Michael Moore cracked me up more than a fat dancing puppet ever should. I think I'm going to fall in love with this movie.
Posted by Jim-Me (Member # 6426) on :
Parker and Stone are among my guiltiest pleasures.
Posted by Book (Member # 5500) on :
Sometimes South Park seems to be the only sane voice out there.
Posted by fil (Member # 5079) on :
Saw this in a preview showing last night. I can honestly say, not one person, race, creed, religion, belief, gender, stereotype, political idea, or national identity goes untouched. They are equal opportunity offenders. It is also pretty subversive social satire, as all their productions tend to be.
It follows the Zucker Brother's rule of jokes...if there is a pause between them that is far too long. There are so many quips, jokes, asides, visual in-jokes, references that some are bound to slip by but so many stick. Sadly, I was with a preview audience that really didn't get it...there were a few in our aisle that were choking throughout, but for the most part I think people were confused.
It is also a great antidote to the "outrage fatigue" of the lest and a boon to the 'liberals suck' of the right as both get their just deserves.
It earns its R rating, though, so don't go in if squeamish about puppet on puppet violence, puppet on celebrity puppet violence, desecration of historical landmarks, extreme language, stereotypes of languages spoken by other races, and...puppet sex (let's just say the Muppets haven't done THIS).
Go see it. I would LOVE to hear the complaints from Left and Right on this one. While celebrities were oft targeted by name, US politicians never made an appearance (though their ideas of the war on terrorism are certainly front and center).
Loved it...and almost hate myself for doing so.
fil
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
I'm not particularly interested, sadly. Parker and Stone have demonstrated that they're capable of making a joke without making it a vile joke -- and have often expressed their desire to do so -- but they seem to suffer from a kind of filmmaker's Tourette's.
Posted by Lalo (Member # 3772) on :
quote:It earns its R rating, though, so don't go in if squeamish about puppet on puppet violence, puppet on celebrity puppet violence, desecration of historical landmarks, extreme language, stereotypes of languages spoken by other races, and...puppet sex (let's just say the Muppets haven't done THIS).
Heh. You need to go rent some of Peter Jackson's older work.
Posted by fil (Member # 5079) on :
Tom, too right. I think the freedom of having puppets do things made it even more tempting. There was only one scene that really made me go "oh my! Nooo!" but the rest were in line with their usual hijinks. It is their best thing since their South Park Movie (I don't watch the show but loved the movie musical). One of my favorite things about it was it's love of the puppet movie, though. You never forget that these are puppets (Though really GOOD puppets). While they do some amazing stuff with them, they also take time to accent the ludicrous nature of using puppets to tell a story (an opening "martial arts" fight was a funny bit like this). It honestly wouldn't have been nearly as funny as animated or live-action, which is odd.
If lowbrow humor would impede you from enjoying the rest of the good stuff, then don't go but if you can get beyond their boyish antics, there is really a lot of funny stuff.
fil
Posted by fil (Member # 5079) on :
Lalo...done it (but thanks for reference). That is some grody stuff. No, this is Bad Taste/Dead Alive level of gross at all. But it certainly is graphic. Mostly goofy. Mostly juvenile level of gross.
fil
Posted by Bob_Scopatz (Member # 1227) on :
Saw it last night. I died laughing and had to be reincarnated just to post this. Well, really I wasn't so much reincarnated as sent home with a bottle of antacid.
But it is really very funny and leaves no one unoffended.
[ October 17, 2004, 09:17 AM: Message edited by: Bob_Scopatz ]
Posted by Kwea (Member # 2199) on :
Bob, I am a little suprised you even went to it.
I have no desire to see it...it looks completely stupid.
Posted by Bob_Scopatz (Member # 1227) on :
As one person said upon leaving the theater, "at least I can say I've now seen puppet porn."
This movie has no redeeming qualities whatsoever. It is like a John Waters film in that respect. I gather that the writers & director were going for social commentary of some type, but really, the movie worked for me because even the social commentary was unabashedly silly.
There are moments in this movie that rank up there with the funniest in cinematic history.
Anyone else would've done this more subtly and completely ruined it. It takes a group of people who revel in sophomoronic humor to really pull it off. And they did. Brilliantly, IMHO.
It's a funny, funny movie.
