Today, I saw and enjoyed -- for very different reasons -- one movie and half of one mini-series. The movie was Parker & Stone's Team America, the mini-series was the first half of Farscape: The Peacekeeper Wars. I am pleased that I saw the movie first and the mini second, because while the movie was fun, the mini-series (so far) is just, well... perfect.
My cheeks hurt from smiling too much today.
(Hmmm -- depressed yesterday, too happy today -- could it be bipolar disorder? Nah, just relief that DH is home, and the fact that we made an effort to have fun today!)
Once again we popped the kids into the play center at Harkins and went to an early matinee show, and it is just so easy! I can see us doing this once a month, until the kids rebel, but I don't know that they will. They are only there for a couple of hours, and the staff there has crafts and things to do with them, and they get to eat popcorn and watch a movie, too, and they haven't been happy about leaving, so far... I'm liking this trend. (Except I know DH will want to go to scary movies but I can only watch scary movies at home on TV, I'm much too wimpy to see them in the movie theater!)
So, Team America: World Police. Puppets! With visible strings, no less. A return to the not-so-halcyon days of "Thunderbirds", although the faces were much more expressive, and the eyes were downright creepy. The Hans Blix character had the same voice as South Park's Cartman, and I kept expecting him to say, "Screw you guys, I'm goin' home." Alas, I was disappointed in that respect.
There were two scenes that just went way, way, way, waaaayyy overboard: puppet sex, and the vomit scene. Need I say more? I don't think so. The oral sex thing was predictable but still funny, and I admit I enjoyed seeing all the pompous actor puppets get annhilated. I also thought it was funny -- in that sick way, you know -- that the two cities we see TA destroy were Paris (buh-bye Eiffel Tower, Arc de Triomphe, Louvre!) and Cairo and its environs (buh-bye Sphinx! bye, pyramids!). I think Parker and Stone chose their targets deliberately, and well.
As could be expected from these two guys, there were numerous sci-fi references, including ripoffs of the Cantina scene from the original Star Wars, before we had to attach modifiers to it to let others know which film we were talking about. The other noticeable SW riff swiped the scene with Luke coming into Jabba's fortress, all alone, to free Solo, Leia, and Chewie. I think the best cheesy sci-fi reference, though, was the use of black cats as "panthers," it was right out of the Star Trek (TOS) Halloween episode, and I can't remember the title of the ep and am too lazy to do it now -- but it was great, nonetheless.
I admit that the plot held up better than I expected it to. In a satirical piece like this, you usually find that the material runs a lot shorter than the film itself. That may have been the case here, anyway -- that oral sex thing was over the top, even for these guys, but I guess in the perverse world of this movie, it made sense.
The thing that held up best of all was the major speech in which the hero overcomes all obstacles to save the world. It was one of the most profane speeches I've ever heard, but it made a lot of sense. There's no way to clean it up entirely, but I'll stick to the basic points and substitute somewhat less offensive terms when possible:
There are three kinds of people in this world: d!cks, wussies, and assh*les, is how it starts out. Lest you think it can't get any worse, believe me, it does -- and what's worse than that? It actually makes sense. D!cks just want to (screw) everyone, wussies just want to make everyone happy, and assh*les just want to (poop) all over everything. Sometimes d!cks (screw) too much, and then they need wussies to keep them in line... There's a lot more, but it basically ends up saying, it's a good thing there are d!cks around to keep (screwing) the wussies and assh*les, because if wussies or assh*les ran everything? The world would be covered with (poop).
Of course, Team America are d!cks.
I can well imagine entire segments of the population that would be horrified by this movie (my mother is in one of them). The profanity level approaches The Sopranos, and those are pretty lofty heights: the F-word appears pretty much constantly throughout the "Team America" theme song. There's also a tremendous amount of puppet violence and explosions, and even though they're just puppets and models, I can see some people being bothered by that.
Coincidentally, I caught "Ebert & Roeper" this evening, and they were reviewing Team America. (I really mean that, I haven't watched the show in months, and was surprised to see that it was on.) Ebert gave it thumbs down, and accused it of being "nihilistic": "if you care about anything, you're stupid," was the message he took away from the film, which made no sense to me at all. I more understood his point that perhaps we shouldn't be joking about terrorism. For the most part, the movie worked for me, so I don't see why not.
I think what Ebert missed was that the heart of the movie was not satirical. The US is the world's police, and even though we may cause collateral damage (hysterically exaggerated here), we still have good intentions and ultimately save lives, and civilization. The (w)ussies on the Left -- the Film Actors Guild types -- would rather be (screwed) by someone than have America be a d!ck, but there ya go: there are 3 types of people in the world. Ebert's main problem is that he is not a d!ck, and therefore he can't understand this movie.
I would also like to point out that, although this movie is laced with profanity and violence, and its characters are grotesque in nearly all senses of the word, it is also at core respectful of The Bush Doctrine. Having obliterated ancient and/or beloved landmarks, the team cheerfully waves goodbye, assuring the locals that they've got the terrorists, they're safe now: the Team is oblivious to the fact that the locals are way more pissed at them than the Locals think they would've been at some now-impotent terrorists. Either Team America doesn't know they're pissing people off, or they don't care. Either way, it doesn't affect their mission.
Other themes, like "freedom isn't free," and sacrificing for a greater good, get a few laughs but they work because they are basically played straight. Vulgarity blankets this movie and has it wrapped up tight, but inside, there's a pure little heart beating.
I'll save my thoughts on Farscape until I've seen the rest, tomorrow. I'll just comment that the scene between Crichton, the Emperor, and Eintein was superb. And I'm totally loving seeing everyone -- all the old characters -- again. Perhaps Stark will redeem himself, after all? Favorite exchange:
Aeryn: What can you best do?
Stark:Stay out of your way.
Aeryn agrees (possibly says something like "Right then,"), nods, and walks off.
Hee!
More tomorrow, what fun!
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