Mischievous Children

Overboard

A bored super-rich woman falls off her yacht and into the life of a carpenter with four children in need of attention.
Genre: Feature Film-Comedy
Rating: PG
Release Date: 30-JUL-2002
Media Type: DVD

Real-life couple Kurt Russell and Goldie Hawn star in this enjoyable 1987 comedy by Garry Marshall (Pretty Woman) about an imperious heiress (Hawn) who loses her memory after a boating accident and is identified as the wife of a handyman (Russell). Russell's character brings her "home" to his messy house and unruly kids, and the laughs follow as the aristocratic Hawn tries fitting in. Marshall delivers the comic goods, the leads are entertaining (Russell needs to do more comedy), and the supporting cast is made up of happily familiar faces, including Roddy McDowall, Edward Herrmann, and Marshall favorite Hector Elizondo in an unbilled bit. --Tom Keogh

The Parent Trap (Special Edition)

If you were a kid in the early 1960s, then you saw The Parent Trap with Hayley Mills--it's as simple as that. Now Disney has pulled the beloved comedy--about a pair of twins who meet for the first time at summer camp and vow to reunite their long-divorced parents--out of the mothballs and remade it with a decidedly '90s feel. This time, the twins act is performed by newcomer Lindsay Lohan, who plays both Hallie and Annie, who each live with one of their parents (Dennis Quaid and Natasha Richardson). Adversaries when they first meet at camp, Hallie and Annie become, well, sisters when they figure out that they are siblings. The comedy springs from their efforts to sabotage Dad's impending marriage to the gold-digging Elaine Hendrix, while reintroducing Dad to Mom. Quaid has a nice, loosey-goosey way with slapstick, as does Richardson, who plays a very funny drunk scene. --Marshall Fine

What makes the Special Edition of THE PARENT TRAP so cool isn't just that you get to enjoy Lindsay Lohan's amazing theatrical debut, but that's it's filled with bonus materials you've never seen before. Hallie Parker, a hip Californian, and Annie James, a proper London miss (both played by Lohan) are identical twins who don't even know each other exists -- until they accidentally meet at summer camp. Now they're up to their freckles in schemes and dreams to switch places, get their parents (Dennis Quaid and Natasha Richardson) back together, and have the family they've always wished for!

Adventures in Babysitting

A boring evening of babysitting turns into high adventure when a babysitter and her three charges set out to rescue her friend from the downtown Chicago bus station.
Genre: Feature Film-Comedy
Rating: PG13
Release Date: 1-MAR-2005
Media Type: DVD

Way before she grabbed an Oscar nomination for her searing performance as a world-weary prostitute in Leaving Las Vegas, Elisabeth Shue was known as one of the squeaky-clean actresses of the '80s. Having made a splash in The Karate Kid and the '60s-nostalgia TV series Call to Glory, Shue cemented her good-girl reputation with the charming but badly titled Adventures in Babysitting. Set in the John Hughes-style suburbs of Chicago, the titular adventures follow babysitter Chris (Shue), who agrees to watch the Anderson kids (Keith Coogan and Maia Brewton) when her boyfriend cancels their anniversary date. All is quiet on the home front until Chris is called upon to rescue her best friend (Penelope Ann Miller, also doing good-girl duty) from the seedy downtown bus station. She can't leave the kids, and she can't leave her friend alone in the big bad city, so she packs everyone in the station wagon and heads into Chicago. Screwball craziness begins as they encounter car thieves, knife-wielding gangs, gun-toting truck drivers, and, worst of all, Chris's duplicitous boyfriend. It's hardly mature entertainment, but Shue makes it work; when she wins over the audience at a blues club with her improv singing, you'll be won over, too. In his directorial debut, Chris Columbus (who later went on to helm the sap-fests Mrs. Doubtfire and Home Alone) gently skewers the suburbia white-bread mindset of the main characters, and plays up the comedy over the schmaltz with a subtlety of which he now seems incapable; the near romance between Shue and Coogan is played lightly and adorably. Look for brief appearances by art-house faves Lolita Davidovich as a college party girl and Vincent D'Onofrio as an unlikely savior. --Mark Englehart

Heavyweights

A teenager is sent to a summer fat camp and teams up with the other campers to overthrow the dictatorial camp director.
Genre: Feature Film-Comedy
Rating: PG
Release Date: 7-FEB-2006
Media Type: DVD

