(Click for bigger.)
Do you think I can still join?!
For all my love of VHS, that least practical of currently available mediums, it does restrict my ability to screencap. So without the still-frame proof, some trivia I credits-gleaned: H,ISTK was filmed in freaking Mexico! Not on a studio lot; those badass backyard special effects (the house-bits were filmed in San Diego) were just too expensive (or dangerous?) for these United States.
Dude.
Gives a whole new re-thinking to the term "our backyard." And to my childhood. And white suburban comedies. Which Honey, I Shrunk the Kids very much is.
The film could very easily be criticized for its ethnic homogeneity -- though I guess Rick Moranis could be considered Jewish -- as the central two families are staunchly of the Caucasian, heterosexual, nuclear type, and no supporting actors (one of whom is Lucy from Twin Peaks!) come from any other cultural groups. Yet for (white) kids and parents in late 1980s suburbia -- I'm presuming the film's intended demographic -- this was a non-issue. This was pre-Rodney King, pre-Princess and the Frog; this was my childhood, and back then you didn't take your kids to the movies for a lessen about racial tolerance. Maybe an intimation that jocks and geeks should just all get along would slip in, but we're stretching even at that.
Troubling demographic concerns aside, Honey, I Shrunk the Kids really works for the kind of movie that it is. It's actually better than I remember it being the last time I watched it (sometime in pre-teenhood). It's very funny, and the characters are relatively stock, but they're believable and heart-warming. This is probably attributable to the screenwriting presence of Tom Schulman (What About Bob?, Dead Poet's Society), whose oeuvre I haven't seen much of, but considering the rest of the creative crew, seems the only person this legitimate good quality can be pegged on. And I enjoy Schulman's writing, but oh man, those special effects! Late 80s/early 90s were the top of the pops for puppets and mechanical creatures. I love animation, but I am not a fan of its attempts to fill in for the real -- CGI, you are the pretentious, asshole cousin of animatronics. I am so jealous of the child actors and the Mexican crew for getting to be on that set and to interact with all those props. Because isn't that every kid's dream? To be not just small in people-terms (small in a way that gets you ignored and lacking of rights), but tiny, microscopic, Lilliputian tiny; to have an ant as a horse and a dewy blade of grass as a waterslide; to dive for sunken treasure in a fishtank; to use a spool of thread for a table and a thimble for a sieve; to worry about battling spiders but not about money or schoolwork or any of those concerns of the adult universe. Honey, I Shrunk the Kids visualizes that dream so fantastically that it can be pardoned for the goofiness of its plot (electronics magically work better if you smash them with baseballs?) and the sappiness of its requisite romance (the back of a Lego is my favorite place to make out, too) and the disturbingly frequent appearance of misogynistic comments in its dialogue. I don't really care that this movie does not accurately represent the scary reality of our modern world, because the world it creates is one I so wish I could be a part of.
Also, Rick Moranis is in it.
(I do have to admit that I was born in 1991, so my childhood was a little different, culturally/politically, than that of the kids who watched H,ISTK when it came out.)
ReplyDeleteI used to love H,ISTK as a child, I also have the VHS lying around somewhere. My fav scene is probably the giant cookie. Hated the dismal sequels.
ReplyDeleteA backyard in Mexico!, also a big surprise to me, oh well, you learn something new every day ( : I think they also shot some of Titanic in Mexico. Although, again, it's impossible to tell-I guess that's a compliment to the filmmakers (:
I just watched H,ISTK with Tess the other day. She'd never seen it, but she said it was her favorite movie (of course, kids are dumb and always say whatever movie they saw last is their favorite...) Any day now she'll be pining for the late eighties.
ReplyDeletethat's because the late eighties is where it's at!
ReplyDeleteI referenced H,ISTK in class today, while talking about the weird, sexual Jessica Rabbit scene in the Rodger Rabbit short on my H,ISTK VHS tape. I also wrote a short paper about HP adaptations a week ago. I think I'm starting to become win at film studies.
when Emma was Tess's age (I'm assuming Tess's age is, uh... somewhere between four and nine? or, I remember she was six a few years ago... so...), her favorite movie was Titanic. if only Rick Moranis had made an appearance in that. (I can see him playing Kate Winslet's part.... in MEXICO.)