 South Park – Bigger, Longer, & Uncut (1999) I've never seen a film with as many good cock jokes, fart jokes, fat jokes, and gay jokes, but which also had memorable and touching songs. The fact that the film is a musical is itself one of the best jokes. I was expecting a lot of stupid blue humor, but was amazed to find that the belly laughs came fast and furious, and that there was a real message to it all. "South Park" creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone have created a statement film that simultaneously addresses criticism of their show based on its popularity with children (who like it because it is a cartoon, but aren't ready for half of the jokes that get aired) and indulges in the purest form of I'm-going-to-do-it-anyway style grossout humor. There is no offensive remark that doesn't get made, and the content is way, way, way out of control, and I couldn't have enjoyed myself more. The basic plot entails the South Park kids sneaking into a movie theater to see the wildly inappropriate cartoon movie from their favorite TV stars, Terence and Philip – a movie filled with profanity and fuck jokes—of course, the impressionable youths soon begin swearing like sailors and their parents decide it's time to take a stand. So they go to war with Canada for producing such vile filth, and the war develops into Armageddon, with Satan and his gay lover Sadaam Hussein rising up from hell to rule the earth. Of course, it's up to the kids to stop this terrible chain of events. The resulting story actually makes some valid points about parental guidance and censorship, all of it completely self-serving for the filmmakers of course. There's a lot of heart buried beneath the puke and uncle-fucking. Highlights are the riotous, "Oklahoma"-esque Terence and Philip song "Uncle Fucker" ("Shut your fucking face, uncle fucker/you're a cocksucking ass-licker, uncle fucker"), and the bizarre "What Would Brian Boitano Do?" in which the Olympic skating star is depicted as an American folk hero capable of any feat, including battling giant robots in the distant future. Extremely entertaining. There is also a moment about as shocking as anything in Pink Flamingos, involving the perennially horny Sadaam Hussein trying to lure Satan into bed with his hot cock. The downside to all of this madness is that the pace is impossible to stay with—after awhile you kind of have to stop laughing so much or you'll get stomach cancer. The songs are consistently amazing, hitting all the right bases with dead-on Broadway parodies (the super-sensitive Satan singing about how life "Up There" on earth is what he really wants, and it sounds like it could have been in "Les Mis"). As the film hurtles toward its conclusion, there are some draggy bits and a few spotty misfires, but there are so many other great moments (a horrific depiction of hell in which you see Mahatma Gandhi roasted in flames is particularly wonderful) that it's silly to complain. The South Park movie is not Citizen Kane, but then I always felt that the latter film could have used some erection jokes and more insinuations that Kane's mother was involved in Internet pornography.
Review by Portia Potti |