Did you know that Robert Altman made a barely-released John Hughes-style teen misbehavior comedy in 1983? He did, and it’s as weird as you can imagine. With Dennis Hopper, Ray Walston, Cynthia Nixon, and, of course, King Sunny Adé & His African Beats.

This anarchic romp follows a pair of teenage prankster-jackasses as they careen through the most utterly monstrous, mind-roasting summer of their young lives. Adapted from a single issue of National Lampoon, the script had all the makings of a calculated cash grab, greenlit at MGM to capitalize on the wave of raunchy comedies that followed in the wake of ANIMAL HOUSE. In Altman’s hands, however, the material becomes a free-wheeling satire of Reagan’s America, as the titular duo defies the bougie hypocrites calling the shots in their corner of suburbia. Spiritual successors to Hawkeye, Duke, and Trapper John of M*A*S*H, O.C. “Out-of-Control” Ogilvie and Mark Stiggs pull their ultimate prank on the studio suits who thought they were getting another teen-sex comedy. Occasionally ugly and endlessly inspired, America was not ready for it in 1987, and probably isn’t ready for it now. (Nick Quintana)

In 35mm.

REVIEWS

“I found a lot to like about OC AND STIGGS, but more than anything I love Altman’s style: the overlapping dialogue, the purposefully wandering cameras, the jittery zooms, and the long shots that suggest both sociological distance and the perspective of a bemused trickster-God.” – Nathan Rabin, AV Club