DVD

Paramount, widescreen 1.85:1/16x9, languages: English DD 5.1 [CC] & Dolby Surround, French Dolby Surround, subtitles: English, single side-single layer, 26 chapters, 3 theatrical trailers, rated R, 81 min., $29.99, street date 11/23/99.

Studio Line

Directed by Trey Parker and Matt Stone. Voices of Trey Parker, Matt Stone, Mary Kay Bergman, Isaac Hayes, Eric Idle, George Clooney.

After Stan, Kyle, Kenny and Cartman sneak into an R-rated movie, the rest of their third grade class is quick to follow.

The kids' parents are outraged by the effect the movie has on their innocent young minds and demand to be heard from their small Colorado mountain town.

Anger leads to censorship, censorship to war, and before they know it the boys are risking their lives in the name of freedom. When the smoke finally clears, the dust finally settles, and the Dark Prince has finally taken over the earth, everyone has learned two very important lesson: communication between parents and children is vital, and the world is a better place without Saddam Hussein.

Picture/Sound/Extras (B/A-/D)

Fads these days really have a short shelf life, don't they? Take South Park, for example; it went from hotsy-totsy to hotsy-notsy in no time flat. One day you're the hip new thing, and the next you're yesterday's news, baby! Guess that's life in the big city!

As for me, I usually stick with things I like and don't really worry about the majority view. This has led to some crushing discoveries, such as the day I was in a mall during the late summer of 1989 and heard a teen girl say to her friend, "Batman?! Batman's out!" But I still liked Batman, I thought - woe was me!

Nonetheless, I continued to like Batman, and another number of other smashes that soon lost their flavor for the general population. As such, it was somewhat out of character that I changed my opinion about South Park. I really liked it for a few months and even used to save episodes, but after about half a year, I'd had enough. The show seemed to lose its cleverness and spent most of its time attempting to be wildly offensive with no purpose behind the material. Just as our friend Mr. Tufnel once said, there's a thin line between clever and stupid, and South Park consistently crossed the line firmly into the arena of senselessly crude TV.

I don't even think I'd seen the show for about a year before the film based on the program, South Park: Bigger, Longer and Uncut hit movie screens. I wasn't terribly eager to see it, but my job leaves me lots of free time in the summer, so I decided to give it a whirl.

Much to my surprise, the film was actually pretty good. The only factor that hindered my enjoyment of it was the crowd; it was a raucous group who simply went nuts over the material. As such, I was looking forward to seeing the movie at home so I could watch it without anyone kicking my chair due to their paroxysms of laughter.

Seeing SP:BLU on DVD shows that my enjoyment of the movie definitely wasn't due to any hilarity contact high. Despite the creative doldrums I'd seen from the show the last few times I'd watched it, the show's creative force - Trey Parker and Matt Stone - were able to snap out of them for this sucker. Maybe the ability to do what they wanted to do without worrying about TV's constraints made a difference. Whatever the case, this film offers South Park as good as it ever was, and in some ways better.

It helps that Parker and Stone clearly felt a sense of purpose. I work for a school system and I grow increasingly weary of hearing various morons blame videogames, movies and TV for any number of societal ills that involve kids. I don't buy it myself, but these self-righteous idiots seem certain that if all anybody did was play Pac-man and watch the Care Bears, the world would be a perfect place.

SP:BLU takes on these boneheads with a scathing satirical attack on the notion that a movie can make that big a difference in a person's life. It nicely pinpoints the intolerance and smugness of these crusaders as it provides a rousing example of the exact kind of material against which they're fighting.

Chances are excellent that you'll never hear a more profane movie than SP:BLU. Geez, I don't even know if it'd be possible to pack more foul language into a film and still maintain an actual storyline; you'd have to just curse without stop. There's some "pro-decency" kind of website out there that keeps track of these things, and the writer allegedly actually counted the number of swear words in the movie. With the DVD's captioning system, you can count them yourself and see if he's right!

Anyway, the profanity is integral to SP:BLU and insanely amusing in its nonstop pace. Could it seem like vulgarity for vulgarity's sake? Sure. It's difficult to define why I find the crudeness in this movie funny but thought the baseness of the crummier TV episodes was unamusing; it's just one of those intangible things. For whatever reason, it works, and works tremendously well in this film. Perhaps it's partially due to the immense glee with which the material is delivered.

