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In our real time amnesiac society, writing about The Interview today may be like arriving a little late to the party, but I have to say that, watching it last night with the Katherine and the kids, some notes are in order.

For starters, don't be fooled. This is a family movie. Today's American 12 and 14 year olds are really adults disguised as children. They will see more on the interweb and talk more supposed "trash" at school than The Interview could possibly hope to do. Furthermore, if you are looking to suspend your disbelief because you seek realism, look somewhere else. The Interview shamelessly mocks itself and kids not only get that "it's only a movie", but this knowledge grants the filmmakers and audience license to ill. Satire, parody, and comedy, as we have seen recently in Paris, can really piss off individuals, splinter groups, clans, tribes, or nations. It would be too much to say the "offended" parties lead humorless lives. After all, do they not giggle at their own human foibles (like when they fart in public)? But it may not be too much to say that these same offended parties are kinda messed up in the head when a satirical film "threatens" their national security causing them to unleash a cyber war upon Sony Inc. (One of my favorite companies, by the way, because they make cameras I really like to use, notably the Sony EX1 hi def camcorder).

The Interview is an expertly made satire that actually pushes the conversation about the family of nations squarely into the public forum. I am not kidding. Can you imagine a more powerful movie that would get apathetic, apolitical American viewers (and the stoner crowd) politicized? When the lights came up I was asking myself why North Korea has isolated itself so completely. How can a nation so large and so powerful not want to join the inevitable international move to a global economic and cultural marketplace? Or maybe they do but their leaders won't let them? Are there millions of North Koreans who have so deified Kim whatever-your-name-is that they will willingly starve themselves to death? Conversely, why should we care? Because they have the bomb? Will they really use it?

The larger point (and one - among many excellent points - which the film makes) is that America likes to export democracy - even to places that may not want (or may not know they want) it. What Rogen, Franco, and Goldberg are saying is: this North Korean state is one of the last - and unfortunately nuclear - nations that not only oppresses its own, but refuses to play along with with liberalism and free market capitalism. Can't we all just get along? But they are packaging this message in a bawdy, raunchy, politically incorrect, satire that audiences from 12 to 80 can understand.  I plan to see it again - if only for Eminem's cameo.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Interview_%282014_film%29

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