To really understand "OC and Stiggs," you need to have read and absorbed the October, 1982 edition of National Lampoon, on which the film is based. It was a bizarre pseudo-history of OC and Stiggs and they raise chaos in Arizona during their summer vacation. John Waters could have done an astonishing job translating this monster to film, but instead they gave it to Robert Altman, who turned the film into a reference-fest about his own movies (Nashville, et.al) and other films like "Apocalypse Now," to the point of mindlessly casting Dennis Hopper as Sponson, the paranoid VietNam vet. it could have been better, but then again, it could easily have slipped into "Bachelor Party" style shallow stupidity. At least the film is inscrutable. Don't try to find it on video... nobody has it. I have a bootleg from a video rental from 1986.
Review of O.C. and Stiggs
