spazzadder Reviews

Rocko's Modern Life (1993–1996)

Games (almost) Redeems Themselves

[23 January 2005]

"Rocko's Modern Life", the product of Joe Murray Studios and Games Productions, was a winner of a show. The first two seasons were jam-packed with innuendo that can be quite shocking when viewed later in life. The animation (especially the angular background drawings) was unique and stylistic. Filburt was a model for Jewish turtles everywhere!

Unfortunately, around mid-Season 3 or so, it started to decline. The series was gussied up- examples are "Chunky Chicken", scenes were censored, a new (inferior) theme song added, etc. This might be attributed to Joe Murray's departure after the first season or so.

My favorite episodes were "Driver's Ed", "Abuse-ment Park", the one where Bev seduces Rocko, the one where where Rocko is filmed naked...Well, there's just too many to name! Great show while it lasted!!

Team America: World Police (2004)

Team America OK

[7/10 · 20 January 2005]

There are a lot of laughs to be had in this film. The songs are awesome, and the effects are decently done. The biggest laughs in it are actually the scenes that have nothing to do with politics, but the senseless violence and throwing-up jokes, speech impediment jokes, as well as the *greatest speech in the history of cinema* (Given twice, so you can all join in on the second time!)

Having the characters as marionettes is a good metaphor, in that we are all being controlled by stupidity. There is even a Matrix joke that would be hideously outdated (like in Kung Pow), but in this context is actually a very funny jab at the Special Effects Industry. Another great spoof is of Godzilla Vs. Gigan (after Kim Jong Il's death). And when the main character finally sucks it just makes for a good, cheap laugh.

But cheap humor is all there is to this movie.

There is no concrete message to it. Parker & Stone seem to shy away from taking sides, and their ultimate goal is to apparently "offend everybody". However, it's actually a pretty tame movie (by my standards, anyway...I've seen plenty stuff more shocking than this). Maybe if it were real flesh-and-blood people attached to strings it would be different...but that would just be weird, wouldn't it?

Making fun of everyone's beliefs is the goal here, but their argument against the Left is pretty tame. So what if they kill off the annoying, insignificant celebrities? They could have presented a better satire if they killed off more powerful people (like certain high-ranking US politicians) or done something else more blasphemous than just knocking Alec Baldwin (didn't he already die in the South Park Movie anyway?). Not that I don't like seeing Alec Baldwin killed, I'd just prefer that it wouldn't be a puppet or a cut out character resembling him when it happened.

Adding to the problem is the movie rating. Why on earth did they cut the sex scene to avoid an NC-17?! Stuff like that really refutes their 'edge' and makes them seem a little hypocritical when they clamour about their pride in risk-taking.

All-in-all, I liked the movie, but felt that I really only needed to see it once.

Incidentally, Roger Ebert really hated this movie. So that in itself is a good reason to see it!!

(**1/2 out of ****)