(no subject)

No horse things today -- I went to the theater last night with Roy after work and didn't get home until 1 AM, which is a bit late for a school night. We went to see Team America, a movie from the folks who do South Park and nurse a strange but persistant hatred for Alec Baldwin (he dies in this film). Team America is a funny movie. It has riffs on other films, some effective running gags, and perhaps the best vomit scene I've seen in years. As brother Roy noted, "If it wasn't funny the first time, do it again. And again." I was also impressed with Kim Jong Il's panthers, which were very funny because of the extreme low-budget nature of that particular special effect.

I haven't laughed that hard at the movies in years, but I do not think this film will appeal to everyone. In fact, I'm not sure how broad an audience it will find. It's a conservative, patriotic film and pretty entertaining, to boot. However, far too many people will not ever get past the puppets fucking (astonishingly funny, btw) and the swearing and the horribly stereotyped Kim Jung Il (Has he seen this movie yet?) to get to the actual point of the thing... and that's a shame.

As I was watching the movie, and on the way home, I thought about the usefulness of puppets as a medium. I'm probably sort of weird, but that should not surprise anyone. I think puppets were the right choice. This movie would have suffered tremendously if it had been filmed in live-action and I'm convinced that deciding to film this movie using puppets was a pretty damn brilliant move. Take, for example, the destruction of the Louvre, less than ten minutes into the film. If it had been live-action people destroying the "real" Louvre in a seriously-filmed movie, the audience would have no way to know that this was supposed to be funny. In this movie, though, puppets destroy the puppet-sized Louvre in pursuit of a lone puppet terrorist with a suitcase WMD. Even though it's filmed seriously, it's funny. I mean, hell, it's puppets. Puppets are inherently funny. Puppets have built-in humor.

(no subject)

Bit of a terminology issue here. I'm not at all certain that the movie (see previous post) featured puppets. Some reviews refer to the characters as marionettes and not puppets. So, y'know, I looked at Merriam-Webster, a source that may not be fully authoritative but is certainly convenient, and that's what really counts.

Puppet: (a) a small-scale figure (as of a person or animal) usually with a cloth body and hollow head that fits over and is moved by the hand (b) MARIONETTE

Marionette: a small-scale usually wooden figure (as of a person) with jointed limbs that is moved from above by manipulation of the attached strings or wires

From the provided definitions, all marionettes are puppets but not all puppets are marionettes. Good. Glad that's cleared up.

"I heard the Empire has a tyrannical and repressive form of government!"

"What form of government is that?"

"A tautology." (Terry Pratchett, Interesting Times)