Harry here, WARNING this review contains naughty language and terribly graphic descriptions of sick things. If you are a highly morale person then by all means... hit your back button. But... If you clicked to this review, knowing what the film is.... Read on...
I am not a fan of SOUTH PARK. I don’t have cable. Don’t have Comedy Central. I didn’t like BASEketball. I giggled some during ORGAZMO. I loathe CANNIBAL THE MUSICAL.
Ok, Now that I’ve pissed off all you Matt & Trey fans, I fucking loved SOUTH PARK: BIGGER, LONGER & UNCUT!
See, my problem with South Park as a TV show, and I’m going to surround this with the statement that I have seen very very few of them, is that I could see the creators struggling and fighting to contain themselves in the stiff world of cable. I felt it wasn’t going far enough or hard enough. I also felt that it didn’t have the wonderful satire that say, THE SIMPSONS has.
Well... That’s all taken care of here.
But first, let me tell ya about the set up for this film experience for me.
I didn’t sleep at all last night, I stayed up fine tuning some HTML, responding to emails trying to get on a human schedule again so that when I go to this convention this weekend I can seem some what alive. So, when Dad and I drove to the Highland 10, I had my head leaning against my door window, and my eyes shut.
I was hooking up with the total South Park addicts (Tom Joad and Annette Kellerman) at the Highland 10 at 1030 hours in the cool standard time A.M. I was dragging ass, and as Dad and I entered the parking lot my eyes opened and I saw 3 School buses unloading kids into the theater.
My eyes opened wide as I scanned the marquee... The only thing that those kids would be into would be... SOUTH PARK. They were all short little 9 year olds... Oh my god. Matt and Trey would... destroy their fragile minds. As Dad and I got out and bought our tickets we could make out the line of 500 or so kids ready to pack the theater.
Our tickets were torn and the theater ticket tearer motions towards the head of the kid line. They are aimed at the SOUTH PARK THEATER! Fear and a bit of joy raced through me. But unfortunately they didn’t go see SOUTH PARK. Instead they filed into the theater auditorium labeled MATRIX.
Now, I don’t know if they saw MATRIX or not, I sincerely hope that when given the choice between MATRIX and SOUTH PARK... a responsible adult would take the kid to see SOUTH PARK. It’s important (more on that later)
So instead I filed into our theater and awaited the film. Now, I have to be honest. I was here to see the SLEEPY HOLLOW trailer. When you boil it down, I really could give a rat’s ass about SOUTH PARK before I saw this film.
Trailers begin and...
SLEEPY HOLLOW: First off, I took down that piece of shit ENTERTAINMENT TONIGHT butchered crap clip because it does the trailer a disservice. (As well as putting a strain on my server) GO SEE SOUTH PARK and SEE THIS TRAILER. It’s gorgeous on the big screen, it is fleshed out, so many of the images were just pure BURTON beauty. I tell ya, Heads are gonna roll over this film this Thanksgiving, and mine will surely be one of them. I really really really wanna see this one NOW!
plus two trailers I’d seen before.
SOUTH PARK...
This film is some sort of evil genius, I’ll tell you that. Matt Stone and Trey Parker, I salute you. These two guys seem to have figured they had one shot at this, and they sure as hell were not going to pull any shots within the confines of an R rating.
And within that rating they’d wipe shit in the face of Jack Valenti. I’ve always been rather pissed at the whole language police, politically correct police, etc. In today’s report from Moriarty on WILD WILD WEST, in my intro I call Branagh’s FRANKENSTEIN the worst bloody tampon of a movie this decade. I’ve received a few letters about that this morning. Seems it touched off some nerves. Well.... Ya know... Fuck you. When a movie is a bloody tampon it means it’s so bad that flushing it will only make it worse. It’ll stop up your toilet. You simply must dispose of the bloody tampon movie in a baggy and into a dumpster, cause anything else may breed disease or blockage. And if that upsets you... too bad, it’s mild. Really mild.
God, it’s stunning to me how intolerant and arbitrary a lot of people are, especially the folks in the MPAA and the parental groups in the US. But ya know what?
This film isn’t tame. It’s quite outrageous. There is a photographic penis waving scene that manages to get past the MPAA cause while it really is a nice slick image of a glistening human cock, it is implied to be a dildo... so.. because it is not implied to belong to human anatomy it is not really human genitalia, so as a result it fits within the confines of an R rating.
