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What about the music? 
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I loved TEAM AMERICA. It was a wonderful homage to the Gerry Anderson TV shows of the 1960's like THUNDERBIRDS. And when they socked it to Michael Moore and the members of F.A.G....that was great. Too bad the film isn't doing too well...there were only 5 people in the theatre including my wife and me. I think the contractually-required "G" rated advertising hurt this film, which most definitely deserved its "R" rating. Can't wait for an unrated DVD of this film.
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I loved the film, too. What I found so great, is that even if you are put-off by its language or the "sex" scene or whatever, there is always the actual movement of the marionettes to keep you laughing, and the intricate set-design to keep you interested. I wasn't put-off by anything. It is, easily, the best post 9/11 "political" film there is. It, brilliantly shows the stupidity of both sides! Loved all the songs, too!
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The best part had to have been the Star Wars cantina-inspired bit, comparing Arabs to aliens
That was Shaiman's bit.
Dan
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Did anybody notice in the first shot of the huge Kim Jong Il statue (with Puppet Jong standing next to it on the staircase) - the Statue BLINKED! It was a guy dressed and painted as a huge statue. Brilliant.
I noticed that too, and the fact that he was wobbling just a tiny bit. Great film.
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Posted: |
Oct 30, 2004 - 4:03 AM
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By: |
CindyLover
(Member)
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I found this Team America: World Police soundtrack review (c/o IGN.com):
Anyone familiar with the work of Trey Parker and Matt Stone knows that the spastically comedic duo are bona fide music fetishists (okay, maybe it's really just Parker who is unhealthily addicted to the musical idiom, but Stone has obviously been sucked into his song and dance vortex). Parker first displayed his passion with Cannibal: The Musical back in 1996. Massive amounts of song have since filtered their way into just about every episode of South Park, not to mention the over-the-top animated full-length film South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut. Parker additionally contributed music to Orgazmo.
With Team America: World Police Parker and Stone have returned to their second (or perhaps it really is their first) love: song. Okay, those who have seen the puppet propelled film know full well that it's not a musical in the way that SP:BLU was, but it does have many a pivotal music driven number scattered throughout the terrorist ass-kicking storyline. And as can be expected, the musical numbers are filled to the brim with Parker and Stone's one-two knockout combo of potty-mouthed juvenilia and socio-political satire.
The album kicks off with "Everyone Has AIDS" taken from the musical Lease, which is a Parker/Stone riff on the uber popular Broadway smash Rent for those who don't keep up on their musicals. Okay, so the song is perhaps a smite bit un-PC, but it's hard not to laugh, even though you know it's wrong, especially when the final bars are nothing more than Parker doing a round-robin of "AIDS!AIDS!AIDS!..."
With "Freedom Isn't Free" Parker proves that no musical genre is beyond skewering as he takes a stab at red-blooded MOR country and the art of the cheesy patriotic song with a rousing, just-begging-to-be-sung-along-to chorus of "Freedom isn't free/It costs folks like you and me and if we/don't all chip in, we'll never pay that bill/Freedom isn't free/No, there's a
hefty f@#king fee/And if you don't throw in your buck o' five, who will?" The skewering doesn't stop there (as one should easily surmise) as he lights into mid-80s jingoistic rock (think theme to Top Gun) and mock emphatic neo-epic rock (think the theme to St. Elmo's Fire) on "America, F@#k Yeah". This song screams to be included in every hip karaoke joint from here to Kazakhstan.
The omnipresent love song is tackled several times throughout the film and those songs find their way onto the soundtrack, as well. "Only A Woman" is the raspy voiced rock ballad that coulda been penned by Axl Rose back in his "November Rain" salad days. "The End of an Act" is one of the most brilliant examples of musical satire in recent memory. That it skewers Michael Bay's overblown disaster pictures only adds to the overall ingenuity of the track, especially when Parker laments over melancholy piano "I miss you more than Michael Bay missed the mark when he made Pearl Harbor.." and the blunt chorus sting of "Pearl Harbor sucked and I miss you." The entire thing smacks of the syrupy moments in Top Gun, albeit coming from a totally whacked out, purulent comedic angle.
On the completely un-PC (think in the vein of Jerry Lewis' Asian antics) "I'm So Ronery" Parker sounds suspiciously like Adam Sandler, not only in his delivery, but lyrically and melodically, too. A melancholy ballad sung by the Kim Jong Il puppet master in the film, it's a lush, yet sad little number that swells with forlorn symphonic embellishment. That it bleeds right into "America, F@#k Yeah (Bummer Remix)" is near brilliance. For those a little slow on the uptake, this is a reprise of the "America, F@#k Yeah" song, but delivered in downer mode. It's actually part of the "sad" portion of the album that includes the aforementioned "I'm So Ronery" and "The End of an Act."
The last truly engaging portion of the album climaxes with "Montage" which is like a fist-waving '80s pop rock machination that makes fun of the montage moments that populate the classic feel good films like Rocky and others of that ilk. It's a wonderfully droll slice of post-modernism. If "I'm So Ronery" was wrong, then "North Korean Melody" is in a whole other league. Parker's faux Korean jibberish, which flows over mock-oriental music, more or less crosses the line of good taste. It's one of those musical moments that makes you question your own morals—you want to laugh, but you know that it's offensive, so you don't, but still…
Where the album slows down and falters is on the more traditional film score moments such as "The Team America March," "Lisa & Gary," "Putting a Jihad On You," "Kim Jong Il," and "Mount, Rush, More." While not particularly bad in their own right, they can't hold a candle to the insanity of Parker's crudely intelligent wit. Thankfully, these tracks are slapped on at the end of the album, so one can easily skip over them in one fell swoop, effectively turning Team America: World Police - The Motion Picture Soundtrack into a tight 10-track mini-album (I would have suggested extracting "F.A.G." from the score portion of the album, but sadly only the first 50 seconds of this song unload a chunky, techno injected electro-bass blow-out worthy of your attention. Then it slips into generic film score territory).
This album may not mean much to folks who either didn't see the film or didn't "get" the film, making its overall lasting impression dubious at best. But for those of us who did see the film (and subsequently "got" it), it's pretty damn funny and continues to elicit guffaws on repeated play. Besides, some of the songs on this album are completely ripe for karaoke thanks to Parker's wonderfully droll recreations of every recognizable pop music genre imaginable, not to mention that his lyrics are simple enough for anybody to grasp and his melodies are tailor made for even the most tone deaf of individuals.
For those looking for unabashed, politically incorrect, ribald humor that skewers just about every modern musical (not to mention a few classical ones, as well) convention, this may be your album of the year. But the teetering bouts of bad taste humor that elicit tinges of guilt, coupled with rather paint-by-numbers instrumental film score elements (and yes, we're well aware that the cliché nature of the score bits was probably intentional, but that still doesn't make for good listening outside the context of the film) severely mar the overall album.
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Saw the movie yesterday afternoon; only half a dozen people in there (but that's standard for matinees). I loved the opening shot: pulling back from the bad Parisian puppet show to reveal the "real" puppets. On the whole I thought the film was amusing, but not really more than that. And occasionally less than that: the vomiting sequence in particular. During the last reel, I kept looking for a Tony Blair puppet.
The score and songs worked; though taken out of the context of the movie and slapped on a CD, surely the MV-style score won't have the ironic spoof value it did in the film, and will just sound like another MV-style action score?
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