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Saturday, December 3, 2016

December Film Club

Hey, everybody!  December is here.  Luckily, we've had some unseasonably nice weather thus far, let's hope the snow and bitter cold holds off as long as it possibly can.  Now, down to business.  I am not a fan of the traditional Christmas movies, as many of you know, so I've decided to show something a little different.  For December we will be watching Joe Dante's Gremlins

Gremlins is a 1984 American comedy horror film directed by Joe Dante.  The film is about a young man who receives a strange creature called a mogwai as a pet, which then spawns other creatures who transform into small, destructive, evil monsters.  This story was continued with a sequel, Gremlins 2: The New Batch, released in 1990.  Unlike the lighter sequel, Gremlins opts for more black comedy, balanced against a Christmastime setting.  Steven Spielberg was the film's executive producer and the screenplay was written by Chris Columbus.  The film stars Zach Galligan and Phoebe Cates, with Howie Mandel providing the voice of Gizmo, the main mogwai character.  Gremlins was a commercial success and received positive reviews from critics.  However, the film was also heavily criticized for some of its more violent sequences.  In response to this and to similar complaints about Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, Spielberg suggested that the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) alter its rating system which it did within two months of the film's release.

The film holds an 85% fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes.  Roger Ebert awarded the film 3/4 stars saying this in his review, "Gremlins was hailed as another "E.T.".  It's not.  It's in a different tradition.  At the level of Serious Film Criticism, it's a meditation on the myths in our movies: Christmas, families, monsters, retail stores, movies, boogeymen.  At the love of Pop Movie-going, it's a sophisticated, witty B-movie, in which the monsters are devouring not only the defenseless town but decades of defenseless cliches."

I hope you can make it out to this fun, oddball, alternative Christmas movie!

Here's the trailer:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8nGd36NhmTE