Strings attached: "Team America: World Police"

First, a confession: I'm getting old.

If you regularly check this space -- all four of you -- you've noticed the lack of recent posts. Blame my day job, which took me on the road for a few days. What can I say? Good fake dog crap salesmen are hard to find.

Anyway, two clear signs I've gotten old:
1. When I finally caught some free time one night in my hotel, I somehow passed on pay-per-view porn and instead ordered up "Team America: World Police."
2. I nodded off at least three times, missing the sex scene -- yeah, it's puppets, but still ... -- and I think the ending.

So clearly you have to accept this post with a grain of salt ... and keep the whole saltshaker handy while you're at it. What I can say is that the parts of "Team America" that I saw were pretty funny and seemed a worthy complement to the "South Park" movie. Not as good, but in the ballpark. I probably was most partial to the Spottswoode character who directed the World Police, if only for his classic Peter Graves-esque voice and somewhat odd ideas of what constitutes team loyalty. Let's just say I hope that same drop-to-your-knees challenge doesn't come up in my next performance review.

Other high points, aside from the overall dead-on send-up of stupid big-budget action movies:
-- The decidedly un-PC portrayal of Kim Jong Il, right up there with how the South Park boys have interpreted Saddam Hussein.
-- An unparalleled vomit scene, guaranteed to wither the most sophisticated senses of humor.
-- The apparent belief that no Hollywood star is off limits for parody, thank god. ("Matt Damon!")

I'm sure the movie is even better when you don't miss a few minutes here and there. But hey, it didn't cost as much as porn, and this "acting" was bad on purpose.