The Interview
If this review in The Guardian is anything to go by, then maybe 'The Interview' is not such a 'dud' after all and while North Korea seems to be getting its knickers in a right old twist over the portrayal of Kim Jong-un, I wonder why they never batted an eyelid of the appearance of his father, Kim Jong-il in Team America.
The Interview: a guide to the film hackers don’t want you to see
No viewer could interpret it as legitimate sabre-rattling – the lead characters are idiots and the scenario is preposterous
Randall Park as Kim Jong-un in The Interview. Photograph: Columbia Pictures/AP
By Jordan Hoffman - The Guardian
You will never see The Interview, at least not legally. I have seen it twice, so, like the renegade bibliophiles from Fahrenheit 451, gather ye round and I will tell you the tale.
The Interview is, by and large, a good movie. Is it worth a debilitating corporate hack? No. Worth an international diplomatic earthquake? Certainly not. It is a movie in which the North Korean people are liberated because its supreme leader soils his pants on television.
This is not satire on the level of Charlie Chaplin’s The Great Dictator, but if you can brave the demilitarized zone of scatological humour, it is quite funny. And its sympathies are in the right place. The only person who should find the movie offensive is Kim Jong-un.
James Franco plays Dave Skylark, an expensive haircut and host of the infotainment programme Skylark Tonight, best known for the “Miley Cyrus camel-toe” incident. We meet him in the middle of a great “get” – Eminem confesses to being gay, stating that his lyrics thus far have been “a trail of gay breadcrumbs”. Many critics have been puzzled by much of Franco’s output. It’s hard to tell whether he’s a good actor, but he is a great overactor.
Celebrating in the booth is Seth Rogen’s Aaron Rapoport, Skylark’s producer for a decade who is determined to start producing real news. According to Wikipedia, Kim Jong-un is a huge fan of Skylark’s show. Rapoport – eventually –– books an interview, and that’s when the CIA recruits them to “take him out”.
The rest of the film plays out with a stoner’s stream-of-consciousness logic. There is a goofy training montage set to David Bowie’s I’m Afraid Of Americans. One minute our duo is walking in slow-motion to Isaac Hayes like total badasses, the next an errant sneeze nearly kills the pair of them. No one watching The Interview could interpret it as legitimate sabre-rattling. Our lead characters are idiots and the scenario is preposterous.
By Jordan Hoffman - The Guardian
You will never see The Interview, at least not legally. I have seen it twice, so, like the renegade bibliophiles from Fahrenheit 451, gather ye round and I will tell you the tale.
The Interview is, by and large, a good movie. Is it worth a debilitating corporate hack? No. Worth an international diplomatic earthquake? Certainly not. It is a movie in which the North Korean people are liberated because its supreme leader soils his pants on television.
This is not satire on the level of Charlie Chaplin’s The Great Dictator, but if you can brave the demilitarized zone of scatological humour, it is quite funny. And its sympathies are in the right place. The only person who should find the movie offensive is Kim Jong-un.
James Franco plays Dave Skylark, an expensive haircut and host of the infotainment programme Skylark Tonight, best known for the “Miley Cyrus camel-toe” incident. We meet him in the middle of a great “get” – Eminem confesses to being gay, stating that his lyrics thus far have been “a trail of gay breadcrumbs”. Many critics have been puzzled by much of Franco’s output. It’s hard to tell whether he’s a good actor, but he is a great overactor.
Celebrating in the booth is Seth Rogen’s Aaron Rapoport, Skylark’s producer for a decade who is determined to start producing real news. According to Wikipedia, Kim Jong-un is a huge fan of Skylark’s show. Rapoport – eventually –– books an interview, and that’s when the CIA recruits them to “take him out”.
The rest of the film plays out with a stoner’s stream-of-consciousness logic. There is a goofy training montage set to David Bowie’s I’m Afraid Of Americans. One minute our duo is walking in slow-motion to Isaac Hayes like total badasses, the next an errant sneeze nearly kills the pair of them. No one watching The Interview could interpret it as legitimate sabre-rattling. Our lead characters are idiots and the scenario is preposterous.
Idiotic though it may be, the screenplay doesn’t pussyfoot around – it chooses a direction and goes with it. Not all the jokes land, and some of the tastelessness may inspire groans. Putting two American dinguses in North Korea is rich source material for racial stereotyping, but the jokes are, by and large, self-aware; the laughs at the expense of the dumb racist. One must tip the hat to Rogen for finding a way to craft a “me so solly” joke that isn’t offensive.
The big twist comes when they meet Kim Jong-un in Pyongyang. Randall Park plays the supreme leader as a nervous super-fan, a clever choice that puts the whole movie on its ear. He’s quite sweet and he and Skylark quickly bond. They share thoughts about their demanding fathers and there’s a party montage that mirrors an earlier one between Skylark and Rapoport. No way Skylark is going to kill his new best buddy!
