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August 16, 2004The Hot Button was born shortly after The Drudge Report, but early on I understood the power of Matt Drudge's ability to run stories that had been spiked by major publications. If it were not for Michael Isikoff's story coming off his desk and onto Drudge's site, perhaps Bill Clinton would still be parsing the word "blow" as not being literally accurate.
After reading last week's New York Times' story on Kingdom of Heaven and ripping into it in some depth, it struck me that there might have been a story far more important… far more relevant… and far more powerful that had to be spiked because it was just soooooo controversial.
Now, I'm not saying that the following came from a computer at the New York Times. And I'm not saying that it's just satire and that if anyone gets upset about it, they need a vacation in a hurry. But I was shocked - shocked - by the powerful reporting and the clear intent to help humanity through a tough motion picture that could create riots in the streets and if in the wrong hands, could lead to YOUR CHILD getting a splinter in a bad bad place.
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FILM ON TEAM AMERICA COULD
HANG HOLLYWOOD OUT TO DRY
By Marci X
not published: August 12, 2004LOS ANGELES, Aug. 11 - With bloody images of Muslims and Westerners battling in Iraq and elsewhere on the nightly news, it may seem like odd timing to unveil a low-budget Hollywood epic depicting the ferocious fight between Team America and Kim Jing Il over Weapons Of Mass Destruction in the first election year of the 21st century.
But Paramount is planning a release this October for "Team America: World Police," a $23 million production by the Oscar-nominated director Trey Parker and Oscar-snubbed white fro guy Matt Stone, shot in a studio sound stage with hundreds of puppet extras, puppet horses and elaborate puppet costumes. The script, by Mr. Parker, Mr. Stone and Pam Brady, is based on real characters of the three-year crusade to destroy George Bush, including Alec of Baldwin, a crusader putz who claimed he was going to leave the U.S. if Bush was elected in 2000, and the Team America leader Spottswoode, who defeated him.
While the studio has tried to emphasize the romance and thrilling action, some religious scholars and interfaith activists who were not provided a copy of the script by The New York Times questioned the wisdom of a big Hollywood movie about a decades old world conflict when many people believe those conflicts have been reignited in a modern context.
"My real concern would be just the concept of a movie that makes fun of important stuff, and what that means in the American discourse today," said Derka Dakadak, a spokesperson for the American-Arab Anti-Amusement Committee in Washington.
She added: "I feel like there's a lot of rhetoric, a lot of dirty words flying around, with prominent puppets making fun of Islamic, Christian and American values. This kind of movie might reinforce that theme in the discourse." Not all of the people contacted by The Times were worried about the film's effect.
The Rev. Dennis Menace, a Jesuit priest and a history professor at Crayola's Mary University in Our Imagination, who was one of five experts not provided with the script for "Team America: World Police," said he was impressed by its nuance and accuracy. "Historically I found it pretty accurate," he said. "I can't think of any objections from the Christian side… except for the sexual intercourse between unmarried puppets. And I don't think Muslims should have any objections... except for the part where Team America destroys key portions of Cairo. There's nothing offensive to anyone in there, I don't think."
But Khaled Schwartz, a professor at the University of Acting, Los Angeles, who studies Actor law, vehemently disagreed, calling the screenplay offensive and a replay of historic Hollywood stereotypes of historic Hollywood stereotypes.
"I believe this movie teaches people to hate actors," he said. "There is a stereotype of the actor as constantly stupid, retarded, backward, unable to think in complex forms. It's really annoying at an intellectual level, and it really misrepresents history on many levels."
Mr. Schwartz argued that the movie would reinforce negative attitudes toward actors in America. "In this climate how are people going to react to these images of puppets of famous actors attacking the president and tearing down the White House and mocking it?" he asked.
Aside from the movie's specifics, the subject is a fraught one. Even the phrase "world police" remains loaded. When President Bush initially called on the U.S. to be "world police" after the 9/11 attacks, he was criticized by some for using a term that has long had anti-friendly overtones. Meanwhile some Hollywood experts who analyzed Trey Parker's motives after 9/11 suggested that he was trying to cast himself as a modern-day Mr. Rogers. And Sean Penn's name was invoked by Bill O'Reilly's producers to rally Muslims to support the American-led invasion of Iraq.
