“BASEketball” (1998) heads to Cinema Arts Centre in Huntington for one night only on Saturday, September 27th at 9:30 p.m. Tickets are $16 for the public and $10 for members. Visit cinemaartscenter.org for more details.
Back before Trey Parker and Matt Stone delivered Broadway’s Tony Award-winning musical satire “The Book of Mormon,” they jumped at the chance to act for “Airplane!” writer-director David Zucker—fearing “South Park” would be controversialized into a one-and-done entity.
Fast-forward over a quarter-century later: “South Park” is the absolute ire of the Head of State, making it as relevant today as POTUS contends it isn’t.
Renewed eyeballs are on Zucker and his zany collective’s classic slapstick works in the wake of Liam Neeson’s “The Naked Gun” reboot running like a Bronco down the LA freeway into worldwide theaters this week.
Ergo, “BASEketball,” step on up, collect your flowers and take a bow. It’s far ahead of its time in its ruthless riffing upon the rampant overcommercialization of pure-at-heart pastimes.
The underrated sports lampoon predicted a priorities-lollygagged landscape; one wherein opportunities to become Mr. Moneybags have corrupted societally made-jaded athletes’ and their foremost benefactors’ sense for the virtue of gainfully pursuing victory.
As detailed in Cinema Arts Centre’s “BASEketball” promotion: “Trey Parker and Matt Stone, the creators of ‘South Park,’ star as two guys who invent a game in their driveway that quickly becomes a national obsession and catapults them into the spotlight. ‘BASEketball's a hilarious comedy about babes, brews and being number one.”
Though not a slam-dunk at the box office, “BASEketball’s” home video performance—coupled with “South Park” becoming one of those infinite juggernauts of the crude humor animated field—solidified Parker and Stone as household names with staying power.
The baseball-basketball fusion these manchildren improvise into existence at a keg party they weren’t invited to is game Zucker and his entourage actually concocted themselves once upon a time. Now, everyone who’s ever shot baskets with their buds has likely at some point dabbled in this diamondized alternative to the challenge-based H-O-R-S-E exhibition.
Free stickers and mix CDS will be given away to earlybird arrivals at the September 27th showing.
The film features a supporting cast that includes Yasmine Bleeth, Jenny McCarthy, Robert Vaughn and Ernest Borgnine, as well as celebrity cameos by Reggie Jackson, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Dale Earnhardt, Al Michaels, Bob Costas, Dan Patrick and Kenny Mayne.
It runs 103 minutes, and is rated R for raunchy.
...really? You're going to correct us and say the 'R' rating stands for "Restricted?" Thanks, narc.
Restrict this.