Movie Shorts: Satan's holding a satire fest

South Park: Bigger, Longer and Uncut

Unless you're a pro-moralist, South Park is a show that's hard to dislike. Take the creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone up to the notch on the big screen and you'll have a usual episode of the show. The difference is as the title states is that's longer with 71 minutes in length, and it's more obscene. The latter is the whole point of the movie where the town of South Park comes into a state of emergency when Kyle, Catman, Stan and Kenny all go to see the Terrence and Phillip movie Asses of Fire through which they imitate them by speaking the phoney, swearing language they say. Kyle's mom leads a coalition of concerned parents to not only kill Terrence and Phillip, but also to go to war at Canada. At many times, Parker and Stone uses their usual shock and toilet humour in here and unlike many other comedies which uses the same kind of humor, it works. It's interesting to see that South Park ends up being a musical where it's both hilarious and catchy. It satires society's prudeness and over-tolerance (the town trying to rip Terrence and Phillip), freedom of speech and also the fact that society wants us to conform especially with the controls of the media. The relationship between Satan and Saddam Hussein is however at times grim and tedious with Hussein often pulling gay jokes. But still. This is a hilarious comedy even the fain of hear will enjoy.

B+ (8.4)

A Clockwork Orange

Stanley Kubrick is well known for taking risks in cinematic history. He casted a young girl to play a promiscious tween in Lolita and used little dialogue in the science fiction flick 2001: A Space Oddysey. With satire, he made Dr. Strangelove where it was released in the beginning of the Cold War. Here's a Kubrick film that does both risk and satire. A Clockwork Orange does both as it is set in a distant future (just like 2001) in London where Alex Delarge, a teenager leads a youth gang called the Droogs where they go haywire in the evenings and rape women. When Delarge attempts to rob a woman (apparently she's the Minister for Interior) she accidently murdered her and in the process he gets arrested, sent to jail and then he becomes part of a government experient where they treat criminals to act like normal human citizens and that's where his life changes forever. Beautifully directed and written by Kubrick, the dynamic approach and character study of Alex is played brilliantly by Malcolm Mcdowell, who's a sociopath to his world with a love of Beethoven and it's hard to see Alex make people suffer from his behaviour and suffer by the same people he victimised. It's a condescending look of the future especially when at the 60s people were optimistic of a happy life out there and also to test the free will of the ultraviolent Alex. A Clockwork Orange is anarchic but at the same time tragic by the end

A+ (10.0)