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I haven't seen many movies
in "the movies" this year, due
to this, that, and the always-present other.
There was INDEPENDENCE
DAY (overrated, overblown, no script
other than what they stole from STAR WARS),
THE CABLE GUY (darkly hysterical), ESCAPE
FROM NY-- I mean LA (a virtual remake of
a superior flick), THE LONG KISS GOODNIGHT
(a return to violent form for Renny Harlin
in the year's mo
st
sinister holiday flick), and THE FUNERAL
(Abel Ferrara putting the "fun"
back in "funeral").
It may have been nine-f'ing-degrees
out last night, but nothing would stop me
from a holiday datewith my favorite cartoon
soulmates. B&B, Beaver and Buff-cote,
Travis and Bob...call 'em what you will,
but Beavis and Butt-head have gotten the
last laugh. They're like movie stars...or
somethin'.
Who could have dreampt that
a cartoon about social misfits sitting on
the couch, watching videos and telling fart
jokes would become a major motion picture
event. Released the weekend before Christmas.
By a big studio. Life, as they say, doesn't
get any better than this.
Crammed into Bloomfield's
small, but homey, Plaza Theater, we settled
in with a group that included metal heads,
comic geeks, children and their parents,
a handful of doctors, one unruly drunk,
and me. (The unruly drunk was later asked
to leave after failing to produce a ticket
stub. That portion of the film was a tad
fuzzy since I was looking for a place to
duck in case the bullets started to fly.
Wow! It was just like being at the Budco
Midtown in the late 1980s all over again!)
My only reservation going
in was if Mike Judge would be able to stretch
small-screen cartoon skethches into a coherent
big-screen story. Rest assured, he carries
it off admirably. The "story,"
as it were, has Our Boys searching for their
tv from Las Vegas to Washington, DC, all
the while being mistaken for hitmen, picking
their noses, disparaging national monuments
(I can never visit Yellowstone thanks to
Butt-Head's observations), hitting on chicks
(from sterwardesses to the First Teenager),
hallucinating, and (perhaps) meeting the
sperm donors that sired these banes of Principal
McVicker.
Like many movies these days,
the story drags a tad in the middle, inevitable
considering the high-powered comedy that
launches the first third of the flick. But,
in true B&B fashion, they rise to the
task (I said "rise") and deliver
an ending worthy of their best MTV sketches.
[Unfortunately, the laserdisc rumored to
include the scenes edited for the PG-13
rating, as well as Judge's alternate endings
was just that...a rumor.]
Missing in action --
unfortunately -- are Todd, Stewart, and
my favs, Lolita and Tanqueray. Then again,
they may have been holding out till the
sequel.