Indeed, the joy behind the creation of this movie seems palpable. It's pretty clear that Parker and Stone were happy to be free of the limitations of TV, and they also seemed more than content to knock the so-called moral authorities down a few pegs. That they do, and they make a terrifically funny and entertaining movie at the same time.

And that's all I'm going to say about SP:BLU because to discuss it any more might give away some of the gags, and you're better off seeing them for yourself. Just remember: this film is rated "R" for some very good reasons. Incessant profanity, animated nudity and extreme violence, and discussions of some pretty gross sexual themes are part of the equation, as is a character who has some rather harsh things to say about God; let's just say that you don't usually hear someone refer to Him in the ways offered in this film. The movie had to be trimmed to avoid an "NC-17," so one will assume that the final result comes pretty close to that rating. We're a long way from DisneyWorld here.

Paramount came late to the DVD party and they have yet to do much to distinguish themselves. The DVD release of South Park: Bigger, Longer and Uncut won't go very far to alter attitudes. The film is presented in its original theatrical aspect ratio of 1.85:1 on this single-sided, single-layered DVD; the image is enhanced for widescreen televisions.

It's rather difficult to really assess the quality of the picture simply because the source material is so crude. Although one would assume that Parker and Stone had a bigger budget for the film than they normally receive for the show, not much of a difference shows up on screen; other than some nice computer-animated effects for scenes in heaven and hell, the film relies on the exact same style and quality of animation that we see on the TV program. To be honest, I think that's a good thing; although the show's animation is terrible, to improve upon it much would be a huge distraction and not really make any sense, especially because some of the series' charm comes from the simple cut and paste look.

Still, because South Park never looks very good, even at its best, it can be tough to evaluate the quality of the film's image. Overall, I thought the DVD offers a fairly accurate representation of the show's look. Everything about it appears very flat and lacks much detail, but that's due to the crudeness of the material. Colors seem decent but plain, and images appear slightly soft. That latter issue is the only one that I don't think was part of the design; I found the picture in the trailers to look a bit sharper and crisper, so the film itself seems unnecessarily fuzzy. It's not a terrible look, though - the difference is quite minor - and the picture looks representative enough to merit a "B."

One area in which the film greatly outshines the TV show is in the audio. SP:BLU offers a pretty good Dolby Digital 5.1 mix. It's not a tremendously vivid mix but it does pretty nicely for itself. The quality of the sound is simply terrific; voices always sound clear and natural (well, except for Kenny, of course), and effects seem very accurate and well-defined. The music appears especially strong, which is important since SP:BLU is really a musical. Dynamic range is great - check out the thumping but clean bass during the brief rap version of "Uncle Fucka" - and it always sound very smooth and lively.

As far as the soundstage goes, it's good but nothing special. The music makes nice use of the front channels and provides an active stereo mix that also offers some filler in the rear. Effects seem fairly lively in the front as well, with some occasional good split surround usage. The rears are most active during the war scenes at the climax and in some of the hell segments, but they're a little more quiet than they probably should be. Still, the quality is very strong and the activity level of the various channels is good enough to rate an "A-."

You know how some people think the coming of the year 2000 will herald the end of the world? Nope, that's not it. I know the apocalypse will occur when Paramount releases an actual special edition DVD. SP:BLU isn't that disc, so we're safe for a little longer. Despite some rumors about potential materials that may have appeared, all we find on this DVD are two theatrical trailers and a teaser trailer. All three are entertaining and look surprisingly good; as I noted earlier, they actually seem crisper than the film's image (though color seems a little more muddled). That's it! Weeeeak!

Despite this hideous paucity of extras, South Park: Bigger, Longer and Uncut is a DVD I'm happy to have in my collection. While it's definitely not for everyone's taste - you might not want to trot it out when the family come to visit - it certainly will satisfy anyone who enjoys rather irreverent and gleefully crude comedy. My recommendation would be stronger if the supplements were there, but it's still a DVD worth owning. (I just hope I can keep from whistling "Uncle Fucka" during my meeting tomorrow...)