South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut

Nothing can prepare you for this film. It's a one off. Undoubtedly the best film I have ever seen. I truly laughed until I cried in the cinema showing, bought the video and the soundtrack - which I never do - and have watched it several times over. The political undertones are frighteningly poignant. The idea is brilliant. It's the antidisney. It's a fart in the face of those who wage war in the name of decency. It's a bunch of foul mouthed kids spewing profanity. It's better than good versus evil; it challenges us to asses the criteria upon which we judge good and evil. It pokes fun at everyone, white, black, Jewish, Christian - but particularly the stupid and the bigoted. by ridiculing the fuss that is made against profanity, the writers have safeguarded themselves against adverse publicity from complaints. It's what the film is about in the first place. My only complaint is that this film is so brilliant that it made Team America seem tame.

When "South Park" first appeared on the scene, I dismissed it without ever really watching it. I wasn't too interested in watching little kids yell and curse at each other. When "Baseketball" opened last July, it was there and then that I began to understand the humor and musical styling of "Park" creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone. Last year also saw the release of the duo's "Orgazmo" and "Cannibal : The Musical", both made prior to the "South Park" phenomena. I became a fan. With "South Park : Bigger, Longer, and Uncut", the television show makes the giant leap to the big screen with a completely over the top feature that will probably end up as the one summer film that gives the audience the most pop for it's coin. To synopsize the film would be too painful (and boring). It's so packed with plot and characters that a one sentence generalization would do the film no justice. I'll put it this way : If you don't know, get, or find "South Park" funny, DON'T GO SEE THE FILM. There might be droves of walkouts as soon as the opening sequence ends by people who thought that a cartoon could never be "that bad". The R rating and the "Uncut" of the title are there for a reason. Heed the signs. Paced like a bat out of hell, "South Park" is the funniest film to come around in some time. While most of the jokes might seem stale to real "Park" devotees, Director Parker knows exactly how to keep the film flowing, and in the process, show us new sides and characters that used to be unattainable on Comedy Central. The movie is vulgar and offensive, that's the idea. But Parker and Stone never once get meanspirited about things, always making sure everybody get a slice of the laughingstock pie. The dreaded "bleeping" of the curse words is finally gone, leaving Parker and Stone their first chance to show the world just how far they can take this concept. After hostilities with the ratings board over the NC-17 given to "Orgazmo"(which was harmless fun), this new film( which is far more raunchy than "Orgazmo") can be easily viewed as one big middle finger to the ratings board. It's the first film I have ever seen that purposely goes unbelievably far just to see what they can actually get away with. It's very interesting to compare this film, which made it out with a R rating, to others that were slapped with the NC-17. I believe that this is what Parker and Stone had in mind. Watching the antics of Stan, Kyle, Cartman, and Kenny on the silver screen does have it's advantages. The film is decidedly cinematic, often jumping to show-stopping musical numbers that I love Parker for. Working with Marc Shaiman, Parker brings us a whole new load of songs that are equal parts silly, and yet retain some musical respect. A just world would find evil Canadians Terrence and Phillip's "Uncle Fu**a" at the number one spot on the charts. Like "Cannibal", the songs stay in the head. They move beyond their comic foundation and feel like real songs, Parker has a musical gift and this "South Park" feature really showcases it. But don't fret fans, the film is jammed packed with comedy that represents what "South Park" is all about. Canadians, African-Americans, Jews, Catholics, the poor, the wealthy, gay, straight, bi, men with voiceboxes, men with puppets on their hands... Everyone is made fun of here. And every moment of this 80 minute film is comedic gold. Like the "Beavis And Butthead" film, this movie comes out just as people are beginning to write off the TV series. And similar to "Butthead", this film has made a true fan out of me. No other flick this year will have the stamina, the audacity, and the sheer momentum to please like this little "South Park" film. I give Parker and Stone endless credit for crafting a film that nobody will expect, and that every fan will relish.--------- 9

I was not a fan of South Park before I saw BL&U, nor was I a fan of movie musicals. Well, I'm still not a fan of musicals, but I'm a fan of *this* musical, and am grateful to Parker and Stone for demonstrating that it's still possible to make a great movie on one's own terms.

For this movie, unlike the usual feature-length adaptation of a pop culture phenomenon, not only lives up to its pedigree, it wildly exceeds it. Yes, the movie does recycle many of the show's jokes, but it does so in new yet relevant contexts that keep the material funny if you are familiar with the South Park world. If you aren't familiar with that world (as I wasn't before seeing the movie), the gags are simultaneously accessible yet often subtle.

Subtle? Yes, many of the gags are. Indeed, one of the pleasures of owning a copy of the movie is having the ability to review the movie, in slo-mo if necessary, and discover throwaway sight gags that one has missed in the delirium of watching this anarchic satire the first time through. (And if you have the DVD, you can add subtitles to catch many of the songs' often elusive lyrics.)