Hocus Pocus

You're in for a devil of a time when three outlandishly wild witches -- Bette Midler (BEACHES BIG BUSINESS) Sarah Jessica Parker (HONEYMOON IN VEGAS) and Kathy Najimy (SISTER ACT) -- return from 17th-century Salem after they're accidentally conjured up by some unsuspecting pranksters! It's a night full of zany fun and comic chaos once the tricky 300-year-old trio sets out to cast a spell on the town and reclaim their youth -- but first they must get their act together and outwit three kids and a talking cat! Loaded with bewitching laughs HOCUS POCUS is an outrageously wild comedy that's sure to entertain everyone!Bonus Features Producer David Kirschner came up with the idea for the movie one night while he and his young daughter were sitting outside and his neighbor's black cat strayed by. Kirschner began to unspool a narrative of how the cat was once a boy who was changed into a feline 300 years ago by three witches.Actress Kathy Najimy described her character Mary as "Eddie Haskell as a witch" referring to the character on the classic TV series "Leave It To Beaver." "She sucks up to Winifred [Bette Midler's character] every chance she gets. She wants to be part of the power club and Winifred's got the power." To create the costumes designer Mary Vogt read many historical books about Salem Massachusetts. "I even read diaries of women who were hanged as witches" she says.System Requirements: Runing Time 96 MinFormat: DVD MOVIE Genre: CHILDREN/FAMILY Rating: PG UPC: 717951003584 Manufacturer No: 01775800

This big, fat theatrical bomb has a lot going for it. There's the three leads, Bette Midler, Kathy Najimy, and Sarah Jessica Parker, playing three resurrected witches who wreak havoc on Salem, Massachusetts, 300 hundred years after they were hung. There's music, special effects, and magic. There's a surprisingly horror-filled plot. Whoops, hold up on that last one. It's probably the extremes that this film goes to (displaying a Disney label), such as the witches sucking the life out of a little girl in the first five minutes, that put the brakes on any success for Hocus Pocus. Older children, however, in the 8 and up range should get a kick out of all the weird goings-on. It's a good measure of Halloween thrills and chills. --Keith Simanton

Don't Tell Mom the Babysitter's Dead

Don't Tell Mom The Babysitter's Dead aspires to be a cross between Home Alone and Risky Business, with Christina Applegate as an inadvertent scam artist who gets in over her head and somehow pulls it off. When her mother goes to Australia for two months, Sue Ellen (Applegate) thinks she's going to be in charge--until an elderly tyrant of a babysitter arrives. But on the very first night the old lady has a heart attack and keels over. Sue Ellen and her siblings leave the body at a mortuary, only to discover afterward that all the money their mother had left for the summer was in the babysitter's clothes. So Sue Ellen has to get a job. Thanks to a trumped-up resume, she ends up as an executive assistant at a clothing manufacturer. For a while she keeps her head above water by skillfully exploiting a friendly coworker, but her brothers and sisters are running amok at home and a venomous receptionist has it in for her at work. The role-reversal humor of Sue Ellen having to mother her siblings is unsurprising, but Applegate is unexpectedly appealing; her scenes with Josh Charles (Dead Poet's Society, Threesome) have a sweet chemistry. Joanna Cassidy (Blade Runner, The Laughing Policeman) plays Sue Ellen's boss and a young David Duchovny (The X-Files, The Rapture) is a weaselly clerk. --Bret Fetzer

The Little Rascals

They're all here! Spanky Alfalfa Buckwheat Darla Stymie Porky Petey the dog and all of the rascals star in this hilarious motion picture hit. The Little Rascals directed by Penelope Spheeris (Wayne's World The Beverly Hillbillies) brings a whole new generation of rascals to today's audiences.Recapturing the sense of innocent fun and unabashed pandemonium that has made the original series a classic and favorite for decades their new adventures begin at an emergency meeting of the "He-Man Womun Haters Club."Alfalfa has fallen in love with Darla threatening the very existence of their "boys only" club. Further trouble ensues when their clubhouse is destroyed and their prized go-cart "The Blur" is stolen by the neighborhood bullies. How can they win the big race and its prize trophy? Adding to their woes is the new boy in town Waldo who's refined rich and also wooing Darla.Through mischief and mayhem tricks and ingenuity the rascals will learn the value of true friendship...and even an appreciation of girls!System Requirements:Running Time 83 Mins.Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: CHILDREN/FAMILY Rating: PG UPC: 025192003424 Manufacturer No: 61020034

Kids may enjoy the slapstick of this modern reworking of the old Our Gang comedies, but parents who grew up watching them on TV (or grandparents who saw them at theaters) will wonder why anyone would want to be involved in this pathetic remake. Directed by Penelope Spheeris, the film takes look-alike kids and casts them as Spanky, Alfalfa, Buckwheat, and the rest, minus any sense of what made the old Hal Roach comedies funny. Instead of kids being kids, these are kids doing shtick while recycling such old bits as the He-Man Woman Haters Club, the kids' go-cart race, and Spanky and Alfalfa dressing as girls. Devoid of charm or wit. --Marshall Fine

