[Kire]

2. thank you VERY much

Naturally, I was tempted to spend 9 bucks. But now I'm not.

[Cha]

3. I wish I had the link but did

you see Sean Penn's open letter to these two bozos..trey and matt?

It was priceless.

[Taverner]

9. Here it is

Sorry, it's a drugde link :(
http://www.drudgereport.com/penn.htm

[Cha]

38. Thank you, I was hoping someone could

come up with a link! :toast:

I want to read that again.

[WannaJumpMyScooter]

4. Interesting... what are their personal politics?

I always got the timpression they were at least progressive.

[JohnKleeb]

5. libertarians is what I always hear

[ronzo]

6. libertarian = stoner with too much money.

... I forget where I saw that.

[JohnKleeb]

7. I heard stoner republican

:shrug:

[WannaJumpMyScooter]

8. stoner who has never been mugged

[crimson333]

18. Drew Carry

said libertarian's are republicans who liked to get high

always found that funny

[chookie]

10. Jeepers! -- is was that bad?

The little clips I saw on tv looked like fun and I was about to gangway to the movieplex.

Sounds like you're saying the bits I saw were the best of the whole project....

SO really nothing more subtle than this? No valuable ridicule of our times -- which one would think would be an inexhaustible subject of ridicule....

I may be alone in this -- but I have never seen South Park.No idea what to expect, but sure appreciate your 2 cents -- or is it more like your sacrifical $8?

[Pale Blue Dot]

13. OK, here you go:

Harshest criticism of the right: sometimes they may get a little overzealous;

Harshest criticism of the left: the left is populated by know-nothing pussies who will get us all killed and therefore deserve to die in incredibly gruesome ways.

Did I mention that I hated this movie?

[JackDragna]

22. The right gets a little overzealous..sometimes?

The World Police blow up the Pyramids, the Sphinx, the Eiffel Tower, the Arc du Triumphe, kill all kinds of people and are comprised of overzealous dunderheads, lampooned in sketch after sketch, and you get after Stone and Parker for trashing actors? Cripes.

[sonicx]

24. the RW audience members won't get it

they'll see liberal actors get killed and shit get blown up and say 'yeah, kill em all!!'

[Jade Fox]

25. Freepers are lovin' it over on you-know-where...

That's enough to keep me away from it. That and how much I hated the
one-third or so of what I watched of the South Park Movie.

[BelleCarolinaPeridot]

11. get your money back

How long into the movie did you realize that this movie was not funny ?

[Lisa]

12. there's a very interesting article in the Globe and Mail this week

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/ArticleNews/TPStory/LAC/20041014/TEAM14/TPEntertainment/?query=team+america


Apparently, Stone has issues with Michael Moore.
"Stone's animosity toward Moore stems from his experience working with Moore on the Oscar-winning documentary Bowling for Columbine. "I did an interview for Bowling for Columbine, because I'm from Littleton -- he asked me to do it, I met him a couple times and that's it. People think we did that animation that comes after us in the movie, but we didn't. It's so anti-American and mean, and I was just bummed out because people thought I did that.""

So he's bent out of shape because he thinks Moore ripped off the South Park style of animation. (Actually, anybody who's kept track of the National Film Board of Canada over the past few decades knows there are a lot of animation styles, aside from Disney and Co., and Parker and Stone weren't the first to do things that way!) I don't think anybody who's seen the whole of "Bowling for Columbine" would see it as being anti-American. It critiques a particular mindset, but doesn't try to simplify things by claiming that "this is how all Americans think". Moore always uses teasing and satire in his work, and yet he's never said that the US is beyond hope. Many South Park episodes I've seen are far more cynical and "mean". In fact, I think that Moore went out of his way to portray Stone as thoughtful and intelligent, and this outburst from him is rather disappointing.

Plus, coming from somebody who admits to copying the British "Thunderbirds" for "Team America", I don't think that his gripe holds much water.

Possibly it's an intergenerational thing -- Stone doesn't think that having a consistent point when making social commentary is "cool", perhaps?

He says this about celebrity activists: "You start to think you know everything about everything. It's very intoxicating to just go, 'the thing about Iraq --let me tell you about Iraq.' Then people print it as if it's gospel. It hit home in the buildup to the Iraq war when you had Sean Penn on CNN and Janeane Garofolo on Crossfire. It crossed a line for us -- not like protest songs or protest art, because protest is a big part of art -- it became like, what are you doing on our news shows now?"

