Caught In The Net: Puppet regimes

Desert Storm meets Thunderbirds in Team America: World Police, an action-satire-with-marionettes which promises to “Put the ‘F’ back in Freedom!”

Being the handiwork of South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone, the Bush-baiting is augmented by a string of knob, fart and poo jokes so puerile you wonder whether the duo have gone through some sort of reverse puberty process.
Team America mightn’t be big or clever, but it is extremely funny with some of its spikiest barbs directed at Caught In The Net’s favourite short-arse megalomaniac, Kim Jong II, who one suspects will take issue with it playing in North Korean cinemas. Subjugated black pyjama-wearers can beat the ban by logging on to www.teamamerica.com
Also making it into US cinemas this week is Michael Moore Hates America, a documentary that comprehensively turns the tables on the portly polemicist.
“Some scenes showcase Wilson’s thwarted attempts to land an interview with the elusive egalitarian,” reads one of the reviews that can be accessed through www.michaelmoorehatesamerica.com. “Indeed, as word gets out about Wilson’s work in progress, a TV journalist asks Moore why he won’t talk to Wilson. Moore replies, ‘I don’t appear in anybody else’s movies but my own.’ Wilson then scrolls a lengthy list of other people’s movies that Moore, yes, appeared in.
“Wilson treads some of the same turf as Roger And Me, both thematically and physically, when he takes his camera to Flint. But Wilson spotlights the hope and promise in Flint’s people, which he argues more truthfully reflects the spirit of America than Moore’s wallowing in despair and powerlessness.”
Far from being the witterings of a right-wing zealot – Wilson describes himself as “a small-l libertarian” rather than a conservative – the film calmly explains how Moore has been as deviously economical with the truth as many of the people he’s pilloried.
Those who think that this miniaturisation malarkey has gone too far should proceed immediately to www.pokia.com whose sales have skyrocketed since P.Diddy’s batman, Fonzworth P. Bently, used one of their “retro phones for the future” at the MTV Music Awards. Basically an old-fashioned handset attached to your mobile, they’ve taken both Hip Hop Land and Hollywood by storm and will be landing here early next year. Personally we think they make you look like a complete gimp, but hey, what do we know about bling ring?
Which just leaves time for quick visits to www.pbp.net/~habibi/images/gaddafi-bodyguard-01.jpg (you can’t fault the Libyan leader’s taste in bodyguards); www.pocreations.com (create your own radio station); and www.strangeplaces.net/weirdthings/subtitles.html (Hong Kong phooey).