Then there's the music. What is it about movie musicals that attracts great satiric minds? Not since Pynchon's "Gravity's Rainbow" has a work of art so subversively exploited the conventions of the movie musical as South Park. From the droll opening strains of Mountain Town, to the Disneyesque "Up There," to the Les Miserables spoof, "La Resistance," South Park simultaneously sends up the genre while paying homage to it, and still finds room to use the songs to score delicious points against its myriad targets.

One last thing: this movie is not cynical. Beneath the scatological humor, the cartoon violence, the scathing portrayals of Wynona Ryder et al, and the backdrop of adult xenophobia, sexual repression and political opportunism, is a sensibility that exalts childhood as an island of honesty and idealism, if also of id-like impulse and frequent selfishness. In this they share space on the shelf of great satires with "Candide," "Gulliver's Travels," "Tom Sawyer" and especially "Huckleberry Finn"--classics that, like BL&U, also exposed the hypocrisies of the adult world "through the eyes of a child."

Elvis Costello once sang, "I want to bite the hand that feeds me/I want to bite that hand so badly/I want to make them wish they'd never met me." That BLU was shut out at the Academy Awards (having only garnered a nomination for the relatively tame "Blame Canada", which lost, appropriately enough, to the execrable Phil Collins) only vindicates the film's take-no-prisoners send-up of nearly everything that annoys in this suffociatingly focus-group-tested, PC-policed, cynically sentimental, violence-ridden, love-starved modern world. See this movie, and see the persistence of hope and possibility sparkling like a diamond amid the pop culture detritus of a quiet little red-necked, white-trash, strait-laced, mesuggeneh, US mountain town.

If you're not a fan of non-stop swearing, crude humor, musicals, satire, violence, or just South Park in general then don't watch this. Trey Parker and Matt Stone hold nothing back during this movie. Everything they can't get away with on television they do so with Bigger, Longer, and Uncut. Weather anyone believes it or not BLU is a musical in every respect. From the intro song(Small Mountain Town) to the money number(Uncle F*cker, which you will find yourself singing in the shower), this is a musical top to bottom. The movie kicks off with the kids going to see the Terrance and Phillip movie where they hear so many bad words they become corrupted and begin to use them in their every day lives. Kyle's mom is so outraged by this film that she, along with the rest of South Park, manage to get the United States to go to war with Canada for sending the Terrance and Phillip movie to America. Stan, Kyle, and Cartmen form a resistance group to fight their parents and the war, and Kenny goes to Hell where Satan and Saddam (who are gay lovers in the movie) plan on taking over Earth by using the war. This movie is so great it's hard not to love it, especially since it made the Book of World Records for 399 swear words and 128 offensive gestures. Parker and Stone out-did themselves with this movie. You'll laugh until you hurt.

In the quiet little town of South Park Stan, Kyle, Cartman and Kenny bride a tramp to sneak them into an R screening of the new Terrance & Phillip movie. They emerge foul mouthed and with attitude as a result of the movie and, while repeating a stunt in the film, Kenny is killed and sent to Hell. Kyle's mother leads a movement against the Canadian comedians that results in their arrest and sentencing to death. Meanwhile in Hell, Satan and his lover Saddam Hussain prepare for the killing of Terrance & Phillip – the sign of the coming of the new time where Satan will rise again to rule the earth. Can Stan, Kyle, Cartman and Kenny save the comedians, stop the censorship movement that blames society for bad behaviour and prevent Satan and Saddam from destroying the world?

I suspect those that hate this movie are generally those who hate the TV show, where those who liked it may not be those who watch the show. I'm a fan of the show but I not such a fan that I blind to the lack of consistency at times in the show – some episodes are dumb and lack wit, trading on swear words and forced jokes. However I fell in love with this movie from my first time seeing it. The film is funny in the same sort of silly juvenile way that the series is. It has the same strange sense of humour – witness Conan O'Brien having a `Judas' moment and throwing himself to his death!

However on top on this it is imaginative. How many other crude films would do it as a musical. I'm not saying that this makes it more worthy than gross out comedies like American Pie etc, but it is cleverer. The musical element adds to the film and helps it's stretched running time. The songs are all catchy and are better than some of Lloyd-Webber's stuff! They are choreographed well and just feel funnier due to the situation and the lyrics! For example Satan's song `Up there' is excellent but hilarious because of who's singing it and the sentiments he's expressing!

The irony of the film is not lost. The accusations levelled at the South Park Movie are those that the mothers in the film level at Terrance & Phillip. The story actually answers it's own critics while telling the story! It's not perfect and it does go a bit over the top and maybe begins to think that it is cleverer than it actually is.

The voice work is as excellent as always and Parker and Stone carry this the whole way home. Guest stars add some interest but really all I need is Cartman et al and I'm set!

Overall I am a South park fan and I really enjoyed this. Not just because of the elements of the show that are reproduced here but also how clever it feels (even if it isn't always as smart as it wants to be). This isn't a cheap TV spin off into a movie this is a film that is imaginative and funny. Haters of the show will hate this but this may win you over if you thought the TV show was juvenile and a waste of time.