Foodie Film: SAUSAGE PARTY

Seth Rogan, Evan Goldberg & Jonah Hill are some lucky, white, man boys to be able to indulge their sense of humor and create exactly what cracks them up, no holds barred. However, I do wonder if sometime during the 3 years it took to get the animated feature finished, did they ever feel like, I’m tired of this bit now, tell me again why we started this?

You’ve probably heard by now, do not take children to see this movie, I reiterate DO NOT! It’s not one of those movies where the kids will enjoy the visuals and the parents will get the jokes that go over the kids heads. No, it’s pretty raunchy. All the talk of female buns opening up for male hot dogs will not go over kids heads; and even if it does, the f bombs dropped every other sentence, no one can miss.

Yet I’m not condemning the movie, first of all, it’s probably the foodiest, food in film movie I’ve seen to date, and Sausage Party is not all frat boy, stoner humor. It’s balanced with some real themes of religious allegory about the afterlife; and how most people who accept there is a heaven don’t want their beliefs challenged in any way, there’s no room for questioning. This mindset is equated with food in a grocery store – believing once chosen and put into a cart to leave the store, they’ll be going to the great beyond, a heaven of sorts.  When the reality of the situation is revealed by a jar of honey mustard, returned to the shelf, most of the food doesn’t want to accept the truth. Yet it sets in motion an anthropomorphic journey both within the supermarket and inside human homes.

The humans don’t fare too well in this scenario, but the actual villain of the movie is an ornery feminine hygiene product, voiced by Nick Kroll who keeps coming up with food idioms, like “How’d ya like them apples?” and then apples appear saying who us? The movie also makes some sharp riffs as it drifts into parodies of movies and pop culture references. I got a kick out of the non-perishables or the “ancient ones” who started the afterlife myth long ago to ease the minds of the food going to the check out. – Fire Water as an American Indian (Bill Hader) a Box of Grits (Craig Robinson), a gay twinky (Scott Underwood) and a Stephen Hawking character which is pure genius as a wad of gum in a wheelchair.

Upon first leaving the theater I felt a bit shocked and appalled, then later having to remind myself, it’s only food.

T & T’s LAMB (movie bloggers association) Score:3.5 outta 5

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