Belcourt member tickets on sale now! General admission tickets on sale Thu, May 15 at 10:00am.
Part of Weekend Classics: Altman at 100
Based on a series of short stories found in National Lampoon, Robert Altman’s 1987 teen comedy, O.C. AND STIGGS follows two rebellious, prank-loving teens — O.C. and his eccentric best friend Stiggs — as they navigate the absurdities of Reagan-era suburban life by pulling off outlandish pranks and schemes. Their main targets are the Schwab family, a materialistic and dysfunctional family who represent everything the boys despise about yuppie conformity and greed. In typical Altman fashion, he flips the ‘80s teen comedy formula on its head — and delivers a surreal, satirical approach that has a deeper message about greed in the era of Raeganomics as well as the flaws in the American healthcare system.
“O.C. AND STIGGS, made by Robert Altman in 1984, deals with what may be one of the director's least favorite subjects: all-American boys. Mr. Altman's utter lack of sympathy for this film's two schoolboy protagonists…is unmistakable, and it's also liberating, so his satirical side is given unusually free rein…. Its notion of American artificiality runs so deep that the film begins and ends at a man-made surfing beach in the middle of the desert.” —Janet Maslin, New York Times (Mar 18, 1988) “Not only has Altman trampled on most of the traditions of the teen sex comedy, but his movie mounts one of the most sustained assaults on the mythos and values of the ‘80s that any recent American movie has managed.” —Michael Wilmington, Los Angeles Times (Oct 10, 1987) “It's Robert Altman prankishly making one of his most reviled films into an unwitting, half-assed sequel of sorts to one of his most beloved triumphs. It's the grand glory of '70s cinematic ambition crashing helplessly into the soul-sick, mercenary '80s. It's so goddamned crazy it really does work…. As is his nature, he twisted and contorted and perverted his source material until it became the basis for something infinitely more wonderful and relevant: a Robert Altman movie.” —Nathan Rabin, The A.V. Club
