Roger Ebert has lost it

I go the movies to enjoy myself. I don't go expecting to have a rollicking good time, and so when I do have one, I consider myself fortunate. And I was indeed fortunate to catch "Team America: World Police."

What a riot! The movie is near the end of its prime run and so only 12 people, including me, showed up at Erie's Tinseltown last Sunday to watch it. And as far as I can tell, we all were laughing our butts off.

"South Park" co-creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone have created a brilliant piece of parody. The targets are so many, one can barely keep up: Campy, formulaic action pics with their syrupy subplots; foolish U.N. officials; gung-ho patriots; and annoying, whiny, liberal Hollywood types who think they have the insight and moral authority to dictate politics to us peasants in flyover country.

The last example is a "South Park" staple. So is that TV show's crudeness, vulgarity, gore and political incorrectness, all of which are evident in the movie. But while "South Park" uses crude animation, "Team America" has "Thunderbird"-type puppets. That was a stroke of genius. The platform allowed Parker and Stone to create a surreal world populated with fictionalized real-life characters in a way that's fresh while keeping the movie loyal to its "South Park"-influenced roots.

So imagine my surprise to see that the great Roger Ebert had given it only one star out of four. One star, for a laugh-out-loud satirical farce! Even the viewer ratings on his Web site give it three stars, suggesting that someone here is missing something. And I don't think it's the other viewers.

Ebert's snarky review seems most offended that the film doesn't take a political position, and that "the White House gets a free pass." Ah, so that's it! "Team America" isn't anti-Bush enough! That explains a lot.

For those who've missed it, Roger Ebert saw fit during the presidential campaign to use his position as a Chicago Sun-Times film critic to lecture us nonliberal yokels about how evil the war in Iraq is, and how incompetent President Bush is. One would think that anyone making $500,000 a year to write movie reviews would stick with doing what he's paid to do. But Ebert seems to have fallen into the same trap of the Hollywood types he reviews, believing that an Important Man such as himself needs to use his celebrity, such as it is, to further his partisan political agenda.

That assessment may sound harsh, but I'm at a loss to explain Ebert's dismissive review for a great movie that doesn't portray terrorism and the war as he sees fit, while giving three and a half stars to that sleazy propoganda film that his hero Michael Moore put out earlier in the year. Maybe Ebert didn't appreciate the "Team America" caricature of Moore as a hot dog-guzzling, mustard-stained, slogan-spouting slob. Maybe Ebert didn't appreciate the symbolism of Moore's action and his ultimate fate in the film.

Who knows? But really, who cares what Roger Ebert thinks? I had already started losing respect for him even before he started moonlighting as a left-wing political pundit. The disenchantment began soon after Gene Siskel died, and Ebert replaced his late, great TV-show co-host with a nobody. Hey, Richard Roeper may be a fine Sun-Times columnist, but does anybody really care what he thinks about a movie? Ebert's show used to be no-miss TV. It's not anymore, is it?

Hey, Roger, nobody except your Hollywood pals cares what you think about the war, or President Bush. I hope that fact sinks in, so that now the election is over, you can get back to reviewing movies. You know, something you're qualified to do, and what you're paid to do. I suggest you get your act together before your public gets fed up with your arrogant preachiness and politically tainted movie reviews, and stops listening to you entirely.