Posted on 06/01/2005 12:55:25 AM PDT by ambrose
The guilty pleasure of 'Team America'
By Gary Arnold
The most astonishing and hilarious movie of last year, "Team America: World Police," finally has made its belated transition from theatrical to home-video release. The adventure-flick parody from "South Park's" Trey Parker and Matt Stone ridicules in one fell swoop the U.S. war on terror, a lucrative Hollywood genre, Kim Jong-il, several Hollywood stars and their most conspicuous political propagandist, Michael Moore.
It was never in the cards that such a movie would be in serious contention for Academy Awards. Nevertheless, "Team America," a marvel of satirical perversity and technical craftsmanship, deserved the Oscar for best animated feature and nominations for best art direction, visual effects, cinematography, editing and costume design. The DVD edition,released May 17 and retailing for $29.98, provides behind-the-scenes featurettes showcasing many of the people responsible for the movie's conceptual effrontery and pictorial sophistication.
"Team America" hit on a happily brazen way of cutting Hollywood down to size, literally as well as figuratively: The characters are played by 2-foot marionettes.
The timing of its theatrical release was dandy. This uninhibited smack-down of Hollywood cliches and pieties appeared in the wake of a long summer of derision aimed at President Bush and his re-election aspirations. The one-sided malice began with Mr. Moore's "Fahrenheit 9/11" and continued through such summertime monstrosities as "The Day After Tomorrow" and "The Manchurian Candidate."
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtontimes.com ...
Great movie for those "South Park Conservatives." Matt and Trey skewered the Hollywood leftists, the French and Kim Jong-Il.
And now my wife is constantly ruining the mood by sticking her finger in my eye ... thanks guys.
AMERICA..."F*CK YA"....!
"Hey Team America!! Get Ready to Die!"
"She's acting"
Freedom aint free. It costs a buck oh five.
Best scene? Kim Jong feeding Hans Blitz to the sharks.
This movie is not satire, it's a true-life documentary of Kim Jong-Il, Michael Moore, and the Film Actors Guild.
They took their sweet time getting the DVD out, didn't they? Waiting for my copy now...
Always tried to teach those who worked for me that any idiot could use profanity but it takes a real class act to cuss a sandcrab out ...without using any profanity.
One by one, the members of the Film Actors Guild suffer horrible deaths at the hands of Team America after declaring their allegiance to the terrorists. It seems like, for some reason, Parker and Stone have the most venom toward them. Michael Moore is called a “socialist weasel”.
http://duckmafia.blogspot.com/2004/10/review-team-america-world-police.html
It reminds you of a vulgar comic book because it's absurd overuse of curse words, and intentionally so, because it's the point in the movie where the pretentious moralizing that wraps up a Jerry Springer episode or Schoolbreak Special would normally go. And the cursing is in a rated R movie. I hope that you appreciate that characters cursing a blue streak in R-rated movies are distinct from the rest of the world--especially the puppets in this one.
All things in moderation, I say.
Apparently filled with ham to make it more real...:)
That's F.A.G. to you...:)
"I was completely under the impression that I was getting a film intended to influence, or at least released to coincide with, the upcoming American Presidential election. Was I alone in anticipating a Michael Moore film with puppets?"
I love it when people are so slanted in perspective they can't even recognize a film is exactly what they expected--only making the point for the OTHER side, and subtly, unlike the hamfisted Michael Moore approach.
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