Film Reviews

SAUSAGE PARTY

By • Aug 15th, 2016 •

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Forget famous atheists Stephen Hawking, Richard Dawkins and Bill Maher. SAUSAGE PARTY is the movement’s Mein Kampf.

I was shocked at the strong anti-religion manifesto. Would it be noticed or buried by the extreme vulgarity and absurd silliness? The underlining message is easily ignored because SAUSAGE PARTY is truly hilarious and very naughty.

While Dakota Johnson had to appear topless and near nude in FIFTY SHADES OF GREY, her co-star Jamie Dornan kept his privates to himself. Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg showed us what a hard R looks like. Now that Rogen, Goldberg, Jonah Hill, Kyle Hunter and Ariel Shaffir have changed the entire field of animation away from it being the sole domain for children’s films, let’s see them break another taboo in a Hollywood film – the erect penis.

Directed by Conrad Vernon and Greg Tiernan, the main character is Frank (Rogen), a sausage living in a Shopwell supermarket. Frank is sweet on Brenda (Kristen Wiig) a sexy bun in a pack of six. Frank also lives stuck with a group of other sausages. Their dream – no, their life’s goal – is to be chosen by the Gods to be taken to the Great Beyond.

By “Gods” they mean the shoppers.

I wonder what my two cats – Loki and Nero – think when we put on shoes and go through that forbidden door (leading to the garage). Are we ever coming back? What the hell is out there? How can they get outside? They don’t think about food or comfort. They want to go outside. Something is definitely there.

Same thing with the “groceries” that fill up Shopwell’s shelves. And with a big celebration day coming up, The Fourth of July, the most important thing is to be chosen to go out those big doors. Its shiny and bright out there. It looks just like our Heaven!

Funny we also don’t know what happens when we die. We definitely have been told we go someplace. Our Great Beyond has a lot of rules for admission. We must get noticed for our good works. We want a seat in the front.

Shopwell is the route to the Great Beyond. Every morning the entire stock of food stuff sings a lively song celebrating how wonderful it would be to be chosen.

Then something unthinkable happens!

One of the Gods returns a jar of Honey Mustard (Danny McBride). Mr. Honey Mustard has been to the Great Beyond and has come back! The God that picked him made a mistake and brought him back.

Mr. Honey Mustard: “The horror… the horror… I’ve seen horrors… horrors that you’ve seen. It’s impossible for words to describe what is necessary to those who do not know what horror means. Horror… Horror has a face… and you must make a friend of horror. I remember when I was with Special Forces…”

Yes, Honey Mustard was Kurtz’s favorite.

Frank now knows that whatever is out there he wants to save himself and Brenda from it.

Is it racist to identify sauerkraut as a hitlerian figure? Is there Swedish sauerkraut? Woody Allen has made a rich career identifying himself as a nervous, fearful Jew. Seth & Company pay tribute to him by using his persona to represent Sammy (Edward Norton), a bagel. Instead of pairing Mr. Bagel with a Mr. Lox, his bickering companion happens to be Mr. Lavash (David Krumholtz) a Middle Eastern staple. They bicker about politics, have sex and start the first ever LGBTQF group. (The “F” is for Foodstuff.)

Every crisis needs a villain and here at Shopwell, it’s Mr. Douche (Nick Kroll).

There are all kinds of sex – the weird, the imagined, the impossible and the highly improbable. Whatever flack the team gets for making Teresa (Salma Hayek) a feisty, seductress of Brenda, doesn’t everyone love the cheap thrill of eating a taco? If tacos are not an unmistakable representation of Mexico, should the guys have used Poland instead? Actually, they could have. I found recipes for Taco Polaco (Polish Taco). (There is also an Urban Dictionary for Polish Taco that somehow Seth & Company missed. Maybe they are saving this obscene sex act for Sausage Party 2, The X Rated Sequel.)

Rogen said SAUSAGE PARTY was an idea that has taken ten years to realize. Not only ten years of notes, but five writers, two directors, and a character for everyone in Rogen’s Universe of Friends – except James Franco.

SAUSAGE PARTY breaks all the rules and bravo to the money men who went along with the concept and kept their eyes closed.

Will Disney and Pixar follow suit? There’s a new market out there.

Member of Las Vegas Film Critics Society: www.lvfcs.org/.

Victoria Alexander lives in Las Vegas, Nevada and answers every email at victoria.alexander.lv@gmail.com.

 

 

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