McCarrens
10-05-2004, 09:05 AM
Here is the link to my source, the first review of the film. I'm looking forward to this one.
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,134467,00.html
South Park’ Makers: Sex, Puppets and Controversy
Try to imagine, if you will, a movie that in its first few minutes offends just about everyone who's watching it. Then you have "Team America: World Police," the new outrageous and controversial new comedy from Trey Parker and Matt Stone, the creators of "South Park."
Even as we speak, several prominent Hollywood actors may be calling their lawyers to check on slander laws. GLAAD is certainly drafting a press release condemning the film and North Korean madman Kim Jong II may have a case as well.
I saw this film over the weekend, quite by accident, although it is not nearly ready yet to be seen. And believe it or not, "Team America" opens next Friday. I'm told that at this weekend's press junket in Los Angeles, writers were shown only a 20-minute reel of highlights because there was no finished print.
"Team America," as you may know, is performed by marionettes a la the great British animated puppeteer Gerry Anderson's TV shows of the early '60s like "Thunderbirds," "Supercar" and "Fireball XL5." In those shows, benign puppets dressed like space men or scientists bounced along merrily with their strings showing. It was part of the appeal and the shows are still popular on DVD. I have a personal nostalgia for "Supercar."
Parker and Stone have taken this concept — I don't know if they had to license it from Anderson — and gone one better. Instead of making a live action like "Thunderbirds," which was a failure this summer, they devised their own plot and characters. What if they made a Jerry Bruckheimer-like action movie that was really a spoof, with lots of explosions, coarse, vulgar language and enough off beat sexual situations to rile the MPAA?
This is a movie so rough that should by some strange happenstance its theme song be nominated for an Oscar — as "Blame Canada" was from the "South Park" movie — there is no way it can actually performed at the Academy Awards. In some respects, it's hard to believe that Paramount Pictures — home in the last decade of "Forest Gump" and "The Hours" — is releasing this film. You have to give producer Scott Rudin credit; he's a brave man.
"Team America" is certainly destined to be a cult classic, but it may have a rocky road getting to that status. Watching the movie means being slack-jawed for its 90-minute running time. When I saw it over the weekend, the only other person in the screening room kept looking around to make sure a) I was alright and b) that we were really seeing what we were seeing.
In fact, it's hard to believe this film has an R rating. I'm told that what was cut (which apparently is too raw to describe) will be included on the DVD.
The plot: In short, a CIA type organization hires a Broadway musical actor to pretend to be an Arab terrorist and infiltrate terrorist organizations. (In the end, the world is safe, the movie claims, thanks to brilliant acting. Ouch.) "Team America," you see, boldly goes where no one has gone before, sending up post-9/11 terrorism, Arabs, Koreans, the CIA and liberal-minded Hollywood actors all at the same time. The one group that seems to escape total comic annihilation is the current presidential candidates. And that's just as well.
Still, in the first few minutes, we get Gary, our Broadway star, performing a song called "Everyone Has AIDS" in a musical named "Lease." (That's a parody of "Rent," wink wink.) When you realize the refrain is "Everyone has AIDS, white folks and also spades," you see the direction we're headed in.
Before long Gary is recruited by the CIA to join Team America, a sort of "Mission: Impossible" squad designed to thwart terrorists. Gary (who'd be played by Keanu Reeves if he weren't a puppet) falls for the female leader of Team America, a saucy blonde. The two puppets have a wild sex scene set in the version I saw to Aerosmith's "I Don't Want to Miss A Thing," the theme of Bruckheimer's "Armageddon," in which full androgynous plastic nudity is unbound. But so are their positions. It's an astounding use of inanimate objects.
Scene after scene, "Team America" goes over the top. Whether it's language or just simple suggestion of vulgar acts, "Team America" never hesitates to outdo its preceding scene. I can't repeat the words to the theme song that spoofs patriotism, but you get the gist of it. Needless to say, teenage boys will be enthralled by the endless graphic references to oral sex and the scatological.
But Parker and Stone have also added another element: A team of Hollywood actors who descend on Korea (I think) for a misguided peace conference. The group of air-headed puppets led by Alec Baldwin is dubbed the Film Actors Guild (and referred to by its unfortunate acronym). Among his liberal associates are usual suspects Tim Robbins, Susan Sarandon, Sean Penn, Danny Glover, Janeane Garofalo, George Clooney, Ethan Hawke, Matt Damon and a couple who seem like they were thrown in for no reason: Helen Hunt, Samuel L. Jackson and Liv Tyler.
I am told that none of these actors gave permission for their likenesses to be used. Most will not be amused by their depiction. Baldwin in particular comes in for a lot of baiting as he is often referred to facetiously as "the greatest actor in the world." Luckily, the real Alec has a sense of humor. Hopefully, Susan Sarandon won't mind when she gets her head blown off.
But not just movie stars come in for skewering. The Parker/Stone version of Kim Jong II nearly overtakes the film as the terrorist hunting switches from the Arab world to Korea. Sort of a Dr. Evil meets Elmer Fudd, this Kim Jong II is easily the film's funniest creation, simply because he is so unlikable in real life. The movie version is more Looney Tunes than "Fritz the Cat" and that's where "Team America" really succeeds. It also helps that David Rockwell's puppet-sized sets, particularly the Korean palace, are spectacular creations full of surprises and witty sideshows.
There's more and there's Moore in "Team America," including a Michael Moore puppet, a stretch DeLorean, a hollowed out Mount Rushmore used as the Team America lair, and, of course, more irreverent songs including one devoted to Bruckheimer director Michael Bay and his god-awful blockbuster "Pearl Harbor." Paris, most of Egypt and plenty of other landmarks are blown up, all so Team America can, as their credo goes, "put the F back in freedom."
