#60 Son of Rambow

Spe-heaking of glorified violence in movies, here's a sweet British tale about a child from a strict religious family whose first exposure to pop culture comes from watching a bully's bootleg tape of Rambo: First Blood. Of course his reaction is to start wearing his tie around his head and volunteer to be the stunt double in the boy's action movie.

It's the director of Hitchhiker's Guide, and you can see some of the same imagination in this one as the two children, the sheltered Will and the neglected and abrasive Lee start making their action movie with a home video recorder. It's cute as hell, and it did feel true to the period it was homaging, the 80s, in the attitude towards these children's misbehaviors. I miss 80s movies, though I know it's just nostalgia. I like how these kids played like William Tell with a crossbow, and no one batted an eye, you could never do that in a kids' movie now!

Though, I think this is more meant for children of the 80s than for today's children to learn about the 80s. It gets a little heavy-handed towards the end. But hey, it's still darn cute.