Nothing further on Matt Stone and Trey Parker’s political sympathies needs to be said, but here’s New York Times critic Tony Scott riffing on them anyway: “A number of commentators have discerned a pronounced conservative streak amid the anarchy of South Park, a hypothesis that Team America to some extent confirms. Susan Sarandon, Tim Robbins and other left-leaning movie stars are eviscerated (quite literally — also decapitated, set on fire and eaten by house cats), while right-wing media figures escape derision altogether. It seems likely that [Stone and Parker’s] emphases and omissions reflect a particular point of view.”

It was George Bush ’41, not President Bush, who was quoted Friday as having called Michael Moore a “total ass” and “slimeball” for pushing “outrageous…lies about my family” in Fahrenheit 9/11.

A reader named Mark Zeigler says he’s having doubts about my enthusiasm for Sideways (Fox Searchlight, 10.22) because Salon critic Charles Taylor has mostly panned it and called its director-cowriter, Alexander Payne, “a pretentious wiseass.” First, it’s okay for Taylor to trash Sideways. He’s going to feel pretty lonely with that viewpoint, but fine. But second, Zeigler may want to consider what New York Times critic Manohla Dargis has said about the criticism that Payne treats his characters with condescension, which she calls “a puzzling assessment.” She adds that “it’s hard to understand the genesis of this discomfort” except to note that “like Sideways, Payne’s films cut close to the emotional bone and even movie critics can get squirmy when the screen turns into a mirror.” She adds that “since the late 1970’s we have been under the spell of the blockbuster imperative, with its infallible heroes and comic-book morality, a spell that independent film has done little to break. In this light, the emergence of Mr. Payne into the front ranks of American filmmakers isn’t just cause for celebration; it’s a reason for hope.”

Howard Stern said yesterday morning (Friday, 10.15) that Chris Rock’s hosting of the Oscars Awards will be a “disaster.” What he really meant to predict is that Rock will fizzle like David Letterman did. Funny and brilliant as Rock may be, Stern feels he’s too much of an irreverent grenade-tosser to be a hit with the Academy crowd, which takes the Oscars half-seriously and wants more respect and affection from Oscar emcees than Rock is willing or able to provide. I think Stern is wrong, and that Rock will be hilarious — he always is — and that people recognize the Oscar show needs a jolt every now and then. Academy producers were right to finally give the emcee slot to a GenXer — it might pull in younger viewers.

Figuring the specific reason iNDEMAND decided to bail on airing “The Michael Moore Pre-Election Special” will be an interesting pursuit. The company, owned by Time Warner, Cox and Comcast cable companies, announced Friday it wouldn’t be showing “The Michael Moore Pre-Election Special” due to “legitimate business and legal concerns,” which is apparently a euphemism for political pressure. Moore has stated that he and iNDEMAND signed a contract to air the special (which would have included a showing of Fahrenheit 9/11) in early September, and that he believes that pressure from “top Republican people” caused the turnaround. Moore is considering taking legal action against the company, he said. An iNDEMAND spokesperson said any legal action Moore might take against the company would be “entirely baseless and groundless.”