O.C. and Stiggs (1985)

Robert Altman presents teen angst with a twist. Based on characters from National Lampoon Magazine O.C. and Stiggs aren't your average unhappy teenagers. They not only despise their suburban surroundings they plot against it. They seek revenge against the middle class Schwab family who embody all they detest: middle class. In a film armed with vicious satire and hilarious surprises suburbia will never be the same.System Requirements: Running Time 110 MinFormat: DVD MOVIE Genre: COMEDY Rating: R UPC: 027616125392 Manufacturer No: 12539 Product Description

Can't believe this was Altman

Nashville, Come back to the five and dime, The Player, MASH How could the man behind those be behind this?

A vapid, obnoxious, exploitative teen movie without any of the charms of the genre.

Poorly transferred too. I watched it through to the end in disbelief and wasted 90 odd minutes of my life.

Avoid like the plague!!! August 14, 2008

Poor transfer, weak movie

It's a little shocking to see that studios are still releasing non-anamorphic transfers of widescreen movies this late in the game. But I suppose with this movie, it was non-anamorphic or nothing at all, since this doesn't seem like a DVD that's likely to sell millions of copies. I assume that the transfer comes from an earlier laserdisc version or something.

At any rate, it's nice to be able to see Altman's full widescreen images, even in a poor transfer, but the truth is that this is probably his worst movie. He takes the unredeemable sociopathic dirtbags from the original National Lampoon stories and tries to transform them into the suburban 80s version of Hawkeye and Trapper John. The original O.C. & Stiggs didn't care whether Schwab had cancelled someone's insurance unfairly; they just hated him because he had a funny name.

The transformation of O.C. & Stiggs into "heroes" severely waters-down the original stories, whereas the weakness of the original material gives Altman virtually nothing to work with. We're left with a sorry mish-mash of aborted social commentary and truly awful attempts at "zany" humor (e.g. "boing" sound effects whenever someone gets stuck by a cactus, or the musical spoof of the "Pink Panther Theme" when the boys are sneaking into Schwab's back yard).

This gets one extra star because even the worst of Altman's work is worth a look to fans, but this is truly one of the most misbegotten movies that director ever made. August 9, 2007

Fun Unknown Altman

Mostly unknown Altman that is a whole lot of fun, featuring a great Dennis Hopper working off of his Apocalypse Now character. January 9, 2007

Altman was brave, and never got the credit.

This is a freakin' funny film. If you have even half a sense of humor, see it. January 9, 2007

I will leave it to the critics to comment on the film itself.

All I want to say is that I can barely believe that no one has
commented on the atrocious transfer on the DVD. It looks like
a bad video on a TV screen glimpsed through a dirty window. It
is not even "barely watchable" - it is utterly unwatchable.

This may not be one of Altman's best, but surely it deserves
better treatment than this, if only for those of us who want
to be able to view this auteur's complete body of work. Whoever
produced this DVD ought to be ashamed of themselves.

I have bought both the US and UK disks in the hope that one
of them might be better than the other. No such luck - they
are both the same crappy junk. Money down the drain.

We've been had. And the thought of somebody actually making
money off selling this inferior product is distressing. March 13, 2006

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