Posted by Kwea (Member # 2199) on :
All the same I think I will pass.
Glad you enjoyed it, though.
Sooo....when are you coming back to MA?
Kwea
Posted by Bob_Scopatz (Member # 1227) on :
One can never tell.
More to the point, most of the time when I travel it's not a good opportunity to meet with people socially. That last trip was a rare exception in which I had a day or so to myself. 90% of the time, I'm traveling with colleagues or clients and it just doesn't work out to go visit folks they don't know.
Now, maybe I could get all my colleagues hooked on Hatrack??? Hmm.... have to consider that a bit first.
Posted by Xaposert (Member # 1612) on :
It's a very funny movie, but its political commentary is off - which disrupts it in an election year.
Posted by fil (Member # 5079) on :
I wouldn't agree that the political commentary was off...it just wasn't the main point of the movie (which was to simply laugh). I think the over-simplified world view of the Team America group was enough political commentary for me, thank you. The liberal bashing stuff was pretty funny, too, but weighed heaviliy in using specific people to parody vs. pointing out the inherent silliness of some of its ideas (as the conservitive bashing section did better). But still, as far as puppet movies go this was tops.
I love that they don't give up on making it LOOK like a puppet movie. The funny puppet glitches were just as funny as the writing. As an example, when the lady reaches up to put her finger on the guy's lips to gently shush him, she doesn't quite reach it and instead kind of shushes his left lapel. Or the first fist fight in Paris. Too funny.
fil
Posted by Anti-Chris (Member # 4452) on :
Radio personalities in Utah: "It's got blood..." "Puppet blood" "Gore..." "Puppet gore" "Sex..." "Puppet se.... ewwwwww."
Posted by Amanecer (Member # 4068) on :
Just got back from seeing it after hearing nothing about but a commercial. Don't really know how to describe it... VERY dirty, but I laughed a lot too! The puppet humor was excellent! But the puppet porn images were quite disturbing. If you're like me, and find such things troublesome, I recommend not seeing it.
Posted by Chaeron (Member # 744) on :
Just saw it. Yeah, it was definately crude and offensive, but that's the point. It was genuinely hilarious, as long as you can just sit back and accept that it will offend.
The songs were especially good. "I need you like Ben Affleck needs acting school"
Posted by Destineer (Member # 821) on :
Very funny! But not as funny as I thought it would be/could've been.
They should've gone even further with the Bruckheimer parodying, to the exclusion of some of the musical numbers. The Kim Jung Il song was boring, and the montage song was lifted almost unchanged from the ski resort episode of South Park.
I very much enjoyed the inclusion of the word 'douchebag.'
Posted by Misha McBride (Member # 6578) on :
quote:Heh. You need to go rent some of Peter Jackson's older work.
Meet the Feebles!
Posted by narrativium (Member # 3230) on :
quote:It earns its R rating, though, so don't go in if squeamish about. . . extreme language, stereotypes of languages spoken by other races, and...puppet sex (let's just say the Muppets haven't done THIS).
Yes they have. They won a Tony award for it. Posted by Magson (Member # 2300) on :
I saw it last night. Quite funny. Some times more than others, but that's to be expected.
Posted by Chaeron (Member # 744) on :
What's wrong with the montage song? It's brilliant and appropriate. I'm glad it was in there.
BTW, that episode of South Park was hillarious.
Posted by Lupus (Member # 6516) on :
not really my style. I might add it to my netflix queue when it comes out on video at watch it just for variation.
Posted by twinky (Member # 693) on :
I didn't enjoy it as much as I thought I would. The first half was a little slow. The second half was much funnier.
Posted by KarlEd (Member # 571) on :
Yeah, I know that the movie has been touted as a sort of Equal Opportunity Offender, and there were parts of it I thought were funny, but one thing that kinda got on my nerves was the incessant application of homosexual slurs in order to demean people.
The most blatant example (and I could point out more if I were to sit through the movie again) was making all the "liberal" film stars members of the "Film Actors Guild" so they could put "Alec Baldwin - FAG" and "Susan Sarrandon - FAG" on the screen whenever these characters were speaking. How is this different from making them all members of the National Images/Graphics Generators Equity Review. I bet the movie would never have been shown with THAT joke.
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If you're like me, and find such things troublesome, I recommend not seeing it.
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