Okay -- this is a valid point. But he undermines it when he implies that people in the public eye have NO business speaking out. If they're willing to take their lumps (as people like Martin Sheen clearly are) and do their homework, there's no reason why they can't become bona fide experts on issues. Arguably Bono knows more about the problems facing Africa than some academics I work with. (One of them recently said in public that there was "no point" to doing any rebuilding projects in Africa.) Sean Penn knows about freedom of expression firsthand, because someone in his family was blacklisted. It seems that Stone isn't coming clean with Penn's real concerns --
the article points out, "The catch is that Penn had no objection to being lampooned in the film. Instead, his complaint was a comment Stone made to the press that maybe people who don't know what's going on in the current presidential election shouldn't vote."


I'll probably see the film eventually, if only for reviewing purposes. But I get the impression that Parker and Stone have fallen into the same trap as some of the celebrities they're slamming -- believing that everything they do is brilliant and cool. We saw this with "Baseketball" and "That's My Bush" -- they can be very funny but also they can fall flat, and they don't seem to be humble enough to make the distinction. And they shouldn't be miffed when the audience does.

[Kire]

14. i actually thought they did the cartoon in BFC

until I read your post

I don't know why he would have a problem with the content of it, but I can understand his getting pissed off that we would naturally attribute it to him, if only in our heads

[Lisa]

15. other artists might be flattered!

I had wondered about the originas of that cartoon, but different production companies are credited.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0310793/companycredits

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0158983/


After looking at various other cartoons being made now, I don't think that the jerky style of the BFC animation is necessarily a ripoff. It appears to be computer-generated, and actually looks more like the CBC cartoon "Chilly Beach" than the paper cutouts of "South Park".

[renoray]

17. I always thought it was school house rock style

and not at all like South Park, although someone who is a casual fan of South Park or not familiar with the show, or too young to remember school house rock might make the mistake. I didn't think he went out of his way to make it seem like Stone made the cartoon, but I could be wrong. After the election I'll have time to takea second look at Columbine.

Having not seen World Police, I'm not sure how they portray Moore. If it is just "he is fat" type jokes then I'm not sure that really takes him to task for anything(other than being fat), and that maybe the gripe is just something they knew they could get some press from based on the controversy, copying a trend that started from...Michael Moore.

No, Michael Moore didn't invent controversy as a marketing tool, but the topics and media spin of World Police feels like they are desperate to capitolize on that free publicity that made F9/11 such an unusual financial success.

Most reviews of Team America that I've seen have been positive.

[gmoney]

30. The paper cutouts are computer generated!

Yeah, they scan in paper to get the texture, then just "fill" in the shapes!

Their "Magic of Christmas" thing and possibly a few of the very first SP episodes were actual paper moving around, but they quickly got wise to the need for speed computers feed, and that they could make more PROFITS if they didn't hire American animators.

That said, the show can be brilliant, but unless Stone and Parker are willing to say that Arnold and Reagan and Bunning have no place in politics either, STFU about Robbins, Garafalo, Sheen, etc.

[EstimatedProphet]

39. However, nowhere in BFC does the cartoon get attributed to them

If people make that conclusion, they are making it solely because it shows up after Stone's interview. Moore never tries to credit it to them.

[Taverner]

40. IN fact...it occurs a good 20 minutes later in the flick

[EstimatedProphet]

41. Interesting

I remember it being closer, but that's from memory only. And I also thought they did the cartoon too. IMO getting pissed off at someone because people attribute part of his work to you is like bitching because your ice cream is cold.

[renoray]

19. I don't agree with either side

"The catch is that Penn had no objection to being lampooned in the film. Instead, his complaint was a comment Stone made to the press that maybe people who don't know what's going on in the current presidential election shouldn't vote."

Penn and Stone both seem to miss the point that people should make a point to know what is going on. No they shouldn't just pull themselves away from ESPN for the first time in four years and show up to the polls on Election day and go into the booth and randomly push buttons and throw levers and then claim to have done their part, but it really doesn't take much time to look at a couple of websites, pick up a local paper and read about the local candidates, or turn on the news for a week or two and catch up on things and formulate an opinion. You can show up and vote on one race if that is the only thing you know about, and it doesn't have to be the Presidential race. If you don't know what is going on at this point, you are actively allowing yourself to be ignorant and that is the problem that needs to be fixed. Unless it has been left out of the articles in favor of more marketable quotes, both sides miss the boat on the real issue.

[nonconformist]

29. Rant Time

I'm sick and tired of people droning on and on about "liberal Hollywood".

They have a right to an opinion because they're Americans, and most importantly, human beings.

They're going on news shows voicing their opinions because the media gives them a voice. If this offends you, blame the news outlets. They're the ones booking them. They take the gig because it was offered. Fuck, I'd go on Crossfire with my nobody self if I was asked.

Celebrities are just as qualified to have an opinion on current affairs as anyone in this country because, again, they're Americans.

