Tag: movies

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The SpongeBob Movie

I took my 10 year-old and her friend to see the “SpongeBob SquarePants Movie” the other night. My daughter didn’t think much of the cartoon feature, nor did I. Disappointing more, because we’re both big SpongeBob fans, and we saw the movie with a big crowd of kids quick to laugh. Sigh.

The problem: Timing. What’s the saying about comedy and timing being everything? SpongeBob episodes have good timing, and they have to. Episodes can’t be much more than 10 or 12 minutes long. Pace is fast moving and the laughs going rat-tat-tat. For 90 minutes there has to be a script capable of sustaining nine times the typical SpongeBob segment. Instead, the movie felt like one episode stretched and stretched and stretched. 

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Why Offensive ‘Team America’ Rocks

Without question, movie “Team America: World Police” is one of the most offensive pieces of filmmaking to be released in a couple of decades—and what a delightful offense, too. The movie had me crying to tears within the first 30 seconds, and laughing and crying and laughing for the next hour and a half. I’m waiting for the news story that some poor movie goer either laughed or was offended to death. Either is likely.

I could see the aftermath audience reaction as the lights lifted in the theatre. A group of young black men whopped, “America, Fuck Yeah!”; from the movie’s theme song. About 10 rows behind them, several older, black and white couples sat immobile. Stunned I think, because they were so offended by the movie’s philosophical conclusion.