But a brief look at the man’s more bloodthirsty side, as well as discussions with other North Koreans who hate his brutal regime, persuade them to proceed as planned. In this, the movie has its cake and eats it. It condemns US intervention, and mines its heroes’ ineptitude for laughs, but still climaxes with Kim blown up in a helicopter. The last few scenes use violence for shock gags, but Kim’s death is sort of in self-defence. He is the first one to fire a shot.
Yet assassination isn’t our heroes’ key victory. This was to win the hearts and minds of the North Korean people through the power of infotainment. They trip Kim up while on television, exposing him as mortal.
They must make him cry. Getting him to soil himself only cements the deal. One of the myths told about Kim is that he has no need to excrete because he “works so hard he burns it off”. Proof of the man’s digestive tract is a political act. It works in a film where the largest setpiece involves Rogen needing to hide an enormous metal device inside his rectum. This sequence is a symphony of sphincter humour. Chaplin had floating globe ballet. The Interview has lines like: “The tiger’s blood will lubricate it”. How exactly is difficult to explain. Maybe some things should stay in the vault.
I don't normally go in for making fun of people who have just died - bad form, rude and simply not the done thing - normally speaking.
But I think it's fine to mock terrible dictators like Colonel Gaddafi - or the 'Dear Leader' of North Korea - Kim Jong-il who passed away the other day.
The scenes of mass hysteria in North Korea were really something to behold - people crying uncontrollably in the street as if they'd lost their beloved father or mother - instead of someone few of them knew or had never met.
Even the newsreader was weeping as she delivered the news of the Dear Leader's demise - which has been met with an announcement of 10 days of national mourning in North Korea.
I suppose one shouldn't laugh too much at this ridiculous outpouring of national grief - after all when Princess Diana died half the country took leave of its senses.
I even know someone - an otherwise intelligent woman - who drove all the way to London with her young daughter - to watch and throw flowers at the funeral procession.
But going back to Kim Jong-il - he is the head of the only hereditary communist country there's ever been - in the history of the whole world.
Kim Jogn-ill inherited the mantle of Dear Leader from his own father - Kim Sung-il - and he in turn announced - some time ago - that he would be succeeded by his youngest son - Kim Jong-un.
The outgoing Dear Leader (Kim Jong-il) was in charge of the country while 2 million North Koreans died of hunger during the 1990s - while the incoming Dear Leader (Kim Jong-un) has been privately educated in Switzerland.
Like the rest of his family - Kim Jong-un - has led a life of enormous wealth and privilege while his people go hungry and starve - denied all contact with the outside world.
But the fly in the ointment is that North Korea is a militarised country and a nuclear power - so whether it's mad or bad is a bit beside the point - because it's most certainly very dangerous.
So on the basis that if you don't laugh - you'll have to cry at the absurdity of it all - I think there's no better solution than playing the following You Tube clip from Team America - The Movie.
In which a puppet bearing an uncanny resemblance to Dear Leader - Kim Jong-il - gives a great rendition of 'So Ronery'.
http://youtu.be/jdug6yHJB40
'So Ronery' (20 December 2011)
But I think it's fine to mock terrible dictators like Colonel Gaddafi - or the 'Dear Leader' of North Korea - Kim Jong-il who passed away the other day.
The scenes of mass hysteria in North Korea were really something to behold - people crying uncontrollably in the street as if they'd lost their beloved father or mother - instead of someone few of them knew or had never met.
Even the newsreader was weeping as she delivered the news of the Dear Leader's demise - which has been met with an announcement of 10 days of national mourning in North Korea.
I suppose one shouldn't laugh too much at this ridiculous outpouring of national grief - after all when Princess Diana died half the country took leave of its senses.
I even know someone - an otherwise intelligent woman - who drove all the way to London with her young daughter - to watch and throw flowers at the funeral procession.
But going back to Kim Jong-il - he is the head of the only hereditary communist country there's ever been - in the history of the whole world.
Kim Jogn-ill inherited the mantle of Dear Leader from his own father - Kim Sung-il - and he in turn announced - some time ago - that he would be succeeded by his youngest son - Kim Jong-un.
The outgoing Dear Leader (Kim Jong-il) was in charge of the country while 2 million North Koreans died of hunger during the 1990s - while the incoming Dear Leader (Kim Jong-un) has been privately educated in Switzerland.
Like the rest of his family - Kim Jong-un - has led a life of enormous wealth and privilege while his people go hungry and starve - denied all contact with the outside world.
But the fly in the ointment is that North Korea is a militarised country and a nuclear power - so whether it's mad or bad is a bit beside the point - because it's most certainly very dangerous.
So on the basis that if you don't laugh - you'll have to cry at the absurdity of it all - I think there's no better solution than playing the following You Tube clip from Team America - The Movie.
In which a puppet bearing an uncanny resemblance to Dear Leader - Kim Jong-il - gives a great rendition of 'So Ronery'.
http://youtu.be/jdug6yHJB40
