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Posts Tagged ‘Bug Hall’

The Little Rascals (plus Suburbia [1983])

Monday, August 12th, 2024

August 5th, 1994

My friends, I hope you know me well enough to understand that I’m being sincere here, I’m not trying to show off with a wild take. The truth is I recently watched and enjoyed the movie THE LITTLE RASCALS. It kind of rules.

This was not an outcome I expected, or even considered. For the 30 years this movie has existed I’ve scoffed at it, assumed it was crap. Yes, it comes from director Penelope Spheeris, she of excellent punk rock documentaries. But I’m gonna have to pull out the Shaquille O’Neal “I wasn’t familiar with your game” quote here. I wasn’t showing the proper respect. I had some idea she lost it after WAYNE’S WORLD, because I thought BLACK SHEEP was kinda cheesy and all the rest seemed like things I wouldn’t like. I assumed this was some pablum for kids from an era where pablum for kids was extra bad. (See: 3 NINJAS KICK BACK.)

But here I am trying to watch most of the major movies of summer ’94, it was about the only situation where I was gonna give THE LITTLE RASCALS a shot, and almost immediately I realized I was probly gonna like it. It’s silly, it’s for kids, it might creep some people out by having children woo each other like they’re Popeye and Olive. But it made me laugh a whole bunch, it’s daring in the way it straight up does old Hal Roach shit and doesn’t try to conform to ‘90s expectations, it actually makes sense as part of the Spheeris filmography, and (most surprising to me) it’s artfully crafted. I guess mostly in the way that she could piece together a sensible movie with 95% of the cast being 5-7 year old non-actors, but also it’s a great looking movie! Credit to the transfer, which has a good level of film grain. I did not expect to watch THE LITTLE RASCALS 1994 and think “They don’t make ‘em like this anymore!” But here we are.

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The Munsters’ Scary Little Christmas

Thursday, December 22nd, 2022

I really enjoyed Rob Zombie’s love letter to THE MUNSTERS earlier this year, and it even got me to check out the o.g. Munsters movie MUNSTER GO HOME!. But Zombie’s movie did not go over well with or cause much of a splash among the general public, and now there’s this Netflix show Wednesday, based on Munsters rival The Addams Family, which is actually a huge streaming hit (and which I have to admit I like even more than THE MUNSTERS). So it kinda looks like a Photon Warrior to Lazer Tag situation for ol’ Herman and Lily. Or Gobots to Transformers. Or IRON EAGLE to TOP GUN.

Still, I am making this The Year of the Munsters by watching a Munsters Christmas special as part of my holiday festivities. THE MUNSTERS’ SCARY LITTLE CHRISTMAS (not to be confused with the weird New Zealand Christmas special THE MONSTER’S CHRISTMAS) is a 1996 Fox TV movie. The Munsters are entirely recast from the 1995 Fox movie HERE COME THE MUNSTERS, but they carried over an uptight neighbor character named Edna Dimwitty, played by Mary Woronov (DEATH RACE 2000), so I guess they’re connected. (read the rest of this shit…)