Good Movie, Bad Movie

Since my dear B has been off work we have reverted to staying up late and getting up late. Both of us realize this isn't a good thing, but sometimes it is just too much fun to play a video game for a few hours and discover it was two o'clock in the morning.

A couple of nights ago we were up late just watching movies. The first movie we watched was really quite good, The Black Mask starring Jet Li. B had said it was really a hokey movie but when he watched it again he liked it. I had no preconceptions about the movie so liked it from the very beginning. After The Black Mask we watched, Team America, World Police.

Honestly, I had no intention of EVER seeing that movie, but once we started watching it there wasn't any turning away. It was like watching a car wreck, or a train wreck in progress and being so horrified you couldn't look away.

There were some funny moments, but only moments not most of the movie. To say this movie was "juvenile" is actually giving juveniles a bad name and an even worse connotation! The humor was base, the sentiment gross, and at its deepest level it was making fun of what people believe in, whether that is peace, war, pride in your nation, or religious zealousness. It made fun of the people doing the actual fighting in Iraq and elsewhere. It made fun of the people who wanted peace. It made fun of actors who actually stand up for their beliefs, regardless of popular opinion - not as actors, but as individuals.

Watching the movie just made me sad. It made me sad because this piece of so called "entertainment" encouraged apathy toward ideals and beliefs and morals. It encouraged ridicule of everything that made people, especially young people, uncomfortable.

The question arose in my head upon laying down to sleep after seeing such a piece of trash, would I have liked this movie twenty years ago when I was just in my twenties? I hope not, but I fear I probably would have laughed along just to make sure I belonged, just to ensure I was a rebel. The thing is, even when I was in my twenties and doing this very thing, I always felt uncomfortable because I was uncomfortable with the person I was discovering I truly was.

I also understand what the writer(s) were trying to do with this movie I think. They wanted the American people to see how the U.S. had become this self-proclaimed police force for the world and how we should really be sticking to our own shores and let the rest of the world police itself. How this policy of "world police" had gotten us on the bad side of many nations. Still, it failed. It failed horribly.