Their celebrity status gives them a pulpit. When you feel strongly about something, you speak out about it. They use their medium, they use what they've earned over time by their acting/singing/comedy careers. Much in the same way that Reagan, Arnie and Heston have used theirs. Or is it only voices critical of Bush or tinge with the least bit of liberalism that aren't welcome?

This is a hot button topic for me as you can see. I'm sick and tired of the bashing (I was pretty livid back when it was vogue to constantly trash Robbins, Garafalo and Franken) and I'm sick and tired of a celebrity making a political comment about why other celebrities shouldn't be making political comments (oh the irony). And holy cow, now they go and make a whole movie that bashes both sides of the issue - but with the right-wing bashing highly nuanced therefore *zoom* right over much of America's head - to prove a point that "things are not that fucking dire" and encouraging apathy by telling people if they don't want to vote they just shouldn't vote.

I have to say, I had always found Parker and Stone to be refreshingly non-PC and pretty hilarious at times - and often with a message. However, going off of what I've read about them in the last several days they're quickly going into my "UGH!" column.

For the record - I thought the cartoon in BfC was not the least bit anti-American, it was HUMOR and I think that's a pretty amusing charge coming from these guys (Big Gay Al anyone?). As well, I thought that Stone's interview in BfC was actually the low-point of the film and I've spoke about this long ago when I had no reason to dislike him. He was uninspiring and simplistic, completely oblivious to the significance of the massacre taking place so close to graduation. Moore could have done without him altogether and just gave Marilyn Manson more screen time (who was brilliant and thought-provoking) and in hindsight probably wishes he would have.

[ellie]

32. Poor Stone,

Michael Moore is just a meanie and he is bummed out. I feel so sorry for him. /sarcasm off

I think the cartoon in BFC was one of the funniest things I have ever seen. The movie was about fear in America and that cartoon depicted the fear that has been prevalent in this country from the beginning, from the witch burnings to slavery to the KKK to the Iraq war (who can forget the fearmongering words, "They have WMD and are coming to get us"?).

And then to take the easy way out and make fun of liberal celebrities because they are speaking up is just too lame.

That being said, I really like South Park and I am a very progressive liberal. I wonder if they write their shows thinking they are going to piss people like me off? Well, I'm not offended one bit and am looking forward to their upcoming new season.

[fugue]

43. There were never witch burnings on this continent

That was a Continental European thing. Not a single colonial American was burned for the crime of witchcraft. The punishment for witchcraft in colonial America was hanging. That's because that's the way it was in Britain: heretics were burned, but witches were hanged.

Sorry, but it's a pet peeve for this history major who did her senior seminar on witchcraft in early modern Europe and America. ^_^

[Diogenes2]

16. I guess I'm an exception...

to the rule here-- I find South Park quite tiresome. And the trailer for this "puppet" film had enough jingoism & racism to nauseate me the very first time I ever saw it. 'Nuff said.

[flamingyouth]

20. It looks horrid to me

But I'm not a fan of any of their stuff. I'd rather be poked with a sharp stick than watch any episode of South Park, frankly.

[RaleighNCDUer]

21. Fortunately, I part-time at a theater so I'll see it for free.

[citizen snips]

23. What theater do you work at?

[sofa king]

26. I thought it kicked ass.

I thought the film saved its most vicious and very fair attacks for idiosyncracies of American culture in general, right down to the most hilarious theme song I have ever heard in my life. The liberal actors were only one facet of an unbelievably bawdy film which went completely over the top in everything it did, including the succinctly stated political philosophy which is the very theme of the film.

[Skittles]

27. Why the f*** did YOU go see it, FinnFan?

I should kick your ass

[nonconformist]

28. My husband, who is a fan of South Park and thinks it's hilarious

Saw a commercial for Team America the other day. He had heard absolutely nothing about the film and I hadn't mentioned it to him.

"god, that looks STUPID" was his comment. I was pretty surprised since he knew nothing about it and is generally an automatic fan of anything Parker and Stone do. I thought it was also telling.

[Mr. Blonde]

31. Not their best work, but

still pretty hilarious. I agree that the left got it worse than the right, but what is to matter with having a sense of humor about yourself. They killed George Clooney and I'm pretty sure he is actually there friend. However, with the way they blow things up and being that every location is given in miles from the US I think the right gets it the whole time, but more subtly. Maybe they trust the left to not have to be beat over the head with the problems of the right?

