{"id":7165,"date":"2004-10-17T07:52:59","date_gmt":"2004-10-17T14:52:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/2004\/10\/17\/team-america-world-police.html"},"modified":"2004-10-17T07:52:59","modified_gmt":"2004-10-17T14:52:59","slug":"team_america_wo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2004\/10\/17\/team_america_wo.html","title":{"rendered":"Team America World Police<\/em>"},"content":{"rendered":"

I am not a South Park<\/em> fan, though I enjoyed the movie well enough. Still, I was eager to see TAWP, based on both my love adventure flicks (especially the old Thunderbirds <\/em>series) and based on the bits I saw at the San Diego Comic-Con. Margie decided to watch after Katherine, instead, and, so, off I went, meeting Doyce at the theater.<\/p>\n

\"team-america.jpg\"The movie appropriate has the dual tag lines, “Putting the ‘F’ Back in Freedom” and “Freedom Hangs by a Thread!” If you’re looking for ostensibly adult dialog coming from technically proficient but (intetionally) poorly handled marionettes, this is your movie. There are<\/em>, in fact, a lot of funny bits in TAWP<\/em><\/a>. The better ones send up one or another trope of action flicks and the Anderson Supermarionation shows, or lampoon some of the blind attitudes that characterize the “dicks,” “pussies,” and “assholes” of the world regarding the War on Terror (as explicated in a marvelously amusing speech near the end.)<\/p>\n

A goodly percentage of the humor, though, and not surprising in a Trey Parker production, relies on simple shock value, “I can’t believe they’d say\/do that” sorts of moments. It’s a form of humor with limited utility, and by the time this film winds down, I found my own outrage circuits more than numbed — which meant some of those bits had gone from shockily humorous to simply nasty or gross or pointless. You can only go over the top so long before it gets it gets passé. And judging from the scattering of laughter and groans in the movie audience, I wasn’t the only one feeling that way.<\/p>\n

Which isn’t to say that I particularly regret having invested the time to watch this Trey Parker\/Matt Stone flick. There is a lot of seriously funny stuff here, some of it remarkably subtle, much of it set to music (the “Montage” tune is alone worth the price of admission). And they are able to get away with a lot because of their willingness to lampoon and offend anyone <\/em>(I can easily think of a dozen interest groups, including the Screen Actors Guild, which will not be offering the film makers any awards this year, and I strongly advise them to not travel to or near North Korea any time soon). But it all gets to be a bit much (I mean, you can poke fun at Tim Robbins and Alex Baldwin only so long, even if you do a great job of it). Indeed, I suspect the film would have been better about half an hour shorter, edited a bit more rigorously for the bits (even the outrageous and grotesque ones) that were really funny, and not just exercises in sniggering self-indulgence.<\/p>\n

This is probably one for the rental bin (and with some friends with you and some beers in you), though I suspect it will get plenty of quotation action in the coming years.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I am not a South Park fan, though I enjoyed the movie well enough. Still, I was eager to see TAWP, based on both my love adventure flicks (especially the…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7165","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-media"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":11667,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2007\/07\/23\/movie_review_harry_potter.html","url_meta":{"origin":7165,"position":0},"title":"Movie Review: Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix","author":"***Dave","date":"Mon 23-Jul-07 9:14am","format":false,"excerpt":"Took advantage of dropping off Kitten at camp to catch a matinee of the new Harry Potter flick (and invited Jackie along to boot).\u00a0 Fun time. Now, for a No...","rel":"","context":"In "Harry Potter"","block_context":{"text":"Harry Potter","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/media\/franchises\/harry-potter"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/images\/harry_phoenix.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":6341,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2004\/09\/19\/heavy_bondage.html","url_meta":{"origin":7165,"position":1},"title":"Heavy Bondage","author":"***Dave","date":"Sun 19-Sep-04 7:42pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Spiffy multipage article on the Bond flicks, complete with individual reviews of each movie. Aside from the author's disdain for Timothy Dalton (which I appreciate even while disagreeing), good stuff....","rel":"","context":"In "Media & Culture"","block_context":{"text":"Media & Culture","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/media"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":19925,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2011\/01\/22\/unblogged-bits-sat-22-jan-11-1630.html","url_meta":{"origin":7165,"position":2},"title":"Unblogged Bits (Sat. 22-Jan-11 1630)","author":"***Dave","date":"Sat 22-Jan-11 4:30pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Links (most recent first) that caught my eye, but did not warrant full-blown blog entries .... An Alien in Every Episode of South Park (72 Pics) - I'm not a big South Park fan, but this is kind of fun. \"Dry martini, my good man...\" - HUG! Google Replaces \u2018Reader\u2019\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Potpourri"","block_context":{"text":"Potpourri","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/potpourri"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":24153,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2011\/12\/02\/movie-review-harry-potter-and-the-half-blood-prince.html","url_meta":{"origin":7165,"position":3},"title":"Movie Review: “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince”","author":"***Dave","date":"Fri 2-Dec-11 12:58pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Somehow I never did one of these when I went to the actual cinema and saw it. \u00a0Since we rewatched it last night for the first time since, a few summary thoughts for the blog-record: Dark, dark, darkety-dark. \u00a0That'll continue through the next two flicks. Finally feeling sorry for Draco.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Harry Potter"","block_context":{"text":"Harry Potter","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/media\/franchises\/harry-potter"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/12\/harry_potter_and_the_half_blood_prince.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":5040,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2003\/11\/12\/guy_films.html","url_meta":{"origin":7165,"position":4},"title":"Guy Films","author":"***Dave","date":"Wed 12-Nov-03 7:15am","format":false,"excerpt":"Mens Journal releases their list of Fifty Best Guy Movies Of All Time. The Top Ten: 1. Dirty Harry - Never seen it, oddly enough. I've long thought I should,...","rel":"","context":"In "Media & Culture"","block_context":{"text":"Media & Culture","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/media"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":8331,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2005\/12\/14\/constantine.html","url_meta":{"origin":7165,"position":5},"title":"Constantine","author":"***Dave","date":"Wed 14-Dec-05 7:39am","format":false,"excerpt":"The advantage of hotel broadband being cut off is feeling like it's okay to go ahead and watch a movie, since all other forms of entertainment are gone ... 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