Inverted Show is my favourite Our Gang short. It has everything that I recall fondly: rowdy fellowship and kids conspiring against adults resulting in innocent mischief. Although the series had already been around a dozen years, for me the master cast was the Spanky, Buckwheat,...
The inhabitants of an institution in a remote country rebel against their keepers. Their acts of rebellion are by turns humorous, boring and alarming. An allegory on the problematic nature of fully liberating the human spirit, as both commendable and disturbing elements of our nature come forward. The film shows how justifiable revolt may be empowering, but may also turn to chaos and depravity. The allegory is developed in part by the fact that the film is cast entirely with dwarfs
Chicken Out is important to me. He seeks out situations that have recoil, he takes chances and makes honest choices. His being is broken, and that means the choices and the power of the situations affect me. But sometimes he works with a situation that doesn’t...
It's Christmastime, and the Griswolds are preparing for a family seasonal celebration. But things never run smoothly for Clark, his wife Ellen, and their two kids. Clark's continual bad luck is worsened by his obnoxious family guests, but he manages to keep going, knowing that his Christmas bonus is due soon.
Shoot Me When I’m Dead Hughes. What a sad case: is it drugs? He started his career with huge promise: he made films that showed he knew how to dramatise the teenage world without using teenage bluntness. These were sensitive little things that impressed not by...
An intimate family portrait of four hapless but resilient women and the bittersweet lessons they learn in keeping up with the hectic demands of their individual neuroses. Each of the women seeks redemption in her own haphazard way, but whatever salvation they find is illusory and short-lived.
Parts does this to us all, and I am saddened by it. Drama has a simple legacy: Tragedy where the mechanics of the story are in the world of the story, and Comedy where the mechanics are in the world of the audience. One...
After a one-night stand a couple is faced with the terrifying possibility of what they really want.
Freckles, Neck slight project has nothing to recommend it, except wonder at its reason for being. But that is enough for me. See, the reason behind such a project is that the sexual charm of a woman — a certain woman — is an accelerating capture....
A charming thief and a band of unlikely adventurers undertake an epic heist to retrieve a lost relic, but things go dangerously awry when they run afoul of the wrong people.
Little Men story is frippery. The tone light, but not as light as advertised. Action and effects are as expected and no more. What was remarkable to this viewer were a few of the character backstories. Our hero’s story was ordinary. A petty theft got his wife...
With high school a distant memory, Jim and Michelle are getting married — and in a hurry, since Jim's grandmother is sick and wants to see him walk down the aisle — prompting Stifler to throw the ultimate bachelor party. And Jim's dad is reliable as ever, doling out advice no one wants to hear.
A Franchise Matures There are few things more interesting than the evolutionary forces of the market that push and pull something to ensure survival. I'm a strong believer in how market forces shape film, even our most exotic art films. This isn't art, of course,...
David defaces his sister's doll. In the fight that follows Rebecca falls and hits her head. When she comes to, she discovers that she has telekinetic powers, and uses them to take revenge on her brother David.
Good kids know what is really fun? Choose a director you like, then trace the ideas you like about him back through two paths: the films by others that surely influenced him, and also back through his own earlier work. I like Rodriguez. I do. I...
Slacker duo Beavis and Butt-Head wake to discover their TV has been stolen. Their search for a new one takes them on a clueless adventure across America, during which they manage to accidentally become America's most wanted.
Missed Baywatch constantly amazed at how quickly some fresh, edgy cinematic ideas go stale. This was strange enough it its time to be noticed: the placement of the narrative stance within the sixth grade. Having played its small role in advancing the scope of narrative irony,...
A Broadway artiste turns a faded film star's comeback vehicle into an artsy flop.
42nd Street in the Rain colour musical film is a strange beast. Hollywood explored many of its possibilities. And people did buy lots of tickets. But until very recently, musicals were all but dead. That’s because they were never able to create a self sustaining...