Mr. Parker and Mr. Stone have said they were not concerned about disturbing the sensitivities of any religious group. The film "sounds like a Sailor On A Drunken Whoring Binge ethic," they said in an interview last week, adding: "It talks about using your bombs and your guns, being unethical. How can you argue with that? There's lots of stomping on that Korean, plenty of that."
For a movie about America throwing its weight around the globe, "Team America: World Police" has surprisingly little political oratory, or even political content. The only overtly political figures are extremists: marauding Team America on the American side and short, highly accented, murderous Kim Jung Il on the other side.
Gary, the hero of the film, played by the British puppet Puppe', is a New York actor drafted reluctantly into Team America in the wake of his brother's death in a canoeing accident. Once in Mount Rushmore, where the country's two monotheistic political parties are depicted as coexisting in stupidity, he falls in love with a teammate's sweet, sweet ass.
After a massacre of terrorists the team, Kim Jung Il, played by L'il Kim Jung Il, goes to war. This leader is depicted as insane and acquisitive, at least until he orders that no quarter be given in the destruction of Team America.
Sherry Lansing, queen of the Paramount studio, said she did not think the film would be a source of controversy. "We're thrilled to have Matt Groening & Mike Judge making this movie,'' she said. "After all, they are the masters of the modern ugly near-pornographic children's film, and this is a story rich in scale, adventure, romance and action with a superb cast led by a lot of plywood. From what we've seen, it will be one of the most exciting movie events to happen before I get the hell out of this death ship of a studio."
Executives at Miramax were on vacation and declined to share their Pina Coladas. The studio also refused to co-finance of the movie with Paramount, but Harvey Weinstein, who is trying to figure out how to get severance if he fires himself from Miramax, said the refusal had nothing to do with the topic. He said the studio had other marionette epics on its slate, including one starring Quentin Tarantino.
"I thought it was balanced, with different political views," Mr. Weinstein smoothly barked. "It wasn't black and white, good and bad. But Eisner… that Eisner!!! ARRRR!!!!" At that moment in the interview, Mr. Weinstein exploded into one thousand thirty seven bloody pieces, also damaging Roger Friedman's nose, which was in close proximity.
Nonetheless the battle scenes in the script are vast and violent. One of Hollywood's most amused pair of directors, Mr. Stone and Mr. Parker have created indelible tableaus of babble in movies like "South Park: Longer, Bigger & Uncut" and "Orgazmo."
In its many scenes of devastation, the script shows intransigence on both sides. "She's acting." the sagacious Gary tells the loquacious Chris of Susan Sarandon. She replies: "I am not!" Gary responds, "Your acting skills are fading with age, Mrs. Sarandon." She shrieks, "You Shall Die A Peasant's Death," and fires an automatic weapon at the opposing pair.
Near the end of the film the script describes the actors advancing on Team America. Kim Jong Il says: "Do Somefing Arrec Barrin!!!!"
The script reads: "From his random place in the midst of all the seated actors, Mr. Sean Penn stands. Like all the other actors, he has a nameplate in front of him, saying who he is… "Sean Penn - F.A.G."
Seconds after looking romantically into Lisa's eyes, Gary licks Lisa's puppet ass. Lisa likes her puppet hair pulled and her puppet ass slapped. This is their chance to have puppet sex, screaming 'Makita.' They will go ahead and rush and are not afraid of premature sawdust."
The W.M.D.s are headed to The Panama Canal, and a characters says, "If you fuck up this mission, I'll pull your balls between your legs and shove 'em in your asshole so that the next time you shit, you shit all over your balls," " the script says. "America! God Damn Right!''
The two university scholars who read the script did not agree on its historical accuracy. Father Menace said that sticking someone's balls in their ass was pretty much impossible without proper lubrication and that puppets having sex was only a venal sin on weekdays and that the screenplay was not clear about that scene.
