South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut

When word got out that there was going to be a South Park movie, fans around the world licked their collective chops in anticipation of the most vulgar, out-of-control orgy of indecency ever to hit the silver screen. After all, South Park became famous, first as a short film and then as a TV show, for depicting little kids as they really talk-- with frequent and gleeful use of profanity.

When the movie did come out, it was indeed vulgar and littered with dirty words, but it also played on the public's expectation of what a South Park movie would be, and was in fact an incredibly timely and insightful look at censorship, the First Amendment, and the MPAA.

Stan, Kyle, Kenny, and Cartman go to see a movie starring their favorite purveyors of bathroom humor, Canadian comedy duo Terrance and Phillip. The movie is full of dirty words that are new to the delighted little boys, who emerge from the theater spewing obscenities. When their parents and teachers hear the boys' expanded vocabularies, they immediately decide Canada is to blame, and before war is declared.

I don't think anyone expected the smartest movie of 1999 to come from Trey Parker, of all people, but it did. Who is to blame for our kids' behavior? Their favorite form of entertainment? Their parents? The kids themselves? Bigger, Longer, and Uncut is smart enough not to attempt to answer this question, instead raising more questions and pointing out hypocrisies.

Another unexpected facet of the movie is the fact that it's, of all things, a musical. Disney maestro assisted Parker in writing the music and lyrics, so it's spot-on as a parody of the familiar Disney form.

Though some people felt this movie got a little tiresome toward the end, and I can respect that argument, it has twice as many laughs as most comedies, and most every laugh is a belly laugh.