It was only a matter of time: "Harold & Kumar Escape from Guantánamo Bay"

[laststeamtrain]

Crude comedy takes on post-9/11 policy
Carol Rosenberg | Miami Herald

last updated: April 25, 2008 07:36:14 AM

Will audiences giggle as an old lady shrieks ''Terrorists!'' and triggers panic aboard a trans-Atlantic flight? At guards shown sodomizing war-on-terror detainees in orange jumpsuits? At an American president portrayed as a paranoid pothead? Ready or not, Harold & Kumar Escape from Guantánamo Bay hits theaters on Friday as mainstream Hollywood's first comedy to lampoon the United States' war on terror.

<snip>

Part political theater, part heir to the '70s stoner film genre, the story is so politically incorrect it features pot smoking from college campuses to Crawford, Texas.

<more>

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/226/story/34883.html

[Aviation Pro]

1. Ha ha ha ha.....

...torture is such a riot! I'm having a great belly laughing dreaming, not implying, that the fat bag of shit, Limpballs, is placed in some of the wacky, zany escapades of the orange-clad detainees.....whoo-whee!

[YOY]

2. I think this is going to be one of those films that you just have to watch to get.

You may think it's making light of serious things but at least it's admitting they are real.

That and Kal Pen is one funny funny funny man.

[Barb in Atl]

4. I'm too cranky to be amused...

You may have a point - for the folks that pay no attention to this kind of stuff, they may wake up and say "Whoa! They like, torture??" And that will be a good thing. I, however, watch a movie like that and get pissed that it's made into a joke.

But I'll be hopeful, YOY. Maybe you're right. I just won't be at the theater to see one way or the other.

[YOY]

7. Look, it's got Rob Corderoy (Sp?) from the Daily show in it

Kal Pen and John Cho are HARDLY right wingers. It's got Doogie Howser's gay self in it as a hardly gay version of himself...

See the first one (Harold and Kumar Go To Whitecastle) if you think this is some RW film. Harold and Kumar are not Cheech and Chong. They're smart responsible guys who happen to smoke a lot of weed. It's also got props for showing how Asian Americans deal with being both Asian (south and east) and American.

Admitting you have a problem is the first step to recovery...maybe America needs this.

[Barb in Atl]

18. Oh, I know it's not some RW attempt at conversion...

I'm just saying that I'm the one you don't want to take to a movie because I'm ALWAYS looking for the socioeconomic / racial undercurrent in a movie. So, while this may, in fact, get folks to say - like, what? (I hear that in my mind sounding like the fake stoner voice Jon Stewart occasionally does) - I can't sit through it.

More than a few people have told me to get a sense of humor. Which is actually funny.

[OwnedByFerrets]

3. Making lite of torture

at the same point in history that WE are torturing people is wrong. Unless its satire, and this movie cant be categorized as such, torture should be off limits. All it does it desensitize the masses to it....its no different than the right wing memo that its no different than hazing pranks.

[zanne]

5. We should form a "religious group"...

So we can send emails, sign petitions and have movies and TV shows eliminated the way the right wing does.

[asthmaticeog]

8. "Unless its satire, and this movie cant be categorized as such"

How is that, exactly? The first Harold & Kumar movie was loaded to the gills with satire and astonishingly sharp social commentary. I was dead surprised when I saw it, it was a really smart film. I typically abhor stoner humor, but I expect good things from this new one as well.

[OwnedByFerrets]

11. You are correct......

I was making an assumption since I haven't seen the movie....I would bet, however, that any satire shown here will be over the head of many of its viewers and will minimize torture to some comedic stature.

[asthmaticeog]

12. Poor, pitiful, stupid Harold and Kumar fans.

Maybe you can be so benificent as to explain the concept of irony to them, o mighty one.

[OwnedByFerrets]

16. Did I say ALL or even MOST.....

take your condescending attitude and stick it u.......oh, never mind.:rofl:

[Name removed]

17. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[eShirl]

9. ". Unless its satire, and this movie cant be categorized as such"

Why can't it be?

[eShirl]

10. I posted part of this review of it from Variety last week; they call it satire

"Radical Muslim terrorists, inbred Deep Southerners, Homeland Security xenophobes and President George W. Bush are among the primary targets bruised and battered by the sledgehammering satire of "Harold & Kumar Escape From Guantanamo Bay," an over-the-top and beyond-PC comedy that sometimes deftly, sometimes slapdashedly infuses party-hearty anarchy with hectoring moral outrage. An appreciably more politically charged follow-up to 2004's "Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle" (a piddling B.O. performer that nonetheless achieved cult-fave status on DVD), this raucous road-trip laffer, set for an April 25 release, should perform exceptionally well with auds primed by its predecessor.

"Whether the pic can attract newcomers to the franchise --and score breakthrough success during its theatrical run -- depends on the willingness of the masses to accept a sex-drugs-and-rock-'n'-roll comedy so jeeringly critical of post-9/11 paranoia and so openly contemptuous of authoritarian excesses by U.S. government agencies charged with waging the war on terror.

"It's like "Animal House" meets "Dr. Strangelove" -- although, truth be told, it's highly unlikely even Stanley Kubrick would have dared attempt a scene like the one here in which an insanely overzealous Dept. of Homeland Security chief literally wipes his backside with the Bill of Rights."

(continues) http://www.variety.com/review/VE1117936447.html?categoryid=31&cs=1

[fishwax]

13. i fully expect the movie is satire

not having seen it, I can't say for sure, but I suspect that it is.

[Sheets of Easter]

6. I loved the first film.

Especially the cameo by Neal Patrick Harris. I think they'll be able to tackle it well.

[fishwax]

14. the first one was a huge (and pleasant) surprise

I thought it was going to suck, frankly, but it was well-made, quite funny, and intelligent. There were a couple of scenes where the bodily humor was a bit over-the-top for my tastes, but the film as a whole made up for it.

[YOY]

15. It was a combination of high and low comedy

And a funny (albeit semiseriously so) insight into Asian America...and Neil Patrick Harris...

[MisterP]

19. I'm waiting for Mel Brooks to do to the GWOT and * what he did to You-Know-Who

in "The Producers." He can dissect everything from Geert Wilders to Pat Robertson to our global Gulags.