The Burbs
Directed by Joe Dante
Starring Tom Hanks and Carrie Fisher
C+
The Burbs
is an entertaining albeit cheesy movie. The film is filled with kitsch left
over from the 80’s, enough so that the director of the movie (which was made in
1989) decided to get as much corny sound effects, physical humor, and overactive
camera work in as possible. An excellent example of this chintzy filmmaking is evidenced
in the quick zooms in and out on screaming characters, which was more recently
made popular by Wayne’s World (1992). The words chintzy and corny may be a bit
harsh by ordinary standards, as they have taken on negative connotations. I actually
found the technical effects of the movie to be charming, right down to nice use
of depth of field with the dog poo in the forefront and the rest of the
neighborhood in the background slightly out of focus.
While I
found The Burbs to be entertaining, I also feel it does not deserve a grade
better than a C+ because it does not stand up to higher quality movies with
stronger story lines and better scripts. The Burbs successfully did what it set
out to do, entertain people with a silly suspenseful drama.
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