The guilty pleasure of 'Team America'

Washington Times ^ | 5/27/05

[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."

[knews_hound]

Blog fodder bump.

Cheers,

knews hound

http://knewshound.blogspot.com/

[LizardQueen]

I got it for about 16 or 17 bucks at Coconuts....

[Luke]

Indeed, a rare class act.

[FreedomPoster]

Bingo!, and yes, you do.

[skinkinthegrass]

Where's our buddy?

Thanks...I was wondering about him. :D

[LoudRepublicangirl]

I can't wait to see it. Trey and Matt are geniuses!

[spinestein]

I watched the "Team America" DVD on Sunday night with three of my buddies and we all laughed so hard we were practically crying.

I expected it to be mostly lowbrow but was surprised to see it actually was a lot more substantial. The d---s, p-----s, and a------s speech at the end was GENIUS.

[diamond6]

ROTGLMAO

[AmishDude]

The play was called "LEASE" and it's a dead-on parody.

[ambrose]

..

[MrJingles]

The "Extras" section of this DVD was as enjoyable as any I've ever seen.

In the "behind the scenes" features they point out a layer of satire that I hadn't noticed. All of the locations are presented as stereotypes of what Americans think a given location should look like.

For instance Cairo, a large metropolitan city, is presented as a small dusty village (a la "Indiana Jones") with pyramids and the Sphynx in the background.

Paris is presented as though the Arc du Triomphe, the Louvre and the Eiffel Tower are all in the same plaza. (For those of you in Rio Linda, this is not the case.) Look closely, and you'll notice my favorite sight gag in the movie: french-poodle topiary!

[ManMountain]

ping