Chanced to see this at a bar the other day. Eh. I wonder if it’s because of actual perspective or just because of secondhand exposure that I’m appreciating the “Robin Williams as coked-up jerkface” thing a lot more now.

Actually, you know what it reminds me of? August Rush, on the Robin Williams-in-homeless-magical-realism-that-sucks tip.

Other issues: Amanda Plummer as off-brand MPDG, Mercedes Ruehl reminding me of My Cousin Vinny and Cyndi Lauper and I guess the moment when white ethnics merged into the white mainstream?

Anyway, it just downright reeked of that ‘80s early-pop-postmodernist “OMG, Disney imagineering is artifice! (but so well done!)”/“you know what was authentic? Vaudeville and early Hollywood!” moment. What else? Uh, Brazil, An American Tail, Radio Days, Hook, maybe Princess Bride and Indiana Jones on the better side?

… actually I wonder how much of this was just “Jewish Boomers react to midlife crisis with retreat to imagined childhood.” The Goonies? Maybe.

As far as period tendencies that only I think of as such go, I generally prefer “Eccentrics of the New South”, which would include what, R.E.M., the B-52s, Pee Wee Herman, John Waters, Richard Linklater, John Carpenter, A Confederacy of Dunces?

And, uh, meanwhile, David Lynch, Tim Burton, the Coen Brothers, Chris Columbus and Troma, who productively straddled the two? Dude I dunno.