My prince of Dogtown

 

The Prince and the Pauper (1990)

Longing for freedom from his royal responsibilities, a prince switches places with a peasant doppelgänger.

Mark Twain’s novel satirizes the rigid English class system during the Elizabethan period. As expected, this Disney short significantly dilutes the satirical elements and, to increase dramatic tension, adds Pete as an evil palace guard using the illness of the king to his own nefarious ends.

This attempt to merge Twain’s razor-sharp observations with Disney sensibilities doesn’t work. It’s cute because it contains our favorite heroes, but nothing else.

 

 

My Girl 2 (1994)

When Thomas J (Macaulay Culkin) died in the original My Girl (1991), Vada (Anna Chlumsky) learned valuable lessons about life and love. It’s a sweet movie about friendship, grief, and letting go without forgetting.

In the sequel, Vada’s stepmother, Shelley (Jamie Lee Curtis) convinces her dad, Harry (Dan Aykroyd) to let her go to LA to research her deceased mother.

One might think Vada could easily apply the lessons she learned when her best friend / soul mate died towards letting go of a mother who died when she was born, but sadly this is not the case, and we’re left with this unnecessary and putrid sequel.

Dan Aykroyd’s early SNL career seemed anarchic, chaotic, and slightly dangerous, but post-Ghostbusters (1984), it’s mostly consisted of unspectacular work in safely middlebrow films.

Happily, Anna Chlumsky wasn’t permanently soured on the profession after this and returned to acting as an adult as the acerbic Amy on Veep.

 

 

Lords of Dogtown (2005)

Stacy Peralta, Jay Adams, and Tony Alva initially focused on surfing, but when a drought reduced the surf at their favorite pier and forced home owners to drain their pools, the boys skated in the waterless pools to pass the time.

The tricks and skills they developed in those pools led to an explosion of skating culture in the 1980s, but as their fame grew, the boys drifted apart and became professional rivals.

The muted, washed out color and jerky camera movement transforms this biopic of the famed skaters into the origin of grunge.

Catherine Hardwicke later directed the first film in the far more feminine Twilight series. It’s hard to imagine anyone directing two more different films.

The cast is excellent, but the film is a disappointment. It meanders too much and, after a while, all of the similarly dressed skaters blend together.

The story of the Z Boys would make a great documentary, but this didn’t work as a traditional narrative film.

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