Customer Reviews

BASEketball (Widescreen)

5 star:		(107)
4 star:		(26)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(14)

 

 

The movie was funny at times. The DVD is horrible. There is nothing "extra" about it. The VHS version has more "extras" than the DVD.

Huh?

Avoid this like the plague.

A lot of people may not know it, but BASEketball is a truly classic comedy. Don't let the high-minded among us (and there are a lot of Parker-Stone haters out there) tell you any different. Not only is this film hilarious, it - like virtually everything Trey Parker and Matt Stone do - has a lot to say in a surprisingly incisive way; those who see only puerile humor and grossness in this film are not watching it closely. The opening of the film is brilliant, with its hilarious spoofing of modern showmanship and its lament for the death of tradition in sports. Nobody seems to play for the love of the game anymore - it's all about money and fame. Ever since he caught Reggie Jackson's historic third home run in that crucial game of the 1977 World Series, Joe Cooper (Trey Parker) has dreamed of becoming a sports star. Unfortunately, he and his pal Doug Remer (Matt Stone) are basically losers who have never grown up - but all that changes when their home-grown game of BASEketball (basketball without all that running, played with baseball rules) grows from a neighborhood obsession to the new national past-time. Professional BASEketball is sports as it was meant to be - the rules preclude the moving of teams from one city to another, free agency and the trading of players are not allowed, and every single athlete, even Squeak (Dian Bachar), gets paid the same amount - and it's a sport than anyone can participate in since it requires almost no athletic skills. Of course, some people want to change those rules so they can make millions off of the new national obsession. When the founder of the league and owner of the Milwaukee Beers dies, it's up to Coop to preserve the integrity of the game - and he will have to lead the Beers to the Denslow Cup championship in order to do it.

I personally invented the game of baseyball as a kid, but that sport never seemed to catch on. Maybe I should have incorporated a form of defense along the lines of BASEketball's- the Psyche Out. When a player is ready to shoot the ball, you can do almost anything in order to psyche him out - and the guys come up with some incredibly funny defensive plays as this movie progresses. And the league itself comes stocked with buckets full of laughs in and of itself - what with teams such as the Roswell Aliens, Miami Dealers, New Jersey Informants, L.A. Riots, and San Francisco Ferries. Each team's cheerleaders are also a sight to behold, as is the wild pageantry that surrounds each game - what other sport gives you Dozen Egg Night and Free Range Chicken Night? Tons of professional sportscasters make cameo appearances to talk about the sport - Jim Lampley, Dan Patrick, Kenny Mayne, Bob Costas, Al Michaels, Tim McCarver, Pat O'Brien. The film's cameos don't stop there, though. The only thing more amazing than the number of recognizable faces that turn up here - including Robert Stack, Dale Earnhardt, Reggie Jackson, Ernest Borgnine, Kato Kaelin, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, and Victoria Silvstedt (not to mention the future voices of Mr. Garrison and Eric Cartman) - are the crazy things they got most of these guys to say. I guarantee you've never seen a segment of Unsolved Mysteries like the one featured here.

Can the sport of BASEketball survive the onslaught of commercialization brought to bear upon it by Dallas Felons owner Baxter Cain (Robert Vaughn)? Remer falls prey to the glories of money and fame (taking it to ridiculous extremes), and the Beers team falls apart as Coop and Remer clash over tradition vs. money - and over the affections of Jenna Reed (Yasmine Bleeth). And what of young Joey and the other sick kids Jenna cares for? And will the Beers ever win that elusive Denslow Cup?

I love BASEketball. This is a film you can watch over and over again, always discovering even more subtle jokes and gags lurking in the background. As for Parker and Stone, they make for a great team in front of the cameras; Parker in particular is really quite a good actor. (I might also mention the fact that Parker's and Stone's band D.V.D.A. contributes a memorable song to the soundtrack - and, no, I can't tell you what the band's initials stand for - not here, anyway). Sure, the humor is a little on the crude side at times, and some people just won't get it, but this movie is absolutely hilarious and a cult classic for many of us. South Park fans should definitely enjoy the oddball humor of BASEketball. If you ask me, it's one of the funniest movies ever made.

i love this movie i've seen it atleast 8 times in 2005 i bought the dvd hilarious.the quotes. the special features all great. im also a big fan of orgazmo, southpark the movie, team america. and just south park. and just how they had rbf in there was awsome

I'm a big fan of South Park and this dvd is one of my favourites. When I first saw it , i was like oh cool a movie with the guys that made south park. Then I saw Reel Big Fish in the movie (wich are my favourite band) So i was really happily surprised plus it has the "Take on me" video by RBF Kick ass dvd

Disgusting? Check. Juvenile? Check. Sadistic? Check. BASEketball is all these things, but it is also so much more, thanks to the Zucker (Airplane, Top Secret!, Naked Gun) touch.