Meanwhile, blood and gore and violence and mayhem is rampant in this film and is not toned down. It can be shown completely in context to it’s reality and it gets by.
But say you had shown an animated Saddam butt-fucking Satan and spewing sperm from his mouth... Well, that’d be too much.
Of course the issue does come up that... well... People under 18 in age shouldn’t be allowed to see an animated Middle-Eastern leader in the act of anal-intercourse with the big red horned Satan dude whilst ejaculating sperm from his mouth. And ya know... That’s a judgement call.
By the time I was 13 I had found my maternal grandmother’s Porn video collection including DEEP THROAT, ALICE IN WONDERLAND, SUPER WOMAN, INSATIABLE, DEBBIE DOES DALLAS and on and on and on. Paula had a serious love for Porn (silly old folks I guess) Point is, at 13 I had full access to all of this porn... Groups of friends would come over and we would watch the stuff and... Guess what? Here’s the kicker.... LAUGH OUR ASSES OFF. I’m sorry but seeing Super-Woman and a kryptonite dildo just about is the funniest friggin thing I’ve ever seen... next to Quint.
We didn’t go out raping the girls in our High School, we didn’t lock ourselves in our room with the porn and engage in carnal acts. Nope. It was just one of those ‘grown up things’ we discovered. And after about 4 weeks of porn tape parties... we moved on to THE ROAD WARRIOR, TRON, THEY LIVE, TERMINATOR, etc.
I didn’t become a smut peddler. I don’t engage in child pornography. Instead me and my group of friends live fairly regular lives with fairly regular opposite sex friends, lovers and so on. So... Where the hell is the damage.
Knowledge does not breed sin, ignorance does. And ya know... after watching SUMMER OF SAM and SOUTH PARK... well, I think they share some issues about discussing the hypocrisy of our society.
Also, and this is the most shocking aspect of all, it is a completely relevant film in the wake of what happened in Columbine. The whole film is about parental and societal reaction to an event concerning our children in school. (Columbine in our world, and Cussing in the South Park world) Instantly groups begin forming responses... Trying to assign blame for the incident, trying to point as far away from the center of the target as possible. Instead of looking in their own homes and dealing with their own children, they look for some sort of mythical evildoer and try to abolish it. Saddle up the troops, kick some ass, legislate against it and ultimately censor it. But when the film comes together it really is about a parent taking responsibility for their own children. That is where the cure begins, in your own home. And I was shocked. This was the most poignant addressing of what happened in Columbine and it came in a damn SOUTH PARK cartoon. Reminds me of the old EC SHOCK SUSPENSTORIES and MAD comics of long ago. They nailed it with this one, and congrats!
Oh... and lest I get too deep in a damn SOUTH PARK review... The music is stunningly wonderful, and I wholeheartedly agree with Moriarty about pushing for an ACADEMY AWARD NOMINATION for BEST MUSICAL OR COMEDY SCORE! I would also push for a screenplay nomination based on the wonderful satire this film dishes out... HOWEVER, that nom will have to await the end of the year when we see how the entire field looks... But the BEST MUSICAL OR COMEDY SCORE is a lock nomination for my vote.
This film is funny and at it’s worst it’s as offending as this review. At it’s best... which is pretty consistent... it’s FANTASTIC. If you are at all an intelligent parent with subversive feelings... take your kids to this movie. Poison their brains so they can subvert the school system. Your children will see this movie with or without you some time in the next 2 years. You know it, I know it. The point is take YOUR children, be a part of their ‘secret lives’. That’s what my father did... And folks, I’m not killing anyone. Boys need to know that the whole point of life is to seek out the Clitoris! As a result, this is an important message movie for young men. They must learn of the importance of the Clitoris. Seek it out. Look in hedges, forests and bushes. Delve into canyons and ridges. You must find the Clitoris and satisfy it. All men are a slave to the Clitoris as are women. We love the Clitoris... It is our friend.
Everybody needs a friend for life, and that’s why you must seek out the Clitoris! So stop reading this review, go see SOUTH PARK and seek out the Clitoris... It’s the key to the pursuit of happiness!