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,134467,00.html
South Park’ Makers: Sex, Puppets and Controversy
Try to imagine, if you will, a movie that in its first few minutes offends just about everyone who's watching it. Then you have "Team America: World Police," the new outrageous and controversial new comedy from Trey Parker and Matt Stone, the creators of "South Park."
Even as we speak, several prominent Hollywood actors may be calling their lawyers to check on slander laws. GLAAD is certainly drafting a press release condemning the film and North Korean madman Kim Jong II may have a case as well.
I saw this film over the weekend, quite by accident, although it is not nearly ready yet to be seen. And believe it or not, "Team America" opens next Friday. I'm told that at this weekend's press junket in Los Angeles, writers were shown only a 20-minute reel of highlights because there was no finished print.
"Team America," as you may know, is performed by marionettes a la the great British animated puppeteer Gerry Anderson's TV shows of the early '60s like "Thunderbirds," "Supercar" and "Fireball XL5." In those shows, benign puppets dressed like space men or scientists bounced along merrily with their strings showing. It was part of the appeal and the shows are still popular on DVD. I have a personal nostalgia for "Supercar."
Parker and Stone have taken this concept — I don't know if they had to license it from Anderson — and gone one better. Instead of making a live action like "Thunderbirds," which was a failure this summer, they devised their own plot and characters. What if they made a Jerry Bruckheimer-like action movie that was really a spoof, with lots of explosions, coarse, vulgar language and enough off beat sexual situations to rile the MPAA?
This is a movie so rough that should by some strange happenstance its theme song be nominated for an Oscar — as "Blame Canada" was from the "South Park" movie — there is no way it can actually performed at the Academy Awards. In some respects, it's hard to believe that Paramount Pictures — home in the last decade of "Forest Gump" and "The Hours" — is releasing this film. You have to give producer Scott Rudin credit; he's a brave man.
"Team America" is certainly destined to be a cult classic, but it may have a rocky road getting to that status. Watching the movie means being slack-jawed for its 90-minute running time. When I saw it over the weekend, the only other person in the screening room kept looking around to make sure a) I was alright and b) that we were really seeing what we were seeing.
In fact, it's hard to believe this film has an R rating. I'm told that what was cut (which apparently is too raw to describe) will be included on the DVD.
The plot: In short, a CIA type organization hires a Broadway musical actor to pretend to be an Arab terrorist and infiltrate terrorist organizations. (In the end, the world is safe, the movie claims, thanks to brilliant acting. Ouch.) "Team America," you see, boldly goes where no one has gone before, sending up post-9/11 terrorism, Arabs, Koreans, the CIA and liberal-minded Hollywood actors all at the same time. The one group that seems to escape total comic annihilation is the current presidential candidates. And that's just as well.
Still, in the first few minutes, we get Gary, our Broadway star, performing a song called "Everyone Has AIDS" in a musical named "Lease." (That's a parody of "Rent," wink wink.) When you realize the refrain is "Everyone has AIDS, white folks and also spades," you see the direction we're headed in.
Before long Gary is recruited by the CIA to join Team America, a sort of "Mission: Impossible" squad designed to thwart terrorists. Gary (who'd be played by Keanu Reeves if he weren't a puppet) falls for the female leader of Team America, a saucy blonde. The two puppets have a wild sex scene set in the version I saw to Aerosmith's "I Don't Want to Miss A Thing," the theme of Bruckheimer's "Armageddon," in which full androgynous plastic nudity is unbound. But so are their positions. It's an astounding use of inanimate objects.
Scene after scene, "Team America" goes over the top. Whether it's language or just simple suggestion of vulgar acts, "Team America" never hesitates to outdo its preceding scene. I can't repeat the words to the theme song that spoofs patriotism, but you get the gist of it. Needless to say, teenage boys will be enthralled by the endless graphic references to oral sex and the scatological.
But Parker and Stone have also added another element: A team of Hollywood actors who descend on Korea (I think) for a misguided peace conference. The group of air-headed puppets led by Alec Baldwin is dubbed the Film Actors Guild (and referred to by its unfortunate acronym). Among his liberal associates are usual suspects Tim Robbins, Susan Sarandon, Sean Penn, Danny Glover, Janeane Garofalo, George Clooney, Ethan Hawke, Matt Damon and a couple who seem like they were thrown in for no reason: Helen Hunt, Samuel L. Jackson and Liv Tyler.
I am told that none of these actors gave permission for their likenesses to be used. Most will not be amused by their depiction. Baldwin in particular comes in for a lot of baiting as he is often referred to facetiously as "the greatest actor in the world." Luckily, the real Alec has a sense of humor. Hopefully, Susan Sarandon won't mind when she gets her head blown off.
But not just movie stars come in for skewering. The Parker/Stone version of Kim Jong II nearly overtakes the film as the terrorist hunting switches from the Arab world to Korea. Sort of a Dr. Evil meets Elmer Fudd, this Kim Jong II is easily the film's funniest creation, simply because he is so unlikable in real life. The movie version is more Looney Tunes than "Fritz the Cat" and that's where "Team America" really succeeds. It also helps that David Rockwell's puppet-sized sets, particularly the Korean palace, are spectacular creations full of surprises and witty sideshows.
There's more and there's Moore in "Team America," including a Michael Moore puppet, a stretch DeLorean, a hollowed out Mount Rushmore used as the Team America lair, and, of course, more irreverent songs including one devoted to Bruckheimer director Michael Bay and his god-awful blockbuster "Pearl Harbor." Paris, most of Egypt and plenty of other landmarks are blown up, all so Team America can, as their credo goes, "put the F back in freedom."