Gothamist is excited about Team America, the marionette movie from Trey Parker and Matt Stone of South Park that will spoof both left and right wing Americans, as well as world leaders in rude and hilarious fashion (purposefully bad accents for Kim Jong Il, for starters, let alone the marionette sex issue). But we don't know exactly why composer Marc Shaiman left the film Or that's what we thought we heard. Marc, a film and musical composer (he won a Tony for Hairspray and kissed his partner on live TV), was working on Team America and actually was blogging about working on the film's score. It's not up anymore, but Gothamist had the foresight (okay, we were going to do a post ages ago but never got around to it) to copy one entry:
But on TEAM AMERICA, I finally got them to write MY titles on the music, so, taking important lines of dialogue from the movie, I had the joy of watching these virtuosic musicians see they were playing a piece of music entitled "SURPRISE, COCK FAGS!" or "HAVE YOU EVER SEEN A MAN EAT HIS OWN HEAD?" some bowed their heads in shame, while others played with a brand new intensity!! On this score, I have gotten to write a much more muscular score than I am usually given the opportunity to do. And none of the usual kooky comedy flourishes. There has not been one measure of pixilated pizzicato strings or wacky woodwind passages. Oh no, it's all low brass and blaring horns here today. And banging ethnic and techno drums. And even better, NO PRODUCER or DIRECTOR!! They're too busy elsewhere!! Whheeeeeee!!!!
At least we'll still have the memory of Marc dressing up as P. Diddy, with Matt and Trey as Gwyneth and J.Lo during one Oscars-cast.
NPR had a feature with Stone and Parker, and here's a Newsweek story about the movie. And if you're not headed to the NY Film Festival, there's a Team America preview screening tomorrow night. And here's Marc Shaiman's official site.