Though it stars Matt Stone and Trey Parker, BASEketball doesn't really resemble South Park so much as Zucker's other straight-faced screwball comedies, and it's obvious these two fit into that rubric perfectly. It is not merely that Matt Stone puts a sex toy in his mouth, it is the zeal with which he attacks it that makes the scene a gut-buster. Zucker supposedly cast the duo before South Park became such a phenomenon, and it's a gamble that paid off artistically.

Not everyone's gonna like this movie. Some won't get it, a few more might be really turned off by a guy-on-guy kiss near the movie's climax, and the rest just won't find it funny for whatever reason. For everyone else, there's no shame in howling with laughter.

Okay, so I'm not a prepubescent boy. I'm a nearly thirty-year-old woman who was made to watch this ridiculous film quite against her will... And, damn it if I nearly peed my pants with laughter!

However, I do not recommend this to anyone who dislikes bathroom humor on principle. Though each joke is well-executed, each corny, melodramatic quip delivered with deliberately dewy-eyed sincerity, it is unapologetically juvenile, raunchy, and pretends to have no amount of redeeming value. But even its lack of values came as a surprise to me, for I can't help but give it more credit than it seems to give itself for having very strong underlying themes of maintaining integrity (believe it or not), and of course, friendship.

Bottom line - if you're looking for good clean fun, this is not for you; but if you're feeling a little off-color, goofy and in the mood for a guilty pleasure, this is a film that, at the least, will make you laugh in spite of yourself.

This is one of my favourite movies of all time, no doubt! Matt and Trey have been my heroes since I was ten years old (I was a very demented 10 year old). It's hilarious and strongly reccomended to anyone fond of...well, laughing! And if you like watching BASEketball, try and get together with some friends and play it.

BASEketball is a surprisingly clever comedy that works on many different levels. While it parodies feel-good sports movies it also posts a savage social commentary on the commercialization of American sports and American life in general. The movie stars South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone, however it wasn't written by them, so fans of South Park and Orgazmo may find the movie a little tame. However, with David Zucker (of "Airplane!" fame) at the helm, the movie skips along merrily, with plenty of sight gags, running jokes, and one-liners. I also think it's prudish to call this a "gross-out" comedy - there's nothing on a par with the "frank and beans" scene in "...Mary" for the squeamish to avoid. Instead most of the humor revolves around the male bonding displayed by Trey, Matt and diminutive co-star Dian Bachar. The rituals of teasing, name-calling and hazing have rarely been portrayed as lovingly on screen before...
Numerous guest star appearances begin to drag toward the end of the film, but the acute social satire never lets up, and in the end the movie has a saccharine, feel-good flavor. In fact, the only reason this picked up an idiotic R rating must've been the habitual usage of the f-word. Otherwise there's no sex, no nudity, no violence and frankly the language wouldn't really shock an 8 yr old these days. But these are the censored times we live in...
Anyway, BASEketball is great, it zips along merrily, you have to pay close attention to get some of the more subtle gags and the pace slacks toward the end, but all in all I think you'll watch it enough to warrant buying over renting.

The DVD contains a featurette in which director David Zucker states that he originally cut BASEketball at 2 hours! The movie is maybe an hour and a half, now, so...where are these deleted scenes? Where's the inebriated commentary (a la Cannibal! and Orgazmo)? Where's ANYTHING! Collector's Edition reissue, and 200 ccs of sodium penethol, stat!

This is a terrific story of two friends and their struggle as they go from losers to athletes on the national level within a few years. This movie made me laugh, it made me cry, and it made me not hate Ernest Borgnine as much. This may not be Trey & Matt's best movie, but it definately is a heart-warming and compelling tragic story or whatever.