Last Saturday I went to the sneak preview of “Team America World Police” with my husband. I’m not a big fan of the South Park guys but my husband is and so I got dragged along. Hint - if you are a big fan of South Park you’ll love this movie, if you are kind of iffy about them - don’t go.
I won’t spoil anything but marionettes doing martial arts is pretty funny but marionette sex is pretty disturbing.
saw this at a preview Saturday night. A brilliant movie, and the funniest movie I’ve see all year (and yes, I’ve seen Harold & Kumar go to White Castle). I really loved how Trey & Matt didn’t try in the least to distract the audience from remembering that they were the South Park guys (they even used the same voices and a song straight from South Park), although those of you looking for Cartman making a cameo appearance are gonna be disappointed.
I was pretty disturbed by the number of children who were at this screening. Especially since as I was walking out of the theater, I saw something straight out of the first South Park movie — a bunch of kids singing “America! Fuck yeah!”. I wonder if their parents/teachers are going to be caught in an indecision as to whether to punish them for using that kind of language, or praising them for having so much American pride. Of course, knowing this “great” American society, I’m sure the people of authority are going to get more rallied up over the 1 minute sex scene (keep in mind these are with PUPPETS who were just carved wood under their clothes, no genitalia applied) than all the language and questionable taste.
Still, if you’re mature enough to handle puppet sex, go see it. It’s incredible.
My review I posted on an LJ community:
Saw Team America: World Police on a sneak preview last night. There’s something for everyone in this movie… to be offended by, that is. It might be the puppet sex, the ample profanity, maybe the extreme violence (some of the marionettes were stuffed with raw meat so as to splatter when shot or exploded) or possibly the comparison of political hawks & doves to dicks & pussies in an astonishingly vulgar, but oddly apt metaphor at the climax of the movie.
Parker and Stone have yet again created a movie equally offensive and hilarious - they take potshots at both sides of the political aisle, turn a funhouse mirror on the action movie genre and destroy a hell of a lot of puppets in the process. I’m not sure if I’d go so far as to call this the “anti-Fahrenheit 9/11 movie” - but IMHO, it’s got some equally valid things to say about current issues, without ever mentioning Bush or Kerry.
Wait, they used actual marionettes? I had figured that it was all CG, just done up to make it look like marionettes.
Real marionettes, and real miniature sets. For some “impossible” shots, old-school FX. No major CGI.
Parker and Stone were on the Tonight Show last week discussing this. They said they had no clue how hard it was to make a puppet movie.
Instead on the puppeteers being just a few feet above the puppets, there were 10-15 feet off the stage due to the enormous sets.
Movie fans want to know – which is more awful, puppet sex or Wookie sex?
Yeah, there’s one where one of them is saying “We have 50 takes on film of trying to get a puppet to drink out of a glass, and usually tossing it over thier shoulder instead”
Carved wood…
Oh. Nevermind.
Cool.
Never saw that on Thunderbirds.
The marionettes also have animatronic heads, which afford them a limited range of facial expression. I saw the movie last night, and though I think the first half-hour drags a bit, the last hour is great. A number of bits, like the somber version of “America, fuck yeah!” in the second act, had me rolling.
I cannot get “America, Fuck Yeah!” out of my head and I know I’m going to wind up singing it on the phone with one of my users on the line.
Make sure to sit through all the credits to hear one last song that was not featured in the movie. That’s a form of credit cookie I’ve not “seen” before.
The “panthers” should’ve tipped you off.
On some reflection, I figure America; Fuck, Yeah! will end up in the same category as Born in the USA, in that they each have a stirring, patriotic-sounding chorus, and will be sung endlessly by people who have no clue what the songs are actually about.
And, yes, the line is stuck in my head.
Saw it last night and enjoyed it—very funny, in a hit-you-over-the-head way.
• You know how bad the celebrity caricatures are on South Park? They’re as bad here. They really needed to hire a good caricaturist.
• The marionettes’ faces are eerily realistic, and some of the “acting” is better than what I’ve seen from so-called live performers (you know who you are!).
• Marionette sex—hot! Marionette puking—not so much.
• I am so going to buy the soundtrack.
I think the bad caricatures are by design in South Park ;).
Well, here, I think they were actually trying really hard to make marionettes that looked like Susan Sarandon, Tim Robbins, Alec Baldwin, etc., and failed miserably.
It’s a pretty minor quibble, though. And the Kim Jong Il marionette was excellent.
I definitely want to go out and see it (if I didn’t have homeworks to grade today and a poker game tonight, I’d definitely consider it).
I think the main amusement will be when left-wingers call it too right-wing and right-wingers call it too left-wing :).
To be fair, the Helen Hunt puppet was spot on.