[alarimer]

33. thanks for the review

I personally never planned to see it. I cannot stand juvenile, bathroom humor which is all South Park is. I mean these guys are 35 years old, they should grow up already. LOL

[terrya]

34. I've always suspected Parker and Stone were right wingers.

They always seem to reserve their most vicious venom for liberals. "That's My Bush!" was just an spoof of Bush's mannerisms...yeah, he's dumb, etc, etc. Not a slam against his conservatism.

Fuck those two. I'm not going to spend $10.50 for some right wing screed against liberalism.

Thanks, Finn. :-)

T

[Bill McBlueState]

35. So if you think the movie sucks...

I wonder how Parker and Stone would react if you took the bus to their house and demanded your money back? Would they strip down to their underwear and chase you down the highway, a la Mel Gibson in "The Passion of the Jew"?

Probably.

[Heyo]

36. I saw it last night, too.. (caution SPOILERS)

(spoilers throughout, if you haven't seen it and plan to, also caution for language)

... It wasn't as good as the South Park movie, but I will admit I did get some chuckles out of it, there are some pretty funny parts, some of the musical numbers are pretty funny. (Team America theme song: "America... F**K Yeah!") and the audience was pretty riled through the whole movie so that helped make it fun.

I was almost having one of those bummer nights, I have always been a fan of Trey and Matt, so I wanted to see this. But we were going to go at a certain time, then we weren't, then at the time we did go, that particular showing was sold out, so we had to wait almost an hour, so I was getting a little antsy just how my night was going. (I get impatient and antsy sitting around.) So my attitude turned a little bit to "this better be good" mentality. But once we did see the movie everything was cool. Typical popcorn and soda, lots of laughs. Lots of audience participations. (Singing along with the "montage" song which I always thought was funny.)

Yeah the movie is pretty hard on the liberal actors, I am not really that liberal so it didn't bother me too much, but clearly there were people in the audience who enjoyed it though.

Overall, it is somewhat South-Parkesque in it's humor, but in many ways it's different. The whole making fun of Brukheimer(sp?) theme runs throughout.

On the puppet sex: This scene was a lot more graphic than I had envisioned.. naked puppets, but sans genitalia (but certainly a lot of ass..LOL) doggy style.. 69... girl on top.. lots of positions.. graphic and raunchy but the audience roared.

In the end, the actor turned Team America hero helps save the day by using the "dick, pussy, asshole" speech he heard while drunk in a bar. Another scene that had the audience roaring.

The marionettes: It goes both ways, some parts they suck.. but the suckiness is funny, like the way they "walk"... but some parts are actually pretty damn good. The facial expressions, the way the mouths move when they speak, and scenes like when they in their jets and planes fighting Kim Jong Ils navy and air force at sea, look pretty impressive, seeing that it's puppets in a battle sequence... They have your typical "I'm hit.. I'm goin' down..." scenes and stuff.

The set design I have to say was amazing.. the Panama Canal, NYC, Paris, Egypt, Kim Jong Ils palace... I mean these sets are amazing, it obviously took a lot of work, and there is a lot of background movement in the shots, (people walking around, cars driving around, etc) I definitely give the background set design an A+++.

It is definitely not friendly to the Hollywood left, but it is not a total right wing shill movie either.. remember, even though the Film Actors Guild (F.A.G.) are "pussies".. Team America are "dicks"... even "stupid reckless dicks" if you will.

If you are expecting the South Park movie, you will be disappointed, but if you expecting to go out and have some laughs (and have a few little songs stuck in your head on the way home) this movie is good fun.

The people that it offends most would probably be the people who most deserve to be offended. (i.e. people who take themselves way too seriously) There were so many people laughing that I knew couldn't be all right wing, since we are apparently a 50/50 population.. that tells me there were plenty of lefties in there laughing their asses of. If everyone is laughing except you, and you don't get what the joke is, the joke is you.

It's like the old adage, if you're at the poker table for more than 30 minutes and haven't figured out who the sucker is yet, it's you.

And remember:

"The day is approaching so give it your best. You've got to reach your PRIME. Just when you need to put yourself to the test, and show us the passage of TIME. We're gonna need a MONTAGE!"

:dunce: I love that song.

Heyo

[Wilber_Stool]

37. Just reading their statement

it sounds like they just don't like grownups telling them what to do. Come off as being childish.

[LauraT28]

42. I loved it....

It's simplistic brilliance. The music is outstanding, the marionettes are so well done. Is it the best story line ever? No of course not, it's not supposed to be. It's the typical razors edge humor you would expect from them. They take cracks at ALL sides. They blow everything up, it's a joke, it's entertainment. They take cracks at everyone, the right the left the terrorist the United States. I laughed from beginning to end. Leave it to Parker and Stone to break people down into three categories, Dicks/Pussies/Assholes, and actually make the explanation make complete sense. This is certainly not a movie for the kids.