I've watched two great movies recently: Team America: World Police and Ray. Yes, two very different movies, but still, both were good fun.

First off, Team America. I love South Park and I knew I'd love this movie. I loved how Team America, in their efforts to keep the world safe from terrorism, went around blowing up monuments such as The Eiffel Tower (which in turn fell over and wrecked The Arc of Triumph) and then proudly proclaim, "It's all right. Everything's under control." I enjoyed every stupid line of dialogue, like:

Boss man (aka Spottswoode) : If we don't stop them, it'll be 9/11 times a hundred.
Team leader (aka Joe) (in shock): That's... that's...
Spottswoode : Yes. Ninety-one thousand, one hundred.

and

Lisa: Promise me you won't die.
Gary: I can't promise that.
Lisa: If you promise me that, I'll make love to you right now.
Gary: I promise.

It may not look funny when read, but you've got to see the show for yourself. I guarantee you that those lines, as idiotic as they may seem, will make you laugh out loud.

There're great scenes - but of course, seeing that it's a marionette show - illustrating how they move (I love the part where Gary's asked if he knows the distress signal, and he waves his arms around wildly) and how they have sex. Some reviewers have said that the latter scene alone is worth the price of admission. While (most likely) humanly impossible, it is great stuff to watch.

Lastly, obscene as the language may be, the end speech (about dicks, pussies and assholes) makes a lot of sense. I wonder how long it took Trey Parker and Matt Stone to come up with that incredibly wise, yet terribly vulgar speech... which was played twice!

On to a more serious movie - Ray. This movie is a little patchy in that some parts of Ray Charles's life story are just glossed over rather quickly. For instance, I couldn't figure out for sure whether his long-time manager really was embezzling money, whether it was a ploy on the part of his new manager or whether it was because his heroin/cocaine addiction was taking a toll on Ray. It was hard to tell, because they kind of skimmed over the end really fast.

What is good about the show, however, is Jamie Foxx. His resemblence to Ray Charles is scarily amazing. He looks and sounds exactly like Ray. His performance in the show is splendid, especially given his eyes were closed throughout the whole show (with the aid of prosthetics) .

And of course, the music is awesome. I've never really listened to Georgia On My Mind until this movie, and now... in spite of my instinctive dislike for it (due to the fact that I can't swing dance to it), I have to admit that Ray Charles's performance of the song is breathtaking. You can hear the passion in his voice for his hometown. And his other songs, such as Messaround, What'd I Say and Hallelujah I Love Her So, are demonstrations of his genius, of how he created new sounds by breaking down barriers between genres. The man is a genius, and I'm sad to say I only found out after he died.