Sausage Party

Greg Tiernan and Conrad Vernon’s brilliant animated film Sausage Party takes the unrelenting vulgarity and sex and drug obsession that Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg peddle (Superbad, Pineapple Express) and turn them into a phantasmagoria of talking and dancing grocery store items that are awaiting the rapture of being purchased for Red, White and Blue Day (the Fourth of July) – for that is the reward the gods (humans) have planned for them. When a bottle of honey mustard is purchased by mistake and returned, he brings word (between his mad ravings from PTSD) that no good awaits the franks, buns, veggies and condiments on the other side of those glass doors. Thus begins a quest for the Truth, and therein lies the film’s brilliance. While titillating viewers with naughty talk by comestibles, the filmmakers are also addressing gender roles, sexual repression, religious intolerance and ethnic persecution. Not as odd a mixture as it might appear. The movie will probably require multiple viewings.  Not because the commentary is so dense. Rather, it is because the gags are so rapid-fire that you’ll miss half of them because of your howling laughter.