But Mr. Schwartz said that he has watched Sean Penn have sex with his wife and that Mr. Penn is not a F.A.G. The Times knows what "F.A.G." stands for, but we do not feel like telling. Nyah nyah. Mr. Schwartz also said that the Kim Jung Il took the idea of height enhancing footwear very seriously, and that the notion that Susan Sarandon would use a machine gun, even as a puppet as the script had it, was laughable.
"Pick up any book on the movies of the 90s, it's exactly the opposite," he said. "The whole idea of having breasts so impressive that you never needed a weapon or a trade came from Hollywood and was exported to Europe." He noted, as did Father Menace, that at the time of this crusade, irritating accents and bad acting were far more advanced in Washington than in North Korea.
Of course for Hollywood, controversy isn't necessarily bad. Stephen Somer's film "Van Helsing" found itself at the center of a firestorm when geeks, angered by the depiction of Dracula by "that wimpy idiot rich guy from that stupid fucking movie Moulin Rouge," complained the movie was really not worth seeing more than three times It nonetheless earned $270 million worldwide.
Various sexy, violent marionette scripts have sparked interest on Hollywood back lots for decades, notably one that was being developed by Arnold Schwarzenegger in the 1990's called "Rope-n-Gropen." Mr. Parker and Mr. Stone Said they were asked to do that script and declined. "Too obvious a pun," they said, adding that they were studying a way to get a puppet vagina past the MPAA when they and Ms. Brady came up with the film's concept in 2002.
"We try to make movies," Mr. Parker and Mr. Stone said. "We're not a documentarian. When you've got a world of idiotic people to choose from, this was the most stupid conflict we could come up with, which was a balanced one as well."
Whether moviegoers agree remains to be seen. "I think its going to cause a firestorm of criticism and free publicity in the op-ed pages," said Christy Minstrel, the coordinator of the Multi-faith Puppet Show Education Consortium in New York, an association of 12 theological puppetry schools.
"I imagine that's part of the appeal for Hollywood," said Ms. Minstrel, who read the script. "It is cynical, but I think they enjoy stirring up a hornets' nest."===================
READER OF THE DAY: MYSTERY DATE writes: WHO IS CARINA CHOCANO AND CAN SHE WRITE FILM REVIEWS?She does sling five-word-hyphenated-adjectives like a veteran pulp writer.
I had to use my Swiss Army knife to separate each metaphor.
Then there's the pun on elevators as in 'Terry, for one, is going down...'
And who pulls out things 'piece by piece from a picnic basket' - do they really use picnic baskets anymore in college towns where professors teaching English write about professors teaching English?
At times her deliberate descriptions are a bit too much. I mean, I certainly don't know my Svepas from my Rattviks.
Chocano, the author of DO YOU LOVE ME OR AM I JUST PARANOID, suggests that because she personally 'can't think of any contemporary marriages quite like these two' they must not exist. That's right. In her movies, all married women have careers. And certainly if they are unemployed, they should at least talk about the careers they don't have since ALL WOMEN ARE LIKE THAT NOW. Where does Chocano live? LA? Why not leave it at she felt it was dated?
But what is worse, they live in those large Craftsman houses! Maybe they're renting, no wait... maybe they live in Vermont or New Hamphsire where all the house look like that. Didn't someone mention New England? That's part of the U.S. right?
'With her intense, close-set eyes and her mad insect postures…" Is she describing a praying mantis or did she review THE FLY by mistake?
The review reads like she had a thesaurus next to her desk - I mean laptop, except when she forgot to open the thesaurus for those pesky hyphens: zen-like, zero-sum, knee-jerk, grown-up, well-received.
Instead of paraphrasing, when Chocano is at a loss for words, she just quotes verbatim from the text, the way we all did in freshman composition class (because all women go to college nowadays) when the word count wasn't enough for the term paper.
But after reading the zero-sum review, I did the grown-up thing by projecting in a zen-like way about the film itself. I did this by remembering what my master taught long ago: To be as soulful as a Marlboro Light.
E ME: Ouch! Have you read Ms. Chocano's first works as a film critic in the L.A. Times? Should the world give her a break as she breaks in?