Uncle Buck

John Candy stars in this John Hughes comedy as an idle good-natured bachelor who is left in charge of his nephew and nieces during a family crisis. Unaccustomed to suburban life fun-loving Uncle Buck soon charms his younger relatives Miles and Maizy with his hefty cooking and his new way of doing the laundry. But his carefree style doesnt impress everyone including Tia (Jean Kelly) his rebellious teenage niece and Chanice (Amy Madigan) his impatient girlfriend. Uncle Buck is the last person you would think of to watch the kids. But with a little luck and a lot of love he manages to surprise everyone in this heartwarming family comedy. System Requirements:Starring: John Candy Jean Kelly Gaby Hoffmann Macaulay Culkin and Amy Madigan Director: John Hughes Produced by John Hughes & Tom Jacobson; written by John Hughes; running time of 100 minutes; Closed Captioned. Copyright: 1989 Universal Pictures Cast/Crew Bios Film Highlights Interactive Menus Production Notes Widescreen 1.85:1 aspect ratio Anamorphic Widescreen Subtitles: Spanish Track Info: English: Dolby Digital Surround French: Dolby Digital Surround Spanish: Dolby Digital SurroundFormat: DVD MOVIE Genre: COMEDY Rating: PG UPC: 025192031724 Manufacturer No: 61020317

John Candy has one of his finest opportunities in this film by John Hughes (The Breakfast Club) about a perpetual screw-up (Candy) who gets his act together enough to watch over his brother's kids effectively. The late actor scores big points resurrecting elements of his more decadent persona from SCTV days, but he also has some persuasively touching, sentimental moments. Hughes's direction is not as focused as it was only a few years before, but there's no mistaking his touch. The DVD release has a widescreen presentation, production notes, biographies, Dolby sound, optional Spanish and French soundtracks. --Tom Keogh

Home Alone

Now and forever a favorite among kids, this 1990 comedy written by John Hughes (The Breakfast Club) and directed by Chris Columbus (Mrs. Doubtfire) ushered Macaulay Culkin onto the screen as a troubled 8-year-old who doesn't comfortably mesh with his large family. He's forced to grow a little after being accidentally left behind when his folks and siblings fly off to Paris. A good-looking boy, Culkin lights up the screen during several funny sequences, the most famous of which finds him screaming for joy when he realizes he's unsupervised in his own house. A bit wooden with dialogue, the then-little star's voice could grate on the nerves (especially in long, wise-child passages of pure bromide), but he unquestionably carries the film. Billie Bird and John Candy show up as two of the interesting strangers Culkin's character meets. Joe Pesci and Daniel Stern are entertainingly cartoonish as thieves, but the ensuing violence once the little hero decides to keep them out of his house is over-the-top. --Tom Keogh

Eight-year-old Kevin McCallister (Macaulay Culkin) has become the man of the house, overnight! Accidentally left behind when his family rushes off on a Christmas vacation, Kevin gets busy decorating the house for the holidays. But he's not decking the halls with tinsel and holly. Two bumbling burglars are trying to break in, and Kevin's rigging a bewildering battery of booby traps to welcome them!

South Park - Bigger, Longer & Uncut

Stan, Kyle, Kenny, and Cartman sneak into an R-rated movie and it warps their fragile little minds. Soon their indignant parents declare war on Canada and our young heroes are America's last hope to stop Armageddon.
Genre: Feature Film-Comedy
Rating: R
Release Date: 24-JUN-2003
Media Type: DVD

OK, let's get all the disclaimers out of the way first. Despite its colorful (if crude) animation, South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut is in no way meant for kids. It is chock full of profanity that might even make Quentin Tarantino blanch and has blasphemous references to God, Satan, Saddam Hussein (who's sleeping with Satan, literally), and Canada. It's rife with scatological humor, suggestive sexual situations, political incorrectness, and gleeful, rampant vulgarity. And it's probably one of the most brilliant satires ever made. The plot: flatulent Canadian gross meisters Terrance and Philip hit the big screen, and the South Park quartet of third graders--Stan, Kyle, Kenny, and Cartman--begin repeating their profane one-liners ad infinitum. The parents of South Park, led by Kyle's overbearing mom, form "Mothers Against Canada," blaming their neighbors to the north for their children's corruption and taking Terrance and Philip as war prisoners. It's up to the kids then to rescue their heroes from execution, not mention a brooding Satan, who's planning to take over the world.

To give away any more of the plot would destroy the fun, but this feature-length version of Trey Parker and Matt Stone's Comedy Central hit is a dead-on and hilarious send-up of pop culture. And did we mention it's a musical? From the opening production number "Mountain Town" to the cheerful antiprofanity sing-along "It's Easy, MMMKay" to Satan's faux-Disney ballad "Up There," Parker (who wrote or cowrote all the songs) brilliantly shoots down every earnest musical from Beauty and the Beast to Les Misérables. And in advocating free speech and satirizing well-meaning but misguided parental censorship groups (with a special nod to the MPAA), Bigger, Longer & Uncut hits home against adult paranoia and hypocrisy with a vengeance. And the jokes, while indeed vulgar and gross, are hysterical; we can't repeat them here, especially the lyrics to Terrance and Philip's hit song, but you'll be rolling on the floor. Don't worry, though--to paraphrase Cartman, this movie won't warp your fragile little mind. Unless you have something against the First Amendment. --Mark Englehart