Films/DVD Asylum

Posted by Troy (A) on October 19, 2004 at 08:25:39

The funniest movie I've seen in a looong time. Man, was that filthy or what? Gawd!

What I really find hillarious is all the nods to the 60s British sci fi puppet TV shows like Supercar, Fireball XL5 and Thunderbirds that I grew up watching. There are dozens of references to these lost childrens shows in Team America. And I bet that 90% of the people in the theater when I saw it were too young to even know these shows exist.

The first 30 minutes had the entire theater in tears. I suppose it depends on your political bent, but I found the depiction of the American military's brutal jingoism to be the funniest part and that a lot of the Hollywood star gags fell flat. But I roared at just about everything, anyhow. Kim Jung Il is not gonna be very happy being depicted as a giant cockroach from space. I hear that Sean Penn is really furious too.

The sex scene was a beauty. If that was done with real actors it would have had to have been rated X. Ditto the violence. I loved the "panther" scene. The puppets looked really creepy when they were dead. Those bodies floating in the Panama flood were shockingly morbid. It was weird how affecting that was, moreso than if they had been people. They just look more dead than people can.

And the songs! "America, Fuck YEAH, gonna tell the world to lick my balls!" is a spectacular anthem that I can't WAIT to see used during July 4th fireworks shows in place of "Proud to be an 'Merican!" I also loved the love song about how bad the movie Pearl Harbor was that used lyrical analogies like "I need you like Ben Afleck needs acting lessons". I was crying, I was laughing so hard.

Lots of reviewers are panning this movie because it pulls no punches on ANYTHING. It's interesting to see which reviewers have limited senses of humor. To those guys who say that you can't joke about terrorism I have 2 words for you. Doctor Strangelove. THAT movie was very controversial on first release too. Many reviewers thought it was too sensitive a subject, but part of Strangelove's long term glory is that it was the first movie to have the balls to make a joke of nuclear armageddon, until that point a very taboo subject. Team America is way more juvenile and low brow to be sure, but I personally, can't miss the parallel. I wonder if Parker and Stone even realized what they were doing . . .