Son of Rambow (2007): Netflixin 1/12/09

• Why I rented it: Bored kids in the 80s make movies with a video camera. I did that.
  
  
• Verdict: 6.5/10. Not bad, but just kind of good. A bit hokey toward the end, plus too much of that whole romanticized "kids act and talk as adults see them" stuff rather than kids as they really are. It also relies too often on the nostalgia bludgeon of "Hey, remember this (insert painfully obvious 80s song that everybody can recognize)? If not, don't worry, we'll find a way to shoehorn another one into the movie within the next five minutes whether appropriate or not becuase we don't want you to forget that this movie is about the freaking 80s!!!" But maybe I'm being too harsh. Like I said, the movie's subject matter is near to my own heart, and there are parts where they get it right, like in random cool things like the flying dog and the slightly scary French exchange student Prince clone named Didier. All in all, a great idea incompletely executed.